I’m very excited to announce that my short story, “Joe Fledge’s Jump,” about the evolution of the human species, will be appearing soon in Utopia Science Fiction. No date yet on the issue; I’ll keep you all posted.
“Joe Fledge’s Jump” has had an interesting trajectory. It was a Baen SF Finalist a few years back, and has been looking for a chance to appear in print ever since. The story itself was one that I worked on, put away because it wasn’t working, then picked up and thought, hmmm, this has something.
Here’s a bit of a teaser:
“Some people see somebody do something stupid and they don’t think, that idiot. Joe Fledge had set a record for surviving the longest unsuited spacewalk. The chatter on the Net had all been speculation about how long a person could survive, and what someone needed to do to stretch that survival time to its maximum.
Two newbies had gotten into the rigger program specifically to recreate Joe Fledge’s jump. They took advantage of the accelerated training program, put in place to keep the project on schedule and at its target budget. They had practiced beforehand, learning how to expel all the air in their lungs to slow de-oxygenation.
They smuggled up drugs to pre-treat themselves to prevent ebullism. One – Tandy Rollings – went out unsuited. She held the hand of her partner, fully suited, who timed her.
Twenty-five and a half seconds. Give or take a millisecond.”
Of course, stories are never just about what they are about. At its core, “Joe Fledge’s Jump” is about a father and son, about letting our adult children make their own choices.
I can’t wait for y’all to read it.
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