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# A Fistful of Photons

Website of Science Fiction Author Thomas L. James

## Sitemaps

- [XML Sitemap](https://fistfulofphotons.com/sitemap.xml): Contains all public & indexable URLs for this website.

## Posts

- [<i>More Than Human</i>](https://fistfulofphotons.com/more-than-human/) - I'd never heard of this book, though the title itself seemed familiar (probably from the similar phrase from Blade Runner). I'd also heard of Theodore Sturgeon as one of the big names of the Silver Age, but knew nothing of his writing, and nothing of him beyond Heinlein famously helping him out of a spell of
- [<i>Earth Abides</i>](https://fistfulofphotons.com/earth-abides/) - This book caught my eye when I mistook it for the source of The Quiet Earth. (It's plain from the jacket blurb that they're not the same story at all.) It's one of those books whose title I'd heard a number of times, enough to be at least aware that it was a post-apocalypse story, but
- [Avery Easton on Scientific Honesty](https://fistfulofphotons.com/avery-easton-on-scientific-honesty/) - These 'priests of science' are really no different from anyone else: when money, power, and status are on offer, they too will lie, cheat, and steal. Even if the gains are short-lived. Even if they destroy their reputations and credibility. Even if it wrecks the prestige of their profession or field. They're only human, after
- [<i>Tales of Known Space</i>](https://fistfulofphotons.com/tales-of-known-space/) - I've been making a lot of progress on the "launch" story for the new fictional universe over the past two weeks, but started to notice that the text was a bit academic. I figured this was due to not reading any fiction for a while, so I set aside The Master and His Emissary (yet
- [Avery Easton on Pedants](https://fistfulofphotons.com/avery-easton-on-pedants/) - Pedants are a dime a dozen. It takes little intellectual firepower to memorize the logical fallacies well enough to 'find' them everywhere, or to reflexively demand sources and attributions for every claim or conjecture, or to seize on some immaterial discrepancy to 'win' an argument whose substance one hasn't even perceived - let alone attempted
- [Pavel Navarro on Utopias](https://fistfulofphotons.com/pavel-navarro-on-utopias/) - In every instance, the attempt to establish utopia has been instead the opening of a door to misery and murder. This should be kept firmly in mind when confronted with any scheme whose aim is the perfection Man or the construction of an ideal society. Visions of a state of organization or being which can
- [Miranda Waite on Smart People](https://fistfulofphotons.com/miranda-waite-on-smart-people/) - Truly intelligent people don't try to make others feel stupid. They don't need to. -- Miranda Waite
- [Hadrien Laporte on Complex Phenomena](https://fistfulofphotons.com/hadrien-laporte-on-complex-phenomena/) - True Believers in science believe, in short, that every phenomenon can be reduced to a few governing equations, as with physics. It's inconceivable to them that there could be phenomena so complex as to be irreducible in this sense, despite their interacting every day with two textbook examples: the economy, and the weather. -- Hadrien
- [Miranda Waite on Laughing at the Foolish](https://fistfulofphotons.com/miranda-waite-on-laughing-at-the-foolish/) - It's easy to point at the foolish and credulous and have anice laugh at their expense. But what does that accomplish? Does it remedy their failures of knowledge or reasoning? Does it make you wiser, or better informed, or morally or intellectually superior? Or is it simply a self-indulgence, an expression of a malicious and
- [Pavel Navarro on Technocracy](https://fistfulofphotons.com/pavel-navarro-on-technocracy/) - Technocracy is not explicitly socialist, but like Marxism and Fascism it springs from the same roots. Each ideology claims to order society by scientific principles, with science cited as the basis of both its inevitability and its moral claim to power. In spite of these scientific pretensions, each ignores reality in service to its vision
- [Avery Easton on Winning Arguments](https://fistfulofphotons.com/avery-easton-on-winning-arguments/) - The desire to win arguments is an intellectually corrupting one. When winning rather than a better apprehension of the truth is the goal, one is inclined to use any manner of sophistry to do so. The truth actually becomes an obstacle to doing what it takes to score points. The lust for demonstrating one's superior
- [Hadrien Laporte on Open-Mindedness](https://fistfulofphotons.com/hadrien-laporte-on-open-mindedness/) - How do you persuade people who pride themselves on their intelligence to consider any novel idea, when that idea involves a truth they don't want to hear, don't want to think about, and will refuse to entertain even provisionally, even in those private moments when no one else can possibly guess what they're thinking? --
- [Hadrien Laporte on the Rational Skeptic](https://fistfulofphotons.com/hadrien-laporte-on-the-rational-skeptic/) - The most energetic champion of the rational, skeptical, scientific worldview will still recoil with indignation when someone follows the intellectual virtues for which he advocates to a conclusion he doesn't like. -- Hadrien Laporte
- [Jedediah Thoreson on Leadership](https://fistfulofphotons.com/jedediah-thoreson-on-leadership/) - Don't hitch your wagon to an ass. -- Jedediah Thoreson
- [Elleander Morning](https://fistfulofphotons.com/elleander-morning/) - I haven't read it yet (too much on my plate and too many books on my reading pile), but this looks good based on the originality of the premise alone. Apparently there is something original to be done with the "Kill Hitler Before He Starts" genre.
