A group of low ranking officers on a star ship come to the shocking conclusion that going on away missions is often a death sentence. The odds of dying go up or down depending on how many of the senior officers are also on the away mission. Our hero is a new member of the crew-one Ensign Andrew Dahl, who discoveries a number of odd things about the Intrepid, flagship of the Universal Union since the year 2456. In addition to the high death rate for away missions, there is also the odd way that many problems are solved-by putting…
Tag: robert a heinlein
Gun Nuts and Just Plain Nuts
“An armed society is a polite society.” Robert A. Heinlein It doesn’t take a trained professional to look at photos of the Phoenix Shooter-a 22-year-old charged with trying to kill a congresswoman in a shooting spree that left six dead-to realize the man is mental unstable. He has the stereotypical look of a madman, a nutcase, a loon, a man with a few screws loose, a nutjob, a nutter, a retard, a mental deficient, a crazy. But this is America, and there is no law against being crazy. Where there are laws about insanity, they usually require that the insane…
Reading Like a Writer-Improving Your Own Writing
My favorite short story writers are Issac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, and Philip K. Dick. These authors took the impossible and made them seem mundane, then pushed the world off it’s axis at the story’s end. These are fun stories to read, you never know what’s going to happen next, but you always know something is going happen. Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them by Francine Prose is about her favorite stories and writers. Like many college educated writers, she is a huge fan of Long Dead…