Why Mystical Science Fiction? Part 1: It's a Big Universe

Why is Sleight of Mind a "mystical" science fiction series?  I could have done it as regular science fiction and probably tapped in to a wider audience.

There are three reasons:

1. It's a big universe.
2. I like a challenge.
3. I like to challenge others.

In this segment, I'll start by exploring the first reason.  Tomorrow, the second and, on Saturday, I'll deal with the last one.

I like technology.  I also like the idea that the universe works in ways we haven't even begun to perceive, let alone measure and understand.

Science fiction is often about a distant time in which one of the key species has garnered an understanding of the universe that allows them to do things we cannot do today.  Not always, but pretty frequently.  What if the advanced understanding ends up actually being that we cannot possibly understand the universe? What if there's another way of doing things that our fairly scientific minds just tune out?

It's not like I think nobody has ever had an idea like this before.  It's more probable that my non-fiction writings are original than these works of fiction and, even then, the chances that someone, somewhere hasn't already at least toyed with my ideas are pretty slim.  Ideas are only original a maximum of one times and the probability that said time was inside any given person's head is almost nil.

It's just that I think the idea of technology and mystical forces interacting is interesting for me to explore.  If it's interesting for me to explore as an author, it might be interesting for you to explore as a reader too.  So, even though the oddness of the story might be off-putting for a lot of readers at first, I'm hoping that it will ultimately develop into more of an appeal than a detractor.

Since I make a good living as a software developer, I can afford to wait and find out.

Stay tuned.  In part 2, I'll tell you how I think this is a more challenging subject for me than ordinary science fiction.