- [On the Obsolescence of Search Engines (Part 3)](https://fistfulofphotons.com/on-the-obsolescence-of-search-engines-part-3/) - Part 1 Part 2 After a couple more weeks of playing around with AI (Grok) for search, it's now hard to go back to DDG or other conventional search engine. What a godawful waste of time those things have become. The first page of search results for most queries is now almost entirely ads. Followed
- [Hadrien Laporte on the Jealousness of Smarts](https://fistfulofphotons.com/hadrien-laporte-on-the-jealousness-of-smarts/) - There is a form of social illness whose sufferers can not only not tolerate encountering different opinions and ideas in person, but cannot bear the thought that such things might exist unencountered in the minds and conversations of others. If they can't observe these thoughts and aren't party to such conversations, how can they demonstrate their
- [Hadrien Laporte on Circular Thinking](https://fistfulofphotons.com/hadrien-laporte-on-circular-thinking/) - He says, in effect: 'Those who are smart are good. Those who are good hold these views. Those who hold these views are smart.' It's a childish circular reasoning of the sort that you'd expect someone who claims to have a superior mind would have the dignity to reject. - Hadrien Laporte
- [Avery Easton on the Blindness of Experts](https://fistfulofphotons.com/avery-easton-on-the-blindness-of-experts/) - It disturbs me that it escapes so many 'experts' and 'intellectuals' that their supposed contributions to human knowledge are not just frivolous or pedantic, but often intellectually destructive, civilizationally corrosive, dehumanizing, and ugly. What scares me is that there are some who do in fact understand this. And embrace it. - Avery Easton
- [Avery Easton on Solving Problems](https://fistfulofphotons.com/avery-easton-on-solving-problems/) - No one ever solves a big problem in one go. But that doesn't stop people from looking for, or demanding, a 'magic bullet' solution anyway, some perfect approach that will fix everything all at once. Or from rejecting any partial solution or step in the right direction until they find it. - Avery Easton
- [Matthias Adler on Complexity](https://fistfulofphotons.com/matthias-adler-on-complexity/) - Whenever someone presents you with a complex scheme for something that should be straightforward, you can be certain it is a scam of some kind. You don't have to identify the scam, you don't even have to understand their scheme - the unnecessary complexity itself is the tell. - Matthias Adler
- [On the Obsolescence of Search Engines (Part 2)](https://fistfulofphotons.com/obsolescence-of-search-engines-2/) - A short series of observations on the demise of search engines and the emergence of LLM AI as an alternative, especially for detailed research use.
- [On the Obsolescence of Search Engines (Part 1)](https://fistfulofphotons.com/obsolescence-of-search-engines-1/) - First in a short series of observations on the degeneration of search engines (and the internet as a whole) and their inevitable replacement by AI assistants.
