Larry Niven/"Inconstant Moon"
Ken Jenks
Larry Niven's Hugo-award-winning short story, "Inconstant Moon," is now
available on-line at Mind's Eye Fiction:
http://tale.com/niven/inc-free.htm
US $0.64.
What would you do if this were your last night on earth?
-- Ken Jenks, Editor-in-chief, Mind's Eye Fiction
http://tale.com/ -- The First Web Publisher
Mind...@tale.com
Paine Ellsworth
Ken Jenks wrote:
>
<shear> spammahje (just kidding, {baa})
> What would you do if this were your last night on earth?
if given a choice, i would choose to stay,
if no choice to stay can be given this day,
i'd let out a cheer in a song so bright,
for the next great adventure beginning this night.
a deep voice comes out of the blue,
saying yup, that's what i would do too!
--
Delectably yours, Indelibly yours,
Paine (oh! precious Love -- transcending even last nights)
Ellsworth
news:...To.travel.is.to.discover.that.everyone.is
news:...wrong.about.other.countries.-Aldous.Huxley
Co-Co Puff
Ken Jenks wrote:
> US $0.64.
>
> What would you do if this were your last night on earth?
>
--
Co-Co Puff a.k.a. Corina Hansquine, a Canadian science fiction/fantasy
writer living in California. To send email, remove all-caps and include
my name in subject heading - this is my husband's email address.
HWASII (Heart with a smile in it) :-)
Rick Williams
In article <33590E08.5E71@qualcommSPAM_MUST_DIE.com>,
dhansqui@qualcommA_SLOW_HORRIBLE_DEATH.com wrote:
> Ken Jenks wrote:
> > US $0.64.
> >
> > What would you do if this were your last night on earth?
> >
I'd make sure I'd have gone to the john before I left.
MacKenzie
To contact me via e-mail, remove ZZ from my e-mail address.
Jack Mingo
Ken Jenks wrote:
>
> What would you do if this were your last night on earth?
Kill myself.
Jack (can't stand suspense) Mingo
Cassie Miller
YUP. Me too. But first I'd find a karaoke bar, get royally smashed and
sing, "The Impossible Dream." (Ops...*that* was last weekend!)
Cassy ~~livin' each day like it was the last~~ Miller
Ken Jenks
> > Ken Jenks wrote:
> > > What would you do if this were your last night on earth?
> Jack Mingo replied:
> > Kill myself.
> >
> > Jack (can't stand suspense) Mingo
Cassie Miller wrote back:
> YUP. Me too. But first I'd find a karaoke bar, get royally smashed and
> sing, "The Impossible Dream." (Ops...*that* was last weekend!)
>
> Cassy ~~livin' each day like it was the last~~ Miller
I'd take my wife to Astro World -- assuming it's still open. Disney
World would be better, of course, but a little harder to get to quickly.
I'd fly an airplane, eat too much, call my family and friends, stay up
all night, make love until I can't, write some last words.
Is there anyone you would murder? Whom and how?
Jo Walton
In article <33641B...@tale.com> Mind...@tale.com "Ken Jenks" writes:
> > > Ken Jenks wrote:
> > > > What would you do if this were your last night on earth?
>
> > Jack Mingo replied:
> > > Kill myself.
> > >
> > > Jack (can't stand suspense) Mingo
>
> Cassie Miller wrote back:
> > YUP. Me too. But first I'd find a karaoke bar, get royally smashed and
> > sing, "The Impossible Dream." (Ops...*that* was last weekend!)
> >
> > Cassy ~~livin' each day like it was the last~~ Miller
>
> I'd take my wife to Astro World -- assuming it's still open. Disney
> World would be better, of course, but a little harder to get to quickly.
> I'd fly an airplane, eat too much, call my family and friends, stay up
> all night, make love until I can't, write some last words.
It occurs to me reading this what a very *Californian* story "Inconstant
Moon" is. If it were England there would be certain practical difficulties
to the hot fudge sundae and so on, and also to your list, you may very well
keep at airplane at hand... I _know_ this is against the rasfw charter, and
I can't resist doing it anyway - I don't like in a village like this now,
but I have done...
The end of the world, in Duxford,
where the last bus leaves at six pm
and the one shop shuts at seven
and you find out at a quarter past
that the world is ending tonight,
and everyone all round the internet
is heading for Disneyworld
and flying aeroplanes and making love
and there you are, alone, in Duxford.
It might be worth calling a taxi
if there were anywhere in reach
you were sure you wanted to be,
if the taxis were running, if it wouldn't
be horribly, hideously, unfair, to
make a taxi driver waste two hours
so you could have a last and solitary lobster -
it's their end of the world too.
So you go outside and stand in damp grass
and look up at the cold far stars
where we're not going to make it,
at the velvet night, at the traitor moon,
that smiling shining friendly face
that lights the locked church, the playground,
the clean technology factory
and all the little closed-in houses
with strangers boxed inside who won't know or care.
The people you want to be with
(because it is the end of the world
after all, and you want to be with people
you care about for the end of the world)
are far away and out of reach, and busy
with their own last minute plans.
