Author: W R Daniel

Rockets, UFO’s

Lasers, robots, aliens

Unexplored planets

Positronic Brain

The Three Laws of Robotics

Speedy’s Runaround

There’s no other way

But through the asteroid belt

Hold on to your hats!

Into the unknown

How will we be welcomed by

Those who call this ‘home’?

First contact manners

When faced with twelve tentacles

Which one do you shake?

Control panels flash

Incoming hostility

Ready the lasers

 

A lunar landscape

Tire-track scarred topography

A search for answers

So, with having Science-Fictional tendencies and a love of haiku, it was a revelatory moment when, a few months ago I stumbled upon the wonder that is the ‘Scifaiku’. The genius portmanteau which embraces two of my life’s passions. So, I thought I would give it a go as it seems a bit easier than trying to complete the 18,000 word dissertation I should be doing instead… I will try to do one a week.

 

Moving Day

 

Inaugural crew

Thrusters fire as bridges burn

Is there life on Mars?

I am rapidly approaching deadline day for my MA in Creative Writing and have found myself researching, in depth, some of the strangest things.

I am currently writing the good old ‘first novel’, the first 15,000 words of which will form part of my dissertation. Despite it being a science fiction piece I have spent several hours googling the following things:

• Vintage lawnmowers – specifically those powered by a two-stroke Villiers engine
• Past and present members of the Rolling Stones and full band history
• How to spell ‘balalaika’
• Moons beginning with the letter ‘D’
• Popular types of tea
• John Coltrane

A fellow student recently told me that she had spent a full day researching Victorian underwear.

So, as well as working towards finally getting the first draft complete, I feel I can now hold my own in the world’s strangest conversation.