Prof leaves job--thanks to politics/corruption in academia--goes into business, and develops a revolutionary receiver that leads him to locate some stranded aliens who were trying to phone home...
Ring any bells?
Prof leaves job--thanks to politics/corruption in academia--goes into business, and develops a revolutionary receiver that leads him to locate some stranded aliens who were trying to phone home...
Ring any bells?
That might possibly be "Time of Arrival" by Artie. There are a couple of minor points of divergence:
- it was a research company
- he had developed a clock, accurate to nanoseconds
- the clocks were misbehaving. All at once.
- the aliens were trying to get their ftl drive to work.
That story was posted on Asstr, not here and he pulled all of his stories some time around the end of 2011. If you find the PDF using the Wayback machine, look for ftp.asstr.org/pub/Authors/artie/text/tdoa.pdf after Sep 20 2011 (does wayback do PDFs?) or www.asstr.org/~artie/tdoa.html if it does not.
That might possibly be "Time of Arrival" by Artie.
I have this under the name of "Silly Artie". Is that the same author? It's 9 chapters and I think that's all there is but it looks unfinished. It did come from asstr I think.
He also called himself Silly Artie but as you can see from those two pseudo-links, his actual handle was artie.
It was unfinished, he had resumed posting new chapters and stories after his stroke but then suddenly announced that he was going to pull everything.
He had "messed with the franchise" and markedly changed the direction a story was going (Open Clinic) and then decided to stop altogether one or two days later. My suspicion is that someone reacted to the change by getting abusive and he decided life was too short for this s***.
Oh, and you have everything. Nine chapters is as far as he got. The first chapter originally stood alone but he then changed his mind and made a series out of it.
He also called himself Silly Artie but as you can see from those two pseudo-links, his actual handle was artie.
Thank you. Now I can move that single story under the rest I have from Artie.
This story (TDoA) has come up in a previous discussion.
But, I don't think TDoA is the requested story, too much doesn't match: as above, plus he's not a professor, it's not set in academia, he developed the clock before being forced out of his job, and he's shanghaied by the aliens.
@Vlad_Inhaler
his actual handle was artie
..which apparently came from his initials (RT).
he's shanghaied by the aliens
Nope. They asked him, and . . .
"Let's get off this rock," I told her.
But:
We'll do the patterning, and when you wake up, you'll be a member of the crew."
"On the way to Shanghai," I muttered.
Nikki looked puzzled, then blushed a bit.
Tarah laughed. I turned to her.
"We just located that reference, and it's not entirely unsatisfactory."
ok, it may or not be the story. Suggesting Doctor Russell did not go of his own free will though, it does not hold up.
Nikki ran out of steam. Tarah nodded and sighed. "Terry, Doctor Russell, Nikki reminded me that we haven't tested things out. We may yet have problems." She looked to Nikki, then to me. "And yes, it isn't fair. But life isn't fair. I know I'm asking you to make a decision on the spur of the moment, and while you're still in an emotional state. But dammit, I need an Engineer! Terry, you have a choice, and it has to be made right now. We need an Engineer. Do you want the job? If you do, we leave tonight, and we'll never return."
More tears, but different tears. I fought for control, smiling through them, feeling them burn.
"Let's get our asses off this damned rock," I whispered.
Both of them smiled. I did see tears on Nikki's face, and Tarah's.
"No turning back?" Tarah asked.
"No turning back. Go. Now."
You have obviously re-read this part of the story so I don't understand why it is not obvious.
Thanks, everyone. I reckon this *is* the one I was looking for--and probably one of those that caused me to decide never to start reading an online tale before it is complete.
[sigh] and thanks again
If it's some consolation, he originally wrote Chapter 1 as a standalone story in 2004. The rest was tacked on starting 2006 and I thought he changed the personality of the spiders a bit between chapters 1 and 2.
Imagine there's only one chapter
it isn't hard to do
nothing about redesigning star drives
and no Pingri Nest too
(bows and runs for the hills)
It sounds like he might have fallen victim to what appears to be a unique online trap for writers. Namely instead of writing a sequel to a previously finished story. He reopened the story and started adding onto it. I know some writers do not think that trap exists but I think it does. Pity is both the writer and the reader are affected by it.
I thought that Roger Zelazny's Nine Princes in Amber was originally going to be just one book, then two, then the franchise got rolling.
The only other multi-book saga I remember from him was Dilvish the Damned and that was a kind of special case which stopped at two volumes anyway.
The point is they write a sequel. They do not rewrite the finished book by adding on to the end. They write a second or third or whatever the number of the sequel. Each one becomes a story in itself. I admit the reader misses a lot of the story if they don't read the entire series beginning with the first story. Where online publishing/posting the writer can reopen the story and after making a few changes at the end. Begin adding onto the story with out writing a sequel. Very risky since real life can and does cause major interruptions or stoppages in the writing.
They do not rewrite the finished book by adding on to the end.
While I will agree that dead-tree writers will not re-write a novel by adding to the end, that doesn't mean that they have never taken one or more short stories and expanded those short stories into novels.
One example I think of would be "2001: A Space Odyssey" by Arthur C Clarke which was partially based on Clarke's short story "The Sentinel", written in 1948 as an entry in a BBC short story competition, and "Encounter in the Dawn", published in 1953 in the magazine Amazing Stories.
Where online publishing/posting the writer can reopen the story and after making a few changes at the end. Begin adding onto the story with out writing a sequel.
While I don't have the original from when it was standalone, I do remember checking it over back then and deciding the only change was a link to the new chapter 2.
The difference is that with "Dead Tree" publishing as opposed to online publishing. The story is only printed via dead tree publishing when the book/story is finalized. With online publishing many times a writer posts/publishes as they write each chapter. Leading to the proverbial incomplete status that so many people complain about.
The story is only printed via dead tree publishing when the book/story is finalized.
I remember from a long, long time ago that some serial stories were published in a newspaper column. Dead Tree Serials, a different kind of serial killer ;)
True with similar risks as the online stories. Every form has its own unique risk factors both for the writers and the readers. Problems usually arise when those risks are ignored.
I remember from a long, long time ago that some serial stories were published in a newspaper column.
Didn't Arthur Conan Doyle's novels start life serialised in magazines (The Strand rings a bell)?
AJ
Didn't Arthur Conan Doyle's novels start life serialised in magazines (The Strand rings a bell)?
Don't know about that but it could very well be. I know the serials in newspapers and magazines were a marketing trick so customers didn't skip an edition because of costs. The better the author/serial, the better it worked.
Don't know about that but it could very well be. I know the serials in newspapers and magazines were a marketing trick so customers didn't skip an edition because of costs. The better the author/serial, the better it worked.
They probably had the completed story even if only one chapter was published per edition.
With online publishing many times a writer posts/publishes as they write each chapter. Leading to the proverbial incomplete status that so many people complain about.
Or you end up with a single story consisting of a thousand chapters (I am probably not exaggerating that much either)
Or you end up with a single story consisting of a thousand chapters (I am probably not exaggerating that much either)
Very true.