23 May 2012

The Dragons Return!

posted in: ebooks, science fiction, short stories | 0

My short story “Though All the Mountains Lie Between” was the spark that led to two novels, Dragons in the Stars and Dragon Rigger. Those books have been back in ebook form for a while now, and I even gathered them into a low-cost set, Dragon Space: A Star Rigger Omnibus. But the short story—originally published in The Science Fiction Times and the anthology Dragons of Darkness, edited by Orson Scott Card—has been out of circulation for many years. With Gretchen’s help, I’ve now amended that situation. Give it up for “Though All the Mountains Lie Between” the ebook!

It’s available in the usual suspect places, and will eventually migrate to even more stores. Just $.99 at Kindle and Nook, and free at Smashwords! It includes a preview chapter of Dragon Space.

18 May 2012

“Of No Return”

posted in: ebooks, personal news, publishing, science fiction, short stories | 0

My first professional sale came in 1974, a short story called “Of No Return,” about a man who works in a sea-floor power station experiencing difficulty in readapting to life on land. It was published In Fiction, a small magazine published at the time in Boston, and was later reprinted in a very small, limited edition anthology called Wet Visions. Aside from that, it’s been out of print—not even available on my web site. That’s changed, as of today.

Credit Gretchen, the high school student who has been working as an intern for me these last two weeks. She retyped the story, proofed it, created the cover and the ebook, and got it uploaded to all the usual suspect places. Here’s what it looks like. It’s free at Smashwords, for now, and $.99 at Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble Nook.

By this time next week, we should be well along in creating a complete short story collection, for eventual ebook (and who knows, maybe paper) publication. 

Available at Smashwords | Kindle | Nook

18 May 2012

Mind Control

posted in: science, science fiction, technology | 0

Mind over machine. Science fiction has predicted for decades that one day we would be able to control things by hooking our brains up to computers that would just make it all happen. And now it has happened: a paralyzed woman has used her mind to control a robot arm and make it bring a coffee cup to her lips to drink. This is not just cool; it is a promise of incalculable benefit to severely handicapped people everywhere, hopefully in the not-too-distant future.

The work was developed by scientists at Brown University, the Providence VA Medical Center, Harvard Medical School and other institutions. The AP story gives more information.

14 May 2012

“Love Rogo” Back in Print, Electronically Speaking

posted in: ebooks, publishing, science fiction, short stories | 0

My fourth short story, “Love Rogo,” is about a lovable doglike creature from Betelgeuse who is a little too lovable for his owners’ own good. It came out in 1977 in the anthology, Futurelove: a Science Fiction Triad, edited by Roger Elwood and published in hardcover by Bobbs-Merrill. There was no paperback edition, although the Science Fiction Book Club published their own low-cost hardcover. The other two authors in the book were Anne McCaffrey and Joan Hunter Holly; plus, there was an introduction by Gordon Dickson. It sobers me to note that I’m the only one still walking the Earth of that group of estimable people. Yow. God willing, I’ll keep the fires going here a while longer.

Getting this story back into circulation has been on my “to do” list for some time now, along with a handful of others. The common theme has been no digital file, which meant either retyping or scanning the stories in, something I just never got around to doing. About a year ago, my faithful reader Anne King sent me a digital copy of “Love Rogo,” in a gentle effort to jump-start the process. I still didn’t get around to it.

What changed is that I now have, for a few short weeks, the help of a smart young woman named Gretchen, a high-school student who is working for me as a publishing intern. The first task I gave her was getting “Love Rogo” finished and up as an ebook. She did that last week. She also designed the cover, modeled on the simple design of my other short story covers. (After a few days, I decided the cover wasn’t quite right, and we worked together to change the colors and type.)

“Love Rogo” is now available free at Smashwords for the month of May, and for $.99 in the Kindle and Nook stores.

Smashwords (all formats) | Kindle | Nook

11 May 2012

$160 Billion Damage to New York City!

posted in: quirky, science fiction, theater and movies | 0

That’s the estimated cost for direct damage, economic impact, cleanup time, and loss of life resulting from the battle between our heroes and the minions of Loki, as depicted in the movie The Avengers. That’s according to Kinetic Analysis Corp., a leading disaster-cost prediction and assessment firm, which studied the question for The Hollywood Reporter.

Deciding who is liable for the damages could prove a more daunting task than rebuilding. Notes the report: “Most insurance policies have special provisions for acts of war, civil unrest or terrorism. Given the involvement of individuals considered deities in some cultures (Thor, Loki), there is even the potential to classify the event as an ‘act of God,’ though that designation would be subject to strenuous theological and legal debate.” I’ll say. Being a lawyer on that case could be job security for life!

26 Apr 2012

Mine the Asteroids!

posted in: exploration, science fiction, space, technology | 0

The gold rush has officially begun: the mining of the asteroids. Science fiction writers have been predicting it for decades.* Now some seriously hard-hitting billionaires and technical people are joining forces to make it happen, through a privately funded initiative called Planetary Resources, Inc. Investors include filmmaker and explorer James Cameron (yes, he who just dove the Mariana Trench), the founders of the X-Prize Foundation, Google executives Larry Page & Eric Schmidt, Ross Perot, Jr., and others. Technical people include—well, for example, the chief engineer is Chris Lewicki, who was Flight Director for NASA’s Spirit and Opportunity Mars rover missions.