- [Matthias Adler on Leadership](https://fistfulofphotons.com/matthias-adler-on-leadership/) - You can't be a leader, let alone a good leader or an effective one, if your first instinct is to respond to any input from others by dismissing or demeaning them personally. When you make it clear to others that any suggestion, constructive criticism, complaint, or inspiration will be met with condescension, they will learn
- [Words Mean Things: "Cultist"](https://fistfulofphotons.com/words-mean-things-cultist/) - cultist: n - In social media political discourse: 1) anyone who holds views different from yours with a degree of certainty equal to or greater than that with which you hold your own; 2) one who, having been informed of your disagreement with his obviously false views, stubbornly clings to them instead of immediately adopting
- [Pavel Navarro on the Right Side of History](https://fistfulofphotons.com/pavel-navarro-on-the-right-side-of-history/) - When you believe that you are on the 'right side of history', you can justify absolutely anything that you find necessary to do to those who stand in your way - or who merely disagree with you. That is in fact the primary, perhaps only reason for believing history has a 'right' side. -- Pavel
- [Hadrien Laporte on Academic Corruption](https://fistfulofphotons.com/hadrien-laporte-on-academic-corruption/) - Just as public funding corrupts research universities, so too can funding from non-governmental sources when it represents a sizeable and non-anonymized portion of a given department's funding. Funding from large businesses, wealthy individuals, or deep-pocketed foundations, if it accounts for a sufficiently large percent of the school's or department's activities, will procure the results these
- [Cut to the Chase Already](https://fistfulofphotons.com/cut-to-the-chase-already/) - I see things like this and wonder, wouldn't we be better off just sending people there and figuring it out directly? https://payloadspace.com/blue-origin-wins-190m-viper-contract/ Maybe we'll actually get some hardware out of this program. Maybe some of that hardware will even make it to the moon. But this kind of thinking makes me believe it's more "exploration paralysis":
- [Avery Easton on Reductionism](https://fistfulofphotons.com/avery-easton-on-reductionism/) - Experts are also prone to reducing complex phenomena to single-factor causes - factors which happen to align with their own expertise. But complex phenomena are rarely understood through such reductionism, just as most problems have many contributing causes, and the root cause may not be the obvious one or the one that confirms one's personal
- ["Two Years Before the Mast"](https://fistfulofphotons.com/two-years-before-the-mast/) - Observations on reading "Two Years Before the Mast", R. H. Dana's account of sailing from Boston to (then-Mexican) California and back, 1834-36.
- [I Absolutely Loathed "Sapiens"](https://fistfulofphotons.com/i-absolutely-loathed-sapiens/) - I finally finished the slog through Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens. Perhaps I should say thankfully, as it was easily one of the worst books I have ever subjected myself to in fifty-odd years of being able to read. Why is this? Let me recount some of the ways (some of which I have already touched on here
- [Pavel Navarro on Justice](https://fistfulofphotons.com/pavel-navarro-on-justice/) - Reciprocity and forgiveness are essential to true justice. If you demand unfair rules against others now as compensation for unfair conditions that worked against you in the past, you're not motivated by a desire for justice, or equality, so much as a crude malice. -- Pavel Navarro
- [Matthias Adler on Causes](https://fistfulofphotons.com/jedediah-thoreson-on-causes/) - Yes, I'm sure all of this seems vitally important if not deadly serious to you today, but tomorrow, or the day after that, you'll wake up to find all the other fish have shoaled abruptly in some entirely different direction. And you, terrified to be left behind, will just as abruptly drop today's cause to
- [Avery Easton on Pontificators](https://fistfulofphotons.com/avery-easton-on-pontificators/) - Those who passionately pontificate about something they don't fully understand or haven't put sufficient thought into will, when pressed to articulate their thoughts, bluster about the obviousness of it all and assert that there is no need for them to explain: 'You know what I mean!' Perhaps you do. But why should you have to
- [Avery Easton on Theories](https://fistfulofphotons.com/avery-easton-on-theories/) - There is always the danger with any theory of finding it so flattering to one's personal biases and convenient to one's personal interests that one applies it even where it doesn't work. -- Avery Easton
- [Avery Easton on Challenging Experts](https://fistfulofphotons.com/avery-easton-on-challenging-experts/) - The expert's claim to authority is his superior knowledge and skill in his particular sphere. Second-guessing him calls into question his legitimacy as an expert, and thus his claim on authority. The solutions to this were straightforward: make it socially and intellectually uncouth to challenge experts (by labelling such questioning as "misinformation", "conspiracy theory", "anti-science",
- [Avery Easton on Scientific Mindsets](https://fistfulofphotons.com/avery-easton-on-scientific-mindsets/) - Having a scientific mindset - embracing skepticism, rationality, empiricism, etc. - does not mean accepting every idea or policy claiming to be based in science or endorsed by scientific experts, while dismissing out of hand any disagreement or alternative proposals as "anti-scientific" or "science denialism". That isn't science, it's cultism. One can easily recognize this
- [Avery Easton on Infallibility](https://fistfulofphotons.com/avery-easton-on-infallibility/) - People who revere 'experts' never consider whether the years of study and practice they view as 'credentializing' a given expert may have been in the service of ideas or doctrines or schools of thought which are factually incorrect or even morally abhorrent. Error doesn't become infallibility through perseverance. - Avery Easton
- [Matthias Adler on Utopias](https://fistfulofphotons.com/matthias-adler-on-utopias/) - What is a utopia but the humanly impossible, pursued by the philosophically reprehensible, using means morally indefensible? - Matthias Adler
- [Matthias Adler on Activist Principles](https://fistfulofphotons.com/matthias-adler-on-activist-principles/) - Any principle elevated to dogma will become hypocrisy. This is something that activists seem surprised to discover about themselves and their causes no matter how many times they discover it. - Matthias Adler
- [Matthias Adler on Independent Thinkers](https://fistfulofphotons.com/matthias-adler-on-independent-thinkers/) - It's easy to spot the most 'independent' and 'informed' thinker in any group: he'll be the one parroting the most conformist and ignorant nonsense. - Matthias Adler
- [Even Less Impressed With Our Technocratic Overlords](https://fistfulofphotons.com/even-less-impressed-with-our-technocratic-overlords/) - I'm finding even more to dislike about Yuval Noah Harari's SAPIENS.
