“Anti-Social” came from thinking about how we are losing personal contact as the internet and social media evolve. We’re also creating ridiculous quantities of data. What if in the future all data is transitory – statisticians determined that there will always a copy of anything somewhere (a PC, a server, a phone), so permanent storage … Continue reading
“The Final Ending” started out as a simple fairy tale in a space opera setting. A princess needs to be rescued. A prince, pirates, even a dragon, floated into the story and I thought to myself ‘who on earth would write something like this’ (aside from me), and then the writer became part of the … Continue reading
“Dempsey’s Debut” – I was thinking about an alien species judging us by our violent past (maybe not just judging us on it, but interested in us specifically because of it.) As all distant relationships go, they were not reading us quite right (they were seeing our gladiator movies and boxing and other entertainments as … Continue reading
“Close Enough” came from the expression “close enough for government work.” What would that look like over galactic or planetary distances? How badly could a non-responsive agency botch things, and what kind of NORMAL people might put themselves in a position to depend on that agency? Here’s the blurb: Could a Messier object be any … Continue reading
“The Red Barrens” really did start out as a simple wordplay on The Red Barron. I picked the title first, and then tried to work out what it was about. BARRENS and RED made me think of some other planet (okay – my obsession with going to Mars may have played into it), and since … Continue reading
I’m taking a break today from the usual Fractured Fragment rotation, because today is the release day of “A Tail of Two Species” – the ninth tale in my Herc Tom, Champion of the Empire series! Here’s the blurb: The Lynx hasn’t returned from his mission, so it’s up to disfavored Champion of the Empire … Continue reading
The expression “The Wolves Will Come” was supposed to be a negative and represent a danger; colonists are on the run from their enemies, and they are forced to leave their home and their elderly behind. I wanted the elder to be abandoned by necessity, but proudly, not as a victim. It wasn’t until I … Continue reading
I wrote “Flee Markets” just to play around with the unoriginal notion of a transitory shop, but it became a story about escapes. Samantha wants to escape from a humdrum summer – she’s mostly thinking in terms of escaping into fantasy literature, but encounters Phineas – a renegade shop-owner who has more to offer than … Continue reading
“Cannabis alienus ‘alien dope’” originated from something that really happened to me (no, not the alien slug.) My family moved out of state before my junior year of high school, and two years later (after graduation) I made a trip back to what used to be home to try reconnecting with people I knew. Aside … Continue reading
Mental invasion and mind-control keeps cropping up in my work. “My Brother’s Keeper” took the medieval notion of demon possession, which some “science” now tries to explain away as probable psychological disorders – I’m not sure I buy into that. What if there is such a thing as possession, but it’s a little more commonplace … Continue reading
