Tuesday, March 31, 2015
Eclipse
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day is a nice image of last week's solar eclipse showing the corona and some solar prominences spilling out from the Moon.
Monday, March 30, 2015
Spectrum is Green
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows a multi-hued auroral curtain in the skies over Sweden.
Sunday, March 29, 2015
Cast a Giant Shadow
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows the long shadow cast by MER Opportunity, operating on Mars for more than a decade (pretty good for a ninety-day mission, no?). What a shame NASA has apparently set Opportunity's budget down to zero next year. Why toss away a perfectly good functional vehicle?
Saturday, March 28, 2015
Ring Around the Sun
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows shows a multiple-image view of the March 20 solar eclipse. Thanks to the less-than-perfect shape of the Moon, we get to enjoy some beads and a ring.
Friday, March 27, 2015
Spot in the Camel
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows NGC in the constellation of Camelopardalis. Can you spot any other galaxies in the image?
Thursday, March 26, 2015
Hunter
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows Orion the Hunter in the early spring sky. March, the time for Messier Marathons!
You know Orion always comes up sideways.
Throwing a leg up over our fence of mountains,
And rising on his hands, he looks in on me
Busy outdoors by lantern-light with something
I should have done by daylight, and indeed,
After the ground is frozen, I should have done
Before it froze, and a gust flings a handful
Of waste leaves at my smoky lantern chimney
To make fun of my way of doing things,
Or else fun of Orion's having caught me.
Has a man, I should like to ask, no rights
These forces are obliged to pay respect to?"
So Brad McLaughlin mingled reckless talk
Of heavenly stars with hugger-mugger farming,
Till having failed at hugger-mugger farming,
He burned his house down for the fire insurance
And spent the proceeds on a telescope
To satisfy a lifelong curiosity
About our place among the infinities.
(Robert Frost, The Star-Splitter)
You know Orion always comes up sideways.
Throwing a leg up over our fence of mountains,
And rising on his hands, he looks in on me
Busy outdoors by lantern-light with something
I should have done by daylight, and indeed,
After the ground is frozen, I should have done
Before it froze, and a gust flings a handful
Of waste leaves at my smoky lantern chimney
To make fun of my way of doing things,
Or else fun of Orion's having caught me.
Has a man, I should like to ask, no rights
These forces are obliged to pay respect to?"
So Brad McLaughlin mingled reckless talk
Of heavenly stars with hugger-mugger farming,
Till having failed at hugger-mugger farming,
He burned his house down for the fire insurance
And spent the proceeds on a telescope
To satisfy a lifelong curiosity
About our place among the infinities.
(Robert Frost, The Star-Splitter)
Collecting Anthologies
In this month's episode of The Three Hoarsemen (a member of the SF Signal Family of Podcasts), we talked about anthologies. I thought I would write up my thoughts on the several sets of anthologies that I chose to talk about.
The first pair are not only shared world anthologies, but became shared world anthology series. In fact, the first, Thieves' World, may have been the first original share world anthology (or series). Other than Star Trek (which, at that point was still mostly the works of James Blish and Alan Dean Foster) and Star Wars (mostly Alan Dean Foster—both as a ghostwriter and under his own name, Brian Daley and L. Neil Smith), a series of stories or novels sharing a common background by multiple authors was not a "thing".
Thieves' World, or it's rebooted edition Thieves' World: First Blood is worth reading not only for the stories (and to see who contributed), but for Robert Lynn Asprin's essay at the end of the (first) book. Asprin was a relative newcomer at that point and certainly not a "name" that could launch something as risky as a anthology (let alone a new concept such as a shared world anthology). But he managed to play an extended game of poker, getting one author to sign on by hinting that another was already in, offering "real estate rights" in order to persuade people, etc. Once he had his lineup, he then had to learn how to herd cats: in the days before electronic mail (let alone wide us of faxes and overnight delivery of manuscripts), Asprin and co-editor Lynn Abbey worked to coordinate story, setting, sequencing of stories and more. It's a fascinating tale and got the series off to a good start that lasted for several more books. The series even spun off solo works by David Drake, Janet Morris and Gordon R. Dickson (although in his case, we got the character but the setting was different).
I regularly read entries in the series until it seemed to winnow down to a relatively few author's. The stories were still good, but I missed the input of early contributors such as Joe Haldeman (who really hasn't dabbled much in fantasy at all). Lynn Abbey tried a recent reboot of the series with the above-mentioned Thieves' World: First Blood, but also Thieves' World: Turning Points, Thieves' World: Enemies of Fortune and Sanctuary; between the four, a mix of old and new stories, short works and a novel. Alas, the reboot did not seem to gain traction.
