Short Fiction

“The Tower” has taken more time than I had budgeted for this short story. Finally I am working on drafts 7 through 12 and will get it to a professional editor before I submit it in hopes of publication. Rewriting never ends, and I am grateful for that. The story is not where I would want it to be yet. I do not feel the suspense is there and some of the details are glossed over too much at this stage. These are things I will be correcting as I bring the story in to the 2nd to final draft.

The concept of “The Tower” has driven me to keep writing. I will admit that there were times when I thought about filing the story and maybe coming back to it someday. It would not let me. This science fiction story is more about today than it is about the future. While set on a world parsecs away and 5 millennia in the future, it examines human rights, the rights of native populations over those who encroach and about the future of terraforming and handling of the green house effect.

It ultimately explores the question: if we were to try to inhabit a world that we must terraform and discover that there is already life there—should we do it? Well, the question may be ethically no. Easy right? Lets raise the stakes. Pretend for a moment that you are now the last of mankind. You (and those few with you) do not have the fuel to travel to any other worlds. You are stuck there. Now…is the question so easy?

I actually do not make it clear that there is other life on the world until near the end. There are hints through out the story, some hidden, some blatant when the reader goes back. I want the reader to see the situation from the eyes of the human characters and discover the truth when the characters do. I do not answer the ethical question above; I want the reader to close the story in their mind asking that question. If I do that, then I have done my job.

Thank you for reading and please visit www.davidalanlucas.com for blogs and updates to my articles, short stories, novels, and novellas that I am writing.