The Uneven Passage of Time
Time, famously, is relative. In this trio of short stories journalist and fiction writer Jason R. Ward looks at three individuals and their unorthodox journeys through time. Although they deal with travelling through time, they all take place in the present. These entertaining tales blend the themes of psychology and perception with classic science fiction.
Stephen Hawking once sent out dinner invitations to all future time travellers. No one turned up. But what if one had? In ‘A Date to Remember’ a young physicist is convinced he has worked out the secret to building a time travel device. Lacking the resources to construct the machine he sets a time and date for a meeting with his future self.
It is a truism that people remember the big events in life and forget the repetitive. For most people, their year skips by unnoticed, punctuated by birthdays, world events, big personal milestones or traumatic events. As you age life seems to speed up and you find that the years seem to fly past. ‘As Time Goes By’ is the story of Frank Gilbert who is experiencing this to the extreme. His time seems to be accelerating at an abnormal rate. Years of his repetitive life seem to go by in days. Can he break the cycle in time?
The final and longest short story is ‘The Man Who Loved Statues’. Captain Michael Pike is a man who has taken a bit of hammering in life. With nothing much to live for he volunteers for an experiment that is going to attempt to alter his passage through time and put him in stasis. Things don’t go quite according to plan
#3 Science Fiction Short Stories
#7 Short Stories
Cooperworld
In the near future, AI research is strictly controlled by paranoid governments. When a renowned Artificial Intelligence expert illegally decides to create digital life in a simulated universe, he doesn’t at first realise the implications of what he has done. Implications not just for him, but for everyone.
In this short story, journalist and writer Jason R. Ward has a light-hearted but fairly philosophical look at what constitutes consciousness and has a good hard look at how we perceive reality.
Australia, Morocco, Thailand. Three True Travel Tales
Jason Ward tells three true stories of fairly perilous travel.
While backpacking in his early twenties, he decides to give fruit picking a go. Even without the spiders, snakes, and a plague of locusts, things turn out pretty badly.
A trip into the Atlas Mountains with his girlfriend turns out less than romantic when flash floods threaten to wipe out the town. The only escape option is a van full of Berber tribesmen and a waterlogged road on the edge of a cliff.
After moving to the peaceful paradise of Thailand, Ward goes to a local pub near his Bangkok flat. That evening there is a military coup. In Bangkok. So why can’t he see anything?
These stories are filled with humour and dollops of fear. Recommended for those who enjoy travel stories or just like reading about someone being mildly terrified in foreign countries.
For the UK
Haunted Thailand: Ghosts and Spirits in the Land of Smiles
In sunny Thailand there are a lot of things that go bump in the night. Ranging from grotesque to seductive, disgusting to cute, malevolent to benevolent, in the ‘Land of Smiles’ ghosts and spirits are everywhere. Although predominantly Buddhist, Thais strongly believe in spirit worship and this, combined with the love of a good grisly tale means there are some fascinating undead wandering around. As a journalist based in Bangkok, Jason R Ward had been hired to write an article on Thai ghosts and hauntings but after a bit of research realized an 800 word piece was, frankly, not going to cut it.
Read about some of the more famous spirits such as the bloodthirsty Mae Nak, an undead woman who won’t take her death lying down and is willing to kill to keep her secret; a Krasue – a surprisingly attractive flying female head with dangling entrails and a truly disgusting diet; or a Praet, a twenty-foot tall invisible entity with colossal hands, a minuscule mouth, and a raging hunger. As if they weren’t enough, there are other stories, including hauntings at the international airport, pretty women who are actually seductive tree spirits and even a ghost who lives in the toilet that helps out with nightmares. Add to the mix spells, rituals, the occult and it is a wonder Thais leave the house at night.
Haunted Thailand brings together some of the better known tales of the region and a few that even the locals may not know. Dim the lights and enjoy…
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