About
Wade Walker is an amateur scientist and science-fiction author. He lives in Austin, Texas with his wife and a mischievous herd of border collies.
Influences
Like many a likely young nerd, I read tons of science fiction and fantasy growing up. Here are some of the books that influenced my writing the most:
David Brin’s Uplift Saga: The first one of these I read was Startide Rising, back in 1983 or so. Brin’s books featured a galactic commonwealth, which I’ve always loved the idea of. But the crucial bit for me was the idea of “uplift”. Every species in this commonwealth had a “patron” species, who had raised them up from animals to sentient beings via genetic engineering. “Client” species then owed their patrons many millennia of servitude, before going on to become patrons themselves. The books begin when the commonwealth discovers humans, who seemingly have no patrons. No points for guessing that in my books, dogs are the client species, and humans the patrons. Or are they?
Julian May’s Saga of Pliocene Exile series: They start with The Many-Colored Land, and tell the story of human misfits (and some outright criminals) fleeing a benevolent but stifling galactic society (which May calls the Galactic Millieu) into Earth’s distant past, circa six million years ago. Once there, they discover a previously unknown alien society of elf- and dwarf-like beings living on Earth. And there’s psychic powers, too! OK, I know that must sound really weird. But May had a wealth of original ideas, and a deep font of knowledge which seems to have come from her original career, writing thousands of scientific encyclopedia articles back in the 1950s. The antigrav vehicles in my series are a direct homage to her rho-field vehicles, and my time travel device shares a lot in common with hers. She had a whole, plausible future technology worked out that struck a chord with me.
Becky Chambers’ Wayfarers books: Starting with The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, these books exemplify “hopeful science fiction” to me. Plenty of bad things happen in this universe, but most people are trying their best, and working towards a better future. Chambers strikes that very difficult balance of telling suspenseful stories about good people. And yeah, there’s a galactic commonwealth. And she likes writing about food!
S. M. Stirling’s books of the Change: There are two series here. One begins with Dies the Fire, which starts in modern times and goes forward into post-apocalypse. The other series starts with Island in the Sea of Time, which jumps from today back to Bronze-Age Greece, around 700 years earlier than the events of The Gap Year (the time of the Odyssey instead of 300). What both series have in common is exploring how modern people re-establish themselves after being stripped of their technology and society.