Thieves' World is also notable in that it spawned off a unique gaming property. Chaosium, then mostly known for it's popular RuneQuest roleplaying game, bought the license to do a roleplaying supplement and instead of exclusively keeping it for RuneQuest, opened it up for all the then existing major roleplaying game properties. So, you could run a RuneQuest adventure...or Dungeons & Dragons...or Traveller (and more). Mayfair Games produced a boardgame based on the property and there has been an attempt to relaunch a roleplaying game around the time of the relaunched books, but this interesting early attempt at "open-source gaming" is (alas) forgotten by most.
The next shared world anthology series that hooked me (by then, there were several but most faded quickly into obscurity) was one helmed by George R. R. Martin, not the force behind Game of Thrones, but a guy behind some books and stories and a television series called Beauty and the Beast. Martin lived in the Santa Fe area, surrounded by many genre folk including Melinda Snodgrass and Roger Zelazny. He ran a superhero-themed roleplaying game for them which started to consume more and more of his time (prepare for adventure, run adventure, write up notes on what happened, prepare for next session, etc.) that he eventually decided to see if he could make the "free work" into "paid work" and do a shared world anthology series based on the game. Out of this came Wild Cards, a series which has spawned short story collections, novels, "mosaic" novels. The series has gone across four publishers (Bantam, Baen, ibooks, Tor), has in itself spawned roleplaying game supplements and comics, and now is under development (given that George R. R. Martin is now known for that television property Game of Thrones) as either a movie or a television series.
Wild Cards takes place in "our" world, starting shortly after World War II, but with aliens, alien viruses, mutated humans (the "Aces" and "Jokers") with various powers, heroes without powers, more aliens, politics, crime, magic and even Vietnam. When the series was bought by Tor, they started coming out with the original books (Wild Cards I, Wild Cards II: Aces High, Wild Cards III: Jokers Wild, Wild Cards IV: Aces Abroad) as well as moving the stories forward with new volumes such as Fort Freak and Inside Straight. Between the "rising tide lifts all boats" effect of Game of Thrones and Martin's general greater popularity, the number of superhero properties in print and on the large or small screens, and the potential of a movie or television series based on Wild Cards, it looks good that the old books will continue to come into print while new books continue to come out.
The series has varied in quality throughout the volumes but the early volumes (as reprints) are strong and stronger (thanks to some additional material) and the new volumes are consistently good (thanks to the guiding hand of collaborator Melinda Snodgrass, who is also working on developing the media property).
I'll end the look at shared world anthologies with a pair of anthologies that each share a single world in a single volume. Medea: Harlan's World (edited by Harlan Ellison) and Murasaki (edited by Robert Silverberg and Martin H. Greenberg).
Medea grew out of a seminar that Ellison helmed (which is included, in part, as a transcript in the book) and guidance from "Hard SF" worldbuilders such as Hal Clement and Poul Anderson. Kelly Freas contributed artwork to the seminar and between the seminar, the art, and the essays, stories were produced by Jack Williamson, Larry Niven, Thomas M. Disch and several others.
Murasaki's origins are not as clear, but seem to have grown from a similar set as Medea: Poul Anderson provided guidance in the form of an essay, as did Fred Pohl. Stories were devised by David Brin, Nancy Kress and others. The advertising copy (well, the Wikipedia entry) says that this "was the first anthology of this type that was entirely conceived and written by winners of the Nebula Award" (splitting hairs, given the number of Nebulas and Hugos won by participants in the earlier project).
Both have good stories, but both are recommended for other reasons: in both, the people overseeing the project have written extensive essays about the project, which fits in with comments made in the Thieves' World and Wild Cards books from the people running those projects and should be studied by anybody undertaking a project (I'd also recommend Harlan Ellison's extensive remarks in his screenplay for Isaac Asimov's I, Robot and his very long essay in the the novelization of his failed Starlost project as additional "lessons learned" if you work on a media project!). The military may teach you how to "herd cats" but most writers do not start off with those skills! Another recommendation for reading these two are the "world building" essays. While some may poo-poo Hard SF of late, these essays show the kind of thought you ought to put into a fantasy or science fiction world. Even if you don't "show your work" in the story (as a information dump, for example), you ought to think about the framework holding your story up.
To finish up, I'm going to revisit a series of anthologies that we discussed on the podcast in a previous episode: The Infinity series edited by Johnathan Strahan. Several of my nominations for the short story category in the Hugos came out of the most recent entry to the series, Reach for Infinity. The other entries in the series include: Engineering Infinity, Edge of Infinity, and the forthcoming Meeting Infinity.
