Not Going Epic…Yet

Lately I’ve been spending a lot of time cruising through Tumblr. I’m not going to get into the weirdness that Tumblr is or how the place leaves me feeling conflicted over political and social issues, but I will say that I’ve been enjoying a number of science fiction and fantasy pictures that have left me feeling a little inspired. At least I’m going to call it inspiration, because to say they left me feeling desirous sounds a little creepy and somewhat inappropriate for this blog.

Epic shots of mammoth space ships have left me wanting to write science fiction in a bad way. But it would not be enough to write science fiction by itself, no, there must be an epic space battle included or my desire to write epic science fiction will be left unresolved. I’m sure my repeated watching of the new Star Wars trailer has influenced this urge in me, but I have always loved the idea of capital ships slugging it out in the void of space.  I can only think of a handful of books that I have read where such battles are described, and there are some movies out there, but all so often the space battle is given short shrift as the action focuses on the characters involved.

As much as I want to write that perfect scene of mammoth starships striking each other with blinding streams of solid light and missiles designed to lay way to planets while hordes of starfighters zip between the ships like clouds of violence made manifest, now is not the time.  Alas, I have some urban fantasy to finish and I know that straying too far from the series I am working on will only drive me crazy.  I know it sounds a little weird for a guy who routinely juggles too many writing projects all at once, but I’ve started to get a little OCD with my writing. I tried to do something else for NaNoWriMo, but I couldn’t make myself focus on another story no matter how much I wanted to.

In the meantime, I’ll have to settle for talking about epic space combat. So tell me, what are your favorite books and movies for scenes of ship to ship combat? What made them special in your mind?

Related articles

• Capital Spaceship Combat: Fractured Space (rockpapershotgun.com)
• If you like spaceships, Fractured Space could be your jam (destructoid.com)
• Adventures From The Couch: 3 Types Of Books To Take You On A Journey In Your Living Room (ltdcommodities.com)
• Space Dump (punditfromanotherplanet.com)
• A Year in Reading: Isaac Fitzgerald (themillions.com)
• Last Week on Massively: A new take on playing internet spaceships (wow.joystiq.com)
• A brief history of DIY spaceflight (dailydot.com)
• Is Philae’s Comet Actually a Spaceship?!?…No, It’s Just a Comet (gizmodo.com)