Fiction by Steven Sharpe


Background

Many tens of thousands of years ago, humanity was a struggling race facing extinction on Earth. An ice age gripped the lands, and humanity was fighting to survive in an environment which was growing increasingly inhospitable to them. A race of supernatural beings - later worshipped as gods - took pity on humanity and removed a small group of them to a world more suited to their growth and evolution. Prosper they did on their new home in the centre of the Milky Way, and eventually founded a space going empire which spanned the galaxy. Like all empires, though, it eventually collapsed, leaving its former citizens stranded on thousands of worlds across the Milky Way. Many of these former colonies died out; while others declined to a primative level...then began their ascent to greatness again.

My stories tell the history of this climb back to greatness. Beginning with the first contact with the people of Earth by their space faring cousins some seventy years after the present time, my stories plot out the growth and expansion of humans through this arm of the galaxy, their eventual domination of this galaxy and later the entire universe...followed by their colonisation of adjoining, parallel universes.

But like the First Galactic Empire before it, ultimately this one falls as well, as humanity finally abandons technology and begins developing in a new way, using the powers of magic and the mind.


Writing

I have been writing since I was a child. Always a fan of humour, science fiction and fantasy, my first short stories were parodies based on the television series Star Trek and Lost In Space. I read them to my friends, who liked them for the most part and encouraged me to write more. After awhile I became more ambitious and started writing full length novels. After three of them based on (but increasingly removed from) my parodies, I struck out and created my own series of stories, totally removed from the Star Trek and Lost In Space parodies. These stories were the beginning of my future history. From there more novels came, carrying the story forward.

However, the demands of university, work and girls started to take a toll on my writing. I wrote less and less. When I discovered Dungeons and Dragons in 1979 I pretty well stopped writing stories altogether, instead devoting my creative time to a campaign. However, I quickly realised that I had the perfect melieu already created for a D&D game, namely the universe I had created for my stories. So, development continued.

Over the next twenty years or so I completed a few short stories and started some others that I never finished. Over the past few years, though, with middle age looming, the urge to write has grown stronger. I have dug out my old stories - most of which were hand written on loose leaf paper - and am transcribing and rewriting them with a word processor. I have also started writing a few new stories. It is my plan to put some of the short stories on this web site. As for the novels, I will probably post only a chapter or two to tantalize you...the rest you will have to wait to see, if and when I ever get them published.


The Stories

The Pleione People - Chapter One of the story of the first contact by the people of Earth with a space faring civilisation.

The Nova - originally a chapter from the first version of The Pleione People, I have rewritten it into a freestanding short story. In it, the Segin visits an ancient military base of the First Galactic Empire.

Masters And Slaves - an excerpt from one of my novels, the Segin encounters an ancient foe of humanity.

A Visit To Heaven - another excerpt from Open Space, the crew of the Segin meets a group of mutineers.

Striker - The crew of the Segin discover a hostile spacefaring race.

The Last Quest - The cap stone of my technological stories, this tale tells of the search by one man for the mythical homeworld of humanity, Earth.

The First Vow - Set in the post technological era of the Earth Campaign, this short story introduces Leslie the ranger.

Marnuk's Hold - The story of Leslie's first dungeon adventure.

Leslie In Golgar - Leslie's party travels east through Amlad and encounters the evil controlling the ruined city of Golgar.


Background Information

The Laws Of Steve's Multiverse - An essay that describes the physical laws of the universes and also explores the technology of space travel under those laws.


Comments and constructive criticism are always welcome...email me!

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