I could have gone on with many more anthologies. Here's a sampling of some of the anthologies in my Current Reads folder on my various eBook gadgets: Upgraded, Space Opera, Twelve Tomorrows 2013, Twelve Tomorrows 2014, Carbide Tipped Pens, Hieroglyph, Arc Volume 1, War Stories, Starship Century, Old Venus, Old Mars, The Lowest Heaven, War and Space—Recent Combat, and Coming Soon Enough—Six Tales of Technology's Future.
That just scratches the surface of the paper and electronic anthologies (themed, unthemed, year's best, based on a specific magazine, old, new, single author, multi-author) that line my shelves. Give an anthology a try! You never know what new author you may fall in love with.
The first pair are not only shared world anthologies, but became shared world anthology series. In fact, the first, Thieves' World, may have been the first original share world anthology (or series). Other than Star Trek (which, at that point was still mostly the works of James Blish and Alan Dean Foster) and Star Wars (mostly Alan Dean Foster—both as a ghostwriter and under his own name, Brian Daley and L. Neil Smith), a series of stories or novels sharing a common background by multiple authors was not a "thing".
Thieves' World, or it's rebooted edition Thieves' World: First Blood is worth reading not only for the stories (and to see who contributed), but for Robert Lynn Asprin's essay at the end of the (first) book. Asprin was a relative newcomer at that point and certainly not a "name" that could launch something as risky as a anthology (let alone a new concept such as a shared world anthology). But he managed to play an extended game of poker, getting one author to sign on by hinting that another was already in, offering "real estate rights" in order to persuade people, etc. Once he had his lineup, he then had to learn how to herd cats: in the days before electronic mail (let alone wide us of faxes and overnight delivery of manuscripts), Asprin and co-editor Lynn Abbey worked to coordinate story, setting, sequencing of stories and more. It's a fascinating tale and got the series off to a good start that lasted for several more books. The series even spun off solo works by David Drake, Janet Morris and Gordon R. Dickson (although in his case, we got the character but the setting was different).
I regularly read entries in the series until it seemed to winnow down to a relatively few author's. The stories were still good, but I missed the input of early contributors such as Joe Haldeman (who really hasn't dabbled much in fantasy at all). Lynn Abbey tried a recent reboot of the series with the above-mentioned Thieves' World: First Blood, but also Thieves' World: Turning Points, Thieves' World: Enemies of Fortune and Sanctuary; between the four, a mix of old and new stories, short works and a novel. Alas, the reboot did not seem to gain traction.
Thieves' World is also notable in that it spawned off a unique gaming property. Chaosium, then mostly known for it's popular RuneQuest roleplaying game, bought the license to do a roleplaying supplement and instead of exclusively keeping it for RuneQuest, opened it up for all the then existing major roleplaying game properties. So, you could run a RuneQuest adventure...or Dungeons & Dragons...or Traveller (and more). Mayfair Games produced a boardgame based on the property and there has been an attempt to relaunch a roleplaying game around the time of the relaunched books, but this interesting early attempt at "open-source gaming" is (alas) forgotten by most.
The next shared world anthology series that hooked me (by then, there were several but most faded quickly into obscurity) was one helmed by George R. R. Martin, not the force behind Game of Thrones, but a guy behind some books and stories and a television series called Beauty and the Beast. Martin lived in the Santa Fe area, surrounded by many genre folk including Melinda Snodgrass and Roger Zelazny. He ran a superhero-themed roleplaying game for them which started to consume more and more of his time (prepare for adventure, run adventure, write up notes on what happened, prepare for next session, etc.) that he eventually decided to see if he could make the "free work" into "paid work" and do a shared world anthology series based on the game. Out of this came Wild Cards, a series which has spawned short story collections, novels, "mosaic" novels. The series has gone across four publishers (Bantam, Baen, ibooks, Tor), has in itself spawned roleplaying game supplements and comics, and now is under development (given that George R. R. Martin is now known for that television property Game of Thrones) as either a movie or a television series.
Wild Cards takes place in "our" world, starting shortly after World War II, but with aliens, alien viruses, mutated humans (the "Aces" and "Jokers") with various powers, heroes without powers, more aliens, politics, crime, magic and even Vietnam. When the series was bought by Tor, they started coming out with the original books (Wild Cards I, Wild Cards II: Aces High, Wild Cards III: Jokers Wild, Wild Cards IV: Aces Abroad) as well as moving the stories forward with new volumes such as Fort Freak and Inside Straight. Between the "rising tide lifts all boats" effect of Game of Thrones and Martin's general greater popularity, the number of superhero properties in print and on the large or small screens, and the potential of a movie or television series based on Wild Cards, it looks good that the old books will continue to come into print while new books continue to come out.
