Indie Spotlight on SciFi Author, Lesley Smith

FOR EVERY GOOD FORTUNE, THERE’S AN EQUAL AND OPPOSITE MISFORTUNE. As a brilliant young computer scientist working on her master’s degree, Ella Hote doesn’t believe in luck. But when bizarre accidents, insane coincidences, and weird encounters with improbably handsome strangers start to happen all around her, even hardheaded Ella has to change her mind.

She comes to realize she’s inadvertently created a luck generating computer that can make even the longest of long shots pay off.

Unfortunately, for every stroke of good luck, someone else pays the price in bad luck.

Ultimately, when lives are on the line, how far will she go?

Conservation of Luck is an engaging science fiction story that grapples with questions of morality—do the ends ever justify the means? And how can you go to save your loved ones?

My Love Affair with Science Fiction

Hi, my name is Lesley Smith and I’m a science fiction fan.  And, yes, I know that sounds like the intro at a twelve-step meeting. I write science fiction because I read science fiction.

My SF experience all started when I was a little girl and my chemist dad gave me a copy of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy. From there it was just a hop, skip, and a jump to novels of Robert Heinlein such as Stranger in a Strange Land and Time Enough for Love. And, then, before I knew it I was hanging out at the library at all hours, reading works such as Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury.

Maybe you had a similar experience with your favorite books?

My love affair with SF continued over the decades. I was especially happy to find more modern authors like Connie Willis and Kathleen Goonan who write from a more feminine perspective.

My critique partners like to say I write ‘science fiction with heart.’ I say I write the kind of books I want to read, with female protagonists who can be kick-ass scientists, have romances and dear friends and joke around, who can live and love–all while saving the world.

The bottom line is I can’t resist flights of fancy to other worlds and other societies. I love going on adventures and trying to understand other sentient creatures, cultures and scientific concepts. I love letting my imagination run wild in parallel with my reason when I create new fiction.

Reading fiction is the only activity in which you get to become someone, or something, else. Thus, as a girl I got to become an astronaut, a Martian settler, a time traveler, a psycho-historian, a robotic engineer, a scientist, and many other professions. I felt as if I was having adventures such as exploring Mars and doing scientific experiments. I’m a firm believer that you have to be able to dream of something to do it. You have to imagine yourself doing it.

For me, SF became a gateway to something even more powerful: science. Decades later, you guessed it, I’m a scientist with several degrees under my belt including a Ph.D. in Physics. I’m very passionate about encouraging people in underrepresented groups become STEM professionals and I think science fiction helps make this happen.

Every day, I make use of the imagination and creativity I learned, and continue to learn, from science fiction. Every day, I’m honored to carry the torch and advance humanity’s knowledge a little further and to write about it in my fiction.

And every day I’m grateful for the opportunity.

(Photo by Patrick Campbell/University of Colorado)

Lesley L. Smith has collected a plethora of degrees including a PhD. in Physics and a MFA in Writing Popular Fiction. She has published seven science fiction novels with her latest being, Conservation of Luck. Her short science fiction has been published in several venues including Analog Science Fiction and Fact. She is an active member of the Science Fiction/Fantasy Writers of America and Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers. She is also a founder and editor of the speculative fiction e Zine Electric Spec. She has had a variety of scientific jobs including investigating quarks, dark matter, extra-solar planets, clouds, atmospheric chemistry and global warming. She has worked for a variety of research institutions including The University of Kansas, Argonne National Laboratory, the Department of Energy, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, NASA, and The University of Colorado. If you’d like to know more about Lesley you can visit her website.