Child's Play

A Spaceman's Story #1

by Guerin Zand

I had just been laid off from another job and had enough money set aside to take a long overdue sabbatical. I had spent the last 30+ years as a software engineer and to say I was a little disappointed in how my life turned out was probably an understatement. In fact, I was disappointed with just about everything in my world. The optimist says the glass is half full. The pessimist says the glass is half empty. I always said I wanted a bigger glass! As a little boy, I had seen a man land on the moon and I wanted in on that. My first disappointment was that to be an astronaut I had to become a military pilot first. When I found out a near-sighted boy could never be a military pilot I was crushed. Later in life, I thought that I could still be a part of this new future by getting a degree in Aeronautical Engineering, so I did. This of course just led to more disappointment when the manned space program pretty much ended. Sure, we had a shuttle, but that turned out to be just a big space truck to haul junk into orbit and now we didn’t even have that. The great nation I called home, that once put a man on the moon, has to beg rides from the Russians to get to the International Space Station now. Women, in general, were a disappointment as well. I say in general because I guess you can’t really count your mother in that group. Don’t get me wrong. I liked having sex with women, but they always expected more, go figure. They wanted their man to have a good job to be a serious candidate for a future husband but when that involved travelling a lot, that was a problem. I’m sure there was some solution to this problem but I didn’t have time for that. I settled for the simple, fun and meaningless relationships instead. It was far less disappointing. So there I was, just walking my dog one day, when a beautiful young woman came to take me away in her spaceship, or at least that’s what she said. I didn’t believe her of course, but I didn’t really have any other great plans for the day so I decided to play along. I wasn’t really expecting much so I didn’t think I would be disappointed by this decision. Once again, I was wrong.

296 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 12, 2017

About the author

I was born into the age of manned space flight and watched as a small child when Man took their first steps on the moon. Of course I wanted to be an astronaut and at the time that meant joining the Air Force to become a pilot first. Back in those days, before the miracle of corrective eye surgery, one had to have perfect eyesight. I didn’t so my plans had to change. Instead I went to college and became an Aeronautical Engineer.

Life has a way of determining our future, regardless of our own plans, and it turned out my talent was software. Computational fluid dynamics requires one to be proficient in programming and I was. I was so good at this that for the majority of my career I have worked as a Software Engineer. I started working in flight simulation and being able to play with multi-million dollar toys used to train our military fighter jocks was a blast. Eventually I specialized in the interfaces between hardware and software. We are a small group in the industry compared to other fields in the software industry and we are usually in high demand.

It’s been a rewarding career, for the most part, but now I have taken a break from all of that to write. Will this be my second career? I can’t say for sure but I enjoy writing and if people enjoy my work then maybe life will take me in that direction.

Reviews

[john · Rating 5 out of 5]

Refreshing read

Refreshing point of view. The authors perspective is, in my opinion, exactly how I would like to think I would handle myself in the MC's shoes. You won't be disappointed reading this story!

[Iori · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was amazing, even though there were lot of typos and bad grammar it was awesome. Space Babes, anger management and lot of drama.

[George Price · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this story. I am now reading the second book in this saga. I recommend it to all those who enjoy a dose of imaginative unreality as a way to unwind from all the demands in our busy work, social, and family lives.
Pure unadulterated, and enjoyable, escapism.