Posts tagged ‘science fiction’
THE ULTIMATE EXPERIMENT: HARD SCIENCE FICTION SHORT STORY, PART I
An unpublished short story.
THE ULTIMATE EXPERIMENT
George Stewart, age 94, with his mane of white hair and flowing beard, looked the part he had chosen in life, that of a distinguished scientist. His mind wandered as he waited in his study for Virginia to arrive. He always anticipated her visits. Twice a week she came. Finally, the door to his study opened and she entered.
“Virginia, how are you doing?” he said.
Virginia was thirty-five of medium build and quite attractive. But it was the nurturing she gave her patients that revealed her inner beauty. She put down her nursing bag and replied, “How are you doing, Dr. Stewart?” although she knew the answer.
Virginia had been an oncology and hospice nurse for four years. The work was demanding and emotionally draining, but she derived comfort in knowing she helped the people she cared for to make their last days as comfortable as possible.
“I’m maintaining, Virginia. I’m so very glad to see you my dear.”
Virginia smiled as Stewart adjusted his body in his hospital bed. She enjoyed spending time with Stewart, easily the most famous patient she had ever had. In 1975, he won the Nobel Prize for Physics. His breakthrough theories and research led to the proposal of string theory. At his advanced age, his brain was still nimble. But his body was riddled with colon cancer and its malignant fingers of death had spread to other organs.
COMING SOON: THE ULTIMATE EXPERIMENT, A HARD SCIENCE FICTION SHORT STORY
COMING SOON, THE ULTIMATE EXPERIMENT
I mentioned in a previous post that I would soon offer my unpublished short story The Ultimate Experiment.
It is a hard science fiction story.
To whet your appetite; the story involves string theory and the existence of heaven.
HARD AND SOFT SCIENCE FICTION; WHAT ARE THEY
HARD AND SOFT SCIENCE FICTION
I’m sure science fiction addicts are well aware of the difference between hard and soft science fiction. But the occasional science fiction reader may not.
For soft science fiction, think Star Trek. The story line is science fiction but the scientific facts driving the story are not true science facts. The author creates the facts, and once created, must be adhered to them.
Hard science fiction is fiction where the story is created around actual science. The currently popular science fiction novel, The Three Body Problem, is a prime example of a hard science fiction story. Science using scientific facts to tell a story.
Soon I will offer a short story, The Ultimate Experiment, which is a hard science fiction story. As you read the story you will find fiction entwined with science fact.
Another story I wrote, The Universe in Balance, a hard science fiction story which, not long ago, I submitted to a publisher, and it was rejected. I did not mention to the publisher that it was a hard science fiction story. The publisher said that the story contained too much physics.
The story centered arounf the Big Bang which I consider the most mysterious subject in science.
To help explain the Big Bang Peter Higgs predicted the existence of the Higgs boson also known as “the God Particle”. Stephen Hawking proposed that “the God Particle” was the source of all the mass in the universe.
The existence of the Higgs boson was confirmed in 2012. Higgs won the Nobel Prize for his work the following year.
I submitted The Universe in Balance to another publisher explaining that it was a hard science fiction story, and it was accepted for publication by the Corner Bar Magazine. To find the story go to the Corner Bar Magazine website and to the Home page, then to Ostarablot, March 21, volume 9 issue 4. Hope you enjoy the story.
So, there you have it, the difference between hard and soft science fiction.
THE MARTIAN MISTAKE
THE MARTIAN MISTAKE
One of my favorite movies is the 1953 edition of The War of the Worlds.
In both this movie, and the Tom Cruise version, the Martians make a major mistake resulting in their demise.
I will be discussing these movies in a future post.
What was their mistake and why did they make it?
Hint: The source of the Martian’s mistake is explained at the end of H. G. Wells’ book. The basis for both movies.
In seven days, I will share the answer.
A SHORT STORY PUBLISHED
A SHORT STORY PUBLISHED
My short story, The Universe in Balance, can now be found on Corner Store Magazine.
Go to the home page, then to Ostarablot, March 21, volume 9 issue 4.
This was one of the first short stories I wrote nearly twenty years ago. It is quite different than the original. I eventually realized that the story’s premise was totally wrong resulting in a series of rewrites. The fact that it now appears in print is an indication that I finally got it right.
