My Science Fiction Stories

I have four science fiction stories on the go now. Over the last few weeks I made progress on a couple of them, but I need to focus on one at a time if I want to get any of them finished. I’d like to find some people to critique my stories.

The Science Fiction Market

I thought I might try to sell my story Heat Wave to a science fiction magazine, so I did a little research on-line. One magazine, Strange Horizons, has a list of the type of stories they don’t want to see: http://www.strangehorizons.com/guidelines/fiction-common.shtml. I’ll need to look at it a bit closer, but Heat Wave just might be one of them. That prompted me to think of other possible stories.

I picked up a collection of the best science fiction of 2010 at the library. Well, actually my wife picked it up. I wanted to get a feel for the kind of stories and style of writing they feature. It didn’t look to me as if there is a big change from the last time I read a lot of science fiction, back in the 1980s. I think the stories I’ve developed wouldn’t be out of place. That is assuming they turn out OK.

Heat Wave

Heat Wave is the story of a climate researcher who doesn’t get along with his new boss. I wrote more after my last post about it http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/science-fiction-story-update-2012-august-5/, but not in the last week. The first draft runs about 5,700 words now and I think I am about half done. The final story would end up at about 11,000 words. That said, I think I can develop the story more, which could make it a novelette or even a novella rather than a short story. I’ll leave that decision until I do another draft.

I based the story partly on some of my own experiences and partly on what one climate researcher told me about the threats she’d received.

Pete’s Plan

It is the story of a man who lives in a future time where unemployment is so high, that people who have jobs are unlikely to ever meet someone else who has a job. The story is set at a time after the singularity, when some people have become immortal and the rest haven’t.

I got started on it when I woke up from a scary dream early one morning and found it hard to get back to sleep. The dream inspired a story idea for me. I got up and wrote a short first draft in my notebook. I completed a second draft of it this week. It runs about 900 words. My brother has agreed to read it and give me a critique.

The Helix

One story, The Helix, I based on a Lovecraft story, but I moved the setting to Mars. It features a Mars rover I call Felix. So far, all I have is a few notes and a first attempt at an outline. I might change the name to The Spiral Tunnel, because I called the rover Felix. I don’t intend the story to be part of the Cthulhu Mythos, although the story I based it on was.

The Two Davids

The Two Davids, is about a man who wishes he could be two people so he wouldn’t have to choose between two life paths. It doesn’t turn out well for him.

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