Note: My Thanks again to Rebecca MacKinnon and Georgia Popplewell for selecting another Jenius post to Global Voices. It always surprises Me.
How indescribably odd this is... For weeks I've been thinking about an amazing short story titled "Slow Tuesday Night", an overlooked minor classic of science fiction writing by R.A. Lafferty. The basic premise is simple: Humanity speeded up. I read the story over 20 years ago and it stuck like few stories do, for not only was it engaging and fascinating in a "What I could do with this!" way, but it presented an uncanny prediction of Our very future.
For weeks I've been thinking about digging into My stored stacks of books for the Galaxy anthology the story's in, a much-thumbed red paperback bought for 10 cents at the 2-for-1 Paperbacks store in Oxford, MS. (I'm shading into GCSPrank territory here.) Instead of doing that, I sat down to surf the Web.
Imagine My surprise, My simple astonishment, to see in Metafilter a post that reads: Slow Tuesday Night by one Rafael Aloyius Lafferty.
I reread the story, with much joy. It still resonates with Me and I hope you take the time to read it. Won't take long, but I bet you won't forget it, either.
The Internet: I think I'll keep it.
The Jenius Has Spoken.
1 comment:
These three science fiction short stories are among my favorites:
1. Oceanic, by Greg Egan. On another planet someone discovers the "reason" for religion. It's religion-denouncing SF at it's best.
2. The Days Of Solomon Gursky, by Ian MacDonald. The human race becomes god, conquers the universe itself and begins anew. This story has been done before, but none have done it better.
3. An Idiot Rode To Majra, by J. Simon. Conquered people resist religion with lies. This is the most enchanting and cleverly written story I have ever read, almost every line is a lie.
Sadly, the only one available on the internet is Oceanic... I'll see if I have the third one scanned and send it to you...
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