
Green Comet is book one of the Green Comet trilogy. Books two and three are Parasite Puppeteers and The Francesians, also available here.
As Elgin wakes from a centuries-long sleep, it’s to the memory of danger and loss. Even in the confusion of re-animation, he wonders if this time she’ll be there. But then he remembers the mysterious Visitor and the perilous mission that took Frances from him, and darkness closes in again. Even so, there’s always the hope that this time will be different, that they will have found a way. It was always like this. Hope would always rise again, no matter how often it was struck down.
How it happened
Green Comet began in 1994. It also began before then and after then. I’m sure most books are the same. They’re impossible to pin down to a specific date, depending on what you use for criteria. But let’s use 1994, since that’s the year the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet smacked into Jupiter. At that time I was active in the Science conference, one of the Usenet newsgroups. Another member posted, asking for ideas he could use for a disaster story. I suggested some non-ecliptic comets on a dangerous orbit. I wonder if it was a coincidence that the movies Armageddon and Deep Impact appeared in 1998. Probably.-)
The idea began simmering in my mind, and I even wrote a couple of short stories to explore the concept of living on comets, but it was mostly conceptual until about 2004. I decided then to think about it seriously. Since I had a menial job at the time I could spend the whole day thinking about it, and jot down notes after work. I knew I had a story when Elgin and Frances showed up. In 2009 I finished with that job and that’s when I put pen to paper with the aim of getting the story written. Three years later it was ready to publish. Three more years for the sequel, Parasite Puppeteers, and two more for The Francesians, to complete the Green Comet trilogy.
I won’t be writing any more books about Green Comet, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t. That’s the point of publishing it with a Creative Commons license. You’re free to take the characters and other story elements and expand on them. Providing you adhere to the principles of Creative Commons, no one is going to come after you waving their copyright club. So, write a story, draw a comic or animate a video, or do whatever creative thing you do with it. I only want Green Comet and its characters to continue to live, free and open. Meanwhile, I’ll be getting on with the next story. I can already see bits of it, and it looks like fun.
About Jim
Jim has fought forest fires and controlled traffic in the air and on the sea. Now he writes stories. He lives in the Okanagan Valley with his wife, Carolyn.
Connect with Jim
The Green Comet blog: https://greencomet.org/
Contact me: https://greencomet.org/contact/
This book is published under a CC BY-SA license, which means that you can copy, redistribute, remix, transform, and build upon the content for any purpose, even commercially, as long as you give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original. License details: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Cover image from a photograph by NASA – public domain
rjb
- Chapter One – Elgin Wakes Up
- Chapter Two - The Comets - Introduction
- Chapter Three – Elgin's First Day
- Chapter Four – They Go To The Comets
- Chapter Five – The Second Day
- Chapter Six – The Rise Of The Synesthetes
- Chapter Seven – Elgin Meets Minder
- Chapter Eight - The Square
- Chapter Nine - Yellow Comet
- Chapter Ten - Armful
- Chapter Eleven - Flashball
- Chapter Twelve – The Visitor - Introduction
- Chapter Thirteen - The Visitor Stops Blinking
- Chapter Fourteen - The Visitor Is Revealed
- Chapter Fifteen – Elgin Meets Stanton
- Chapter Sixteen – Elgin Has Vertigo
- Chapter Seventeen – Elgin Eats And Goes Out
- Chapter Eighteen – Elgin Goes To Work
- Chapter Nineteen – Elgin Plays Flashball
- Chapter Twenty – Elgin Fixes The Ball
- Chapter Twenty-One – Elgin Meets Frances
- Chapter Twenty-Two – They Become Friends
- Chapter Twenty-Three – Shimmer's Idea
- Chapter Twenty-Four – The Joining Debates
- Chapter Twenty-Five – They Move In Together
- Chapter Twenty-Six – The Swimming Hole
- Chapter Twenty-Seven – They Go To The Doctor
- Chapter Twenty-Eight – The Lottery
- Chapter Twenty-Nine – The Joining
- Chapter Thirty - Annihilation
- Chapter Thirty-One - Communication
- Chapter Thirty-Two – Orange Replies
- Chapter Thirty-Three – They Need A Debate
- Chapter Thirty-Four – The First Debate
- Chapter Thirty-Five – Elgin's Fractal
- Chapter Thirty-Six – Nigel's Debate
- Chapter Thirty-Seven - Separation
- Chapter Thirty-Eight – The Scout Arrives
- Chapter Thirty-Nine – They Lose Buzzard
- Chapter Forty – Losing Fran
- Chapter Forty-One – Fran Goes To Sleep
- Chapter Forty-Two – Elgin Goes To Sleep
- Chapter Forty-Three – They Wake Up Together
- Chapter Forty-Four – Fran Goes Down For Good
- Chapter Forty-Five – Elgin Goes To The Bubble
- Chapter Forty-Six – The Get-Together
- Chapter Forty-Seven – Elgin Goes To Sleep
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