Life in the 29th Century

Welcome!

I don't always come over to my Blogger blog, but today I realized that if I make comments to another person on Blogger, they'd be linked over here.

So... I finally got around to editing the Template and now my LiveJournal blog and my new website are properly added.

Writers of the Future Volume XXIV

I've been busy with the start of Fall Semester, so I've not updated my website recently. But my SF short story "A Man in the Moon" was selected as a Published Finalist for this year's Writers of the Future anthology -- which officially is released on Monday 8 September 2008. You can't miss the story, I got the first billing in the Table of Contents. (grin)

You can check out some posts on my trip to the WOTF workshop and red-carpet event in California by jumping over to here and clicking on the next button near the top to see the next entries. I'll organize it Real Soon Now on dr-phil-physics.com.



Thanks for stopping by!

Dr. Phil

The Transportation Series continues

"Priority Driver" is the second half of my 2002 "transportation series",
along  with the prize-winning "Lines West X433-W".  This time it's a 29th
century trucking story.  It was also an experiment to try having an unlikeable
protagonist -- for that reason alone it is interesting enough to include in
these webpages. (grin)

Read "Priority Driver" by Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon.

Another Early Dr. Phil Tale

If "Home Front" is a series of stories that I've mined for years, then "Command
Prologue" is the mother lode.  I decided to start writing a SF novel in October
1990, without any plan other that writing a story.  This is the opening to this
unfinished novel -- and I've been writing stories in this same 29th century
universe ever since.  "Home Front" may lay out the War and show how it affected
those away from the battles, but "Command Prologue" drops you right into the 
beginning of the War.

Read the First Installment of "Command Prologue" by Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon.

Friday Fiction in Honor of Arthur C. Clarke

"Atrophy" is a story I've been working on in the last year. One editor called it 
"Meeting with Medusa"-esque. With the passing this week of legendary SF writer 
Sir Arthur C. Clarke, it's hard not to feel a little bit honored that my story 
has been compared with Clarke's short story "A Meeting With Medusa". (grin) 
Of course Clarke was telling a different story -- "Atrophy" came about really 
as the result of simply trying to reduce the mass and consumable supplies of 
manned missions.

Read "Atrophy" by Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon.

New Content on dr-phil-physics.com

Yesterday, as promised, I expanded some of the content on my new website dr-phil-physics.com. Featured Fiction joins Fiction Fridays, plus new content in Stuff and Kids.

Over the next couple of weeks I'll post links to some of my previous movie reviews from my LiveJournal blog and my university website, etc. The next upgrade is scheduled for 04.04.2008 and will include some Science stuff, some more stories, plus some technical stuff useful for me such as hit counters. (grin)

Enjoy!

Dr. Phil

Featured Fiction Begins

In addition to Fiction Fridays, Dr. Phil will be posting some current stories for
your enjoyment.

"Lines West X4334-W" by Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon.

Originally written for The National Fantasy Fan Federation 2002 N3F Short Story Contest,
where it took 2nd Prize, this expanded version of my "29th century railroad story"
was written in 2007.

Read "Lines West X4334-W" by Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon

Fiction Friday Begins

  When is a story, not a story?  Turns out that several of the first
stories I sent out were "slice of life" stories or vignettes.  Not stories
full of action and conflict, which is what many editors want.  I've
promised stories for 03.03.2008, so instead of jumping the gun, I thought
I'd share with you "Home Front".  It's a series of vignettes spanning
The War which shows up in a lot of my 29th century SF.  This isn't the
original version of "Home Front" -- I've been mining it for stories,
taking out some of the vignettes and turning them into short stories
of their own for a couple of years now. (grin)

  If you like, "Home Front" was necessary for me to write -- it puts
book ends or parentheses around the timeline of The War.  It also allowed
me to investigate what was happening away from the battles... i.e., back
at the Home Front.

Read the First Installment of "Home Front" by Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon

In The Beginning

I set up this blog for the simple reason of having a Blogger address for commenting on my friends with Blogger blogs. (grin) And I thought I might use it for posting essays on my SF writing. But that didn't happen.

New and Improved

But now I have my website, dr-phil-physics.com , and the first real update was to create Fiction Fridays and post some stories and vignettes. So now this blog has a new mission -- to provide a place for readers, if any, to comment, as if. (double-grin)

So that's the rational. Have fun.

Dr. Phil

This week I seem to be swimming in new accounts... I've a friend -- actually a couple -- who blog here on Blogger, and so I needed to create an account for one who doesn't allow anonymous posts. No problem, really. But as long as I have this spot, I may use it for things. Maybe it's a sign that my SF writing career is taking off -- I just got notice of my first commercial sale.

As for the title, many (but not all) of my stories are set in the same 29th century universe, and indeed, Life in the 29th Century is one of the themes that I like to investigate with my writings. It sounds so far away, nearly a thousand years. Yeah, but... I've got suspicions that things might not change all that fast if we really do manage to get around those pesky physics details and go out into the stars.

Dr. Phil