Category: Short Fiction

Short Fiction: Cold Contact by Torn MacAlester

Cold Con­tact is a sci­ence fic­tion short orig­i­nal­ly writ­ten for the Fic­tion Foun­tain. Of the cur­rent sto­ries on my web­site, it is the one not work­ing on the sim­i­lar theme to the others.

You can read more of my short fic­tion at: Short Fic­tion.

Most of the short fic­tion fits into a time­line of events: Time­line.

 

 

Short Story: Morgan’s Road

Nel­son once felt inde­pen­dent. His life as a lunar prospec­tor at least seemed that way. With his mon­ey sup­ply dwin­dling, the stark real­i­ty of his free­dom had fad­ed to dis­ap­point­ment. The moon would like­ly win, and Nel­son would return to Earth. Then the stranger Mor­gan arrived mak­ing Nel­son ques­tion every­thing he knew about the moon, prospect­ing, and inde­pen­dence. Nel­son strug­gles to resolve his finances and the mys­tery pre­sent­ed by Morgan.

Find out what hap­pens to Nel­son and Mor­gan in: Mor­gan’s Road a short sto­ry by Torn MacAlester

Sins of the Son — a vignette by Torn MacAlester

Short science fiction by Torn MacAlester

A vignette by Torn MacAlester: Sins of the Son

My sto­ries are arranged in a time­line of events.  See it here. It is the first sto­ry from the after­math of the Yel­low­stone erup­tion.  These are relat­ed events that take place in the same time­line as my nov­el, Thun­der Moon Tus­sle, it is avail­able on ama­zon in paper­back and kin­dle formats.

Pho­to by Nick Wehrli from Pex­els

sins of the son

Apollo 14

Short science fiction by Torn MacAlester

Pho­to by Bri­an McGowan on Unsplash

 

 

Did you know that Apol­lo 14 land­ed at the planned land­ing site for Apol­lo 13? The place is called the Fra Mau­ro High­lands. The Apol­lo 14 lan­der, Antares, land­ed at Fra Mau­ro near the Cone crater. Part of the mis­sion required an EVA to the rim of Cone crater to col­lect sam­ples from inside the crater’s rim. The hope was to col­lect sam­ples from under the Frau Mau­ro for­ma­tion as ejec­ta from the deep cone crater. Lack­ing nav­i­ga­tion aids such as mod­ern GPS, Shep­ard and Mitchell missed the rim of the crater as they walked up the hill. After a time, Shep­ard decid­ed they were close enough and col­lect­ed the samples.

One inter­est­ing addi­tion­al find from the mis­sion sam­ples is a big rock nick­named ‘Big Bertha’. It turns out that ‘Big Bertha’ is a piece of gran­ite. It is a mete­orite eject­ed from the Earth in the dis­tant past. Gran­ite, unlike basalt, can­not form with­out sig­nif­i­cant amounts of water being present.

Anoth­er inter­est­ing instru­ment from the Apol­lo 14 Lunar Sur­face Exper­i­ments Pack­age is the SIDE (Suprather­mal Ion Detec­tor Exper­i­ment). It mea­sured the mass and ener­gy of pos­i­tive­ly charged ions. These result from the solar wind hit­ting the Moon’s surface.

Read More about Apol­lo 14 here: Sci­ence of Golf and Outgassing

 

 

 

Video of Mis­sion by Home­made Doc­u­men­taries:

Science of Golf and Outgassing

Science and Technology in Morgan’s Road

Short science fiction by Torn MacAlester

Being a sci­en­tist and engi­neer, I enjoy adding as real­is­tic ele­ments as pos­si­ble to my sto­ries.  For exam­ple, I wrote this arti­cle to dis­cuss the sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy that I ref­er­enced in writ­ing the sto­ry Mor­gan’s Road.

Sci­ence of Mor­gan’s Road.

There are cer­tain­ly some spoil­ers in that arti­cle. If you haven’t read Mor­gan’s Road, now is the time:

Mor­gan’s Road by Torn MacAlester.

 

The Mor­gan’s Road Cov­er Graph­ics are by Shan­nan Albright.

 

Mor­gan’s Road is relat­ed to the sci-fi nov­el Thun­der Moon Tus­sle by Torn MacAlester , avail­able at amazon.com in Kin­dle unlim­it­ed, Kin­dle, and paperback.

The science and technology of Morgan's Road

Free Short Science Fiction Story by Torn MacAlester

Short science fiction by Torn MacAlester

Free short sci­ence fic­tion sto­ry: Mor­gan’s Road by Torn MacAlester

Mak­ing a liv­ing on the Moon is not for every­one, but Nel­son Carmike actu­al­ly pre­ferred the air­less basalt plains over Earth’s windy prairies.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, three years of Moon prospect­ing left him pen­ni­less, and with­out funds for sup­plies he was doomed to face a forced flight home. Out of options, Nel­son had all but giv­en up until a prospec­tor, pre­sumed dead for twen­ty years, arrives on his doorstep with a secret.

Can Nel­son fig­ure out how the man sur­vived on his own, and learn to do the same before his sup­plies out?

Check out this free short sci­ence fic­tion sto­ry. After­wards, take a look at the nov­el Thun­der Moon Tus­sle by Torn MacAlester.

 

Cov­er Design by Shan­nan Albright

Morgan’s Road by Torn MacAlester

My short sto­ry Mor­gan’s Road acts as a pre­quel to the remain­der of my cur­rent sto­ries includ­ing my nov­el Thun­der Moon Tus­sle.  I wrote the sto­ry itself to roman­ti­cize the actu­al sci­ence results from LCROSS.  You can see the sci­ence behind the sto­ry in arti­cle The Sci­ence of Torn MacAlester’s Mor­gan’s Road.  

 

The cov­er art is by Shan­nan Albright 

 

Keep an eye on my blog posts for future releas­es, short fic­tion, and articles.

Vignette: Stranger

A vignette by Torn MacAlester.  Some­one look­ing for Nils stops by the Con­rad Sta­tion Bar for a drink.

Read more about Nils Carmike in Thun­der Moon Tus­sle by Torn MacAlester,

avail­able for free on Kin­dle Unlim­it­ed, also for sale for Kin­dle and paper­back at Amazon.com.

Thun­der Moon Tus­sle by Torn MacAlester

 

Cov­er graph­ic by Shan­nan Albright

 

New Vignette: Fifteen Percent!

Fif­teen Per­cent! by Torn MacAlester

 

Pho­to by Anna Nekra­she­vich from Pex­els

See more inter­ac­tion between Nils and Deputy Miller in Thun­der Moon Tus­sle,  avail­able for free on Kin­dle Unlim­it­ed, also for sale for Kin­dle and paper­back at Amazon.com.

Thun­der Moon Tus­sle by Torn MacAlester

 

Cov­er graph­ic by Shan­nan Albright

Short fiction: Clash of Titans

Here is a new short fic­tion vignette by yours tru­ly. This scene involves two of the impor­tant char­ac­ters appear­ing in Thun­der Moon Tus­sle. This short fic­tion could be regard­ed as a pre­quel, but there are no spoil­ers. Enjoy!

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