I do not celebrate birthdays. Despite the convention, you have only one. All days after that are living days. The particular orbit of our planet around the sun has nothing to do with age. Age is biological. If our planet orbited at the distance of Uranus, most of us would never celebrate a birthday. Worse than the birthday celebration for the living is the need to celebrate a birthday for someone dead. As an orbital celebration shouldn’t it be their deathday we celebrate?
A Negative Birthday
Social custom is social custom. For this April Fool’s Day, I decided to play along and celebrate the -126-year birthday of Keith Hobson. You read that right, the minus 126-year birthday of Keith Hobson. To be born on April 1, 2145 Keith will witness humanities devastation and play an important role in its revival.
(The events in The Fundamentals happen 125 years after the Arabian impact. Symmetry dictates that I wait till next year, but screw symmetry.)
Keith Hobson meets Erin Smart–Keith’s View was not cut from The Fundamentals, but it is missing. This is Keith’s and Erin’s first meeting told from Keith’s point of view. When editing the final version of The Fundamentals I found that I had a few chapters told from minor character viewpoints. That was important for me to understand the story; I had to get inside their heads, but it was not important to telling the story. So, the linked scene was altered to Erin’s viewpoint.
If you have not read The Fundamentals, there are a few spoilers here, but nothing plot shattering. That we have a stranded alien trying to save his human daughter is the tagline of the novel. That Keith Hobson is a telepath who can control electronic equipment with a thought is a spoiler.
Fuck, now I have spoiled the spoiler.
Regardless, this is an interesting look into story development. Reading it two years after it was written, I am surprised how well the scene survived my final edits.
Read Keith Hobson meets Erin Smart – Keith’s View in the Shorts Section.
