phywriter.com|Prone to occasional grandiloquence

I’ve made my first paid sale to the new Christian sci-fi e-zine, Wayfarer’s Journal.

My goal with the story was to demonstrate that it was possible to talk about Christian ideals without being preachy. I also wanted to try to bring a strong sci-fi sensibility to the Christian audience.

The story plays around with various ideas of what it means to be human.

This is also something of a homage to Alfred Bester, the first sci-fi author to really blow my young mind. I’d read a lot of pulp by the time I read “The Demolished Man”. That was the work that demonstrated to me that one could write a work that was fast and fun while raising serious questions about humanity, vanity, and the evil the lurks in every man’s heart. The spector of the Man With No Face was so simple and so brilliant that it has never left me. The book was written in the mid-50s and won the first Hugo award, and I found it on my dad’s bookshelf disguised as just another book. Bester only wrote a handful of sci-fi novels, known more for other kinds of writing back in the day, but he was tremendously influential, and helped blaze the trail for those who followed.

My story is here: http://www.wayfarersjournal.com/cook.htm

Here’s a snip:

“My readers would love to know where you came from, what made you what you are, so to speak.”

“Ah, a classic question,” he said, “’What makes a man?’ Let me answer that question by telling you the story of Joshua Ziller.”

If I’d been using a pencil, I would have snapped the lead right there. I quickly composed myself.

As I took down the name with my expensive fountain pen, I was careful to betray no emotion. However, I would have bought a fleet of new aircars for our common waitress if it meant that he never uttered that particular name again.