Posts Tagged ‘scifi’


Thanks to my lovely wife I got a night to myself, away from kids and responsibilities.  I closed up in a coffee shop and dedicated myself to my favourite creative pursuit.  Have a read and let me know what you think in the comments.  Thanks for taking to time to explore my work.

Drew

 

 

“This is probably a waste of time.  

 

So much of our time and effort and resources have all been for nothing, so I feel this small waste of time is only fitting.  We conquered the stars, we escaped the death of our own planet.  I guess if you are still out there somewhere and you somehow get this message…  maybe you can learn something from it.”

(more…)


I am enjoying a return to writing and hopefully will have opportunity to stretch my creative needs more often.  Thank you for your interested and for accepting the sporadic nature of the updates on this site.

 

 

 

Weather When Requested

 

“That’s impossible!”

A slow grin crept onto the face of Cecil Leach, a climate scientist and hobbyist inventor.  Mostly a homebody, he occasionally liked to hang out in coffee shops and people-watch.  Lost in his own world, typing away on his laptop, he was startled by the quizzical proddings of a young woman that, even at first glance, appeared to be his polar opposite.

Eden Teller had a bright streak of green in her wild hair, unapologetic horn rimmed glasses and she seems to be wearing every conceivable colour at once.  She had an infectious smile and evidently harboured no hesitation in walking up to a complete stranger, mid work-flow, and asking: (more…)


This story is somewhat inspired by documentaries such as Cut Poison Burn and Food Matters and somewhat inspired by the mere idea of looking for alternate solutions to complex problems.  As a technician I once stayed up for days trying to fix a complex Radar system while at sea.  In the end the problem was solved when I talked through the fault with a steward on board, someone with no formal electronics training.  Sometimes problems just need that outside eye to come up with a solutions that would never have arisen on its own.  I hope you enjoy reading it, if you do please share it with someone and leave a comment.  Thank you for your time.

Leave it to the Professionals

“Vitamin C.  Do you know what it does?” Posed the somewhat unkempt man at the Feed your Soul nutrition store.  To say the store wasn’t corporate would be a massive understatement.

“Well, it prevents Scurvy, so that’s good.” Replied Laura Shandler, a 45 year old confirmed bachelorette with no children who had been called kooky so often, she had begun to intentionally embody the term.

“We only know that because Vitamin C deficiencies lead to Scurvy.  Fact is, that is how we know what all vitamins do.  Deprive the body of any nutritional metric and you will start to see it break down.  In the case of Vitamin C you lose enzyme reactions, one such reaction leads to an inability to make new collagen or heal wounds, that’s what leads to the symptoms of what we call Scurvy.”

“Okay…”

“But that doesn’t really answer our question does it?  The AMA would have you believe that process elimination is enough to understand the true nature of something.  Without nutrients we die, without certain specific nutrients, specific bodily functions start to breakdown.  Therefore, we assume the positive benefits of a substance to be the inverse of the negative side-effects produced by its deficiency.  It’s all a bit of a loop really, the piece that we are still missing is what these vitamins do for us, their real purpose.  We can only discover that by taking huge doses of one specific vitamin at a time, scientific method.” (more…)


Long while since my last story, I have been a sea quite a bit which I don’t find overly conducive to writing.  I had 80% of this story written for a long time and while visiting Portland Oregon I finally had some time in a couple of coffee shops to finish it and prepare it to be published.  It is a concept that fascinates me and that we are not far from, there are already several product coming to market that almost fit this description and I will be watching the market reaction closely.  This one is a little longer at about 4300 words, thanks for taking the time to read my work and visiting my site, I am grateful for the chance to share my stories.  Enjoy.

Ditch the plate, dine with Plait!

Around 1995 was the pinnacle of guilt-free eating, since then the other foot really fell in terms of the obesity epidemic and the long term health risks of certain foods.  As global communities grew in size and influence with the prevalence of the internet, access to information also grew.  This started with simple food information and a better understanding of food labels but in time proper nutrition was no longer something you needed a professional nutritionist to guide you through.  In the early 2000s online nutritional information made a shift, instead of just talking about how bad processed foods were or how much our eating habits were affecting out health, the topic changed to sharing information of good nutrition.  The word “Superfood” entered the global lexicon and the food industry was never the same.  (more…)


Hello all, I was away sea so I apologize for the delayed post.  I really thought that Sea time would be conducive to writing but it doesn’t seem to work out that way.  I prefer to be in a dark room, with a hot cup of tea and the sounds of rain at my window or in a crowded coffee shop, fervently people-watching to help me build new characters.  Today’s sharing is not my best work but certainly a long way from my worst.  Hopefully you enjoy reading it, feel free to let me know what you think in the comments.  Thanks for your time, I know there are a lot of demands on it.

