Monday, July 13, 2009

“Dog Days,” a new first contact short story written by Republibot 3.0

Republibot, a science fiction website that refreshingly refuses to worship Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Babylon 5, Lost, or Doctor Who, has a new, interesting, original short story set on the Red Planet around the year 1990. Written by Republibot 3.0, “Dog Days” (2009) is about the third-and-final American expedition to Mars and its first contact with an alien settlement. Here are the opening lines:

Although there had been a couple unofficial contacts between Humans and Aliens previously, they were not well documented at the time, and didn’t become common knowledge until long after the contact with the Tractus Canis, (or, if you’re pedantic, Intercapedo Canis) so the Canis indecent remained fixed in everyone’s mind as the ‘first contact’, much as Lindberg’s crossing of the Atlantic was remembered as a first, or Columbus’ discovery of America was regarded as a first: none of them actually were, but 99% of the world’s population would swear they really were. ...

Somewhat related: According to NASA, daytime temperatures on Mars during the dog days of Martian summer can rocket all the way up to a balmy 68°F from the summer nighttime low of -130°F.

3 comments:

Republibot 3.0 said...

Actually, I kind of do worship Babylon 5, but I'm not blind to it's occasional failings. Hell, I've even been known to say critical things about my beloved "Firefly" on occasion.

But seriously, thank you very much for the nod. Firstly, it's nice to realize that we're getting a reputation for not just gushing after every show that's got a starship in it, but secondly it's really nice to have people reading my original fiction, and thinking it's good enough to pass on to others. Thank you for that!

At the moment, I'm writing a story that partially involves the first human landing on Mars (in the year 2410, sadly) and much of the third act of the story takes place on The Red Planet. It's called "Missionary," and it's novella length, so I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it. It's really too long for my site, and too short to get published, even if the industry were publishing books these days. Still, it's fun to write.

Paul said...

Your welcome, and thanks for taking the time to comment. "Missionary" sounds interesting. Maybe post the first page on your blog and allow readers to download the whole thing as a pdf?

Republibot 3.0 said...

It's definitely a possibility. We're toying with a couple different ways to do it. In fact, "Dog Days" and "The Truth about Lions and Lambs" (Which has nothing to do with Mars, alas) are going to shortly be made available for download through our site.