Torn Macalester

29 May 2025: Cold Contact by Torn MacAlester

Cold Contact by Torn MacAlester as imagined by Grok

In the unchart­ed depths of space, 250 light years from Earth, Frank ‘Coot­er’ Ross and his sharp-wit­ted mechan­ic, Cathy Soren­son, pilot the Hootie Bird—a scrap­py, two-per­son scout­ing ves­sel built for the stars. Tasked with spy­ing on a secre­tive UTAN colony, they stum­ble across a chill­ing trans­mis­sion hint­ing at alien con­tact. As Coot­er digs through his […]

29 May 2025: Clash of Titans by Torn MacAlester

In a world where pow­er is a fam­i­ly affair, Mark Mason seizes con­trol of K‑Systems. Over a tense din­ner, old wounds and bit­ter rival­ries resur­face, as Mor­ris probes his son’s motives with a mix of mock­ery and men­ace. Mark, scarred by his father’s past betray­als, stands deter­mined to forge his own path in the cutthroat […]

28 May 2025: Antares by Torn MacAlester

In a future where humanity’s ambi­tions stretch beyond Earth, Mark Mason, vision­ary founder of Selene Corp, bat­tles to steer his com­pa­ny toward a dar­ing new fron­tier. Sta­tioned in the micro­grav­i­ty of an L5 office, Mark rejects the allure of Mars—a plan­et he deems a seduc­tive trap, doomed by its thin atmos­phere, lack of mag­net­ic field, […]

27 May 2025: Another Plot by Torn MacAlester

In a high-stakes game of decep­tion and betray­al, Mil­ton has stolen price­less arti­facts from his dan­ger­ous broth­er, Mor­ris, and hid­den them where no one would dare look—on the Moon. Under a false iden­ti­ty, Mil­ton nav­i­gates a web of fam­i­ly grudges and cos­mic ambi­tion, with his sis­ter Mary as his wary ally. As they plot to […]

Monsters in the Dark, A New Short Story by Torn Macalester

In the frigid, unchart­ed expanse of the Kuiper Belt, where the Sun is but a dis­tant pin­prick in an end­less void, Ian Baird stands alone—a soli­tary care­tak­er of a deep-space radio tele­scope array, tasked with lis­ten­ing for whis­pers of alien life. But the dark­ness here is more than just the absence of light; it’s a […]

Case I of First Contact, an Article by Torn MacAlester

This arti­cle is the first fol­low-on to a series on first con­tact.     This is part of a series of arti­cles about sci­ence fic­tion world build­ing: From the moment the first exper­i­ments with radio began, the pos­si­bil­i­ty of detect­ing alien trans­mis­sions became real. If there was an advanced civ­i­liza­tion on Mars, it would be […]

Worldbuilding for Science Fiction 8 Apr 2025

In the sub-genre of hard sci­ence fic­tion, an attempt is made to ensure that the sci­ence in the sto­ry is some­what cor­rect. One issue that I have been fol­low­ing is the pos­si­bil­i­ty of life on exo­plan­ets. Anton gives a won­der­ful update on the DMS pos­si­bil­i­ty on K2-18b. — Even though the detec­tion has been questioned. […]

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