Category: Timeline

From Torn’s Timeline of Events: Golf and Outgassing; a Science Fiction Short Story

A science fiction short story by Torn MacAlester

From Torn’s time­line of events, Golf and Out­gassing is a sci­ence fic­tion short sto­ry deal­ing with the first mis­sion return­ing to the Moon after many years:

Golf and Outgassing
Graph­ic 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 a life-threat­en­ing col­li­sion with the past occurs? Join Annie on every bound­ing step of her jour­ney as she tra­vers­es the Lunar sur­face and keeps you on the edge of your seat! Golf and Out­gassing by Torn MacAlester Annie Mac­In­turn­er glanced at the space-suit­ed fig­ure mov­ing toward her […]

 

Golf and Out­gassing: A Sci­ence Fic­tion Short Story

 

 

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Fabulae Lunae 1

Thunder Moon Tussle

From Torn’s Timeline of Events: The Mountain

The Moun­tain
By Torn MacAlester   Orig­i­nal Pho­to by Jose Vega from Pex­els. Mod­i­fied to grayscale and blurred using GIMP.     I sighed, look­ing at the grey land­scape, try­ing to esti­mate the direc­tion to the cab­in. I aban­doned the moun­tain, like every­one else, when the ash fell. They didn’t expect us to get a lot, but they encour­aged every­one to move south if they could, and I could. I loaded the jeep and head­ed down the moun­tain and head­ed south to New Mex­i­co with a rel­a­tive. After about six weeks, I’d worn out my wel­come, and I returned home. Now I […]

 

 

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Fabulae Lunae 2

Mask of the Joyful Moon

By Torn MacAlester

Available Now

 

Fabulae Lunae 1

Thunder Moon Tussle

From Torn’s Timeline of Events: Drive to Houston

Dri­ve to Hous­ton by Torn MacAlester
Time to go, the alarm indi­cat­ed. Jacob Con­ner dread­ed the announce­ment, regard­ing it as a hor­ri­ble turn of events. It meant he need­ed to get to Hous­ton to sup­port the space sta­tion for NASA. As a lead Astro­naut, it was his job, forc­ing him to make the com­mutes from his home in Dal­las. I hate this dri­ve to Hous­ton, thought Jacob. The trip from Dal­las to Hous­ton had always been dif­fi­cult, but now, in the falling ash of Yel­low­stone, it neared impos­si­ble. The ash was every­where since the explo­sion. Noth­ing escaped it. Ash wreaked hav­oc on cars, clog­ging up windshields, […]

 

Coming Soon

Fabulae Lunae 2

Mask of the Joyful Moon

By Torn MacAlester

Available Now

 

Fabulae Lunae 1

Thunder Moon Tussle

From Torn’s Timeline of Events: Sins of the Sun

Sins of the Son
Pho­to 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 clear his lungs. We need a scope in him as soon as pos­si­ble.” “She’s singing to us.” “What is she singing?” Doc­tor answered, look­ing at his eyes. One seemed burned, but the oth­er remained clear. Triage put him in the urgent cat­e­go­ry, but the bil­lion­aire made everything […]

Coming Soon

Fabulae Lunae 2

Mask of the Joyful Moon

By Torn MacAlester

Available Now

 

Fabulae Lunae 1

Thunder Moon Tussle

Yellowstone and Timeline of Events

Short science fiction by Torn MacAlester

The key back­ground event of the sto­ry­line that includes Thun­der Moon Tus­sle is the erup­tion of the Yel­low­stone super-vol­cano.  This erup­tion forms the basis for the cal­en­dar where the year of the erup­tion is des­ig­nat­ed Y+0.

The Yel­low­stone erup­tion plays into some of the moti­va­tion or emo­tion­al state of the char­ac­ters.  It serves as a focal point event where almost every­one relates to it.  It has the same affect as the attack on Pearl Har­bor or 9/11 had on their respec­tive gen­er­a­tions.  I recall a lot of the old­er gen­er­a­tions when I was young refer­ring to the attack on Pearl Har­bor as a turn­ing point in many of their lives.  I’ve also noticed that many of my peers refer to 9/11 the same way.  It may be we are liv­ing through anoth­er such event with the Covid-19 pandemic.

In this case, you can find ref­er­ences to the Yel­low­stone super-vol­cano erup­tion through­out Thun­der Moon Tus­sle.  Nils Carmike and Deputy Miller both refer to Yel­low­stone as a piv­otal event.  In his the review of Thun­der Moon Tus­sle, Nathaniel Owolabi makes note of this.

I try to set each of my sto­ries or vignettes on this time­line, though there are some excep­tions.  The vignette Cold Con­tact is not on the time­line.  The short sto­ry Mor­gan’s Road is on the time­line to indi­cate the year in which Nils Carmike tells the sto­ry for the first time.  The time­line pre­sent­ed will con­tin­u­ous­ly update with vignettes that give a taste of the back­ground with­out pro­vid­ing spoil­ers for any one story.

Time­line of Events

Timeline of Events

I have devel­oped a time­line of events as part of world build­ing.  I have opt­ed to share that time­line in the form of sto­ries and vignettes.  This is the means to read all of my work in chrono­log­i­cal order.  Peri­od­i­cal­ly, I will post a vignette that adds to this time­line.  Any addi­tion­al pub­li­ca­tions will appear here as well.  Items clear­ly not on the time­line have yet to be thread­ed into this history.

Time­line of Events