jhanacek.net

Stories
Stories

Released

Fractal Futures collection is live!

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19 original short science fiction stories.

A series of thoughtful ruminations on bright and dark possibilities that lie ahead of us, down a turbulent river of time.

-David Brin, science fiction author

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Preview stories:

100 Years From Now

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Originally published in 2014 as the winning response to Kevin Kelly's 100 word future haiku challenge.⁠

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My choice for the most plausible vision of a future I desire goes to John Hanacek’s scenario. I think I’d like to live there, and I think it is plausible in 100 years. My $100 goes to him. - Kevin Kelly

Physical and virtual realities are meshed together with no distinction. Ideas are given sovereignty with their creators rewarded fairly and directly.

The world around us assembles itself to the likings of our whim, matter has become programmable.

Humans have taken up their primary purpose of creativity. We now work with other intelligences of all kinds to ask wise questions and achieve meaningful answers, with an eye toward more questions. "Human" has taken on flourishing new meanings.

Artful imagination has been unleashed upon the world.

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`Her Fifteen Minutes of Heroism`⁠

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`School Astride the MetaVerse - A Standard Final Assignment`⁠

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`School Astride the Metaverse: Expression Capture Day`⁠

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`School Astride the Metaverse - In Which a Kid Educates the System`⁠

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`The Shelter`⁠

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`The AIrchangel of SimSpace`⁠

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`Ara’s Eyez Spy Something New`⁠

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`Service As A Service`⁠

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`Quiet Corridor`⁠

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`A Solarian Terran from EarthStar Year 11 Muses About Your Time`⁠

Upcoming Books

Crystal God

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When God, Jesus and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse show up on Earth to enact Revelations, one normal Corporate States of America college girl, Ara, finds herself in way over her head since she alone can see behind the curtain of the event of the century.

Each person who gets captivated into holy combat has a different internal version of their savior, and these two newcomers can be all of them at once in a way that reminds her of a technology she invented...

Get a sneak peek exclusively in the Fractal Futures collection

Heaven’s Janitor

The dream of many in the early 21st century is realized: upload into a perfect computer heaven, the end of death and the beginning of a new kind of existence free from suffering. Now biological life and computational existence were both possible, yet in so many ways incompatible.

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It was a contest for existence that the new Heaven won, covering the land in a thin film of computronium and a scattering of facilities. For over two hundred years the Earth has been sterile to biolife as the surface was converted into solar computation film to run Heaven. All in Heaven are free from toil and danger. Except the Janitors, who must from time to time print back out into flesh bodies using the ancient printers from the transition days to clean the computer film or fix tears in the fabric of Heaven. For one janitor, a routine day becomes the nexus point of the first real crisis of Heaven, and he will have to decide where his loyalties lie before it is too late for Heaven or Earth...

PowerBird

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In a world where one company provides the cellular and wireless power connection for the whole Earth, old school towers have been replaced by sleek robotic signal amplifier drones providing ‘perfect service’ everywhere, but no choice of carrier.

Yet one group of anarchist hackers in Barcelona decides to try using a different starting point for their ‘drone’ to try hacking into the power grid for free energy. After their experiment escapes, they figure it was a dumb idea anyway. Until Barcelona residents start buzzing with a new carrier available in their wifi menus for the first time in 35 years as the whole balance of power in the world is called into question...

EarthStar Collection

What if the solution to our pollution results in us thriving beyond our wildest imaginations? A new world awaits us, one where every window is diamond and every product lasts forever if it needs to or instantly is metabolized if it doesn’t, and there’s only one real job left...

First thematically explored in Fractal Futures

A Solarian Terran from EarthStar Year 11 Muses About Your Time⁠

In progress at