Tag Archives: space travel

Book Review of “Bowl of Heaven” (2012)

bowl of heaven

Cover art for the Benford and Niven novel “Bowl of Heaven”

I just finished reading the 2012 novel Bowl of Heaven authored by two science fiction heavy hitters: Gregory Benford and Larry Niven.

The basic idea is that a colony sleeper ship from Earth on its way to a new system encounters a megastructure in space. This is a sun that has been manipulated so its light thrust is directed allowing the entire solar system to be navigated across the galaxy.

At the back end of the system is essentially a bowl with the surface area of millions of Earths.

It’s more than curiosity that causes the command crew of the starship “SunSeeker” to investigate. Their ramscoop technology has become increasingly inefficient threatening the success of their voyage, so they enter the bowl system looking for answers.

They send a shuttle into the bowl and the landing team, lead by lovers Cliff and Beth, encounters a number of differing beings that seem intelligent. However, when Cliff’s party breaches the airlock, the aliens try to capture them. Beth’s team is scooped up immediately, but Cliff’s people escape.

As you’d expect from “hard science” writers Benford and Niven, details about the “shipstar” system and “bowl world” abound. Parallels to Niven’s “Ringworld” are inevitable.

Continue reading →

Coming in December 2025…

far futures

Cover art for “Far Futures: Book Four”

My short story “Awash on Titan’s Shores” has been accepted into this anthology. Marketing won’t officially start until October for publication in December.

I haven’t even started editing the story with the publisher yet. All I’ll say is the anthology requires the story be set on or around Saturn’s moon Titan and military SciFi was acceptable.

Here’s a little taste:

Continue reading →

My Novelette “The Fallen Shall Rise” is FREE Starting February 14th

feb freeIf you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.

My SciFi space opera novelette The Fallen Shall Rise is available as a FREE download from Amazon onto your kindle from today, February 14th (a perfect Valentine’s Day gift for your science fiction friend or companion) through the end of the week on the 18th.

This book is part of the 224-verse as published by Starry Eyed Press.

It ends somewhat on a “cliffhanger” (well, not exactly), so I’m in the process of finalizing my draft of its sequel and my first novel, currently called “The Second War”, although things are still a bit fluid.

Here’s a sample of what you’ll find in “Fallen”:

Continue reading →

“Time’s Abyss” Now Available for Pre-Order

time's abyss

Promotional image for “Time’s Abyss.”

If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.

No, it’s not a short story in an anthology. Time’s Abyss is a completely self-contained novella, book 10 of 12 in the Underground series published by Black Hare Press.

It’s available for pre-order from Amazon for delivery to your kindle device on October 15, 2021.

That’s right. There’ll be six month wait until you can dig into this nearly 30,000 word saga.

In the meantime, here’s the official “blurb.”

Continue reading →

“The Pleiades Dilemma” Now Available for Pre-Order in the Planetary Anthology “Sol”

sol

Promotional cover image for the Sol planetary anthology

One of my oldest science fiction tales, “The Pleiades Dilemma” is featured in the Tuscany Bay Press Planetary Anthology Sol.

It’s now available for pre-order on Amazon for delivery to your Kindle device on November 10th.

And now, another excerpt:

Continue reading →

Planetary Anthology Series: Sol Video Trailer!

sol

Cover art for the Sol Planetary Anthology by Tuscany Bay Books

Previously, I announced that my short story The Pleiades Dilemma would be published in the Tuscany Bay Books science fiction Planetary Anthology Series: Sol.

And now…

Continue reading →

COVID-19 Log: WIP for April 23, 2020

planet

Image: hongkiat.com

Editing an over 28,000 word novella takes a long time. I’m actually okay with that, since I’m not (paid) working today, and we don’t have the grandchildren. My wife is going nuts since she’s far more social than I am, and she’s spent long periods of time talking by phone to our daughter and my Mom.

I thought I’d share portions of my current work in progress (WIP), which involves space travel, time travel, espionage, aliens, and real technology. I’m especially proud of the research I did on mid-1960s American spy satellites.

Here’s a sample of what I’ve been working on. Let me know what you think (and remember, this is not the polished form):

“That son of a bitch,” Smirnoff spat out as ear-splitting klaxons and flashing alarm lights on the bay’s walls announced the opening of the primary launch doors over fifty feet above their heads. “What’s he doing? Romanovich knows the first trial flight isn’t scheduled for six weeks, and Cosmonaut Dobrovolsky won’t arrive here until next Tuesday.”

Utkins could smell stale cigars and vodka on his breath. “Well, Lieutenant! Stop that ship. Don’t let it get off the ground!”

She screamed at her troops and they all rushed forward. Smirnoff ranted at nearby technicians to override the launch bay doors as they were vainly pounding keys and gibbering something about the security lockouts being disabled.

The ramp had been fully retracted by the time the Lieutenant’s complement reached the ship. She ordered them to fire their rifles, sparks flaring off the impervious skin.

To the left, from around the edge of the craft, the two men Smirnoff had ordered to check Romanovich’s quarters were accompanying a very recognizable, diminutive figure, spindly legs extending out of oversized boxers. “Fuck you, Volkov,” Smirnoff murmured with satisfaction. “I see Romanovich pulled one over you.” Then he watched as a blast of force exploded outward from the slowly rising spaceship, vaporizing the irritating Lieutenant and seven other “heroes” of the state.

Continue reading →

Cylinder

cylinder

Computer monitor wallpaper

Suspended from the airlock by his thick umbilical, Astronaut Jonathan Weaver watched the ring of illumination inside the enormous hollow tube code-named “Oumuamua” move away from him toward the other end of the spinning alien habitat, creating the illusion that he was now in early evening. The forty-two year old Air Force Captain, weightless because he was positioned near the center of the tube, marveled at the view. Essentially, the interior of a massive cylinder was filled with atmosphere that included clouds, with the entire rim covered with soil and water that supported farms, forests, lakes, rivers, small mountains, and even buildings and highways. And yet in the fifteen minutes since he had gone EVA inside the object, he had detected no sign of life.

“Weaver, this is Nguyen. Any change in your readings?” Danielle Nguyen was a civilian pilot and exobiologist who had been put in command, and at thirty, was the youngest member of the hastily assembled mission. After the Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii had located Oumuamua eight months ago and determined it was approaching the sun from outside the solar system, NASA, in cooperation with two private space exploration companies, had quickly adapted the Argonaut spacecraft, originally designed for a manned Mars mission, to intercept human history’s first visitor from interstellar space.

Continue reading →

Oh Captain!

spacecraft

Image credit: iStock – Found at numerous sources including thepromiserevealed.com

Vanessa struggled to climb out of the Salubrious Pod, sickly yellow and greenish jelly oozing off of her smooth, dark skin. She rolled over the low rim of the tub onto the cold metallic floor of the eight-by-twelve foot featureless chamber, her nude body dimly illuminated by the few flickering light tubes in the ceiling ten feet above. She shivered as the gel evaporated, and she watched a thin mist rising overhead from her body, though some of the goo clung to her short-cropped black hair, and she blinked as one drop fell from her lashes into her left eye.

“Good morning, Captain Chapman. How are you feeling?”

They’d made Sophia’s voice feminine, but the echoes coming from multiple speakers  in the ceiling still made her sound inhuman.

“Like shit, Soph.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” The AI’s reply was meant to communicate concern, but of course, as a machine, she felt nothing at all. “It is important you recover from hibernation quickly. There is a situation.”

Continue reading →