Category Archives: SF

How Many Exoplanets Now?!

xkcd: Exoplanets Just how many exoplanets are now known? Oodles. Topping 500 this week with 400 more odd promised over the next year from “Kepler” and who knows how many being watched prior to the discoverers going public… Exoplanet Encyclopedia

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Human/Bacteria Hybrid Emortals

Found in nature’s freezer, the secret of living to 140 | Mail Online. Certain bacteria and/or their by-products when injected into mice & flies (standard lab-animal models for such studies) extend their healthy life-spans by almost double. Thus the headline … Continue reading

Posted in Carnival, Cosmos, SF, Starflight, Super-Tech | 1 Comment

I Dream of the City

I dream of a City, but not like any we know in our Time. This City is more like a forest – of crystal columns, thinking inscrutable thoughts. But the City is powerful – it reaches across all Times, drawing … Continue reading

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The Night Land (II)

Part (I) William Hope Hodgson’s “The Night Land” is a perfect example of fin de cicle, end of the World, style writing from the end of the old naive belief in progress and bellicose sabre-rattling that had marked progressive thought … Continue reading

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Round-Trip Fusion Rockets II

A worthwhile predecessor to my present musings is the 1996 efforts by Kelly Starks & the gang at the Lunar Institute of Technology. As you’ll note the “updates” have lagged somewhat, but the Starship Design Study is well worth a … Continue reading

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“Noise”

Harry Stubbs aka ‘Hal Clement’ was the Grand Master of alien planet building with such classic creations as Mesklin, Dhrawn and Tenebra. His last creation, prior to his passing in 2003, was Kainui in his novel “Noise”, which I finished … Continue reading

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Current Reading

Larry Niven & Eric Lerner “Juggler of Worlds” – sequel to “Fleet of Worlds” in which we see several classic Beowulf Schaeffer stories from Sigmund Ausfaller’s PoV. If you know what I mean then you’ll want to read this one. … Continue reading

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