The series has varied in quality throughout the volumes but the early volumes (as reprints) are strong and stronger (thanks to some additional material) and the new volumes are consistently good (thanks to the guiding hand of collaborator Melinda Snodgrass, who is also working on developing the media property).
I'll end the look at shared world anthologies with a pair of anthologies that each share a single world in a single volume. Medea: Harlan's World (edited by Harlan Ellison) and Murasaki (edited by Robert Silverberg and Martin H. Greenberg).
Medea grew out of a seminar that Ellison helmed (which is included, in part, as a transcript in the book) and guidance from "Hard SF" worldbuilders such as Hal Clement and Poul Anderson. Kelly Freas contributed artwork to the seminar and between the seminar, the art, and the essays, stories were produced by Jack Williamson, Larry Niven, Thomas M. Disch and several others.
Murasaki's origins are not as clear, but seem to have grown from a similar set as Medea: Poul Anderson provided guidance in the form of an essay, as did Fred Pohl. Stories were devised by David Brin, Nancy Kress and others. The advertising copy (well, the Wikipedia entry) says that this "was the first anthology of this type that was entirely conceived and written by winners of the Nebula Award" (splitting hairs, given the number of Nebulas and Hugos won by participants in the earlier project).
Both have good stories, but both are recommended for other reasons: in both, the people overseeing the project have written extensive essays about the project, which fits in with comments made in the Thieves' World and Wild Cards books from the people running those projects and should be studied by anybody undertaking a project (I'd also recommend Harlan Ellison's extensive remarks in his screenplay for Isaac Asimov's I, Robot and his very long essay in the the novelization of his failed Starlost project as additional "lessons learned" if you work on a media project!). The military may teach you how to "herd cats" but most writers do not start off with those skills! Another recommendation for reading these two are the "world building" essays. While some may poo-poo Hard SF of late, these essays show the kind of thought you ought to put into a fantasy or science fiction world. Even if you don't "show your work" in the story (as a information dump, for example), you ought to think about the framework holding your story up.
To finish up, I'm going to revisit a series of anthologies that we discussed on the podcast in a previous episode: The Infinity series edited by Johnathan Strahan. Several of my nominations for the short story category in the Hugos came out of the most recent entry to the series, Reach for Infinity. The other entries in the series include: Engineering Infinity, Edge of Infinity, and the forthcoming Meeting Infinity.
I could have gone on with many more anthologies. Here's a sampling of some of the anthologies in my Current Reads folder on my various eBook gadgets: Upgraded, Space Opera, Twelve Tomorrows 2013, Twelve Tomorrows 2014, Carbide Tipped Pens, Hieroglyph, Arc Volume 1, War Stories, Starship Century, Old Venus, Old Mars, The Lowest Heaven, War and Space—Recent Combat, and Coming Soon Enough—Six Tales of Technology's Future.
That just scratches the surface of the paper and electronic anthologies (themed, unthemed, year's best, based on a specific magazine, old, new, single author, multi-author) that line my shelves. Give an anthology a try! You never know what new author you may fall in love with.
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
A Bit of a Bang
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows a "new star" (nova) in the constellation of Sagittarius. A recently discovered nova has become (for how long) a naked-eye object. You have to get up early to spot Sagittarius this time of the year, but it might be worth the try!
Tuesday, March 24, 2015
Age of Confusion
Brian Michael Bendis & Company: Age of Ultron—The Complete Event (Marvel; 2013; ISBN 978-0785155652)
I first read this last year as the apparently-not-quite-so-complete event. Great beginning but confusing end with the story going completely off the rails at one point. Seeing a "complete" edition, I decided to give it a try to see if I had missed an important element the first time around.
Well...great beginning, lots of great story elements even for a relative newcomer such as myself, interesting stories around the world...but...the story goes completely off the rails at one point (what in the name of heck does that Dr. Doom story have to do with anything else?) and a very inconclusive ending.
So: complete event or incomplete event, the edition didn't seem to matter.
Note: I liked much of the book. But there was no payoff. Turf battles at Marvel? Lack of an overall guiding hand? Hopefully the movie version brings it all around and in one nice package with a bow!
I first read this last year as the apparently-not-quite-so-complete event. Great beginning but confusing end with the story going completely off the rails at one point. Seeing a "complete" edition, I decided to give it a try to see if I had missed an important element the first time around.
Well...great beginning, lots of great story elements even for a relative newcomer such as myself, interesting stories around the world...but...the story goes completely off the rails at one point (what in the name of heck does that Dr. Doom story have to do with anything else?) and a very inconclusive ending.
So: complete event or incomplete event, the edition didn't seem to matter.
Note: I liked much of the book. But there was no payoff. Turf battles at Marvel? Lack of an overall guiding hand? Hopefully the movie version brings it all around and in one nice package with a bow!
