The Skeptic and Other Glimpses

By Jennifer R. Povey

A UFO debunker bites off more than he can chew. A man faces an unusual test for an orbital job.

This collection of six flash fiction and short-short stories each shows a glimpse of a possible future of Earth. Aliens, space travel, immortality. Each of the six stories is set on Earth. All six stories were previously published - with the anchor story, "The Skeptic," published in the April 2013 issue of Analog Science Fiction & Fact.

Although short, this micro-collection shows the reader six quite different possibilities - different in tone, feel, and content, but tied together by the importance of Earth and humanity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jennifer R. Povey
• Release date: Mar 15, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311900135

Jennifer R. Povey

Jennifer R. Povey is in her early forties, and lives in Northern Virginia with her husband. She writes a variety of speculative fiction, whilst following current affairs and occasionally indulging in horse riding and role playing games. Her short fiction sales include Analog, Cosmos, and Digital Science Fiction, and her first novel was published by Musa Publishing in April of 2013.

Book preview

The Skeptic and Other Glimpses

Jennifer R. Povey

@Copyright Jennifer R. Povey 2009-2013

Published by Jennifer R. Povey at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Cover art by Matt Davis (greydevil13.deviantart.com)

Table of Contents

Author's Note

The Skeptic

The Last Elder

The Child

The Microscope

Contact

Raphael

About the Author

Author's Note

This micro-collection consists of six short-short and flash fiction pieces. All of these stories have been previously published - but are not readily available in their original format.

I'm calling this collection Glimpses because of the short length of the stories and their loose theme - all of these stories pass the Schmidt definition of science fiction, namely, A story to which some aspect of future science or technology is inherent and they are all set on Earth, but there's no further over-arching theme.

Please enjoy these stories in the spirit in which they were written - fun speculation.

Acknowledgements:

To the editors who accepted and edited these stories.

This story was published in the April 2013 issue of Analog Science Fiction & Fact. It has the distinction of being one of the last stories bought by Dr. Stanley Schmidt prior to his retirement as Analog's editor. Who would the aliens contact? And would they be believed?

The Skeptic

The truth was, Dana Brooks had never really been a woman who thought about much outside her own life. Some of those who knew her said she never thought, period.

On top of that, she was a welfare mother with three screaming brats whom she raised as best she could while failing at irregular intervals to keep a job. This was usually the fault, or so she claimed, of whoever she hired to babysit.

Her own parents had died when she was fairly young, and she had bounced from foster home to foster home.