The Obsolescence of Science Fiction
When a story stops being science fiction...before it's even published

I failed to sell a story this week. Like any writer, I collect rejections, but this one was particularly annoying.
Fortunately, the story “Wake Me Up in Los Angeles” was short. It was written for a call for stories about running out of a limited resource. Inspired by that stupid EV battery meme (You know the one, that was clearly written by a marketing intern at an oil company), I picked lithium as my resource.
The story was about people demonstrating that sodium-ion batteries work just as well for EVs. When I wrote the story, I’d just done a ton of research about the limitations and had gotten the clear message they weren’t ready for prime time.
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