New Paperback Short Story Collection

Mindscapes: Ten Science Fiction and Speculative Fiction Short Stories
(c) 2014 Victor D. López



(For the Kindle version of this book and a preview, you can click here. For a book trailer with my unedited read of the shortest story in this collection, you can click here.)

This book is a compilation of 10 science fiction and speculative fiction short stories by the author from his two previous short story collections, Book of Dreams and Book of Dreams 2nd Edition, as well as two new stories written in 2013. Its scope extends from the innermost dimensions of the mind to the outer reaches of the universe, focusing from diverse perspectives on some common themes as to the meaning of life, the superlative strength and wrenching weakness of the human spirit, the power of love and the exquisite pain and ecstasy that flesh is heir to in its perpetual struggle between the duality of human nature that reflected both the divine and the profane.

In very broad outline, the ten stories involve the following themes:
If necessity is the mother of invention, could humanity use present technology to find a way to propagate its seed when faced with the certainty of an extinction-level event in less than two years’ time?
What really caused the catastrophic failure after the first full-scale test of the Large Hadron Collider? Motivated, ingenious terrorists are about to try their own field experiment to replicate the classified results of the test on a large scale using two suitcase nukes and a modified jetliner in an attack that, if successful, will eradicate all life on earth, destroy our corner of the universe and, in time, give birth to a new addition to the multiverse.

If we could communicate with the other sentient, intelligent species with whom we share our planet, what vital lessons might we learn from them and they from us?

In a not too distant future in which all human beings on earth are connected and integrated into a single neural net, what price might be exacted for one wishing to opt out?

Egyptologists and historians have long debated the riddle of the Sphinx–its true origins, its too-small human head and the pharaoh it was intended to represent. What if the riddle could be revealed live, in prime time, to an attentive world-wide audience upon the excavation of a chamber buried stories beneath its right paw?

What price would you pay to revisit a crossroad in your life when you had made a terrible, life altering mistake? Would you give up an unfulfilled life for the chance of virtual happiness in an alternate reality?

Would you sacrifice everything if you could attain absolute knowledge? If so, could you live with the knowledge you attained?

It is said that no man is an island, but what if even the least among us is a god in his/her own right?

If an alien visitor offered you a lifetime of health and the gift of telepathy for a small service, would you be quick to accept?

If we purportedly use only a small fraction of our brain’s capacity, what possible purpose does the apparently unused portion serve?

Above are some of the questions raised in this collection of science fiction and speculative fiction short stories that explores the interrelationship between dreams and reality, the nature of reality itself, and the dangers attendant to the single-minded pursuit of wish fulfillment that all too often results in unexpected and unwanted consequences.

The author is an Associate Professor of Legal Studies at Hofstra University’s Frank G. Zarb School of Business and has previously published seven non-fiction books through traditional publishers. His business law and legal environment textbooks have been used in colleges and universities throughout the United States since 1993. He has also published a book of poems and the two previous noted books of short stories since 2011.

For more information about the author’s books, textbooks, scholarly articles and blogs, you can visit http://www.victordlopez.com.
Publication Date: Jan 01 2014ISBN/EAN13: 1494866528 / 9781494866525Page Count: 182Binding Type:US Trade PaperTrim Size:6″ x 9″Language:EnglishColor:Black and WhiteRelated Categories:Fiction / Science Fiction / Short Stories

Victor, When you write a short story...what is the word count?

Domenic,

It varies widely. The shortest story in this collection, "Justice", is actually closer to a piece of flash fiction than to a traditional short story and is just over 1,000 words; The second shortest story, "The Riddle of the Sphinx: Solved", is just over 1,600 words. The longest at 7,777 words is "Mars: Genesis 2.0" with the second longest, "Eternal Quest", approximately 7,500 words. The others range somewhere between 3,500 and 7,000 words if memory serves. I do not have a particular or preferred length and don't typically have a specific length in mind or a predetermined ending when I begin to write.  A good deal was cut out of "Eternal Quest" from its original full version, but then more was added over time. Some will continue to evolve in time. Others may just have to be taken out back and shot--something that may also be true of their author.

