About the Story "Nucleon"

David D. Levine, winner of the James White Award 2001

The genesis of this story came at "Yesterday's Tomorrows: Past Visions of the American Future," a traveling exhibition put on by the Smithsonian Institution. The exhibition and I met in Eugene, Oregon in 1984, where I'd gone on a field trip with the Portland science fiction club. One of the objects on display was a model of the Ford Nucleon, a 1958 design for a nuclear-powered car (see the attached photo, from the exhibition catalog) which was, fortunately for us all, never produced.

I've always felt a great nostalgia for futures that didn't pan out. I collect old World's Fair program books, and I carry my lunch to work every day in a Tom Corbett Space Cadet lunchbox. The preposterous, overweening, yet somehow inevitable idea of a nuclear car just lodged in my brain and wouldn't let go. The hubris! The lack of attention to unintended consequences! The innocence!

I began to wonder what kind of alternate universe might actually have put such a car into production. What other things might have happened in that universe? How might that universe, and others like it, intersect with this one? And what kind of person might find himself at that intersection point?

I finally sat down and wrote this idea into a story in January of 2000. Despite the science-fictional premise, the story turned out a gentle fantasy, a variation on the well-known "mystery shop" trope. I have often had my hard science fiction ideas turn into fantasy, horror, or ghost stories when they hit the page... I don't know why.

I workshopped the story at the Potlatch science fiction convention, where everyone (including guest pro Vonda McIntyre) had nice things to say about it, then set it aside while I attended Clarion West that summer. After Clarion I edited it, making the characters' trust in each other grow more slowly, exploring the emotional impact on the main character, making the fantastic element more mysterious and unexplained, and shortening the anticlimax. I workshopped it again, and everyone raved about it.

Fellow beginning writers please note: this beloved (and eventually award-winning) story was rejected by the first six markets I sent it to. I have other stories that have been rejected more than twenty times. Never give up hope, don't let the rejections get under your skin, and keep writing and submitting until you sell.

The future belongs to the persistent.

About David D. Levine

David D. Levine and James White at the Los Angeles Worldcon in 1996

David D. Levine is a long-time science fiction reader and fan who is astonished to discover that he is suddenly a science fiction writer as well. He attended Clarion West last year, made his first sale in March of this year, won Second Place in the Writers of the Future contest in July, and has sold three more stories since then. Look for him in Bones of the World edited by Bruce Holland Rogers (available now) and Apprentice Fantastic edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Russell Davis (coming in 2002).

David lives with his wife Kate Yule in Portland, Oregon, where he holds various software jobs, co-edits the fanzine Bento, and serves as household sysadmin and cat substitute. His web page is at http://www.spiritone.com/~dlevine/.

He was co-host of Opening Ceremonies at the Los Angeles Worldcon in 1996, at which James White was Guest of Honor. He is particularly honored by this award because James White has always been one of his favorite writers.