About – J M STRASSER

Hello!
I am an aspiring Science Fiction writer who has lived in Tucson, Arizona, since 2004. My family came here from California primarily to be able to care for my aging parents. Tucson was and is easier on the pocketbook and thanks to the Sonoran Desert relief from much of my allergies.

I first encountered Sci Fi when I was in the 6th grade. I had chosen Treasure Island for a book report and hated it! The book was old and ponderous, and I felt stifled on that rainy afternoon. When I finished, I needed a change, so I escaped to the garage and looked around, hoping for something to wipe that stifling experience out of my brain.

In one corner, my father had bookcases holding his stash of Science Fiction, all covered with plastic drapes. I found Slan by A.E. Van Vogt, written in 1946- it was a heady tail, to be sure. I know it was an allegory about race relations, but I was too young to understand that narrative. It was the story that got me; it moved!

Next, I read Deathworld by Harry Harrison; it really moved! A whole planet is out to kill you. Upon arrival, visitors and immigrants had to go through successively more dangerous rooms and learn how to survive in each before they let you out in the open. I had found my genre!!

I sent my Dad out to find SciFi with feminine heroines. Since his books were the original masterpieces, there weren’t many of those. My father related to his children this way; he facilitated what you liked, going on many trips to do just that. I think he was surprised at my interest and delighted to go on the hunt for me since reading was his greatest pleasure. Dad’s greatest disappointment was not being able to read in his retirement due to the onset of Alzheimer’s, something that led me to my first published piece.

Dad found me The Witches of Karres

and Dragonsdawn. These were stories with young women as the main characters. I was in heaven. Of course, these moved, too, being SciFi. Maybe not as fast as my initial choices, but their subject matter and genre helped with that. Have you noticed that stories used to progress at a much slower pace? They say it is our attention span. I think we want it more like a movie, spoon-fed to us. However, once you discover how much you can find in the printed word, you realize how much more there is in books. As I matured, I learned to appreciate older material (not just SciFi, but classics nonetheless). I haven’t ventured back to Treasure Island, yet. I guess some memories never leave you.

My first story was Travels with Walter, which I wrote in honor of my father. My mentors told me, “Write what you know,” and I was caring for him at the time. The story deals with an aide starting the care of an elderly gentleman whose memory is waning. One day he has had it and wants to get off this “dust ball” and go to lunch at his favorite bar.

Unfortunately, this violates the rule our heroine was given- don’t associate with aliens. The aide thought this meant illegal aliens; they did live in Tucson, Arizona, but this wasn’t what Walter’s daughter meant. She didn’t like the people Walter used to work with. The daughter had the power over her father because of his Alzheimer’s and tried to use it leading to a confrontation. Our heroine has to decide what to do when she found out the truth? What was better for Walter?

The piece was picked up in an online magazine right before my father died. He was in a small care facility because I had a major operation to contend with. I told his caregiver what I had written. To my joy and surprise, he heard that and chuckled. I hope he knew how much I loved him and that genre he passed down to me. I know he was alone in his passion, never pushing it on anyone. I had to venture into the stacks to find it myself. Once I asked, though, the floodgates opened.

My new venture is producing this website. It will entail a weekly blog all around the genre of scifi and scientific news, especially in space. I will supplement these with reviews of esoteric movies and series I have seen and, of course, like. I will produce a chapter of my offered serialized story once a month until it is finished and a quote to top the front page off. I then wish to go through my catalog, polish each, publish them, and place on my “My Work Page,” along with the pieces I have already done. On top of all that, I will fill the calendar with exciting events worldwide Hopefully, this is a reasonable workload for me and will allow me to achieve my goals.

My purpose is to primarily get my mind moving. I constantly imagine stories, which pushes me to write them down. An obsession writers have and must succumb to. I also would like to provide information to people interested in these things that I love. And finally, to just plain go for something I have dreamed about for years!

So, you see, I like old-fashioned scifi adventures, which I define to be along the line of the earliest stories I read in my father’s garage. I will lead you on a journey without a negative overtone of how bad we are as humans or how wretched our little planet is. My stories and those I read are full of love, mystery, the thrill of adventure, hope, and delightful wonder. Come along with me into a world of excitement.

Image credits for the books

Slan by A.E. van Vogt, Arkham House (1946), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slan

Deathworld by Harry Harrison, Nelson Doubleday (1968), cover art by Richard Corben, htttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deathworld

The Witches of Karres, Chilton Books (1966) , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Witches_of_Karres

Dragonsdawn by Anne McCaffrey, Del Rey Books, November 1988, cover Artist Michael Whelan, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonsdawn