Space opera is a sub genre of Science fiction. During the golden age of science fiction in the forties and fifties, space opera was rampant. Modern space exploration killed it.

Things were easier way back. You could throw together an old leaky bucket with a rocket underneath, the interiors looking an awful lot like what you might have seen on a Destroyer Escort ship in WWII, and light out for the planets, no problem. Then those pesky facts started creeping in starting in the late fifties, as we became more space smart.

Early on, even scholarly movie treatments of space gave little thought to things like trajectories and gravity. You get close to a planet, you got gravity. You move away, you get weightless. Nothing more complicated than that.

Early space opera books, on the other hand were light years more advanced than their movie counterparts. Indeed, we wouldn’t have been able to participate in a space race, had not the kids of the forties read their space opera books in the fifties to put the ideas they embodied into practice in the sixties, seventies, and beyond.

Today, in the 21st century, which SOUNDS like science fiction to me, we owe a lot to the early space opera pioneers like Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke, and the rest of the golden age SF dreamers.

The Kindle book, ” TopDown ” is space opera in its way. The premise is this… You know how hard it is here on good old mother earth when you get down sized. Right? Well, think how much harder it would be if you were an ice miner on Europa and the company gets the word from the RYO Corporation back on earth that it’s time to cut the ice gang by a third.

No problem, you might think. Just put a third of the gang on the next shuttle back home. Big deal.

But wait just a minute. Suppose that the next shuttle is months away and the RYO Corporation wants the downsizing to start IMMEDIATELY? What do you think happens then?

Think vacuum packed. That’s what you think. In this frenetically paced story, our hero, Muttonhead Rex, is tasked with getting rid of the excess loafers RIGHT AWAY, and the ONLY way to get rid of them is to get them to volunteer to walk out of an airlock without their space underwear on.

Already you might thing that the author, Norman Morrison, has written himself into a corner. You can’t just up and space all those people. Right?

Wrong!

The story is action packed, terrifically fast paced, and the outcome is certain. Those people gotta go!

The solution, as it turns out is as humorous as it is mind bending. Muttonhead Rex is ALL TOO HAPPY to comply with his orders, because there’s a little something in it for him when he completes the job.

You’ll just have to read this bonanza of an old time, futuristic space happy story to find out how Muttonhead accomplishes his mission. Or will he accomplish his mission? The lives of a whole lot of people are depending on just that fact.

TopDown is like nothing you have ever read before and it will leave you begging for more. Screaming for more, even though nobody can hear you scream in space. Your last conscious thought will be.. Muttonhead Rex is the best boss ever!

See it in the Kindle edition now. It’s a matter of life and death for those to be downsized. After all, the order comes from the Top….Down!

Just search “cowchip/al” to see ALL of Norman Morrison’s books on Amazon Kindle! Or go HERE.

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