The video shows timelapse photography of the exoplanet gj74 captured by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope during a period of intense volcanic activity.¹ The planet (aka Aquasol) orbits a star beyond Orion’s Belt, and the underwater eruptions changed it from an ocean world to a mud ball. Continue reading
Tag Archives: non-fiction
creating without trying
The world is so full of a number of things, I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.
—Robert Louis Stevenson
Kids, you tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try.
—Homer Simpson
There are stacks of useful tips on the web about writing and creativity in general, but I find coming up with original ideas is still a struggle. This is a technique that sometimes works for me. Continue reading
fear of infinity
This discussion of infinite time and its consequences came about because a character in the story Lighter than Claire suggested (not literally) that it might be worth writing something on the topic.
In the 16th and 17th centuries, the vanitas, or vanity, art style carried the religious reminder that life is temporary—mostly everyone dies. Nevertheless, concepts of living forever, life after life, and life after death have been around for a long time, in many religions as well as in fiction. While some people are quite keen on one afterlife possibility or another, others, like Richard Dawkins,¹ would prefer to simply stay dead after they die. Continue reading
fantasy, sci fi, and the ancient mariner
Fantasy and science fiction are the dominant categories under the broad speculative fiction banner, but what’s the difference between them? I started wondering about that when I re-read Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, which was a source for Jacinta’s Lovers.
The Rime is one of my favourite poems, but a couple of verses have always puzzled me—
FIRST VOICE
‘But why drives on that ship so fast,
Without or wave or wind ?’SECOND VOICE
‘The air is cut away before,
And closes from behind.’
how to photograph the future
As well as entertaining us (sometimes), speculative fiction asks and answers ‘what if’ questions that can open up new possibilities and fire the imagination.
In this blog I’ve written up some of the non-fiction speculations behind my stories, and I was interested to see that a new publisher, Sci Phi Journal (Science Fiction and Philosophy) makes the connection explicit by adding “Food for Thought” sections after the stories and including essays that discuss philosophical aspects of spec fic.
Time travel is a spec fic standard that has never gone away, and in the sometimes real world, a lot of questions about the nature of time—physical, philosophical and neurological—still have no clear answer. Continue reading
the cat in the box paradox
One source for the Ambisia story was the quantum mechanical (QM) cat in the box paradox devised by Schrödinger.
In Schrödinger’s thought experiment, a microscopic QM event is used to kill a cat in a sealed box. The event might be the emission of a subatomic particle and then using it to fire a gun, release poison etc.
The paradox is that there is a certain probability that the cat-killing particle will be released in a certain time, and evidently the QM state of the cat in the box is mixed, ie, it contains superimposed QM wave functions representing both a living cat and a dead cat.
When the cat owner opens the box, they see one or the other state, and depending on what they were hoping for, they might be disappointed. Continue reading
the moon mirror lake
Jacyuaruá, the Moon Mirror Lake, is part of the mythology of the Tupi-Guarani people of the Amazon, and it features in various legends. In one, female warriors dived into the deep lake and retrieved pieces of jade to carve into Muiraquitã amulets with supernatural powers that they gave to their lovers. While the women did the diving, the men drank fermented cassava juice and watched the football (probably). Continue reading
kayelle press interview
Klingon Alphabet
Interview with Karen Henderson from Kayelle Press has a little practical advice on apocalypses, apart from, fairly obviously, trying not to cause one. I’m taking preemptive ksl classes. There are also bits about writing and the Honimoon Hotel story.
random creation of life
Beaches refers to life created by the sea, ‘aggregated by aleatoric resonance.’ Although that doesn’t exist (as far as I know) there is a little scientific speculation behind it, with the emphasis on speculation. Continue reading
the three marias
Coat of Arms of Três Marias, MG, Brazil
In many countries the stars of Orion’s Belt are called The Three Marias. In Minas Gerais, Brazil, there is a small city with the same name (Três Marias), and there are various explanations of how it came to be called that. The most intriguing is the story of three sisters named Maria. Continue reading
aurealis interview
Interview with Dan Allan at Aurealis about the Copernicus Street story. It can also be accessed here at Dark Matter. It covers speculative fiction and stuff. The Aurealis Facebook page has stacks of fascinating tidbits and is great if you need an excuse not to do any writing (or anything else).