What could you do but disturb them
as the flame licks round the round world?
You go back in, put music on, boot up,
what's different, after all, what
does it change to change your choices?
The phone sits quiet on its perch and you spend
your last hours happily enough
reading usenet, answering email
(which does not importune) and writing poetry
like every night, because every night
is the end of the world, in Duxford.
--
Jo - - I kissed a kif at Kefk - - J...@kenjo.demon.co.uk
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Blood of Kings Poems at http://www.kenjo.demon.co.uk/
8 of Graydon's, 1 of Browning's, 17 of mine
...and a cheerful song about the end of the world
Graham Head
In article <862216...@kenjo.demon.co.uk>, Jo Walton
<J...@kenjo.demon.co.uk> writes
[Snipped end of the World choices...]
>It occurs to me reading this what a very *Californian* story "Inconstant
>Moon" is. If it were England there would be certain practical difficulties
>to the hot fudge sundae and so on, and also to your list, you may very well
>keep at airplane at hand... I _know_ this is against the rasfw charter, and
>I can't resist doing it anyway - I don't like in a village like this now,
>but I have done...
>
>The end of the world, in Duxford,
>where the last bus leaves at six pm
>and the one shop shuts at seven
>and you find out at a quarter past
>that the world is ending tonight,
>and everyone all round the internet
>is heading for Disneyworld
>and flying aeroplanes and making love
>and there you are, alone, in Duxford.
>
[Snipped rest of fine charter-breaking verse].
I remember sitting outside a splendid pub in the Lake District around
6pm one October evening, enjoying a pint after a great day out walking,
and wondering (as none of us wanted to walk the miles back to the hut)
whether we ought to catch the bus that had just pulled in to the car
park or wait for the next one...
...What decided us was the news that the next bus was not until April
4th...
--
Graham
David Given
In article <336278...@pacbell.net>, Jack Mingo <mi...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>Ken Jenks wrote:
>>
>> What would you do if this were your last night on earth?
Leave.
--
------------------- http://www-hons-cs.cs.st-and.ac.uk/~dg --------------------
If you're up against someone more intelligent than you are, do something
totally insane and let him think himself to death. --- Pyanfar Chanur
---------------- Sun-Earther David Daton Given of Lochcarron ------------------
je...@zenith.ikos.com
>>> What would you do if this were your last night on earth?
>
>Leave.
Grab my towel and hitchhike...
:-)
-Jeff Chan | These are my opinions. It would be
je...@ikos.com | quite silly if it was also my company's...
Warlock's real name is Skeeve.
Nancy Lebovitz
In article <862216...@kenjo.demon.co.uk>,
Jo Walton <J...@kenjo.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>It occurs to me reading this what a very *Californian* story "Inconstant
>Moon" is. If it were England there would be certain practical difficulties
>to the hot fudge sundae and so on, and also to your list, you may very well
>keep at airplane at hand... I _know_ this is against the rasfw charter, and
>I can't resist doing it anyway - I don't like in a village like this now,
Freudian slip?
>but I have done...
>
>The end of the world, in Duxford,
>where the last bus leaves at six pm
>and the one shop shuts at seven
>and you find out at a quarter past
>that the world is ending tonight,
>and everyone all round the internet
>is heading for Disneyworld
>and flying aeroplanes and making love
>and there you are, alone, in Duxford.
>
>is the end of the world, in Duxford.
>
I like the poem a lot--especially the traitor moon (though, really,
it isn't the moon's fault), the last solitary lobster, and the
last line and a half.
--
Nancy Lebovitz (nan...@universe.digex.net)
October '96 calligraphic button catalogue available by email!
mwb...@pld.com
> Jack Mingo <mi...@pacbell.net> writes:
> Ken Jenks wrote:
> >
> > What would you do if this were your last night on earth?
>
I would probably smash equipment at work or better yet, pour
a beer into the mainframe to see what happenes. I think the
electronics technicians would help me.
Then, I'd probably get quite intoxicated and "party" as frantically
as I could.
I doubt it I would hurt anyone as fears of an unpleasant afterlife
would stop me.
Mike
Paul Ciszek
I hear that Niven's _Inconstant Moon_ will be on next week's _Outer
Limits_.
Del Cotter
On Fri, 2 May 1997, in rec.arts.sf.written
Nancy Lebovitz <nan...@universe.digex.net> wrote
>I like the poem a lot--especially the traitor moon (though, really,
>it isn't the moon's fault), the last solitary lobster, and the
>last line and a half.
The moon line probably does look strange to an American, but the phrase
has too many resonances to the English to resist. If you like, you
could consider the moon a traitor to the Sun.
Thanks for the poem, Jo. Charters are for the undisciplined.
--
Del Cotter d...@branta.demon.co.uk
The US Tour Sat 23rd August - Sun 14th September 1997
Houston SanAntonio Phoenix Flagstaff GrandCanyon LakeMead LasVegas
DeathValley Yosemite NapaValley SanFrancisco TouristTipsGratefullyReceived