They’re seriously planning to robotically explore and mine near-Earth asteroids, seeking precious metals, such as platinum-family metals, and water (very precious in space, very expensive to lift into orbit). From the Planetary Resources website:

“Initial space resource development will focus on water-rich asteroids. Water is the essence of life and exists in plentiful supply on asteroids. Access to water and other life-supporting volatiles in space provides hydration, breathable air, radiation shielding and even manufacturing capabilities. Water’s elements, hydrogen and oxygen, can also be used to formulate rocket fuel.”

Here’s a summary of a recent report suggesting that the technology to do this is available or nearly so. 

I think this is one of the most exciting developments in space exploration since the Apollo lunar landings. For more details, visit the Planetary Resources website. For a highly readable but expert analysis, read Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy blog post: Breaking: Private company does indeed plan to mine asteroids… and I think they can do it.

I’m not an investment speculator, but if they were selling shares, I’d be in for a share today.

*My own short story, Dog Star, is based on the premise that we’ll be actively mining near-Earth asteroids; also, on the smarts of border collies.

26 Mar 2012

Larry Niven’s “Draco Tavern”

posted in: science fiction, writing | 0

These days I do a lot of my reading via audiobooks downloaded from the library. It’s great; it lets me read while walking the dog, or doing housework. Lately I’ve been listening to a collection by master SF storyteller Larry Niven called, The Draco Tavern. I say master storyteller, but the pieces in this collection are largely not complete stories but brief vignettes, in which Niven tosses off ideas and visions of alien creatures like sparks from a sparkler. The Draco Tavern is a pub in Siberia, built to accommodate alien tourists from throughout the galaxy. Rick, the tavern owner, has myriad tales to tell of aliens he’s served, starting with the Chirpsithra, who opened the galactic trade route.

I’d recommend this book to any aspiring SF writer—not as an example of great story structure (emphatically not; since they’re mostly not complete stories), but as an example of how to imagine possibilities, and how to convey remarkable visions in remarkably few words. One of the hardest things for many new writers to master is how to get across futuristic or otherworldly or alien settings and characters, without getting bogged down in tedious detail. It’s a skill that requires a lot of practice, and it’s useful to study how others do it. Niven can toss off in a sentence a crystal picture that would take others a paragraph to tell, or a page. In his introduction to the collection, Niven remarks that one reason he wrote all these vignettes was for the practice, because he wanted to get better at it.

If writing is your thing, I’d take a look at this collection. I just bought an ebook copy myself. Here are just a few places you can pick it up for your collection:

23 Mar 2012

Africa-themed Fantasy

posted in: ebooks, publishing, science fiction, writing | 0

Mary C. Aldridge is a writer you may not know, even though she was a Nebula finalist for one story, a Cauldron Award winner for another, and a winner of a Massachusetts Artists Foundation Fiction Fellowship for still another. The thing is, she hasn’t written nearly enough stories. A while back, I noted that she’d put some of her stories up for sale at Amazon and elsewhere. Now she’s gathered them into a collection that you can buy for a skinny $2.99 — a steal at the price.

If you like fantasy and African folklore, or just want to try something a little different, this could be just what you’re looking for.

Pick it up at Kindle / Nook / Smashwords (all formats)

17 Feb 2012

Boskone 2012

posted in: audiobook, science fiction, writing | 0

It’s Boskone time again. Boskone is a regional science fiction convention, drawing attendees from all over New England, NYC, and parts farther away. It’s one of three major conventions held every year in the Boston area (Arisia and Readercon being the other two). I’ll be there this weekend: Friday evening, Saturday during the day and perhaps the evening, and Sunday morning. The con is held at the Boston Westin Waterfront.

I’m on several panels Saturday, and will be autographing at 5 pm Saturday afternoon. Sunday morning, I’ll be doing a panel on audiobooks with two estimable colleagues, Bruce Coville (author and founder of Full Cast Audio), and Bob Kuhn, audiobook narrator (including my still-in-progress audiobook of Neptune Crossing). 

If you’re at the con, look me up! 

10 Feb 2012

Dragon Space Gets a New Face

posted in: ebooks, publishing, science fiction | 0

The indie-pub gurus all say that the cover of an ebook can make or break sales. I don’t know if they’re right or not, but I’m putting it to the test. Since I released Dragon Space: A Star Rigger Omnibus in mid-2011, sales have been slow. (Except during my holiday sale, when I dropped the price from $6.99 to $.99 for a week. That goosed things, but I couldn’t keep it at that price forever.) Dragon Space is a boxed set, or omnibus ebook, of two of my Star Rigger novels, Dragons in the Stars and Dragon Rigger. It includes the beautiful map of the dragon-realm-in-interstellar-space drawn for the original Tor paper edition of Dragon Rigger by Elissa Mitchell.

Now, I really liked the first cover I used; I worked closely with designer Pat Ryan (who is also writer Pat Ryan, and who has since stopped designing covers in order to focus on her writing). She gave me just what I asked for. Here’s the original cover:

But apparently it wasn’t what the public asked for. So here’s a new look, designed by Amanda Kelsey of Razzle Dazzle Design:

What do you think? Is it more of an eye-catcher? 

By the way, if you already own Dragon Space and wish you had it with this new cover, feel free to save the image from here and swap it into the book with Calibre or another free program. Or, drop me a note and I’ll send you the updated book file. Or, you may be able to download it again from wherever you bought it.

Conversely, the same applies if you’re just buying the book now, but wish you had it with the earlier cover.

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