I did a lot of research for my novel Mayan December (coming out from Prime Books in August).  This isn’t usual for me.  For most of my science fiction stories, I research all the time.  I go on jags where I read science articles from National Geographic to Wired to The Technology Review to various blogs.  I watch for cool links that my futurist friends point out via Twitter or Facebook.  Most months, When I do my Futurismic column, Today’s Tomorrow’s, I research a bit more. When I have a specific question (like what happens to food plants in low-g situations), I do point research.   But I seldom read a stack of books just to prepare for writing one book.  Heck, if I always did that, I’d only get one book out every few years.

For Mayan December, I read a stack of books, and also many blogs and some research papers I found published by the essay writing service I used in college.  I’ve traveled three times in the Yucatan Peninsula (all before writing the book – I wanted another trip after to setting-check, but it didn’t happen).  The travel experiences were awe-inspiring.  That’s a cliche, but I mean it literally – resonant and deep.  Maybe the linkage of having been there, and having been affected by being there,  made the research so fascinating.  Also,  we do not have cut and dried facts about the Maya.  We are attempting to peer backward in time and see into a complex culture that held a world-view different enough from ours that it is a mistake to try to map their beautiful artwork and precise architecture onto Anglo cultural beliefs.

Here is a list of at least most of the books I read.  This is just the books – the real physical books in a stack by my computer.