Sunday, August 07, 2011

Saturday Centus (Sunday edition)

Day late, but I have a good excuse! Really! This week we have a shortened word count -- only fifty words, plus our prompt -- but how hard can that be, really? Time for some good old science (micro)fiction!

James entered the generation ship's flight-deck after being awoken first from two hundred years of cryo-sleep. All systems were nominal, and soon he'd awaken his fellow five hundred colonists. First, though, he wanted to see their new star. He opened the viewport to white light, and then he softly sang.

"You are my sunshine...."

(A meta-writing note: I know that a lot of Centus participants are not SF fans, so when I do SF, I try not to engage in much use of some jargon that would be familiar to regular SF readers. In order to get the word count down, though, I had to use just such a term in my entry this week. So, for those wondering what a "generation ship" is, here you go!)

(Oh, and by the way, hey, Centus participants! I'm doing my twice-yearly Ask Me Anything! game, in which I solicit people to pose questions to me on the blog, which I then answer later in the month. I do this in February and August. If anyone wants to ask a question, just leave it in comments on this post. Questions can be serious or silly -- you can ask me serious questions about writing, or you can ask me things like "Hey, who did write the Book Of Love?" Anything goes, so join in if you wish!)

14 comments:

Dazee Dreamer said...

Not being much of a SyfY fan, I really enjoyed this, and actually wanted to read more. Well done.

Lynn said...

Pretty cool! I read about the ship too, I'll stick to my car:@)

Judie said...

Because of a SC prompt several months ago, I found myself writing a SF short story. It is not my genre, but it has been fun.

I love your take on the prompt!!

21 Wits said...

Oh I do like it...I just don't really know it well enough for my own writing....but I always love what you come up with...and there are a few other SC people who throw it in too! You really did great with a prompt like this weeks!

Ames said...

I think that's the only way I could travel so far and so long in a tin can.~Ames

To the Toy Box and Beyond said...

well written great post

Susan Anderson said...

I'm not a big sci-fi person, but I always enjoy your Centus.

=)

jfb57 said...

I really liked this one. It didn't feel too SF!

Nonna said...

Excellent !

It is hard to write Sci-Fi with so few words but you did it so very well. I love Sci-Fi and I wish cryo sleep was a reality. We would have started colonizing the stars already!

Unknown said...

Thanks for supplying the definition of a "generation ship". I don't know that much about science fiction, but all styles and genres of writing are allowed here, so you only broaden our knowledge with your post.
Best wishes,
Anna
Sanna's Sunshine SC Wk 66

This is my cat's blog post about the letter "P":
P is for Presents - Sara Cat AT-rd-3-P

jeff campbell said...

I love SF...I love this! Well done! Funny, I wrote a SF for this new week's Centus...Peace and blessings

bj said...

Cool post.

Cheryl said...

This was awesome! No fan of SF but a fan of tight writing.

Jenny said...

I think we should do an SF theme SC one of these days, just to make everything irritated at me - ha!

Okay, here's my ???

You are so incredibly creative, I'm wondering what you do for a living.

Were you the kid in school always getting in trouble for using the red crayon to color the sky and the blue crayon to color the grass? I was. I'm still scarred from it!

Love your stories. Your writing is always so tight!