# Tom Morrison — Short Fiction character guide

> Tom Morrison in Short Fiction by Robert Sheckley.

**Role:** major

**Also known as:** Tommy, Tom

**First appearance:** 0000-final-examination

## Snapshot

A sunburned young prospector who staked everything on Venus's Scorpion Desert, Morrison dreams of a goldenstone strike and an ocean farm back on Earth.

## Who they are

Morrison has spent twenty-one days and eighteen hundred miles crossing a waterless waste three times the size of the Sahara, down to his last ten dollars and following traces of goldenstone. He daydreams about Janie and a mackerel farm on the Atlantic, a future that depends entirely on one lucky strike. When exhaustion finally makes him doze at the wheel, the sandcar tips over a dune's crumbling edge—and the story's early promise of fortune turns into a question of whether he survives the desert at all.

## In the story

### [Prospector's Special](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_48_se/chapters/prospector-s-special)

A determined prospector on Venus who risks everything to find goldenstone, defying warnings and debt.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_48_se/characters/tom_morrison
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_48_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_48_se/characters