This coming Wednesday Amazing Stories will feature Tom Easton’s tale THE ISLAMIC MOONBASE CONSPIRACY, a story that seeks to explain the mystery of one of Islam’s most iconic images – the star and crescent.
If you’ve never noticed, the star is inside the moon’s crescent. That wouldn’t be possible if it were our moon being depicted – just because the Earth’s shadow is concealing it doesn’t mean the Moon isn’t all there.
What could lead the early illustrators to make such an obvious error?
Maybe it isn’t a mistake after all….
Tom Easton is a professor at Thomas College of Maine, a well-known science fiction critic, and author.
He wrote the book review column in SF magazine Analog Science Fiction and Fact from 1979 – 2009. He appears frequently at Boston-area science fiction conventions.
Tom Easton recently retired as Professor of Science at Thomas College in Waterville, Maine. Now he works on textbooks and science fiction anthologies such as Impossible Futures, coedited with Judith K. Dial and available from Pink Narcissus Press (www.pinknarc.com). The idea for this story came from staring at the “Coexist” bumper sticker.
