This is the 20th in a deep-dive series on the stories in Rick’s newest book, Random Precision. The following blog includes spoilers.
 
“Three Hours” shares something with another story in this collection, “Flash of Life.” Both won writing contests, and both appeared on TV screens before landing in a book.
 
In the days before YouTube, I collaborated with a producer friend on a direct-to-video series called Chronicles. It took a cue from The Twilight Zone—an anthology show featuring strange, even bizarre stories with a moral. We did four episodes before the producer, laden with other projects, decided to move on. I wrote two installments, including the pilot, “Three Hours.”
 
The difference between the video version of “Three Hours” and this one is that the former has an entire act (plus a female character) that doesn’t show up in the short story. That’s because the story wasn’t nearly enough to sustain a 30-minute episode. When preparing Random Precision, I briefly considered rewriting the story to include Weena—H.G. Wells fans will recognize the name—but decided that, while she was essential to the TV show, she wasn’t needed for the story.
 
Once again I revisit the theme of trying to rewriting one’s history to duck one’s responsibility. For Herbie—yup, H.G. Wells again—not only does it fail, but does so with horrific results.
 
If you like the short story and wonder what the Chronicles version was like, it’s your lucky day! It’s still available online.

This is the 19th in a deep-dive series on the stories in Rick’s newest book, Random Precision. The following blog includes spoilers.
 
The idea of quantum dice isn’t mine. I read a thought piece (I think it was in Scientific American) about quantum dice as a way to illustrate quantum mechanics—in this case, how that feeds into alternate realities. I’ve always been drawn to multiverse tales for the same reason I enjoy time travel stories: the idea that you can change your reality to something else. Larry Niven’s “All The Myriad Ways” does an outstanding job with this concept. (And the ending of “A Throw of the Dice” takes a small inspiration from that story.)
 
Of course, the twist here is that Trevor Gaine has been rewriting his reality all along, without dabbling in quantum mechanics. He does it simply by not being accountable for it—running away from it, in fact. But the simple truth is, his sins (like ours) are destined to find him out. At some point, we must be accountable to our past, our present and our future.
 
I placed this story in Tucson because I’d recently visited there, though I didn’t visit any such bars. As for the London pub, applause for anyone who catches the classic Monty Python reference!

This is the 18th in a deep-dive series on the stories in Rick’s newest book, Random Precision. The following blog includes spoilers.
 
If you can’t rip yourself off, who can you rip off?
 
“The Margin” is a “tech-ier” version of an earlier short story of mine, titled “Out of Sight, Out Of Mind.” In the earlier story, a city mayor discovers an ancient portal through which he banishes homeless people, where they live in the same world as ours but slightly out of phase, neither seen nor heard. That piece didn’t go anywhere, unfortunately. So I stole the basic idea for “The Margin,” only the “portal” in this case is a hatch to an unused section of a massive, generational starship in deep space.
 
The approach in “The Margin” is a little less mystical, a little more realistic. The “undesirables,” as they’re considered, are shuffled off to the margins of society, just as they are in real life today. Our communities have a sad history of doing this; “redlining,” the effort to force minorities into specific neighborhoods, is an example.
 
“The Margin” has other inspirations, too. One is from a favorite episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, titled “Past Tense.” In that story, the homeless and impoverished people of San Francisco are banished to a walled-off district. Another inspiration is the biblical tale of the Good Samaritan, where a marginalized person helps another in need.
 
The most disturbing part of this story is the ending, and it’s disturbing because it illustrates a frightening modern reality. Charity Gritt’s father is willing to sacrifice her rather than step up to help those trapped in the Margin. It’s no huge mental leap to imagine that same scenario in our hyper-polarized society today.
 
A less-disturbing fact about this story: If you’ve read my book Radiance, you’ll recognized the design of starship Estera. It’s based on the Bernal sphere space station concept I used for Canaan. Again, why not rip off yourself if it works?

This is the 17th in a deep-dive series on the stories in Rick’s newest book, Random Precision. The following blog includes spoilers.

This story is rapidly on its way to becoming out of date.
 
The inspiration was two-pronged. Some scientists were speculating that our reality might be a computer simulation, akin to the holodeck on Star Trek. I don’t believe that, of course, but it was an intriguing and downright unsettling idea. The other driver behind this was the life-simulation video game “The Sims,” one I’ve never played but is still around.
 
Of course, there is also the biblical passage from John 1, among my favorites. This underscores the eternal nature of Jesus and his unwavering love for humanity—to the point of death.
 
Thus we encounter Taylor Wayne, the brilliant scientist who “creates” a universe as detailed as the one we inhabit, and how his desire to love his creation leads to his ultimate sacrifice.
 
