by a Thinker, Sailor, Blogger, Irreverent Guy from Madras

What is good science fiction? A Fruit of Labour


Reading the stories on the Astounding, the Amazing and the Unknown contest kindred my spirit to try my hand at Science Fiction. 

My second attempt at fiction, and the first at Science Fiction was around 2002/2003, for a contest on a completely new, contemporary theme, for a Tamil weekly (not the same one).  Not to my surprise, it sank like a stone (the winner was a social themed novella - a Mills and Boon thing). 

I wasn’t surprised since anyone I gave the story to, discarded it after the first page.  Even my bro to whom I tried to shove it to more than a couple of time hasn’t managed to read it.  But I think it is a good story (doesn’t every author think that of his writing?)
:-)

As a good part of the manuscript (what has not been torn up by my mom for her monthly provision list) is still stashed in some draw, I intend to transcribe it in English and publish.
:-(

In (I think) 2006 the Guardian, UK, announced a New Year short story contest.  This time, even my bro thought the story was good enough, but again it sank like a stone.  I never received even an acknowledgment for the e-submission.  Unfortunately, I don’t have any hard copies and the digital copies have been lost for ever, as written in How I hate Linux.

Still, I remember the story line and today, while watching the 2000th Cricket Test Match ever and the 100th Test between India and England, reconstructed the story.

Science Fiction fans would immediately recognise the inspiration behind the story - Asimov’s “How it Happened”. 

The ‘Fruit of Labour’ has been edited and the story line made more tight on 25th July.  The full story is now less than 1000 words.  Do have a read.

The ‘Fruit of Labour’ is hosted at my Googlesite.  It is a pdf file so you would need a pdf reader unless the browser is Google Chrome.

You can either -
view/read ‘Fruit of Labour’ through GoogleDocs
or
download ‘Fruit of Labour’ and read it offline.
Cheers!  Any and all bouquets and brickbats are welcome.
:-D

update:
As per SEO advice, the short Sci-Fi story 'Fruit of Labour' has been posted as a HTML page too - available for online reading as a webpage at my Google site.   Here is the link


post updated 25 July 2011
post updated  with  links on 16 Aug 2011

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