Golf and OutgassingGraphic By Shannan Albright A sixty-year-old Moon mystery prompts Colonel Annie Macturner to make a risky decision. Intrigued by an interview designed to manipulate, Milton Johnson, a candidate that conflicts with her highly distinguished military background, is selected as her crew-mate. Can Annie solve the landing site mystery and unravel Milton’s enigma before […]
Author: Torn
An Exercise in World Building

World Building for Science FictionImage by Snapwire on pexels I wanted to share some insight into the world building process that I am using in my science fiction stories. First off, most would call my science fiction as ‘Hard’ science fiction because of my use of scientific rigor when developing my stories. For myself, it’s […]
Y+1: A Vignette by Torn MacAlester
Y+1by Torn MacAlester This morning on the Night Watch Live AM, we are speaking with Nick in Montana, who’s been living inside of the blast zone of Yellowstone since the explosion last year. Nick, we have a caller on line two, are you ready for questions from the audience? “Go ahead Sam,” I said, pouring […]
Lunadyne Incident by Torn MacAlester
Y+28, Day 1: “You, in the jail,” the voice said over the intercom. Sheriff Del Anderson stood and switched on the voice channel. Del watched the warped video of the shady figure in the hallway outside the Sheriff’s office. The facial recognition software failed to place the individual. Either the man wasn’t in the system, […]
A Paradox: A Description of the Fermi Paradox by Torn MacAlester
It Starts With A ParadoxPart 2 of World Building for Science Fiction Part 2—It Starts With A Paradox by Torn MacAlester Photo by Rakicevic Nenad from Pexels The Fermi Paradox The Fermi paradox tries to answer: Where are they (the aliens)? It looks at how fast travel is across the galaxy. It says […]
The Soldier: A Vignette by Torn MacAlester
The Soldier Y+0 Granger realized that the whirlwind month had ended as he headed to the Greyhound bus, hoping to see if he could get a trip. According to the sergeant in the discharge barracks, his chances of getting a home trip to Wyoming were next to nothing. He had the Army travel voucher and […]
Sins of the Son: A Vignette by Torn MacAlester
Sins of the SonPhoto by Brett Sayles from Pexels Sins of the Son By Torn Macalester “Did you hear it?” The patient asked over the cacophony of emergency equipment as the doctor worked on him and six other patients that were nearly as bad. “Hear what?” The doctor asked, placing the gauze pads over the burns. “Make sure we […]
Chat on Discord: WED JUL 5th, 9PM EDT
DiscussionsEach Week, Torn hosts a discussion on his discord channel: Torn MacAlester Science Fiction. Join the discussion and learn what he thinks about prior to writing his science fiction stories. Week of Jul 2, 2023 [2nd Jul at 1 PM EDT (6 PM GMT), 5th Jul 9 PM EDT (6th 2AM GMT)] Artemis 1 […] […]
Decisions: A Vignette by Torn MacAlester
Decisions Y+13 Nils heard Katie enter the room as he finished typing the letter and sent it to the printer. He’d been using the back bedroom as an office ever since they had moved to Houston. He’d set up a communications center in the room so that Katie could keep in communication with him whenever […]
Torn’s Science, Technology, & Science Fiction 1–7 May 2023
Science Fiction and the Drake Equation I started thinking about one of the classic authors of science fiction, and the setting he created for some of his stories. I often wondered what the implications for the Drake equation would be in that particular setting. I’ve taken a subset of the stories for this setting, since […]