Dynochicks

includes both "Day of the Hunters"
and "A Statue for Father"

This month, just before 2019 slips away, I have been looking back at science fiction stories that were published by my two favorite writers 50, 60 or 70 years ago. Here in this blog post I'll discuss "A Statue for Father" which was first published by Isaac Asimov in the February 1959 issue of Satellite Science Fiction.

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"A Statue for Father" was later republished along with "Day of the Hunters" in 1982. "Day of the Hunters" was similar to a story that Asimov had written in 1941 called "Big Game".

Michael Brett-Surman has compiled a list of science fiction stories about dinosaurs. Sadly, Jack Vance is not on that list, but Vance did include dinosaur-like creatures in his description of the world Bethune Preserve.

Triceratops Shanar display at the Hotel Triceratops, a popular tourists inn of Tanaquil, Bethune Preserve.

In the Ekcolir Reality.
Original cover art by
Earle Bergey, James St. John and Frank R. Paul.

Vance's imagined Hotel Triceratops had a gigantic stuffed specimen of Triceratops Shanar on display for tourists.

Time Travel - Just Once
For "A Statue for Father", Asimov imagined that early attempts at time travel were mostly unsuccessful. However, due to a fluke occurrence, some dinosaur eggs were brought from the far past to modern times.

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In the hands of another writer, this scenario would lead to a horror story like Jurassic Park. Asimov went in another more comedic direction, and imagined that dinosaur meat would become popular food for humans. Maybe it was about 1959 when Asimov discovered Kentucky Fried Chicken and he was inspired to imagine a restaurant that served dinosaur meat. Asimov called his imaginary restaurant "Dinachicken".

internal artwork by Leo Morey

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Exosaur
Inspired by the sometimes silly and goofy stories that were published by Asimov and Vance, I feel like my next Change Challenge should be to write a humorous science fiction story. For the Exode Saga, time travel has been made impossible, but Observer Base still has a vast archive of data that documents the long history of life on Earth.

Dynamic Duo (source)

Georgy, Stacy and Colleen are three nodes of the Mind Clone Network. It is easy for me to imagine that Stacy might find a science fiction story about dinosaurs in the archives of the Writers Block and that might lead to an investigation by Georgy and Colleen into the history of life on Earth.

Related Reading: 2020 Change Challenge

Next: investigating a dinosaur mystery at Observer Base

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