Bob Springett asserts that he retains all rights, including his copyright, over these works. He permits free download only for personal, non-commercial use and review. Please contact Bob for any proposed commercial use.
Slava Ukrainia! 30,000 words
Ukraine continues to retreat slowly on the battlefield. Russia’s overwhelming industrial power, economic production and ability to replace fallen soldiers ensures that. But wars are not only about troops and numbers. Has Ukraine already prepared for this war, in a covert operation stretching back over generations? Or do they have a new, secret super weapon?
Or was Napoleon right when he said “In war, the moral is to the physical as three is to one.”?
Hacker 25,000 words
Australia’s transport, industrial production, utilities, in fact almost everything is now co-ordinated for maximum efficiency through the Hub. This is a series of super-computers that talk only to each other, equipped with Artificial Intelligence so they can learn even more efficient ways of co-operating and adapting as the needs of their customers change. And it has been designed to be absolutely impossible for a hacker to disrupt it.
Except, that happens on its first day of operation. An unlikely pair of public servants have to redeem the situation, while being hunted by the hacker who can monitor and control every security camera and electronic communication in the country in the attempt to kill them.
Parini’s Story 16,000 words
The Australian Aborigines are the oldest culture on the planet. They stretch back over 60,000 years. They were in Australia long before any modern human had set foot in Europe or America. But now they are a dying race. Or rather, that was the common belief when Parini was born in Central Australia. Let’s take the story from there.
Alice’s Story 22,000 words
Alice lives in a far-future, post-apocalyptic world. So far into the future that nature has recovered and humans once again live in a stable neolithic culture. Alice can remember her mother, and has trained her daughter. But only as she realises that she will soon die does she understand who they really are.
In The Beginning 12,000 words
A follow-up story to the Argo Trilogy. If the entire Universe is one big temporal loop, then where did it come from? Two projects attempt to answer this question. One is a huge atom-smasher attempting to duplicate the energy density not just close to the Big Bang, but virtually AT it; the other is a craft that travels back in time to see it happen.
For the children – The Golden Wombat 6,000 words
A collection of stories suitable for children aged 4 to 8 years, each around 800 words. Not only entertaining, but intended to encourage compassion, humility and mutual respect despite differences of all kinds.