The Star Wars
The Star Wars; J.W. Rinzler & Company (Dark Horse Books; 2014; ISBN 978-1616553807).
Before there was Star Wars or Star Wars IV: A New Hope, there were a few mentions of The Star Wars in the pages of Starlog (then a new print magazine) and Newsweek (then still a print magazine) featuring a brief plot rundown and some artwork by Ralph McQuarrie (who I had encountered in the past as an illustrator for news coverage of the Apollo missions).
The plot outline was enough to excite me that when we were asked to do a fiction piece in English class in high school, I wrote my version of the movie, based on nothing more than those few sentences.
Several months before the movie came out, I spotted a novelization (with a fantastic cover by Ralph McQuarrie) and grabbed it (the odd thing is, well before we learned that Alan Dean Foster wrote this, I figured he was involved just from a few odd Fosterian phrasings). The plot was different from the summaries and the artwork. Where, for example, did all the laser swords (now called light sabers) that the stormtroopers were carrying go?
Now we know. Working from early concept art and an early script, J.W. Rinzler and a hosts of artists have recreated that first vision and what a strange trip it is. Multiple attacks by the Death Star. Many laser sword battles, including those laser sword-wielding stormtroopers. A wookie planet. Han Solo that is not human. And...if you thought the dialogue was wince-inducing at times in what you saw on the screen...some really wince-inducing dialogue.
Thumbs up to Rinzler and Company for undertaking this effort. What might have been!
Before there was Star Wars or Star Wars IV: A New Hope, there were a few mentions of The Star Wars in the pages of Starlog (then a new print magazine) and Newsweek (then still a print magazine) featuring a brief plot rundown and some artwork by Ralph McQuarrie (who I had encountered in the past as an illustrator for news coverage of the Apollo missions).
The plot outline was enough to excite me that when we were asked to do a fiction piece in English class in high school, I wrote my version of the movie, based on nothing more than those few sentences.
Several months before the movie came out, I spotted a novelization (with a fantastic cover by Ralph McQuarrie) and grabbed it (the odd thing is, well before we learned that Alan Dean Foster wrote this, I figured he was involved just from a few odd Fosterian phrasings). The plot was different from the summaries and the artwork. Where, for example, did all the laser swords (now called light sabers) that the stormtroopers were carrying go?
Now we know. Working from early concept art and an early script, J.W. Rinzler and a hosts of artists have recreated that first vision and what a strange trip it is. Multiple attacks by the Death Star. Many laser sword battles, including those laser sword-wielding stormtroopers. A wookie planet. Han Solo that is not human. And...if you thought the dialogue was wince-inducing at times in what you saw on the screen...some really wince-inducing dialogue.
Thumbs up to Rinzler and Company for undertaking this effort. What might have been!
Monday, March 23, 2015
MMS Launch
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows an Atlas V lofting the Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission on it's way to exploring the space around Earth.
Sunday, March 22, 2015
Across the Home Star
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day is an image from last week's double solar eclipse.
Saturday, March 21, 2015
Hidden
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows the solar eclipse from some lovely northern climes.
Friday, March 20, 2015
Different Light
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows the Moon, lit by two different lights: direct light from the Sun and reflected earthshine from our own planet.
Thursday, March 19, 2015
Active Skies
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day is just one image posted of the solar storm that caused auroral activity in both hemispheres this week.
Wednesday, March 18, 2015
Lunar Shadow
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day gives a different perspective on a total solar eclipse. Here we have the 2006 total eclipse from the viewpoint of the International Space Station.
Long Duration
In light of NASA's stated intention of "zeroing out the budget" (cancelling) missions such as MER Opportunity and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, this article about a mission that has been ongoing for forty years is of interest.
Why cancel Opportunity and LRO, NASA? An operating vehicle is worth a lot more to science and the public interest than a vehicle that is only on paper!
Why cancel Opportunity and LRO, NASA? An operating vehicle is worth a lot more to science and the public interest than a vehicle that is only on paper!
Tuesday, March 17, 2015
The Plough
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows the main part of Ursus Major, The Big Dipper, or The Plough. Do you know how to use the Big Dipper to find the Little Dipper and the North Star?
("Mouseover" the image to get a star guide.)
("Mouseover" the image to get a star guide.)
Monday, March 16, 2015
Shadings
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day is a fantastic image of the complex nebula found in the constellation of Orion. We're not just talking the familiar Messier 42 in the belt and sword here: "mouseover" the image for a guide to the stars to show you how much of the sky is encompassed in this picture!
Sunday, March 15, 2015
Polar Solar
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows a total eclipse of the Sun. Such events are often photographed by "eclipse chasers" who go through vast amounts of trouble and expense to get that perfect shot. This particular eclipse shot meant an endurance of a different kind: it happened in Antarctica!
