by David D. Levine
$0.99 (Short Story) ISBN 978-1-61138-216-7
Inspiration, like love, strikes when you least expect it. When Phil goes seeking that creative spark in a junkyard, he discovers not only just the right thing, he discovers a rare and very specific kind of magic. Nucleon first appeared in Interzone, was chosen for Year’s Best Fantasy #2, and won the James White Award.
“Nucleon” is also available as part of Space Magic, an award-winning collection of science fiction and fantasy stories by David D. Levine.
Praise for Nucleon:
“‘Nucleon’ is a fantasy story in the Unknown Worlds tradition. That fine magazine introduced contemporary urban settings into fantasy fiction. The ‘mystery shop’ tradition includes such classic stories as ‘What You Need’ by Henry Kuttner. ‘Nucleon’ is a worthy addition to this tradition.” —David Hartwell, Year’s Best Fantasy #2
“…a captivating magic-realist rendering of the serendipity of transdimensional junkyards.” —Nick Gevers, Locus
“…a fine, sweet story of an unusual junkyard — a nice variation on the traditional ‘curiosity shop’ tale.”—Rich Horton, Locus
“The story is short, and simple, and quite elegant… almost Bradburyesque…” —Mark Watson, Best SF
Sample:
One day we were sitting in Carl’s kitchen, sharing a beer after a long hot afternoon tramping around the junkyard. “Tell me, Phil,” he said, “how did you get into this crazy advertising business anyway?”
I thought about it for a moment. “I suppose you’d have to blame my dad. He was an automotive designer at Ford. When I was a kid I’d visit him at his office during the summer; he’d always let me play with his colored pencils. I guess that’s where I caught the art bug.”
“Ford, eh? Did your dad design anything I might have seen?”
“He was on the team that did the ’66 Fairlane. But mostly he did conceptual designs. It was exciting for him to be out beyond the cutting edge like that, but he was always disappointed that none of his designs made it into actual production.” I took a swig of my beer. “He worked on the Nucleon.”
Carl put down his beer. “Nucleon?”
“It was a concept car for a World’s Fair or something like that. A nuclear-powered car, can you believe it? Atoms for peace.”
Carl got a strange look on his face then. “I have something out back that I think you ought to see.”
The sun was low in the sky, casting neon-orange glints off the hoods of a row of old cars all the way at the back of the yard, where we’d seldom gone before. Bees buzzed in the shrubs that grew along the fence. Near one end of the row was a bulky shape shrouded in a moss-covered olive-drab tarp. “Help me haul this off, would you?”
We pulled off the tarp and revealed one of the strangest-looking cars you’ve ever seen. It looked like a cross between an old Caddy with big pointed fins and a pickup truck, and where the trunk, or pickup bed, should have been there was a big square hole that went all the way down to the ground. It looked like a car with a built-in swimming pool.
It was painted in that Godawful turquoise color that was so popular in the Fifties.
On the tailgate was a name in chrome script: Nucleon.
“Sonofabitch! You’ve got the mockup! I didn’t even know they built one!”
“Take a closer look.”
I looked. It was no fiberglass mockup. It was real steel, and a little rusty. The doors were scarred with parking-lot dings. The tires were bald. The seats and the steering wheel were worn from use. The odometer showed seventy-one thousand and some miles.
There was no gas gauge.
Suddenly I got a queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. “Carl… do you, by any chance, have… a Geiger counter?”
