C. Meton writes about...

D. A. Madigan’s “No Time Like the Present”

I just read “No Time Like the Present” and, once again, I had to write. This is only the second story I have read by D. A. Madigan, but I loved both of them. I didn’t have to look up any words, the characters were believable, there was just enough description of the surroundings to give me a good, visual image, and the ending made me feel good. I hope my stories will do that for people. I’m going to make a point to try to read more of D. A. Madigan’s stories.

C. Meton

Copyright © 2005 by C. Meton

We’re always glad to be able to pass on “fan mail,” C., and we’re sure D. A. will be glad to receive it. We editors think your “Return of the Ugly Duckling,” in Contest 1, deserves a pat on the back, too.

Time travel stories are hard to do well. In effect, time machines are like trains, planes and automobiles: they take you places you couldn’t get to otherwise. However, time machines aren’t a part of our everyday life: a character can’t just jump into his late-model time machine and zoom off in all directions at once; time travel has to be made part of the exposition. And it can’t be just a gimmick; it has to be necessary to the plot. And it is that in “No Time Like the Present.”

If you’d like to read other stories by D. A. Madigan, just click on over to his bibliography.

Don