First Time

Recognizing a good story when you see one is not always easy if you let your own prejudices and convictions get in the way. Samuel Ben White has a good story to tell. He puts a lot of what is near and dear to his own heart into his time travel adventures. Is the writing perfect? No. Is the science behind the time travel valid? Some would argue that time travel is not and never will be possible. But that’s why they call it science fiction. Jules Verne’s sci-fi stories seemed totally outrageous at the time. But many of his fanciful conjectures are reality now. My creative writing instructor in college always told me to write about what you know. I always thought that was good advice. I’ve read sci-fi since the fifties growing up with Asimov, Heinlein, and Clarke. So when I decided to do some writing, I naturally chose sci-fi as the genre for my stories since that is what I knew best. Is the science in my stories totally one hundred percent accurate? No, probably not. Most of what makes my story sci-fi is pure speculation on my part. But that’s what makes this genre so exciting to me. I am a big fan of “What if?”

  Samuel Ben White is a Christian Minister so he chose to write about what he knows best. I for one can’t fault him for that. Hard core sci-fi fans won’t like my stories any more than his. Should we have both just kept them to ourselves for that reason? No way! I can’t speak for everyone, but I thoroughly enjoyed Mr. White’s time travel adventures. I was also totally intrigued by his portrayal of “Marcus”. Oh, how it made me wish I had a friend like that! As I read about him, I realized finally that I already did. So if Mr. White reached no one else with his work of fiction, he reached me. And that, my friends, was well worth the effort. I just hope that my own story will reach at least one person profoundly as his did me, and that one person will look up from the pages of my book (overlooking the little boo boos here and there) and say, “Wow, what if?”