The Science Fiction Writing Series from Writer's Digest Books is a three-volume technical-reference set for working science fiction writers, covering the hard-science elements of speculative world-building. The three core volumes are Aliens and Alien Societies by Stanley Schmidt (longtime editor of Analog magazine), Space Travel by Ben Bova and Anthony R. Lewis, and World-Building by Stephen L. Gillett.
Together the three volumes provide the working SF writer with rigorous treatments of biological plausibility, alien evolution and culture, orbital mechanics, propulsion physics, life-support engineering, and planetary science applied to fictional world construction. The series is one of the most widely used hard-SF craft references in continuous print.
