I picked up a copy of ‘Slapstick’ at an op shop last weekend. I’d already read the book but I couldn’t let Kurt Vonnegut go to waste on an old dusty shelf. I had a scan through it on my way home and noticed a theme that I’d somehow overlooked on first read. Vonnegut plays with the idea of fluctuating gravity. It’s really well constructed and not overdone. I thought about applying this idea to the other laws of science. Fluctuating time has obviously been played with since the beginning of the science fiction genre. Wavering within the theme of relativity seemed a little difficult to capture – an astronaut returns to earth after travelling closer to the speed of light for ten years; he is slightly younger than the twin brother that stayed home; however, the difference is less significant than what was expected. I had to settle for Magnetism. There is a theory that every few billion years or so the poles of the earth switch. This was the perfect conundrum for an epic novel; a society so reliant on technology would meltdown within hours. Unfortunately, as far as my plot is concerned, the mass natural disaster that would result from the small shudder in the earth would mean an end to the human race; the loss of technology would really be secondary.