Tag Archives: scifi

New Beginnings

solar flare

On August 31, 2012 a long filament of solar material that had been hovering in the sun’s atmosphere, the corona, erupted out into space at 4:36 p.m. EDT. The coronal mass ejection, or CME, traveled at over 900 miles per second. The CME did not travel directly toward Earth, but did connect with Earth’s magnetic environment, or magnetosphere, causing aurora to appear on the night of Monday, September 3.
Picuted here is a lighten blended version of the 304 and 171 angstrom wavelengths. Cropped
Credit: NASA/GSFC/SDO
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NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.
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Tor.com ran a small article called What’s the First Line of the First Book You’re Reading in 2023?. It reminded me of all of the lessons about creative writing that emphasize how the first sentence or the first paragraph is a story is so important in hooking the reader.

Fine.

I like first lines so I decided to have a look at a few of my own.

Here’s the first sentence from my most recently published short story:

Sheriff Bobby Bill Thornton ran the fingers of both hands through his abundance of silvery locks across his head, unmindful of the blood covering them.

Here’s the first sentence from a short story that’s been accepted for publication but hasn’t yet been published.

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Book Review of “Progress Report” by Roman Lando

progress report

Cover art for the novel “Progress Report”

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Author Roman Lando contacted me not too long ago and asked if I’d be willing to review his science fiction novel Progress Report. I said I was willing and he sent me a file compatible with my old Kindle Fire.

I was in the middle of another book at the time, but finally got a chance to dig into “Progress” starting a few days ago. In print form, it would be only 239 pages, so not a long read.

In broad strokes, the first and last third of the book is an action, adventure, techno-thriller involving an unlikely hero (patterned very much after the author) who is working with an alien and a covert agent to stop other aliens from starting World War III.

Unfortunately, in the middle third, there was a very long, expositional data dump along with a great deal of pseudo-science and psuedo-philosophy that took most of my interest away. Everything is told from the journal entries of the protagonist “Art” and Art is extremely “wordy.”

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Get “The Haunting of the Ginger’s Regret” for FREE!

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From today, December 8th through the 12th. these digital books from Starry Eyed Press are absolutely free for download onto your Kindle device:

SKIN TRADERS: https://books2read.com/SkinTraders

THE HAUNTING OF THE GINGER’S REGRET: https://books2read.com/TheHauntingoftheGingersRegret

PEOPLE OF THE SPIRE: https://books2read.com/Spire

They’re all set in the 224-verse including my novelette The Haunting of the Ginger’s Regret.

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Better Late Than Never: Interviewed by Tina Holland

tina

Tina Holland as shown on her blog.

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This is kind of embarrassing. I’ve suffered another memory glitch. Some months ago, I was asked if I wanted to be interviewed by my writing. Of course, I said yes and proceeded to answer the interviewer’s questions.

She told me when to expect it to be published and sent me a link via email. I swear I meant to get to it, but I must have been distracted.

I was cleaning out some old emails and came across the one from Tina Holland just a little while ago. The interview went live over two months ago.

Sorry, Tina.

But as I said, better late than never:

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Book Review of Redux: the Lost Patrol, A SciFi Time Travel Novel

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Some weeks ago, author Gregg Cunningham asked if I’d mind reading and reviewing his novel Redux: the Lost Patrol, A SciFi Time Travel Novel. To that end, he sent me a PDF formatted ARC copy.

I started to read Part One of the novel “War Pig.” I’ve read War Pig at least twice and so burned through it a third time. Then I hit Part Two “The Lost Patrol.” I was most of the way through Chapter 1 “Time” all the while feeling like I’d read this before. Then I checked Amazon and saw I had bought the book last May. Yikes.

I checked my reviews and I hadn’t published one, but when I checked the digital book on my Kindle Fire, I found my notes. I feel really dumb. I’d read Gregg’s book months ago, but never wrote the review.

Sorry about that, Gregg.

Well, it’s never too late so here we go.

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Spring Into SciFi : 2022 in the Top 27 SciFi Kindle Anthologies at Amazon

scifi

Cover art for the Cloaked Press anthology “Spring Into SciFi 2022”

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As I write this, the Cloaked Press anthology Spring into SciFi 2022 edition ranks #27 in Amazon’s Science Fiction Anthologies (Kindle Store) and #94 in Science Fiction Anthologies (Books). That’s pretty impressive.

The accompanying graphic (see below) I received from the publisher gives a slightly different figure, but they tend to float. It also says that this humble, indie SciFi anthology is in very good company.

My short story “Tiamet Descending” is among the tales nestled between the covers.

