A great many of us read in bed to help us relax and fall asleep. I do think, however, that some of the best science fiction books would make me stay awake instead of helping me surrender to the sandman.

A well-written science fiction novel should create a desire in the reader to pursue the story, to dwell in the new world or universe created within its pages, fraught with the unexpected, the magical, or the downright unusual. The best science fiction books are classic, and deliver every story twist to keep us riveted to the page.

But unfortunately our new writers who break out into the published world and have the creditable right to call themselves authors are responsible for making more people look at the back of their eyelids for six to eight hours than most politicians speeches or even church ministers delivering a sermon. When it comes to becoming the author of the best science fiction books around, many fall short.

Some of these books could put the pharmaceutical companies making sleeping tablets out of business. While not addictive, they should carry a warning that it could harm your ability to think clearly. While it is tempting to list those I consider worthy of helping you beat insomnia, I can’t remember the titles. So much for being nominated for the best science fiction books Hall of Fame.

Now why can’t writers follow their own inspiration and create a good novel that does not follow the inevitable route which means the reader knows the final outcome but has to read to the end in the vain hope that an author has managed to find an original ending. This also means the reader has to have the discipline not to read the last chapter first!!

While there are formulas to follow that have been used by generations of writers to build their stories around, they may not be the best way to write one of the best science fiction books. It isn’t groundbreaking or bringing science fiction up to a whole new level, but the good guy will always win, the hero will get the girl, and the downtrodden minority will overcome the evil overlords with the help of a hidden file or a sock and a safety pin.

We know when the lights will fail; the deflector shields are at 20% and a hairpin is needed to repair the nuclear reactor by a schoolboy when all the experts are running for cover the final outcome is the expected.

If you are going to write and intend to be published try and take your readers into your new dimension with the intention of keeping them awake or at least stimulating some exciting dreams in their nocturnal shutdown. Stimulate their imagination by using your own creative and new themes not the old and obvious.

If though you find you have to follow the rules of the tablets of stone at some point then at least manipulate them as our hero in “No Second Chance” does with devastating effect when he states, “All ways expect the unexpected because the unexpected is only the expected when you least expect it.”