PLUMBING PROBLEMS: PART XVII
PLUMBING PROBLEMS: PART XVII
I now knew the source of our plumbing problems. I also had a sickening feeling I’d discovered what happened to Marcus Worthy and to our cat Molly. I was also sure our plumber Dave was no longer servicing anyone’s plumbing. We took Jack to the hospital. He was in pretty bad shape, but the doctors say he should recover.
I next notified the police and got a contractor who immediately sealed all the drains so we would not have a return visit. Finally, we had the old septic tank removed and a new one installed. Once all this work was accomplished, we checked out of the hotel where we were staying and returned home.
A week went by, and we got a call from Jack’s doctor saying Jack was well enough to be released from the hospital. Laura and I left to pick him up. Jack was still quite sore, but ready to go home. On our ride back, I explained about the lab I had found and the source of the animal that had attacked him. I don’t know if he really understood, but he listened intently. As we pulled into his driveway, Jack looked over at our property. He took a moment to inspect the new look of our landscape then said; “I see the hill of dirt where they dug up your septic tank. But what the hell is that tall fence doing around the pond, with all those danger signs?”
“Oh, you mean that six-foot electrified fence around the pond?” I answered. “You see Jack,” I continue, “the septic old tank, when they dug it up – was empty.”
Hope you enjoyed this rather long short story.
There are many more short stories and posts set to arrive.
And all for FREE.
You will never be pestered by any type of ad or request for money.
PLUMBING PROBLEMS: PART XVI
PLUMBING PROBLEMS: PART XVI
I ran to the master bath and saw a sight that defied description. There was Jack, wrapped in a huge set of tentacles. On the floor lay an animal with a body almost four feet across. The body was shaped like a star and from beneath the star, in its center, issued some sort of organ. Suddenly, what little I knew of marine biology came back to me. The way starfish digest their food flashed into my mind. They express their stomach from within their body, capture their prey and bring the digested meal back inside. On my bathroom floor was one of Worthy’s experiments – in the excited state.
I ran back to the kitchen to grab the meat cleaver, at the same time yelling to Laura, “Get Robin and both of you get out of the house!”
“What’s going on upstairs, and what was that scream?” she asked.
“Do what I say, damn it, there’s no time to explain,” I shouted. Laura fled the kitchen in search of Robin. I ran back to the master bath and started hacking at the tentacles. The star-jellyfish pulled its stomach back in and the tentacles slowly released Jack. He had passed out, probably from the combination of being constricted and the hundreds of stings he had endured. I pulled him out of the bathroom and while doing so witnessed an amazing spectacle. With its remaining tentacles, the creature pulled itself back up into the sink. Then, it went from the starfish state to a sink full of foul-smelling jellyfish ooze, and in a few minutes silently slid back down the drain.
PLUMBING PROBLEMS: PART XV
PLUMBING PROBLEMS: PART XV
I left the barn, and with the shadows lengthening, returned to the house for a shower and dinner. Laura was busy in the kitchen; I asked her if she has a minute and we sat over coffee and discussed my discovery. I spent a restless night but finally fell asleep and awoke to the smell of breakfast cooking. I headed downstairs and found Laura in the kitchen.
Greeting my lovely wife I said, “Beautiful morning, isn’t it honey?”
Laura half turned and replied, “Think again honey! All of the sinks are blocked.” And as she stepped away I could see the sink was full of dirty water. Can you do something?” she pleaded.
“Let me see if Jack has a snake,” I shouted over my shoulder as I ran out of the house.
Jack was in the garden as usual, and I had to shout a few times before I got his attention. “Do you have a snake?” I asked.
“Of course I’ve got a rake,” came his reply.
“No, a snake, a plumber’s snake,” I shouted.
“No need to shout, got one of those too,” came his answer. “Tell you what, let me find it and I’ll be right over and clear up your plumbing problems once and for all.”
I watched him go into his house and then ran back to mine. By now Laura was bailing the sink out into buckets. The smell was terrible. I had just thought – better you than me, when Laura shouted, “Go upstairs and check the master bedroom!”
Halfway up the stairs I was met by the same sickening smell that filled the kitchen. As I neared the bathroom, I saw an ever-increasing puddle coming from beneath the bathroom door. I glanced out the bedroom window and saw Jack walking over with his snake. I thought of shouting for him to hurry but knew it would be useless.
