One Thousand Worlds in One Thousand Words: A Trainspotters Guide To Other Earths (David Stevens) on Sci-Fi Saturday

A Trainspotters Guide To Other Earths by David Stevens is this weeks Sci-Fi Saturday feature on One Thousand Worlds.

About this author-

David Stevens

Hello and welcome.

Write a biog they say! Now there is a challenge. Stories, books, even articles are easy to do as they are held at a distance, admittedly short but still distant. A ‘biog,’ that is another thing altogether. Why anyone would want to read about the writer I can’t envisage, writers lives are really rather boring, it is the tales they tell that have such wonderful abilities. I am often told that fateful sentence, ‘I could be a writer’ or ‘I would like to write a book’. To these people I always say do it, write it, it does not matter whether it is a good book or a bad one, because it is your book, well it is until you contact a publisher, then that all changes.

At roughly fourteen years of age I was carted off to Bangor for an excruciating length of in-depth testing, where they discovered that I was severely dyslexic and reasonably intelligent. The first was new to me, the latter something I had naturally known, but it did explain why I could not write. Then along came the computer and thanks to a good friend I acquired one, and that was the start of a long long road.

Just to put things in place, let me point out that the computer in question was made by Amstrad and it had no, yes I said no, hard drive. In fact it used five and a quarter floppy disks and had the processing power of about 56 K. Now that sounds shocking these days but consider that 56K was about what N.A.S.A had when they put a man on the moon.

Back to a biog. To my readers I would like to say that I hope you enjoy my work, because for me to say anything else would be a lie, as is clearly shown by the fact that I place my work out there amongst you, obviously I want it to be read, but more importantly to be entertaining for you the reader.

The more you write the more you open yourself up for criticism, but also the more you learn and the better your writing becomes. Writers call this learning the ‘craft’ or developing it. In my case as with most, the more I developed the craft the better the stories construction became, so old stories are never as well constructed as new stories but the editing process improves with practice, that is one of the drawbacks to posting on the net, you are always stuck with the old stories. Those older stories will have a greater number of problems than the newer ones but it is not the style that matters but the content and of course the improvement.

For those of you that just need to know more about your pet authors, consider that writing at any level is a serious commitment in both time and lifestyle. Books take a long time to develop; they are mostly created in the loneliness of an office or a chair. Sometimes, if you are very lucky they grow by a fire-side with a nice coffee and perhaps biscuits. You know, the nice oat ones or perhaps rich chocolate, but I digress. More often than not they are written in the dark wee hours of the night and have little input from others during their actual writing. Therefore a writer must be able to be alone with them self and their characters and be dedicated to whatever tale they are creating at the time. Or as a friend of mine so succinctly put it ‘you need to be a touch mad.’

As I said quite boring in reality, so instead may I suggest that you acquire a good book and enter into the world the writer has created for you, and hopefully enjoy it.

A TRAINSPOTTER’S GUIDE TO OTHER EARTHS

By David Stevens.

This might well be the second strangest

Science Fiction story you ever read!

PRELUDE.

This is the life story of a geek from a small town, who accidentally discovers, he believes, that by holding his nose tightly, screwing up his eyes into tiny slits and blowing trapped air against his tightly closed nose, he can if he gets it just right, merge and blur the universe around him, just enough to be able to slip from one plane of existence into another.

He then discovers that the further he moves away from his start existence, the more time has split and different pathways have opened up within society.

Little does he realize that he has discovered nothing, that he is being sought and maneuvered by an alien ‘She,’ to another place, there to become the saviour of a different world called Earth.

This is the story of his adventures, and the enlightening road down which his life meanders. This is the story of a dedicated Trainspotter who battles a despicable malignant horror that threatens all life and how he becomes an unknown hero to millions, whilst learning a thing or two about himself along the way.

A TRAINSPOTTER’S GUIDE TO OTHER EARTHS

The second most weird science fiction story you might ever read.

