2002-05-10 - 9:03 a.m.

I reread "The Waveries" last night. It's a short story by Frederic Brown, who wrote good mysteries and even better science fiction. (The original Star Trek episode, "Arena," is based on one of his stories.) I like most of Brown's stories, but this is one of my favorites, which has been "lost" till I found an old collection in a used book store.

"The Waveries" is good old-fashioned science fiction. It was written so long ago that 25 cents was a high price for a black-market newspaper! Fifty years ago science fiction was a lot of "what if," based on possible new scientific discovery. I think that the proliferation of scientific discovery has changed the nature of science fiction -- or speculative fiction, if you prefer.

It makes no difference that, a few years after reading "The Waveries," I learned enough chemistry and physics to know that the original premise was wrong. It's a whimsical little story, like a fairy tale, and I still love it.

Also in the same collection is "Tiny and the Monster," by Theodore Sturgeon, another of my old s-f favorites who turned up in Star Trek ("Shore Leave").

The good old "what if" -- it helped make me what I am today!

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Pretty Clever, Huh? - 2008-12-08
Deja Vu... - 2008-12-07
Morally Wrong - 2008-11-25
The Difference - 2008-11-18
Writer's Block? - 2008-11-17