It’s worth noting that this is a broad effort to get at an ancient question: If God loves us so much, and he’s all-powerful, why does he allow bad things to happen? I’m not sure there’s an easy answer for that—Billy Graham once said that there’s an element to evil in the world that we’ll never understand—but the perspective I offer here is one of allowing for genuine love. We want our children to love us because they truly love us, not because they’re “programmed” to do so. We teach them in the way they should go, then we release them to make their own decision and their own mistakes.
 
That’s not a satisfying answer by any means, and it raises lots of questions, ones we should ask. God is big enough to handle our hard questions, even our angry ones.
 
One could argue that “A Sheep Oneself” is pretty “on the nose.” I accept that. I don’t think every parable has to be vague or subtle. Sometimes we need our nose broken.

This is the 16th in a deep-dive series on the stories in Rick’s newest book, Random Precision. The following blog includes spoilers.

“Superhero” is the Christmas play that’ll never get produced. That’s how this story began—as a holiday stage show I planned at my church. But as I scripted it, I realized I’d never find a 10-year-old kid who could memorize all those lines and deliver the powerful performance the story needed.
 
I resurrected the tale a couple of years ago when a magazine put on a Christmas story contest. I dug up the script and turned it into a short story. A lot of the original story made the jump—in the script, Barry’s dad is much more involved and a MUCH bigger jerk, and the playground experience was far more involved (and embarrassing for poor Barry).
 
This isn’t a science fiction story, but it features a boy who lives in that sphere. In some ways, Barry Parker is me at that age—obsessed but unable to share it with anyone else. I distinctly remember how my interest in all things SF made me a pariah starting in second grade. I feel Barry’s pain.
 
But it’s not just the people around Barry who learn an important lesson about compassion, mercy and grace. Barry himself learns that his love for superheroes must be tempered with love for other people—real people, folks who need to know they’re loved.
 
I volunteer as a mentor in writing for a middle school, and “Superhero” is a favorite with the teacher and students I work with. I wonder how many of them can relate to Barry’s struggles. They need to know they’re loved, too.

This is the 15th in a deep-dive series on the stories in Rick’s newest book, Random Precision. The following blog includes spoilers.
 
“Ghostwriter” is me throwing in the towel.
 
What does that mean? It means that “Ghostwriter” resulted from a long, painful effort to write a novel to follow Radiance. Actually, its history is more colorful than that.
 
Years ago, a film producer I know asked me to write a script for his next project. I penned the story of a woman, Nessa Trent, who is found in an alley, beaten and horribly burned. Eventually she recovers but has no memory of her past. Meanwhile, shadowy assassins keep trying to kill her. Eventually Nessa partners with an experimental physicist, and they discover Nessa is a time traveler from the past who is caught up in a plot from the future to wipe the Christian church from history.
 
I loved the premise of the story. Loved the beginning, loved its ending. But the middle simply wasn’t interesting. The more I worked at it, the more ho-hum it became. Just filler. Not enough there to make it riveting. After the filmmaker turned it down, I tried to make it into a novel. Same problem.
 
Finally, around the time I started thinking about Random Precision, I decided to skip the boring middle and keep the parts I found interesting. This, of course, changed the tale dramatically. Now Nessa and her partner are the same person. She doesn’t travel in time herself, and amnesia doesn’t show up at all. But the Parabolani do—or one of them does, anyway. And the ending twist is even bigger than the one I originally wrote, though perhaps unsettling for some readers.
 
If I’m right, we’re living in an alternate timeline right now. And yet it doesn’t matter. The past readjusted itself so the outcome was (virtually) identical. How exciting to learn that a recent scientific study lends credence to the idea!
 
I was sad to let go of Nessa’s original story. But this one ought to leave you just as satisfied. Or just as terrified.

This is the 14th in a deep-dive series on the stories in Rick’s newest book, Random Precision. The following blog includes spoilers.
 
My son recently told me he thought “Telephone Tag” would make a great episode of The Twilight Zone. While I appreciate his kind words, I’m not sure how it would work. The entire story is an exchange of voicemail messages in which one person is living a single day in the future, progressively terrifying the career-obsessed Stella Caine.
 
You could do it with actors living out moments of the messages, instead of 30 minutes of voiceovers. But I think it loses something that way.
 
Anyway, what prompted “Telephone Tag” was a particularly tough period in my corporate life, when I was wondering where this was going—and wondering why I didn’t care about climbing the corporate ladder like others did. Writing this story didn’t really give me any insights. But it did remind me of that Bible passage where a successful landowner has such a rich harvest that he builds new barns to hold it all, then leans back to prepare for a comfortable future focused entirely on himself. Instead, he dies before he gets to enjoy any of his reward.
 
It’s certainly not a fate I would wish on anyone, but it does happen. The important thing to remember is to live in the moment, enjoy life as it happens, and to have compassion for those around you. Caine didn’t—but her business machinations didn’t matter in the end.

