Just a Hint

AUTHOR’S NOTES

This part of the collection, called Speculation, features three stories of the “what if” type, where the emphasis is less on plot or characterization or a literary style than on the idea itself. Science fiction is noted for such stories. Fortunately, though, they are not all there is to SF.

“Just a Hint” was my second published work, the first to see print after my novel Sundiver. It addresses that venerable problem “Where is everybody?” from a different angle.

Also, it talks about assumptions… those beliefs we may all hold so much in common that we never notice them.

I don’t really believe there is such an underlying thread just waiting for some genius to lift up for our amazement that could, save the day. For one thing, we are a civilization (perhaps the first) that rewards people above all else for discovery, for overturning rocks and exposing the newness beneath. From music to art to science to investigative journalism, young professionals are encouraged to achieve a name by shaking up the status quo and making it stick. In other words, if you rock the boat and prove your point, you’ve got it made.

Millions of bright people, picking, poking away, earnestly trying to find something everyone else has missed… oh, we’re a clever bunch, all right. If some problems defy simple solutions, it’s probably because they require maturity and sanity and compromise to be solved, not some panacea from the stars.

Still, one can dream…

The next story, “Tank Farm Dynamo,” is my most extreme example of “techno-SF,” in which a point of science is the real protagonist.