PHOTO: Marcha Fox smiling warmly, seated among books and yarn, radiating curiosity and creativity.
Blending Science Fiction Mystery And Metaphysical Insight
Marcha Fox shares how her NASA experience, curiosity, and passion for culture and science shape her fiction and nonfiction, inspiring readers to explore, learn, and embrace imaginative storytelling.
Marcha Fox moves effortlessly between worlds, both real and imagined, drawing on a life that spans science, storytelling, and a profound curiosity about the universe. A physicist and NASA veteran, she has explored the outer reaches of space while simultaneously charting the inner landscapes of human experience. Her work invites readers to engage with both the laws of nature and the possibilities beyond them, often with a touch of humour that softens even the most intricate scientific or metaphysical ideas.
Her Star Trails Tetralogy demonstrates the precision and rigor of a physicist’s mind, yet the characters are vividly human, grappling with crises that spark suspense and wonder. Meanwhile, in The Curse of Dead Horse Canyon series, she partners with Pete Rising Sun to explore Native American history and spirituality with care and authenticity, weaving cultural depth into tales of mystery, conspiracy, and moral complexity.
Fox’s life, as much as her work, is a study in the blending of contrasts: science and astrology, fact and fiction, the meticulous and the imaginative. Her stories carry the dual intention of making readers feel deeply while learning something new, whether through a humorous interlude with a sentient plant or a tense encounter in the wilderness of Colorado.
It is perhaps her insistence on curiosity as a guiding principle—shared across six children, seventeen grandchildren, and eleven great-grandchildren—that gives her writing its warmth and resonance. In Fox’s world, knowledge and empathy coexist, and the thrill of discovery is always a page away.
What first inspired you to write the Dead Horse Canyon Saga, and how did the collaboration with Pete Rising sun come about?
Dead Horse Canyon started as a “cozy mystery” based on my experience with a sketchy private water company that violated Environmental Protection Agency standards for years, jeopardizing their customers’ health. I relocated the story from Texas to Colorado, where pollution related to abandoned 19th century mines fit the original premise. Then Charlie Little wolf, our Cheyenne protagonist, showed up and introduced himself, trailing a wealth of Native American history.
Charlie needed to be authentic, which required indigenous scrutiny to assure my writing was accurate as well as culturally sensitive. Serendipity delivered Pete, an elder living on the Northern Cheyenne reservation in Montana. He started out as a subject matter expert, but before long his connection to the story earned him coauthor status. We ultimately created an award-winning trilogy together that earned us being dubbed a “dream team” by Readers Favorite.
How did your career at NASA influence the way you approach storytelling in your science fiction works?
NASA taught me how to think like an engineer. More specifically, how to design space vehicles for hazardous conditions where it could be catastrophic if something goes wrong. Novels need conflict, so unexpected problems in space or living in environmental extremes thickened the Star Trails plots and added to the intrigue.
“The Terra Debacle: Prisoners at Area 51” drew directly from my NASA experience. It features an astrobiologist studying a telepathic walking plant discovered on an impounded UFO. Ironically, the Readers’ Favorite reviewer gave it four stars instead of five because it had “too much science!” My science aficionado fans, however, loved it, especially the humorous interactions between the scientist and a sentient plant. It’s a side story to the tetralogy that was pure fun to write. I plan to eventually tie all the characters together from all five books that will be loaded with surprises as they all meet.
The Dead Horse Canyon Trilogy blends modern conspiracy with Cheyenne history. What research process did you undertake to ensure cultural authenticity?
Pete’s role assured authenticity. For the first two books his “ceremonial man” experience was sufficient. However, as we proceeded with book three, I discovered anthropologist, Karl Schlesier’s book, The Wolves of Heaven. It described an ancient Cheyenne “earth giving ceremony,” with which Pete was unfamiliar, its last performance not only abbreviated, but held decades before he was born.
That drove us into the voluminous works of anthropologists George Bird Grinnell and Peter John Powell where we devoured thousands of pages of indigenous cultural history. What we discovered not only dove-tailed perfectly with our story but gave it historical depth and credibility. During the course of writing these books I was appalled to learn how badly indigenous people were treated. History books portray them as savages while in many respects their culture was more civilized than that of the white man. The U.S. Constitution was based on the Iroquois Confederation, a trade agreement among numerous tribes. You’re not likely to find that in the history books.
What challenges did you face balancing hard science with accessible storytelling in the Star Trails Tetralogy for younger readers?
Albert Einstein supposedly said “If you can’t explain it to a six-year-old, you don’t understand it yourself.”
Science and engineering drive the series’ many crises that must be solved to avoid dire consequences. Critical system failures create instant suspense that stimulates readers’ imaginations to speculate on what the characters will do to survive. Wearing my physicist hat, I explain relevant principles at a level anyone can understand.
My books appeal to young “nerds” who want to read exactly what I craved as a youth. Adults enjoy them, too, with one fan a science teacher who keeps them in her classroom as extra credit reading. “The Star Trails Compendium” delves deeper into the science for kids hungry for details or to assist educators and homeschoolers.
As both a physicist and astrologer, how do you reconcile these seemingly opposite disciplines in your life and writing?
My acceptance of astrology occurred when I was writing my first novel. Its protagonist was a physicist, so making his ex-wife obsessed with astrology introduced amusing conflict. I roll my eyes when an author thinks fiction can ignore known facts. Thus, I had to learn something about it or risk being one of those lazy authors. Imagine my surprise when I discovered it actually works!
As I neared retirement age I completed the professional development program offered by the International Academy of Astrology. Our current technology cannot detect subtle, quantum level energies, such as the effects of an observer. Einstein’s relativity theories were not proven by experimentation for years. I’m confident that when our instrumentation capabilities catch up, metaphysics and physics will merge, making all those debunkers look pretty foolish.
Which of your characters has been the most challenging to write, and why?
Villains! I can’t understand how some people can be so despicably evil, which makes it a challenge to create such characters. In Star Trails, Augustus Troy was a challenge and in Dead Horse Canyon, the Bentleys. That deep, passionate drive for power, control, and money is hard for me to understand, even knowing as an astrologer that they relate to Pluto.
Living in different parts of the United States, including rural New York now, how has place influenced your writing?
A sense of place is important in a story. Having lived in New York, California, Utah, and Texas gave me firsthand knowledge of terrain, weather, and regional differences related to culture, accents, and so forth. That familiarity makes it easier to create a realistic setting where the readers feel immersed in the story.
What advice would you give to other authors who want to write across multiple genres without losing their voice or audience?
I don’t think you lose your voice, just express it in a different story environment. Different reader profiles are likely, which makes it more difficult to relate to everyone through the same newsletters, media posts, and so forth. If you encourage readers to connect with you as a person, however, you can operate from a single platform. A “cross pollination” effect may even convince some readers to sample your other genres.
