Andrew C. Broderick

The Cosmic Bullet is, I think, an excellent piece of science fiction. If H.G. Wells or Jules Verne had written this novella back in the olden days, it would be a classic by now and it would have been refreshed in radio and film as well as writing. The trouble is, they didn’t. Publishing it now means it is more likely to be lost in the stream of new titles and I can only hope that enough people will still read it.

When an alien object enters the Solar System, humanity pops the starting pistol and private salvage companies hurry out to claim it. I really do hope our species would not be so blinkered as to see something at this magnitude of importance as scrap metal but there’s a suspicious part of me that wouldn’t be at all surprised if we did turn out to be that shallow.

The story also ties in neatly with a much earlier visit by the same species, which is shown trying to find refuge but then doesn’t have a problem with clearing the path to safety and security by zapping whoever’s in the way. This is forgivable, in the grand scheme of things, especially if you’ve recently had a library fine.

The story isn’t long enough, so that’s my complaint. It’s like a haute cuisine terrine that you’re just getting into the taste and relishing the subtleties of when the fork clinks against the ceramic and you’ve run out. To extend the analogy, when you wanted main course and only got a starter, that’s not ideal but at least you can remember liking the flavour. More please.… (plus d'informations)

Drone Man by Andrew C. Broderick is a short novella exploring the temptation of an ordinary person using a position of unique capability (owning a small, manoeuvrable aircraft) to carry out vigilante action in a city, with all the associated ethical dilemmas that entails (unlawful, deceitful, guilt).

The glaring question if you choose to do this is “Do you become the thing you hate the most?” In other words, taking the law into your own hands might be satisfying and quicker but it turns the point of focus, the problem if you like, in on yourself. This is hardly a new existential question, as Nietzsche got there first, describing exactly the same pitfall in several different ways: "Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster” and “for when you gaze too long into the abyss...” and "If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself.” Strangely, Nietzsche’s students turned out to be the worst monsters of all, so they heard but they did not listen.

Drone Man is a good story, nothing wrong with the writing style, but I felt the author didn’t want to go through with the scenario far enough and give the hero a taste of his inner dark place. He sort of did but it was a little too polite and there should have been the Devil in this. He showed and skirted around the moment of choice but didn’t reach out and almost touch evil, a fingerprint away from the fall, before thinking again. An angel on one shoulder, a lying demon on the other, the demon is about to win the soul and then - No! The author, I think, wanted the man to be likeable all of the way through, from the fun gadget guy to the family man to the capable protector, but I think the story would have been more powerful if the writer had read Heart of Darkness before he journeyed up that river.

One other observation: A drone is, if I understand it correctly, a robotic autonomous vehicle with no pilot on board. This story is about a pilot in a gyrocopter. It’s about wrestling with one’s consciousness and choosing the right path, so represents an original and well told presentation of this concept, but I just don’t think Drone Man does that in a drone. He’s Gyrocopter Man.

Drone Man is okay, as a quick introduction to Andrew C. Broderick, but The Cosmic Bullet by the same author is a superior work and I recommend you start with that.… (plus d'informations)