This is the 13th in a deep-dive series on the stories in Rick’s newest book, Random Precision. The following blog includes spoilers.
 
This story started with its title. That, and the thought that a short story collection called Random Precision ought to have a story so named.
 
“Random Precision” was slightly inspired by a 1989 film, Millennium. Rather than repopulating the distant future, my about-to-die time travelers are drafted as workers just a few decades down the line. In exchange for their services, they’re granted a three-year, comfortable reprieve—after which they must be returned to the moment of death. They can, of course, choose whether to take the three-year offer or be returned to face death immediately. No surprise, nearly all take the offer.
 
The real motivation for this story is the human obsession with avoiding death. We all face it at some point, but we also do our utmost to dodge it, sometimes at the cost of others. “Random Precision” is a metaphor for the American health care system—if you’re rich enough and wily enough, you get the best care. If you’re not, illness and death are much nearer.
 
But what’s the point of gaining a longer life at the expense of someone else, only to lose your own in the end?
 
Lorelai cheats the system for a few years, but in the end she still faces … well, the end. And not just any end, but perhaps the most horrifying in modern times.
 
“Random Precision” is a line from the song “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” by Pink Floyd. The song was about former bandmate Syd Barrett, who suffered mental illness. The story goes that the day Pink Floyd recorded that song, Barrett showed up at the studio—so out of shape, with his hair and eyebrows shaved, that no one recognized him for a long time.
 
That said, I think the line also works with my story: Well you wore out your welcome with random precision/Rode on the steel breeze/Come on you raver, you seer of visions/Come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner, and shine.

*  *  *  *
[Note: The music and lyrics for “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” were created by David Gilmour, Richard Wright and Roger Waters for the 1975 album Wish You Were Here, produced by Pink Floyd and owned by Pink Floyd Music Ltd.]

This is the 12th in a deep-dive series on the stories in Rick’s newest book, Random Precision. The following blog includes spoilers.
 
“Pièce de Résistance” may be the most deceitful story I’ve ever written.
 
Allow me to explain. I’m an epically finicky eater. It’s a lifelong issue, one that, thankfully, hasn’t caused any health issues so far. For example, I hate vegetables. All of them. The tastes, the smells, the textures. Rarely I’ll pick at a salad. I dislike nuts, eschew nearly all fruits and most seafood. (I recently learned this is an actual condition akin to a sensory disorder.)
 
So, knowing all this … how was I able to describe the tastes and textures of the foods in this story if I never tried them?
 
The answer is, a lot of online research. I perused cooking and baking websites, looking for descriptions of the smells and flavors. At times I swapped out food choices that I thought might send the messages that the Breadbreakers or President Grimes intended because I couldn’t be sure if I truly understood what a dish tasted like.
 
My closest friends, when they read this story, would ask, “You didn’t actually try all those foods, did you?” I always owned up.
 
President Grimes isn’t modeled on any particular POTUS, though I’ve got a couple in mind. He mostly reflects that common human desire to leave a legacy—a desire that drives some people to do the most outrageous things.
 
In case you missed it, “talking on the big white telephone” is a euphemism for vomiting into a commode. I thought it was a funny, if gross, way to start the story. For the record, I actually did try calamari once—but it was deep fried. Even so, I’m not a fan.
 
This story won a Science Fiction Writers of Christianity short story contest. Given my earlier observation that this is my most deceitful story, I’m amused by this.

This is the 11th in a deep-dive series on the stories in Rick’s newest book, Random Precision. The following blog includes spoilers.
 
Is it possible to start writing a story, put it aside for a bit, and then mostly forget you wrote it in the first place? If this tale is any indication, the answer is “yes.”
 
As far as I recall, “The Good Person” had no particular inspiration. I vaguely remember starting it, but I don’t recall why or even when. I do know what I wanted to say: When we convince ourselves that we’re “essentially good,” we tend to hand-wave away the ugly truths, the dark secrets, that every person has. We shouldn’t dwell on the ugliness, but we ought to face it and deal with it.
 
Somewhere along the line I started to tell this story, grew disinterested, and put it aside—until I started perusing my stories for Random Precision. I stumbled across this one, read what I’d abandoned, and was drawn back to it. What if the dark side of ourselves challenged the “good” side overtly? What if we came to realize, as Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor opined, “life is a pile of good things and bad things,” and we need to face them both to fully understand who we are.
 
“The Good Person” takes a beat from “The Enemy Within,” an episode of the original Star Trek. A transporter accident splits Captain Kirk into good and evil versions, and they both learn that they cannot exist apart. Admittedly, that probably doesn’t reflect a Christian view—Christianity is about being redeemed from the darkness. But what I do think tracks with the faith is the idea that one must recognize, confess and deal with it.
 
This story asks some hard questions of the reader. Maybe too hard. Maybe that’s why my early memories of this story are hazy—perhaps deliberately so.