This week I will be focusing on adding scenes to the outline of Starveyors as I make preparations to begin writing it. My first order of priority though, is to get Starforgers out the door. So most of October will be spent making corrections to the copy edits and proofing the final version of that novel. We hope to have it released later this month.
I’ve just about fleshed out all the main characters for Starveyors. I generally fill out the character profiles in Scrivener and maybe do a few lines of dialogue with the character to get a feel for them. But it’s usually not until I get halfway through the first draft that I become comfortable knowing how the various character behave.
The Silicants, or sentient androids, have evolved to a nearly life-like state in this novel.
So I’m having to re-imagine them from the ground up.
They look totally different this time around. The Series 9 Silicants are more life-like but they do not look human. I don’t feel that an artificial intelligence would want to look like its maker. I see them wanting to look like their own species. They are capable of more things than any carbon based life form and I see them taking advantage of those capabilities.
The biggest concern for me is to not make them appear too god like. I don’t want them coming off as angels or so superior that they no longer have an interest in the affairs of man or the other alien species in the galaxy.
So the Silicants will remain interesting and approachable. But they do have new and more advanced capabilities. Readers will have to wait until my next Planetary Series novel – XiniX, to find out how the Silicants got from the fixed faces of ordinary androids to the realistic and living faces they have in Starveyors.