“My First World”

2004 Zebrowski, George [Thaddeus] (1945-2024). “My First World.” In Microcosms. Ed. Gregory [Albert] Benford (New York: DAW Books, 2004), 231-280. Rpt. in his Black Pockets and Other Dark Thoughts (Urbana, IL: Golden Gryphon Press, 2006), 114-149. Limited ed. Illus. Bob Eggleton. (Norwalk, CT: Easton Press, 2006), 106-224, with a Forword by Howard Waldrop.

The story begins with a teenage boy exploring the world where he was born and always lived. It is the inside of an asteroid where his parents and others were imprisoned for the activities against the regime on Earth. The term was to be fifty years everyone still living and the few born there are looking forward to, but it passes with no contact. The story then follows the boy’s search for a way to the surface to see if there is any way of escaping. The author was born Jerzy Tadeus Zebrowski in Austria and brought to the U.S. in 1951.