E.S. Raye

This week, I had my very first guest appearance on a podcast! I spoke with Glen Weatherhead of the Creative Writing Wizard website and podcast (if you missed it, you can check it out on YouTube and Spotify [it may also be elsewhere, I’m not sure all the places Glen posted it]). We talked about my writing process, what it’s like being an editor vs being a writer, if writing is political, and my various writing projects (as well as much more!).

One of those projects is, of course, Gas Giant Gambit, my upcoming debut novel. And while I have talked about GGG here before, there’s one aspect of it I touched on in the podcast that I think bears some fleshing out here: the highly-stylized nature of Gus’s world.

So, without giving too much away (hopefully), here’s the sort of highly-western-stylized stuff you can expect when Gas Giant Gambit: A Tall Tale From Beyond the Cygnus Rift releases in September 2025!

Space-Western

I’ve always been a fan of space-westerns. Firefly is one of my all-time favorite properties; I’ve watched the show and movie countless times, as well as read many of the comics and novels. More recently, I’ve fallen in love with the whole vibe of The Mandalorian–especially season 1.

But these shows, and many others, I think still put too much emphasis on the “space” part of space-western, and thus make some obvious choices that could be avoided for more effect.

For example…

No Naval References

The use of naval references when talking about space and science fiction is ubiquitous. Everywhere you look, there are references to “ships,” “fleets,” “docks,” even “shipping routes/lanes.” Directions in relations to vessels is always “aft,” “fore,” “starboard,” and “port.” Even Serenity from Firefly is often called a “boat.”

I wanted to move away from this habit.

So, instead of picturing the vast space between planets as a sea, I envisioned it as the desert between towns. With that thought in mind, my “ships” became “mounts” and “carriages.” And “trains.”

Then talking about directions in relation to Gus’s mount Tilly, I stuck with how you would talk about a horse. So, “flank,” “rear quarter,” “belly,” etc.

That change also informed a lot of how space travel works in Gus’s world. Mounts, analogous to horses, are small, and while faster than carriages, have less range and have to stop more frequently to cool down. Furthermore, “pulse-trains” are the fastest way to travel, but they use a different fuel from mounts and carriages, and must travel great distances in a straight line.

Cowboy Vernacular

I also went out of my way to try to stick with a general vernacular more at home in a western. Characters say things like “tarnation,” and carry “scatter-beams.” Gus herself is a “beamslinger.”

Instead of a “brig,” there is a “jailhouse.” Vessels “dock” at “hitching posts” which supply power and fuel to them. The area of Las Ráfagas–the town/fuel mining outpost the story takes place on–for ship maintenance utilizes “stables” in which to do their work.

There’s a mercantile and a church (moved stone by stone from Earth!), and a casino/brothel.

Crashing your ship is “chewing gravel.” “Down to the blanket” means out of money.

And finally, Gus’s favorite curse word is “Tunk!” A word that sounds like I made up, but really didn’t! It’s a centuries old slang for “hell” that was popular with cowboys in the mid-1800s.

Western Allegories

I also included a lot of stand-ins for groups important to western stories and the history of the time. I have a robots, built to perform all manner of physical tasks and labor. This race of beings are becoming sentient one individual at a time, and the powers-that-be do everything they can to keep them under control. In the recent history of Gas Giant Gambit‘s world, an interplanetary civil war has broken out over the rights these robots may or may not deserve.

That civil war rages in the far off background of the story–until it’s right in Gus’s face. You have the Confederate Colonies of Orion, pushed to secede from the United Colonies of Earth and her Territories over matters of “colonial rights”–specifically the right to pre-emptively prevent robots from becoming self-aware, and maintaining their subjugation of those that already are.

Gas Giant Gambit also features a group of native beings, the Deiopeans. These spiker-like people are native to the moon that circles the gas giant whose clouds Las Ráfagas floats in. They consider the whole planet their ancestral “land” and have been pushed out of their traditional hunting grounds by the town and its administration.

Tropes and Motifs

Don’t get me wrong. There are still plenty science-fiction tropes and motifs (faster-than-light travel and other advanced technologies, for example), but I really wanted to emphasize the western tropes, many of which I either subverted or gave a sci-fi twist.

So, there are things like ranchers looking for help to fight a rich landowner, jailbreaks, a crotchety old marshal, cavalry charges, wayward cattle, townsfolk rising up to defend themselves, and even a train heist!

A Western Set in Space

Ultimately, the goal I set out to achieve was to write a story you wouldn’t be surprised to see John Wayne or Clint Eastwood in, and then drop that story into a science fiction setting.

And I think I did a damn fine job doing it.

I recognize that doing this may make Gas Giant Gambit a little too niche for some people. And it may result in some refusing to even give it a chance. But I think it also makes it something special–something unique. And I think if and when it finds its audience, they’ll see it for what it is.

And on that note, watch this space for news on Gas Giant Gambit! I can’t be specific, but things are moving and there will be plenty of news between now and it’s release in September!