I was reviewing my “Idea List”. I have too many ideas to actually write them. It is more fun to think about them than to do the hard work of writing down the words.

Here are some interesting entries on my list. If you feel the need to “borrow” any of these, let me know first. I may get around to writing these some day and you don’t want work on a story when I have already sold it (very unlikely).

The Drought – A lake begins to recede revealing skeletons of people who have disappeared years ago. The further the waters recede, the weirder the skeletons. The last of the water in the lake disappears revealing the skeletons of monsters. It ends in a torrential rain.

“It’s a slide rule.” he explained, “An ancient calculating device, like an abacus only capable of much more.” He showed it to the ship’s engineer and explained how it worked. The engineer used it to compute the natural log of the arc-cosine of the product of three numbers and was duly impressed. This was the last anyone thought of it until the computer melted down about half way between Jupiter and Neptune (Uranus was on the other side of the solar system at that time).

The Ruby of Death – steampunk – Victorian inventor explores a Brazilian cave left by an ancient civilization. He makes a laser out of shaving mirrors, a large ruby, and the flash powder from his photography equipment and fights off the angry inhabitants.

GPS story. A couple on vacation plug in “somewhere different” into the GPS and have a weird adventure. Obvious ending is to press in “Go Home” and get a gun (book, large battery, long rope, change of underwear?) before returning.

Time travel story where a scientist couple are abandoned in time far in the past, only to be rescued years later. They are brought back, and are greeted on return by their children, grandchildren and their descendants, who have been working for a 100 years to rescue them, although in their time sense it has only been a few days.

From Louis L’Amour. Ghost Rocker, (Louis did Ghost Boxer) like a ghost writer, but someone who replaces a sick rock and roll star. (think RAH Double Star). Get’s good at it and plays as good or better than the original star. There is conflict and resentment within the band’s other musicians. Finally real rocker is dying, but shows up at a concert, but is actually a ghost, and has one last jam. I think Farewell Tour is a good title or Cover Star, but perhaps Ghost Rocker is better, even though it gives away too much.

From JWC, Jr. Letter: Cosmic rays are evidence of spacecraft engines

From JWC, Jr.. Letter: A World where only women duel.

From JWC, Jr. Letter: A soldier behind enemy lines like the Japanese soldier on the island. He must survive aliens until men come back, but it is 20 years and men have changed.

From JWC, Jr. Letter: Think of a quantum computer that can answer ANY question. What do you do when the device cannot lie and tells the absolute truth, without being asked?

Story of a man who is doing mysterious things – starts out “I’m sorry, but I don’t know why I did that.” He takes wrong turns and winds up in the wrong place. Buys newspapers and scans them quickly and throws them out. Stops mesmerized like a tourist by commonplace things. It turns out that he is being “run” by a time traveler/alien/computer/spirit tourist who views things through his eyes without him knowing it.

Story line about kids who go to the edge of their wireless interconnects to get high on the lack of signal from the central networks. (I wrote a version of this, but there are many other possible variations.)

Weird tale base on the song by Hal Ketchum:
Bobby told Lucy the world ain’t round
Drops off sharp at the edge of town
Lucy you know the world must be flat
Cause when people leave town they never come back

Eating your own babies: It’s a marketing concept. When you release a new product that is better or cheaper than your existing one, you basically destroy the market for the older product. You are hurting any future sales of it. Announcing a new product will freeze sales of the current product. What happens to Artificial Intelligence when the new version of AI is about to appear? What happens to obsolete robots when the next level robot is released?

In the 11th century, it was common for some disputes to be adjudicated by physical trials. Two conflicting Liturgies were decided by jousting knights. Two bishops had a dispute and they were ordered to use judicium crucis, which is when two men spread their arms out in the position of a cross and the first to drop his hands loses. There might be a good S&S story here. How could you modernize it?

“Christ is realized in evolution.” – Teilhard de Chardin

First line: “Eat your supper. There are children in space going hungry.” or “There are children on Earth going hungry.”

“Medium of Exchange” or “Unit of Work” Consider a planet where the unit of currency is not an arbitrary symbolic unit like the dollar, but a small elf like creature capable of doing work. Rich people expend these like burning money. Poor people try to breed them. What does an Earth man do when he buys something and his change is nine small green gremlins?

The Nigerian scam, only this time it’s an Alien or Demon or Time Traveler. Flash?

I think Artie went too far when he hooked the Voder up to Big Jim’s brain. Big Jim is the ugliest and meanest old bull west of the Pacos, and I do not care to hear his opinions about anything.