Jack stopped at the kitchen and put the snake down the drain, met with some resistance, then the drain cleared, and the water flowed down and away. He then went to each of the sinks in the house and met with the same success. As he started to work in the master bathroom, I mentioned that this was where the problem started and seemed to always return.
“I’ll just ream out the drain with the full length of the snake. Why don’t you run along and do something useful,” Jack quipped.
I went to the kitchen to make sure Laura was okay, and that the problem hadn’t returned. Then I entered my office to try to get a little work done before breakfast.
I was at work for no more than fifteen minutes, when I heard a blood-curdling scream; Jack was in big trouble.
PLUMBING PROBLEMS: PART XIV
PLUMBING PROBLMS: PART XIV
What did he do with the animals once the experiment was terminated? Worthy only studied the animals when they were young and then projected the potency and yield of the adult animal. He did not keep the animals until they were mature. I thought of how I disposed of dead goldfish when I was a kid, why there were supposedly alligators roaming the sewers of New York. My thoughts return to my plumbing problems. Thank God this house is nowhere near the ocean, and that it has its own septic system. But there must be a connection between the septic system and the pond. That’s perhaps why Jack had seen fluorescence in the pond and that is how the creatures managed to survive.
I continued to read Worthy’s lab book, absorbed with the progress of his experiments. Then I came to the final few pages and photos. Worthy had found a substance made by jellyfish of interest. He also found a similar molecule in starfish. What followed were the technical details of creating a new creature. The data was accompanied by two photos, which I found both curious and interesting. One photo showed just a mass of tissue with the caption, resting state. The other photo was that of a jellyfish, but the likes of which no one had seen before. The body of the jellyfish had a star shape, rigid with tentacles jutting from the star tips. This photo had the caption, excitation state. His notes went on to explain the two states. Resting state was when the animal was not being stimulated by the presence of food. Excitation state was when the animal was hunting or sensing danger. It appeared that the animal was covered with millions of tiny scales. The scales were separated from each other during the resting state, but when the animal was excited, the scales interlocked giving the animal a solid body with flowing tentacles.
Before I knew it, I had spent hours going over his notes and photos. Going up the stairs, I took one more look around the lab and thought of the joy Worthy must have experienced in his subterranean laboratory, free from the inhibitions of corporate society.
PLUMBING PROBLEMS: PART XIII
PLUMBING PROBLEMS: PART XIII
The beginning of the lab book dealt with his theories, the purpose of his research. His interest was in natural products, but he wasn’t interested in the usual source that was exploited, plant life; he was interested in the natural peptides found in marine life. His work took yet another turn. Once a molecule was discovered in a plant demonstrating its promise in fighting a disease, chemists would take over and refine the molecule, increasing its potency until they had a drug. Worthy’s method was quite different. When he found a peptide in an animal that he felt he could improve upon, he searched for another animal that produced a similar peptide that would complement the actions of the first. The product, he hoped, would be more potent than the sum of the two individual peptides. He would isolate the DNA from the two animals, then cut and splice the DNA, inject the DNA into a DNA depleted sea urchin egg and await the results. If he met with any success, the result would be an animal the likes of which the world had never seen. He would also make an insert that would allow the animal to have an increased response to growth hormone – the bigger the animal the more the peptide to harvest. Worthy then created the correct environment for the cells to start multiplying. Soon an embryo was formed, and then the animal itself.
Along with his notes were Polaroid photos of the resulting animals. One experiment combining two creatures of interest was the union of the genes of a hammerhead shark and a catfish found in Florida.
Hammerhead shark, I thought to myself. I recalled the description of the fish Jack had found. “Had a head shaped like a pipe,” he said. A hammerhead shark, in an advanced state of decomposition, with its body twisted might look like an animal with a head shaped like a pipe. One aspect of this combination really frightened me, and that was the curious properties of the catfish part of this animal. This catfish was able, when the water in which it lived began drying up, to walk short distances using its fins. I recalled when ‘JAWS’ was first published and then made into a movie; people thought the ocean wasn’t safe. If this critter got loose, not only would the water not be safe, but the shore as well. I continued to read the lab book and look at the pictures of bizarre animals. Many entries finished with the comment – results unsatisfactory, experiment terminated.
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