Sunday, March 6, 2011

New short fiction: "The Hubbard Continuum" by Lavie Tidhar

The paperless magazine Redstone Science Fiction #10 (March 2011) has an interesting new free piece of short fiction titled “The Hubbard Continuum,” by Israeli science fiction writer, editor and World SF blogger Lavie Tidhar. Partially set on Mars in the year 3050, Tidhar describes it as “a sort of time-travel thing about the history of science fiction, and features Isaac Asimov, Fred Poh, John W. Campbell Jr. and, of course, the titular L. Ron Hubbard.” Here are the opening lines:

NEW YORK, November 16, 1976

I opened the door to a man in his fifties, who looked familiar though I was sure I had never seen him before. “Can I help you?”

“I know what you did,” he said. He was chubby, with a lot of facial hair and a voice that carried. “I figured it out.”

“I don’t know who you are,” I said, “but if this is your idea of a joke…”

He stared at me for a long moment. “It’s me,” he said. “Isaac.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Isaac…?”

According to a brief review by Lois Tilton of Locus Online, “The Hubbard Continuum” is “A skiffy in-joke, full of ancient fannish references. Ancient fans should love it.”

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