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eBook Category: Science Fiction Hugo Award Nominee
eBook Description: On the eve of the Nobel Prize ceremonies, physicist Giles Turnbull sketches notes for his acceptance speech while re-examining the tragic demise of an old friend and colleague; tomorrow he plans to tell the whole story behind the Turnbull Concession Theory.

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: Asimov's, 1990
Fictionwise Release Date: February 2001

117 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [153 KB], eReader (PDB) [53 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [42 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [38 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [54 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [110 KB], hiebook (KML) [114 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [67 KB], iSilo (PDB) [35 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [43 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [71 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [60 KB]
Words: 12505
Reading time: 35-50 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

The world desperately needs heroes. Today, it seems, I am a hero. Tomorrow? We shall see.

In a taped television interview last week, I was asked how long my ideas had been gestating before I wrote out the first version of the Turnbull Concession theory. And can you recall a moment or an event, asked the reporter, which you would pinpoint as seminal?

My answer must have been too vague to be satisfactory, since it did not appear in the final television clip. But in fact I could have provided a very precise location in spacetime, at the start of the road that led me to Stockholm, to this dinner, and to my first (and, I will guarantee, my last) meeting with Swedish royalty.

Eighteen years ago, it began. In late June, I was playing in a public park two miles from my home when I found a leather satchel sitting underneath a bench. It was nine o'clock at night, and nearly dark. I took the satchel home with me.