The world of the Rocket Ranch is set some 80 years into the future (hello, Posterity) but not pinned to a specific date.
It is less likely that you are reading this in a different solar system than mine, than it is that the English language will survive long enough for you to read it. No one I know is even going to walk on Mars any time soon, that Red Planet inhabited only by robots.
What’s left to explore in plausible science fiction? Our own planet, spinning in space for four billion years. Life emerged in splendor here, pretty much as soon as thermodynamics permitted. Less than a million years ago, we humans arrived.
This is a story of exploration of a planetary body, the Planet Earth. I think it’s the best planet I know, or have even heard of, filled with wonders that exceed present frontiers of knowledge and imagination. As we tread upon this earth, we leave marks behind, for good, or ill. This story is about that too.
Captain Bender and their crew find explore an exotic alien world, full of mysteries to be solved. It just so happens to be the planet they were born on.
I hope you like it.
Louisville Kentucky Oct 3, 2025.