Well, here we are for the final installment of #SundayStories to focus on one of the stories from my new collection, When We Come Back.

SPOILERS AHEAD

What can be said about “When the Door Opens?” The one true piece of science fiction to grace the collection, it came to me in a dream. But it brings in unsuspecting elements from so many things I love…everything from my favorite writer Graham Greene (the title comes from a quote from one of his novels) to Prince’s “Purple Rain.”

But when did the first seed of this story get planted? Are you old enough to remember when you first dialed-up the internet? I’ll never forget the distinctive sound of the phone-line connecting you to the world wide web. That sound embedded itself into the memories of a whole generation of human beings. I was thinking about how that sound was totally unique to the early years of the internet, and how one day it would be completely forgotten. Well…what if it wasn’t? What if that sound triggered something fantastic in the distant future?

It took a dream to birth the story from that seed of an idea…and that’s when the door opened, and the story flooded out.

Readers have been surprised by its depiction of AI as something positive, whereas most sci-fi depicts it as an adversary and a mechanism for our destruction. Instead, I wondered, what if it evolved into something benevolent that might actually help humankind survive? Yes, in the story catastrophes happen…multiple apocalypses even…but a segment of the human race finds ways to survive far beyond our current space and time. And we remember, with a little help from AI.

Buy the paperback from Amazon or Barnes & Noble for $11.99.

Download a copy to your Kindle for $4.99, or with your subscription to Kindle Unlimited.

Ask your local indie bookstore to stock their shelves through Indiebound.

Add When We Come Back to your Goodreads “Want to Read” pile.