Saturday, March 14, 2015
At the Cloud Top
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows Expedition 42, returning via Soyuz from the International Space Station. A photographer on a chase plane captured this image before the capsule sank beneath the cloud tops and returned to Earth.
Friday, March 13, 2015
All Along the Watchtower
From a great wall in the galaxy to a great wall on the planet. Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows the Great Wall of China, at sunset, with a rising full Moon.
Thursday, March 12, 2015
On the Back of the Turtle
"I mean," said Ipslore bitterly, "what is there in this world that makes living worthwhile?"
Death thought about it.
CATS, he said finally. CATS ARE NICE.
Many thanks for all the books, Sir Pterry.
Death thought about it.
CATS, he said finally. CATS ARE NICE.
Many thanks for all the books, Sir Pterry.
Good Walls Make for Good Neighbors
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows a part of the North American Nebula in the constellation of Cygnus known as the Cygnus Wall.
Wednesday, March 11, 2015
The Quiet Earth
Above, the silent stars go by. Below, a volcano. Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows the Volcan de Fuego in Guatemala. "Mouseover" the image for a constellation guide.
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
Mirror Universe
Above, the auroral curtains. Below, the stars. Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows auroral activity in the skies of Iceland. Reflected in the lake are the stars. "Mouseover" the image to get a constellation guide.
Monday, March 9, 2015
Lensing
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day is a great demonstration of gravitational lensing. The light of a distant supernova is bent around a far galaxy and appears as four "separate" supernovas.
Sunday, March 8, 2015
Where the Wisdom Stars Are
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows a Spitzer Space Telescope image (made up of many images) of our galactic center. By viewing the region in infrared, we can peer past the dust clouds that obscure the center from our eyes. (The title of this post is a throwback to my early days of gaming; let's see if anybody else catches the reference!)
Saturday, March 7, 2015
Galactic Lizards
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows the outskirts of the Small Magellanic Cloud (something I hope to see for myself someday!) and star cluster NGC 602. Why the galactic lizard title above? The surrounding nebula is popularly known as The Flying Lizard.
Friday, March 6, 2015
The Hungry Sky
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows "cometary globule" (not surprisingly...as with "planetary" nebula it is a historical misnomer) CG4 in the constellation of Puppis. The cometary globule seems to be ready to feast on a galaxy also in the image.
Thursday, March 5, 2015
Hugo Nominations
Once more into the breech, dear friends, once more into the breech...
A plea, again, to magazine and book publishers: there are editor categories in the Hugo Awards. Wouldn't it be nice to have the people that produce the book and stories that we nominate and vote on get nominated as well? Doesn't it make sense to put somewhere...easily seen...a list of your editor folk and the projects they did?
This is the third year I've spent most of my time deciding what to vote on just trying to figure out what editors did what or what editors work where. Next year I may just ditch those two categories out of protest.
Next difficult was the fan category, as I don't don't interact on the forums and sites that much, so I don't really "know" the folks who work there. Fan artist was the hardest.
Comics...oddly...was almost the easiest category this year. What a change from last year!
On to the nominations...
Best Novel:
Proxima: Stephen Baxter
Europe in Autumn: Dave Hutchinson
The Three-Body Problem: Cixin Liu
The Causal Angel: Hannu Rajaniemi
On the Steel Breeze: Alastair Reynolds
Best Novella:
The Adventure of the Ring of Stones: James P. Blaylock/Subterranean
The Regular: Ken Liu/Upgraded
The Madonna and the Starship: James Morrow/Tachyon
Entanglement: Vandanah Singh/Hieroglyph
Kur-A-Len: Lavie Tidhar/Black Gods Kiss
Best Novelette:
Memorials: Aliette de Bodard/Asimov's
The Last Log of the "Lachrimosa": Alastair Reynolds/Subterranean Online
Seventh Sight: Greg Egan/Upgraded
A Hotel in Antarctica: Geoffrey A. Landis/Hieroglyph
Wine: Yoon Ha Lee/Clarkesworld
Best Short Story:
In Babelsburg: Alastair Reynolds/Reach for Infinity
Invisible Planets: Hannu Rajaniemi/Reach for Infinity
Trademark Bugs—A Legal History: Adam Roberts/Reach for Infinity
The Long Haul from the ANNALS OF TRANSPORTATION, The Pacific Monthly, May 2009: Ken Liu/Clarkesworld (needs to win the award for longest story title that I've ever typed into a form!)