Rumours and Imaginations

Interstellar travel, it has piqued the minds of every person who has ever tilted their chin up and really had a look.  Throughout human history people have always looked to the stars.  At first they simply wondered what they were and in doing so made up fanciful stories of great beings and how it all came to be.  Once the discovery was made that those little twinkly lights were actual locations that you could conceivably travel to, the spark was lit.  Unfortunately it wasn’t long before it was also discovered that they are far away, really surprisingly stupefyingly inordinately far away.  Due to that ludicrous distance it was quickly discovered that humans don’t yet have the means to get there.  That didn’t stop the need to study them, after some time these oppressive distances could be calculated with an impressive level of accuracy but that only served to drive home just how unattainable these stars were to conventional forms of travel. (more…)


I am sorry if this story took a while to get out but I set up another challenge for myself.  This time the whole story is being told entirely with dialog.  There isn’t a narrative word in the whole 2700, not is a “he said”, “she said”.  Hopefully that doesn’t disrupt the flow of the story too much.  Enjoy.

The Cost of Love

“Good evening gentlemen, if you would all please take your seats. The opening portion of these sorts of talks would normally start with an introduction and a quick telling of my background to justify what I am presenting. I think you will forgive my interest in privacy and permit a pseudonym for our interactions. Once I had completed my research I sought out a discrete group of ad men, if such a thing exists. We went through a battery of titles to present the product with: DR. Love was deemed too derivative, DR. Cupid was too cutesy, DR. Fix-up sounded like an after school TV program. In the end we settled on DR. Link, so from this point forward, all referrals and interactions shall refer my organization and indeed myself as DR. Link. (more…)


I can’t and wont guarantee this kind of update rate.  When writing strikes me I will indulge it, when I need to take care of other tasks, there may be a lull.  I am after all the father of a 13 month old, and that can take up a lot of time and energy.  At any rate, here is the next Multiversal Yarn.  Let me know what you think.

Brain-Feed

Arthur Wilson was an Electronic Engineer by trade and a noted inventor. His creations had provided a comfortable life; he often worked from a shop build into the home he shared with his wife Edna. They had a very happy marriage and before long Edna had become pregnant.

As an inventor and creator, the concept of teaming up with his spouse to create a new life was something that fascinated Arthur greatly. He went out of his way to look after his wife and made sure she wanted for nothing during the pregnancy. Any spare time however, was spent busily in his shop creating new products for their child and in time for the mass market of baby products. (more…)


I wanted to challenge myself to write a 3000+ word short story with absolutely no dialog, purely narrative driven.  Here is the result.  Hope you enjoy, please leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Mental Prototype 

            In the late 20th century, we mapped the human genome it was a fantastic achievement. Who could have guessed what that would lead to? In the early 21st century in-utero genetic testing for defects and genetic diseases was the norm. There was however, a byproduct to this altruistic prevention of crippling disorders, there were other tools available in the human genome; This gave way to the so called “designer babies”.

It started with simple things like choosing your child’s eye colour, but it wasn’t long before someone found the genetic markers for metabolism and started to tweak resting musculature and body fat content. The paradigm shift however came when Dr. Arturo Blain found a way to alter the immune system’s response to wounds, diseases and even the effects of aging. (more…)


Drone eye

Through the Eyes of a Drone

A Multiversal Yarn by Drew Torchia

Bartholomew Alvarez was walking to work on a perfectly typical day. He worked for a problem solving think-tank organization knows as Unfuckers Inc. Because it was their business model to be “outside the box” thinkers, their rather non-PC name had granted them more business than it lost them. Bartholomew’s title on his business cards even listed him as a “Professional Unfucker”.

They had worked for major employers looking to downsize and be more efficient, small companies looking to keep up with modern technology but more than anything they worked with police and government authorities to evolve search and capture techniques, getting criminals off the streets faster than ever before. If everything worked smoothly the company would be bankrupts in days but in our busy modern reality, Unfuckers Inc. was an overnight success. (more…)


I have always been fascinated with the complexities of modern society.  It is interesting to think of all of the little innovations humans have brought to the world.  What would happen if they didn’t all happen in the exact order that they did?  What would happen if one new item was thrown in the mix?  Where would that leave us?  What would happen if “x” technology or geo-political movement were to happen today?

Multiverse theory suggests that every decision made by every human divides the universe into each of the possible outcomes of that choice.  There is a universe where you chose the green car instead of the silver one and that choice affected life in that universe.  I will endeavour to write short stories about these alternate histories and potential futures with the intent of eventually turning a selection of deserving tales into full novels. 

I invite and encourage comments to tell me what stories you liked or dislike and what caused you to feel that way.  Feel free to propose ideas for future stories and let me know if you read one that you feel deserve the time and effort of writing a full novel.  Thanks for visiting.

Also check out my self-help/Stress Management book called Appropriate Detachment.