Racers of the Night: Science Fiction Stories by Brad R. Torgersen

Author:Brad R. Torgersen [Torgersen, Brad R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literature & Fiction, Anthologies & Literary Collections, General, Short Stories, anthologies, Science Fiction & Fantasy, science fiction, High Tech, Anthologies & Literature Collections, Genre Fiction, Anthologies & Short Stories, Hard Science Fiction
Amazon: B00MOWE102
Publisher: WordFire Press
Published: 2014-08-12T04:00:00+00:00

A few readers who saw this story when it originally appeared in the pages of Five by Five #2 complained that it wasn’t a finished tale, just the opening to what felt like a novel. And I confess: they’re right. The universe of Reardon’s Law is a big universe, and there is a lot more to this story than can be contained in a single novella. I hope readers who liked this story, and who want more, will be patient with me. My plan is to release additional “episodes” in subsequent volumes of the Five by Five series, and reprint them in my own subsequent collections. So if you’re thinking there’s more to come, you’re absolutely right. Meanwhile, I hope I can be forgiven for indulging in some good old fashioned rock-em-sock-em space opera. With a bit of political intrigue, heist action, and thriller material thrown in for good measure.

The character of Kal Reardon goes back over twenty years, to a lady I conjured up for that old sci-fi radio serial I used to do. At the time she was a civilian cop plunged into a civil war, and I retained pieces of the basic premise, while reversing Kal’s role: now she’s a military cop navigating a post-war world where trouble may boil over at any moment. Because in the minds of the defeated, the war hasn’t really stopped. There is no peace. Just a festering hatred against the Conflux, which has split the Ambit League into chunks, and keeps them all isolated from each other; or so the Conflux thinks.

If you’re wondering why I didn’t deliberately set either the Ambit League or the Conflux up as “good” and “bad” I wanted to make it clear that in this future history, the opposed political forces driving the war clearly see themselves serving the best interests of humanity, while in actuality they do what almost all governments have done: serve the personal interests of whichever brokers happen to have their hands on the levers at that particular time and in that particular place. It remains for the reader to decide which forces—if any—are worth supporting. Sometimes, you can root for a soldier, without necessarily rooting for the government she fights for?

Kal herself is someone my wife and I worked on for what we hoped—many years ago—might be her own audio serial. The project languished, but I always wanted to revive Kal for something in the future; as one of those characters I knew I simply had to include in some kind of big-scope bang-up thing. I also solicited the input of a former Army soldier who did time in Somalia, 1993-1994, and who had some fascinating opinions on what it’s like to be a woman carrying a rifle in an irregular war zone. So hat tip to Krista Krcmarik Kemper, and many thanks for sharing your thoughts.

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