Narrative Ark

Today's idea for a SF novel, entitled,
The Narrative Ark.

A collection of loosely linked tales about pairs of characters - bound together by representing the full range of human stories, being sent either as an education for aliens in other star systems, or else actually as a social-dna pool to rebuild all of earth as the old terra firma has been destroyed/stolen/lost - the ark
inhabitants (passengers) don't know....

 e.g.

The Laughing Cow and the Crying Wolf
The Tragicat and the Comidog
The Good and Bad Cops
etc

things to avoid
i) moses jokes
ii) too much similarity to the very excellent
Not Wanted on the Voyage
iii) any notion of god

un-Science Fiction and Dr Who

When I was growing up, a friend of mine, Josh Griefer, lived up the road and I'd go round a lot to lose at chess (worse, Go) and here stories - his father, Lewis Griefer, was a well known TV scriptwriter who penned words for the Avengers, the Prisoner, and a few Dr Who episodes- in the 1970s, when I was at University (first), in Trinity College every Saturday religiously, we'd gather in the junior common room to watch this - back in those days, it was nearly as good as now.

So what about the science? well, we'd laugh, because it was all so gloriously wrong - none so daft as the Sonic Screwdriver.

However, I distinctly remmeber going round to the Griefers' around that time and Josh's dad quizzing us about how you could make such a device work, and then mischiveously grinning when we said "you couldn't", saying "excellent, so I can use that plot device then".

Lewis was a very smart and amusing guy (sadly missed) and I believe that my memory is if not accurate, definitely in spirit with his work.

Dr Who continues to be gloriously wrong frequently. I don't think the current producers and writers are doing this out of ignorance, but in a great tradition of un-science fiction.

[oh, Lewis often signed his scripts "Joshua Adam" after his two sons, if you're looking things up on imdb or the like]