CHAPTER 1

Every adventure has a beginning, so here is mine!

First, let me explain something you need to know. This adventure occurred to me some years ago my time, and my now wife insists that I write it down, even if it is only to be read by our grandchildren. I think she sees long lines of them dwindling into the future and all interested in their famous grandparent’s adventures. I have tried, honestly I have to remember everything as it happened, but many years have passed and I am a very different person now, to who I was when this all happened. Also the damned ship computer refuses to be of any help at all!

I have decided to tell my story exactly as it happened to me, which means that I have written it in two parts. The first part is clearly insane, but do not worry, do what I did and accept everything that happens as being true, if improbable. I believe my tale will open the eyes of those that did not live through it, or were unaware that they were living through it: and for those of you that are going to live through it soon, what can I say?

Anyway, all will be explained in part two, well sort of, and may even give you an explanation for some of those questions that have lurked in your darker thoughts, questions which until now have remained unexplained.

Ok, so you now know that it all turns out pretty well in the end, but there were times I can assure you, when I did not think that it would, or will again.

My wife and my life, before my adventure.

My wife was the love of my life then; she brightened up my day, enlivened my existence and I thought enjoyed sharing my exciting hobbies such as trainspotting. For the record, I believe that this is a much maligned but highly interesting hobby. Trainspotting offers many layers of fascinating achievement for the dedicated Spotter to collect and catalogue. We, I thought, had spent many happy hours in the pouring rain dressed in our matching anoraks, waiting for a two-double–0 steam train to blast passed, coating us in its sooty but exciting emissions.

Then there were my detailed and neatly catalogued sets of important foreign stamps to glue in on an evening. All in all, I genuinely believed that the love of my life felt totally fulfilled and lacking in any hidden desires. I was sure that if something occurred to her that she would say it, and together we would explore her new hobby idea. Just like that time when she had suggested that I get ‘Plaice’ not Cod for Friday’s tea! That had been a bit interesting, and just to please her you understand, I had deliberately got one Plaice and had even extended on her idea, by adding a pickled onion each to the order. What a successful night that had been!

My life could get no better or so I thought, until that was I got up on that dim overcast Tuesday morning, and as I always did, I made her a nice cup of tea and a boiled egg with neatly decrusted soldiers. She was sitting up in her bed, her hair net placed on the bedside cabinet I had made especially for her, she looked at me as I entered the room carrying her tray.

“Darling do you think that you might do something exciting for me?” She smiled and I just said “Yes” and waited…

“Darling, could you get your coat and go outside and have an adventure, without me. Then once you have explored the whole world, return and tell me all about it.”

What was I to say, what could I do but please my loving angel, so without hesitation I put down her tray and turned to go.

“Darling” she called to me; I half turned and waited.

“Make it a long detailed and exciting adventure, I won’t expect you home for tea this year or maybe even next.”

“Yes my love, well I will be off now to start my adventuring and see you again as soon as they are completed, I might even be able to take a few photos if I remember to take the camera.” I added.

I of course would deliberately forget the camera as so far I had failed to take a single photograph with it. The damn thing just did not like me and I guess I did not like it either, so no camera.

She listened intently hearing the front-door close, he was gone at last she thought. With the tray ignored and its lovingly prepared breakfast going cold; she shoved it away from her and across the double bed. She looked out of the window just catching sight of her boring husband as he walked away from their house. Quickly she pulled on a pair of leather jeans, and removed a matching leather jacket and a motorcycle helmet from within a box secretly kept beneath the bed. He was gone and she was ready, she left the bedroom intent on enjoying an adventure of her own.

Well reader of my scrawled musings and adventures, you now know how I came to be the challenger of all perception. What you do not know is how I developed the ability to slip from one universe place, across the dead separating void of almost nothing into an almost identical place to the one I had just departed from, but on a parallel universe. Now that was a mouth full to say!