Buy a Book Saturday!

The latest shopping innovation for the upcoming holiday season -- choose the winter festivity of your choice -- is Small Business Saturday. SBS is being held for the first time this year, on the day after so-called Black Friday, on November 27. The basic concept: don't just shop. Make an effort, at least this one day, to explore and patronize small businesses in your area. It's nothing against big/chain stores -- they'll do fine.

Who is a smaller business than the solitary author toiling at home in his/her office, pounding away at a keyboard? So: while you're out shopping, buy a book! Or two! Support an author or two or more (and I'm not saying me, or even others in the genre -- but IMO, living authors would be nice).

You're obviously a reader -- what makes a better gift than a book/ebook/audio book? (And if you don't see the book you had in mind, ask the bookseller to order it for you. Most booksellers will be more than happy to oblige.)

Buy a Book Saturday! Nourish the meme -- and the rest of the mind! Spread the word!

Of a fleet (of worlds) passing in the night

A recurring theme in reader emails and some reviews of Fleet of Worlds series books is, "Why don't the [your choice of crafty Known Space species] notice the Fleet as it barrels through space? Even today, astronomers see stars across great distances, and the worlds of the Fleet (with one exception, discussed below) are lit by artificial suns.

The traditional answer (found in Ringworld, long before my entry into Known Space) is that no one thought to look between the stars. People (and Kzinti, and ...) hunted for Puppeteers on some as-yet undiscovered conventional world orbiting a sunlike star.

What about before the Fleet set "sail" (not that, pre-Ringworld, anyone in Known Space suspected world-moving technology could exist)? Puppeteers had long ago relocated their planets to new orbits far from their sun -- which had undergone late-in-life expansion into a red giant. Any artificial suns close to planets would be very hard to spot from a great distance against the backdrop luminosity of a red giant!

In short: the Fleet went undetected because everyone looked in the wrong places.

But there's a second, more quantitative answer. I'm not sure it needs to be spelled (numbered?) out in the context of storytelling, but I think it's worth relating somewhere. So here goes.

NORAD knows. How could they not?

During rush hour last night, a rocket was seen streaking across the sky over Los Angeles. The military professes bafflement. AFAIK, the FAA has had nothing to say.

California is end-to-end airports and Air Force bases -- including Vandenberg AFB, from which the Air Force launches missiles. With all those radars, how can the military not know exactly from where last night's rocket was launched and where it came down? I have to believe they do know. Hopefully, because they launched it (surely not meaning to send it over LA), and don't care to fess up. Regardless, because if anyone other than the US military launched it and the military can't track/trace it, that would be really scary.

I wonder if we'll ever get a truthful explanation?

A whole Pak of trouble

Pak are humanity's (fortunately only fictional) cousins: lean, mean -- and scary smart -- fighting machines. In Destroyer of Worlds (which I first announced here), the Pak were the latest menace to confront the Puppeteers, aboard the Fleet of Worlds, and their human allies.

As of today, Destroyer of Worlds is out in paperback.

I've been delighted with the reviews since the novel debuted. To mention only a few:

Good times

I spent last Saturday at one of my favorite cons: Capclave.  It is (as the website describes), "a small relaxed literary convention," and always very pleasant. My three panels were "The Mule, Muad'dib, and Men Who Stare at Goats," "World Building: Planning and Execution," and "Military Science Fiction."

"Mule" -- despite an odd title -- dealt with a serious SFnal topic: humans with extraordinary abilities, and how we might get to Human 2.0. I'd not done a panel on that topic before, and enjoyed the change. (Small Miracles deals with nanotech in humans, and was certainly related, but the panel tended to go down the genetic-engineering path.)

A still wacky universe

Oddities from the world of science continue to attract my attention ...

Can the language we speak affect how we perceive the world? Perhaps. See Lost in Translation.

I've always thought this relationship must exist. It's not that one can't imagine a concept for which vocabulary doesn't already exist -- or else nothing new (including new vocabulary) would ever be created -- but surely it helps to have suitable vocabulary to conceptualize the new thing.

Think that's strange? How about pinpointing the differences in brain wiring between introverts and extroverts? See Brains of Introverts Reveal Why They Prefer Being Alone.

Betrayer of Worlds

Puppeteers are the sneakiest, most conniving -- and for many SF readers, most fascinating -- aliens in the galaxy. They're certainly the most cowardly. Arguably, they're the most ruthless.

Maybe that's why I so enjoy writing about them. As in -- just released today -- the latest installment in Larry Niven's and my epic Fleet of Worlds series: Betrayer of Worlds.

Since the chain reaction of supernovae at the galactic core sent a trillion Puppeteers aboard the Fleet of Worlds fleeing for their lives, the two-headed aliens have lurched from one crisis to the next ...

Until now, when -- like every Puppeteer's worst nightmare -- past crises have converged.

A big part of why I do what I do ...

NPR recently reported that "Sci-Fi Inspires Engineers To Build Our Future."

I already knew that, of course -- and I'm sure SF lures folks into science as well as into engineering. Heck, once upon a time, SF lured me into physics. I know I've read articles in which astronauts say about themselves that science fiction (never "sci-fi") first interested them in space, or science, or technology. From one such article, "Real Astronauts in Fictional Space," a quote:

"One thing most all astronauts have in common is their love of science fiction and “space-operas”, especially those that treat contemporary issues in their stories, and those, like Star Trek, that inspire future generations to put no limits on their imaginations and encourages them to excel in the sciences."

Inspiring others to expand human knowledge, unleash their imaginations, and explore new worlds. Not too shabby a reason to go to work every day.