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A Seat To The Future
A science fiction story — Part One
The morning had gone badly, due in no small part to a hangover and forgetting to request a wake-up call. I had been an hour late for the meeting in the Peninsula Tokyo Hotel with my publisher from New York, a group of overly polite Japanese PR people and my agent, the prissy Ms. Serena Scholes, who had advised me, in her grade school teacher voice:
“Being late for a meeting of this magnitude as well as being late with the new book does not help advance your career, Charlie.”
Just over a year ago, me, Charlie Dennison, the epitome of a struggling writer, had won the prestigious Nebula Award and Hugo Award in the same year. My book, Future Files, had been a breakthrough in the science fiction genre, selling over 30 million copies in 12 months. The first foreign rights had been snapped up by a Japanese publisher; the film rights optioned off for a record dollar amount for a work of science fiction. After 20 years as a freelance journalist, living in low rent walkups, eating TV dinners and shopping at thrift stores all the while chipping away at the Future Files manuscript, I hit the jackpot.
With my first cheque, I had bought a Porsche Cayenne, rented a furnished penthouse apartment in the upscale Yaletown area of Vancouver and skipped the country for a one week re-n-re in…