Victor,
Thank you for the reply. The reason I ask, I have been writing a book, fiction, based on the stories in the  Bible.  All are  short stories, I have been writing the book since 1999. What writing this book has done for me, I learned to write my stories in scenes, Much the same way a movie script is laid out. As I compile the stories, I find at times, shifting scenes around make the story better. Most of my stories are 50,000 plus. I seem to have a hard time writing very short stories like you produce...is there a key to that writing style?

Some publishers consider a novel over 45,000 words - though for some that's a novella.

There is always a tradeoff between length and depth. Short stories are not short novels or novel excerpts. (Of course, they can be and novellas have been around for a long time, and long short stories and short novels are sometimes difficult to define.)

It can be great fun and a fruitful exercise to populate a story with a cast of well-rounded characters, describe multiple scenes in great detail, engage in significant character development, and painstakingly describe every scene with the care of a Michael Angelo fresco so that it comes alive in the reader's mind in supernatural beauty and clarity. But for me, that is something that one does in a novel. A short story is a very different form. It does not lend itself well, for me at least, for painstaking detail, careful plot development or cinematographic treatment.

In visual terms, a novel is  Ben Hur while a short story is a snapshot of a charriot race, preferably in mid air after having struck a luckless charioteer on the ground and taken flight. A novel is Excalibur, whereas a short story is a wide-eyed Arthur taking the sword from the stone, or Arthur  kneeling before his enemy in mid battle, yielding up Excalibur, that he might be nighted by his enemy (only a moment before doing his best to run him through, before being bested by the magic-sword-wielding Arthur) and thereby proven worthy of becoming king.

Of course, that's just me, and my short stories are not a good example of anything other than of my own style, preferences and shortcomings. I approach short stories not unlike writing poetry. I try to make every sentence count and hope that the broad outlines will be filled by my reader's imagination. When I write significant dialog, it always has a very specific purpose. Where I engage in lengthy descriptive passages, it is also for a very specific purpose (setting of mood, evoking a subconscious reference, framing a character, planting a seed in the reader's mind, or changing the direction of the story in some significant way.)

If Jane needs to cross the street to advance the story, I will usually write "Jane crossed the street." The breeze playing with the prematurely grey streak of hair peeking from underneath her faux fur hat, the pothole on which she scuffs the new shoes she had carefully counted and saved her pennies to buy over the past year, the Ferrari that narrowly misses her as it roars through a red light, its driver oblivious to her presence, the fine mist that soaks into her frayed, spotless raincoat that was once black but is now worn grey around the belt and on her right sleeve, the cold, wet, obviously pregnant, smelly dog that wimpers and shivers as Jane passes it, gently stooping down to scratch it behind the ears, and her fishing into the left pocket of her raincoat for  her last $3 with which to buy a Kabob of mystery from a street vender as she steps off the curb on the other side of the street, her mouth watering at the smell of the still-sizzling roasted meat, as she gently takes each of the four pieces off the bamboo skewer and calls the dog over to her, scratching her behind the ears once more, her broadening smile causing laugh lines to appear as she places the offering on the sidewalk, her own stomach rumbling, her glazed, brown speckled hazel eyes sparking as the sun intermittently peeks through the passing storm clouds--are all absent from the description unless the reader needs to know these facts as Jane crosses the street.

But I'm always open to where the story takes me. In my stream-of-consciousness comma splice from hell example above, the character whose sole purpose was to cross the street started to speak to me. She began to matter--to have a story of her own. She may yet grow to be the protagonist of a new short story.  I may let her tell me where she's coming from, where she is going, and perhaps learn whether the dog's life is destined to be intertwined with her own. Perhaps the story will really be about the dog, or the self-engrossed idiot in the Ferrari, or even about the mystery meat in the kabob. Perhaps it will even be a novel (doubtful!) populated with dozens of people from next door, the next town, or the next galaxy. Who knows? Certainly not I.

One suggestion I might make if you find yourself writing 50,000 word short stories is to consider a series of short novels instead.  A multi-volume series might work well. Some of my favorite fantasy and SF works are very, very long serialized novels by George RR Martin, Terry Brooks, Terry Goodkind, Larry Niven, Dean Koontz, Arthur C. Clarke and many others.

Sorry for the (as usual) long-winded answer.

I can't make up my mind whether that was a novel answer or a short [story] one, Victor.   

"Author dies by drowning in his stream of consciousness while attempting to cross the street. News at 11."