My blurb for the story goes like this:

What is the mystery of the Tiamat and what happened to her passengers and crew? Marine Captain Elisha Rush and five mission experts aboard the military spacecraft Belisama have been sent to rendezvous with Tiamat just inside the orbit of Mars. What they find on board will lead to either a miracle for humanity or our extinction.

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Book Review of Martha Wells’ “Exit Strategy” (2018), Book 4 in the Murderbot Series

exit

Cover art for Martha Wells’ book “Exit Strategy”

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I’m still enjoying Martha Wells’ Murderbot Diaries having just finished the fourth installment, Exit Strategy. I’ve already read and reviewed the first three, novellas rather than novels, really.

Side Note: I’ve mentioned this before in one of the previous reviews, but even though the security unit/murderbot has no gender, even though partially organic, I can’t help but hear her voice as a “her.” Maybe it’s because I’m aware that the author is a woman, or maybe it’s because Wells projected a “female” personality into her voice during the writing, but that’s how I think of “her.” I know some people are going to object to this (for gender identity reasons), but for this and other reviews, the SecUnit is a “she” to me. That’s what I’m going to call her.

Picking up right where the previous installment left off, Murderbot has decided to give her evidence against the CrayCris corporation directly to Dr. Mensah. However when she checks on Mensah’s whereabouts, she’s not in her home system of Preservation and figures out she has been kidnapped by GreyCris which is looking for the evidence Murderbot acquired at Milu.

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Comparing the Original “Quantum Leap” to the Current Series, Part 2

somebody

From Quantum Leap Ep3 “Somebody Up There Likes Ben”

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Continuing to try and figure out the course of the current Quantum Leap TV show on NBC by looking at the past show, I ran across a few things such as the current show’s ratings.

According to Comic Book News, the show is hemorrhaging viewers, but their opinion is in the minority. Besides, even though the show airs on NBC Monday nights, it is available for streaming starting the next day. As far as I can find out, Episode 3 “Somebody Up There Likes Ben,” had an uptick overnight. I suppose that includes me. People could continue to view it throughout the week, or for that matte, for weeks to come.

So far, the leaps Ben (Raymond Lee) takes aren’t particularly remarkable. Episode 2 Atlantis was the most interesting thus far because Ben leapt into an astronaut just as the space shuttle was launching. Other than that (there have only been three episodes aired to date), Ben leaps into someone and helps fix a life with the help of Addison (Caitlin Bassett), much as it happened with Sam (Scott Bakula) and Al (the late Dean Stockwell).

While the original show was almost exclusively focused on Sam and Al and their adventures in the past, the current show toggles back and forth between Ben and Addison in the past and the Quantum Leap team in the present. Add to that, Al’s oldest daughter Janice or Janis (Georgina Reilly), her mysterious relationship with Ben, and how and why she seems to be manipulating Ben’s leaps.

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Review of Episode 1 of the New “Quantum Leap”

quantum leap

Promotional poster for “Quantum Leap”

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I’ve been a long-time fan of the original Quantum Leap (1989-1993) starring Scott Bakula and the late Dean Stockwell so naturally when the series relaunch starring Raymond Lee and Caitlin Bassett was announced, I was curious. At first, I had no intention of watching the show. So many reboots and remakes of classic TV shows and films lately have been total disasters so why would I waste my time on another one?

Like I said, I’m a fan of the original show, but I can’t say I’ve seen every episode. I don’t recall seeing the series closer at all, and maybe I should since it’s rather infamous. NBC cancelled the show with no warning at all, and after Sam (Bakula) changed history saving Al’s (Stockwell) marriage, there was only a text notice at the end saying that Sam (misspelled last name because they did it in a hurry) never made it home.

Bakula and Stockwell lobbied NBC for years to do a made-for-TV movie to resolve the show but they always said no. That might be one of the reasons why Bakula refused any connection with the new show.

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Book Review of “Infinity Engine: Transformation Book Three”

infinity engine

Cover art for Neal Asher’s novel “Infinity Engine”

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It’s been three-and-a-half years since I first started this trilogy with Dark Intelligence and almost three years since I read and reviewed part two, War Factory. Now I wrap up Neal Asher’s Transformation trilogy with Infinity Engine.

The hardest part of reading these books is keeping track of all of the characters. In Book One, Thorvald Spear seemed to be the central character and he still receives a lot of the focus, but the Black AI Penny Royal (I love the name) is the intelligence that is manipulating all of the other characters and circumstances to their own ends.

A main component was introduced in the last book, “Room 101,” a former weapons factory orbiting a supergiant star that, according to Penny Royal’s design, is being remade into something radically different.

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