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eBook Category: Science Fiction Nebula Award(R) Nominee, Hugo Award Nominee
eBook Description: Alexander has a rare deformity that has driven the media into a frenzy. Can he overcome his strange appearance and accomplish more than his parents ever dreamed?

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: Analog, 1999
Fictionwise Release Date: December 2000

63 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [318 KB], eReader (PDB) [103 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [87 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [80 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [82 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [144 KB], hiebook (KML) [257 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [187 KB], iSilo (PDB) [72 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [89 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [153 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [119 KB]
Words: 26003
Reading time: 74-104 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED
ISBN: 1-930936-95-8

"Adam-Troy Castro and Jerry Oltion's "The Spaceman from Wyoming" exists in the day after tomorrow's world dominated by equal measure of tabloid-fed superstition and knee-jerk political correctness. The story covers Alexander Drier's life, a man, who by dint of a rare genetic condition, was born with the popular conception of an alien's face (think of the cover of Whitley Streiber's Communion). He grows up taunted and haunted by his appearance, and along the way develops a passion for space and space travel. Unfortunately, in this near future world, several countries have mounted space programs only to let them fade. Alex, however, perseveres.

"The story presents several beautiful, conflicting threads. First, it is a tale about engineering rigor and scientific thought set in a deluded society that appears to be only a slight caricature of our own. Second, it's a human story with a political message. Although it's risky to guess at the authors' intent, the narrator is clearly baffled/frustrated/angered by the moribund nature of the world's space effort. Finally, it is a funny story that is deeply sad.

"Adam-Troy Castro and Jerry Oltion have pulled off a rare, moving feat: a story that makes a strong, intellectual argument and never forgets along the way that it's about people."--James Van Pelt, Tangent Online (Learn more about Tangent Online, the Internet's leading SF&F short fiction review website)

To understand Alexander, you must first understand his time.

It was an age when the universe had been opened for us. We knew how to look at objects a thousand light years away, and map the molecules that gave them form; we knew how things were put together and how they could be taken apart; we knew how the universe began and how it was likely to end. We knew how to reason, and how to discover, and how to add new pages to our increasing store of information.

It was also an age when ignorance was enshrined over knowledge. Every local newspaper contained a horoscope. World leaders consulted astrologers; psychic hotlines made millions; and a United States Senator gained ten points in the polls by claiming to have been in contact with Ancient Aztecs. We knew what comets were, where they came from, and what they didn't foretell... but in a compound in San Diego, thirty-seven intelligent, college-educated people took poison because they believed that a comet called Hale-Bopp would take them to heaven if they did.

In Alexander's age, we had knowledge... and we had delusion. And we preferred the delusion.

You cannot understand Alexander Drier's life without understanding that.

You cannot understand his final gesture without understanding that.

Of course, Alexander's time is still our time. Which is why some of you are most interested in reading about a high-ranking government coverup of alien experiments on pregnant human women.

I can't help what you want. I knew that going in.

But that's not what happened.

Copyright © 1999 by Jerry Oltion and Adam-Troy Castro