The Dust Queen: Aliette de Bodard/Reach for Infinity
Best Related Work:
Greg Egan: Karen Burnham
Handbook of Vance Space: Michael Andre-Driussi
The Art of John Harris—Beyond the Horizon: John Harris
The Art of Ian Miller: Ian Miller
Sibilant Fricative—Essays & Reviews: Adam Roberts
Best Graphic Story:
Trees: Warren Ellis and Jason Howard
Caliban: Garth Ennis and Facundo Percio
Schlock Mercenary—Broken Wind: Howard Tayler
Letter 44: Charles Soule and Alberto Jimenez Alburquerque
Ms Marvel: G. Willow Wilson, Adrian Alphona & Co.
Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form):
Captain America: Winter Soldier
The Grand Budapest Hotel
X-Men: Days of Future Passed
Maleficent
Guardians of the Galaxy
Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form):
I Remember the Future
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Beginning of the End
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: The Things We Bury
Doctor Who: Listen
Doctor Who: Flatline
Best Professional Editor (Short-Form):
Jaym Gates
Alisa Krasnostein
Andrew Liptak
Julia Rios
Jonathan Strahan
Best Professional Editor (Long-Form):
Anne Clarke
Lee Harris
Marco Palmieri
Anne Perry
William Schaeffer
Best Professional Artist:
Galan Dara
Daniel Dos Santos
Dalve Halverson ("Joey HiFi")
John Picacio
Fiona Staples
Best Semiprozine:
Apex
Beneath Ceaseless Skies
Interzone
Lightspeed
The New York Review of SF
Best Fanzine:
Ansible
The Book Smugglers
A Dribble of Ink
SF Signal
Skiffy and Fanty
Best Fancast:
The Coode Street Podcast
Galactic Suburbia
The Incomprable
The SF Signal Podcast
The Three Hoarsemen (well, DUH!)
Best Fan Writer:
Sarah Chorn
John DeNardo
Jamie Todd Rubin
John Stevens
Pau Weimer
Best Fan Artist:
Winchell Chung
Patrick Hester
Jeff Patterson
(04)
(05)
John W. Campbell Award (Not A Campbell):
Wesley Chu
Michael J. Martinez
Emma J. Newman
Helen Wecker
Django Wexler
A plea, again, to magazine and book publishers: there are editor categories in the Hugo Awards. Wouldn't it be nice to have the people that produce the book and stories that we nominate and vote on get nominated as well? Doesn't it make sense to put somewhere...easily seen...a list of your editor folk and the projects they did?
This is the third year I've spent most of my time deciding what to vote on just trying to figure out what editors did what or what editors work where. Next year I may just ditch those two categories out of protest.
Next difficult was the fan category, as I don't don't interact on the forums and sites that much, so I don't really "know" the folks who work there. Fan artist was the hardest.
Comics...oddly...was almost the easiest category this year. What a change from last year!
On to the nominations...
Best Novel:
Proxima: Stephen Baxter
Europe in Autumn: Dave Hutchinson
The Three-Body Problem: Cixin Liu
The Causal Angel: Hannu Rajaniemi
On the Steel Breeze: Alastair Reynolds
Best Novella:
The Adventure of the Ring of Stones: James P. Blaylock/Subterranean
The Regular: Ken Liu/Upgraded
The Madonna and the Starship: James Morrow/Tachyon
Entanglement: Vandanah Singh/Hieroglyph
Kur-A-Len: Lavie Tidhar/Black Gods Kiss
Best Novelette:
Memorials: Aliette de Bodard/Asimov's
The Last Log of the "Lachrimosa": Alastair Reynolds/Subterranean Online
Seventh Sight: Greg Egan/Upgraded
A Hotel in Antarctica: Geoffrey A. Landis/Hieroglyph
Wine: Yoon Ha Lee/Clarkesworld
Best Short Story:
In Babelsburg: Alastair Reynolds/Reach for Infinity
Invisible Planets: Hannu Rajaniemi/Reach for Infinity
Trademark Bugs—A Legal History: Adam Roberts/Reach for Infinity
The Long Haul from the ANNALS OF TRANSPORTATION, The Pacific Monthly, May 2009: Ken Liu/Clarkesworld (needs to win the award for longest story title that I've ever typed into a form!)
The Dust Queen: Aliette de Bodard/Reach for Infinity
Best Related Work:
Greg Egan: Karen Burnham
Handbook of Vance Space: Michael Andre-Driussi
The Art of John Harris—Beyond the Horizon: John Harris
The Art of Ian Miller: Ian Miller
Sibilant Fricative—Essays & Reviews: Adam Roberts
Best Graphic Story:
Trees: Warren Ellis and Jason Howard
Caliban: Garth Ennis and Facundo Percio
Schlock Mercenary—Broken Wind: Howard Tayler
Letter 44: Charles Soule and Alberto Jimenez Alburquerque
Ms Marvel: G. Willow Wilson, Adrian Alphona & Co.
Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form):
Captain America: Winter Soldier
The Grand Budapest Hotel
X-Men: Days of Future Passed
Maleficent
Guardians of the Galaxy
Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form):
I Remember the Future
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Beginning of the End
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: The Things We Bury
Doctor Who: Listen
Doctor Who: Flatline
Best Professional Editor (Short-Form):
Jaym Gates
Alisa Krasnostein
Andrew Liptak
Julia Rios
Jonathan Strahan
Best Professional Editor (Long-Form):
Anne Clarke
Lee Harris
Marco Palmieri
Anne Perry
William Schaeffer
Best Professional Artist:
Galan Dara
Daniel Dos Santos
Dalve Halverson ("Joey HiFi")
John Picacio
Fiona Staples
Best Semiprozine:
Apex
Beneath Ceaseless Skies
Interzone
Lightspeed
The New York Review of SF
Best Fanzine:
Ansible
The Book Smugglers
A Dribble of Ink
SF Signal
Skiffy and Fanty
Best Fancast:
The Coode Street Podcast
Galactic Suburbia
The Incomprable
The SF Signal Podcast
The Three Hoarsemen (well, DUH!)
Best Fan Writer:
Sarah Chorn
John DeNardo
Jamie Todd Rubin
John Stevens
Pau Weimer
Best Fan Artist:
Winchell Chung
Patrick Hester
Jeff Patterson
(04)
(05)
John W. Campbell Award (Not A Campbell):
Wesley Chu
Michael J. Martinez
Emma J. Newman
Helen Wecker
Django Wexler
The Iron Planet
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day is an image taken by a (very much) overlooked mission: NASA's Mercury MESSENGER sent back this enhanced mosaic that points out the geological details of the Caloris basin.
Wednesday, March 4, 2015
Pillars and Jets
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day details the Pelican Nebula in the constellation of Cygnus.
Crew Trio
The NASA Orion, SpaceX Dragon and Boeing CST-100 (we need a better name, Boeing!) were all displayed side-by-side recently at Kennedy Space Center.
A Pale Blue Dot
Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity appears to be a small blue dot in the chaotic terrain of the "Pahrump Hills" around "Mount Sharp" in Gale Crater in this image taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
MET
Apollo 14 Commander Alan Shepard stands next to the Modular Equipment Transporter (used only on this mission) in the highlands of Fra Mauro.
You Can Put Your Hat On
The Hubble Space Telescope images the dusty highways and byways of NGC 7814 (in the constellation of Pegasus), known as "The Little Sombrero".
Tuesday, March 3, 2015
Contrasts
Views from yesterday and today: Astronaut John Glenn crammed into Friendship 7 during the first American orbital mission vs. Astronaut Barry Wilmore on the first of three spacewalks undertaken at the International Space Station last week to prepare it for both commercial crew carriers and for inflatable station modules.
On Approach
The Dawn spacecraft will arrive at dwarf planet Ceres on March 6, 2015! We're already getting a better picture of the main belt asteroid than we've ever had before! Ceres is a place!
Working in Mojave
The Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity working the "Mojave" site in Gale Crater. In the background is Aeolis Mons (unofficially tagged "Mount Sharp"). Curiosity has been busy drilling the area.
Forecast
Courtesy of the International Space Station, snow-locked Chicago from orbit. After yesterday's snow and ice storm and the forecast for the week, I'm feeling like I should be having ribs in Chicago.
A Crack in the Star!
A large filament crawls across the face of our home star, looking like a crack between two tectonic plates.
Live Long and Prosper
Last week saw the passing of Leonard Nimoy, star of Star Trek and so much more. I'll have more (as will my co-hosts) to say about Nimoy on an upcoming episode of The Three Hoarsemen, but in the meantime: the cast of Star Trek (love the fashions!) standing in front of shuttle test vehicle Enterprise and a salute from orbit.
Dust
How about an image captured by the Hubble Space Telescope of NGC 4424 (located in the constellation of Virgo)?
Devils in the Wind
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows a dust devil on the surface of Mars captured by an orbiting spacecraft from Earth.
Think about what I just said there the next time you think we haven't accomplished anything as a species.
Think about what I just said there the next time you think we haven't accomplished anything as a species.
Monday, March 2, 2015
Take the Lens Cap Off
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows a lenticular cloud nearly blocking a view of the further objects of the Moon, Mars (can you spot it?) and Venus.
Sunday, March 1, 2015
Coma Bernenices: Galaxies Like Grains of Sand
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day is an image of the Coma Cluster, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. How big a volume of space does a cluster of galaxies encompass?
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