"10¹⁶ to 1" is a

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

novelette Novelette may also refer to: * ''Novelette'' (ballet), a solo modern dance work choreographed by Martha Graham * Novelette (music), a short piece of lyrical music * Novelette (literature), a work of narrative prose fiction that is longer than a ...

by American writer James Patrick Kelly, first published in 1999. It was the winner of the 2000

Hugo Award for Best Novelette The Hugo Award for Best Novelette is one of the Hugo Awards given each year for science fiction or fantasy stories published or translated into English during the previous calendar year. The novelette award is available for works of fiction of ...

and was also nominated for the 2000 Locus award and Asimov's Reader Poll.

Plot summary

The story follows Ray Beaumont, a 12-year-old boy living in New York during the

Cuban Missile Crisis The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis (of 1962) ( es, Crisis de Octubre) in Cuba, the Caribbean Crisis () in Russia, or the Missile Scare, was a 35-day (16 October – 20 November 1962) confrontation between the United S ...

of October 1962. During the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

tensions of the time, Ray meets Cross, a man he believes is from the future. He offers Cross a temporary place to stay in his family's back yard bomb shelter and proceeds to acquire the items necessary for Cross's mission. When he doesn't tell his parents about Cross, and comes home one afternoon to find that his mother has discovered an intruder in the bomb shelter, events quickly spiral out of control and Ray becomes convinced that he is the only one able to prevent World War III.

References

External links

* 1999 short stories Short stories by James Patrick Kelly Hugo Award for Best Novelette winning works Works originally published in Asimov's Science Fiction {{1990s-sf-story-stub