The most crazed of you might have already noticed that, as of this morning, my short story “The Test of Time” is now available at Amazon. This is a fun short story that first appeared in Mike Resnick’s Return of the Dinosaurs. It was always highly rated back when it was on the now-defunct Fictionwise, and I’m happy to bring it back here.
Here’s what Thomas Marcinko of Tangent had to say about it:
“Sometimes humans have to visit the dinosaurs on their own turf. Ron Collins offers a colorful tour of prehistory in “The Test of Time.” His tale of a scientist marooned in the past by a sleazy assistant who wants to swipe his invention has a not-unpleasant old-style pulp feeling to it.”
Here is a little bit I wrote about its origin:
I’ve always been afraid of time travel stories, because of their inherent disregard of physics and all the weird paradoxes associated with the concept. Besides, David Gerrold wrote the ultimate of time travel stories in The Man Who Folded Himself. Who was I to challenge that?
Ron Collins, that’s who!
The particulars of this story came to me in a roundabout fashion. I had written a little opening with an off-world Tyrannosaurus rex clone chasing a guy into a cave. Originally, our hero was an Indiana Jones type guy. But that was to change after I realized this actually happened some sixty-five million years ago. That’s when Professor Gregory Paul was brought into being. Moments later, I knew how the story would end. Knowing how it would end made me adjust the story opening, leaving the T. rex for a middle-of-the-story chase scene. The clip at the top of the page is the new opening.
Hope everyone enjoys it.