- [Busywork as Social Order Maintenance](https://fistfulofphotons.com/busywork-as-social-order-maintenance/) - I found this passage from Two Years Before the Mast interesting for several reasons (emphasis mine): Before I end my explanations, it may be well to define a day's work, and to correct a mistake prevalent among landsmen about a sailor's life. Nothing is more common than to hear people say, ``Are not sailors very
- [Not Impressed With Our Technocrat Overlords](https://fistfulofphotons.com/not-impressed-with-our-technocrat-overlords/) - I've been reading Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens. My reaction so far has amounted to, "This is what so much conspiratorial hubbub is about?" I'm about 50 pages or so in, and finding the writing style insufferable - such that every time I put it down, I swear I'm done with it. The prime offense is that it
- [The Moulding of Communists](https://fistfulofphotons.com/the-moulding-of-communists/) - Some brief thoughts on Frank S. Meyer's "The Moulding of Communists", an account of the early/mid-century processes used to recruit and train Communist cadres.
- [Blog Name Change](https://fistfulofphotons.com/blog-name-change/) - Since I'm no longer writing in the Ares Project universe, I've (finally) changed the blog name, and will eventually migrate it fully over to fistfulofphotons.com. The name comes from a URL I bought on a whim probably ten years ago, and then forgot I owned. I may change it again when I come up with
- [Thoreson on Virtue Signaling](https://fistfulofphotons.com/thoreson-on-virtue-signaling/) - The virtue signal is about the signal, not the virtue. Jedediah Thoreson
- [Thoreson on Fallacy Hunting](https://fistfulofphotons.com/thoreson-on-fallacy-hunting/) - You'll notice that fallacies can only ever be found in your thinking, never in the thinking of those who thrive on pointing them out. It could be because they're as good at avoiding fallacies as they are at identifying when others use them, but it's not. They're just intellectually dishonest. Jedediah Thoreson
- [Thoreson on the Right Side of History](https://fistfulofphotons.com/thoreson-on-the-right-side-of-history/) - Anyone who claims to be 'on the right side of history' should be assumed to be a moral monster and treated accordingly. If you believe yourself to be 'on the right side of history', you can justify anything you find necessary to do to those who stand in the way of its realization - or
- [It's a Zoo](https://fistfulofphotons.com/its-a-zoo/) - Obligatory excuse-making: I've been finishing up a project at work (now completed) and trying to get done the Tile Job From Hell (not completed). In the meantime, I've finished Parallel Lives, The Aeneid, Pilgrim's Progress (Part 1, like Dante's trilogy, I couldn't make myself do the rest), and am halfway through Arabian Nights, and most of the way
- [Space Billionaires - Or What?](https://fistfulofphotons.com/space-billionaires/) - You can't really want space settlement to happen any time soon if you're bitching about "space billionaires" doing the heavy lifting to make it happen.
- [Improving on a "Classic"](https://fistfulofphotons.com/improving-on-a-classic/) - How a mediocre episode of Star Trek might be improved: Bele is taken to Lokai, and the two begin to argue about the history of their two distinct peoples. Kirk is puzzled by the animosity between the two, who appear to him to be of the same race. When Bele explains that Lokai is evil because his
- [Bob Zubrin on Trump and Mars - But Mostly Trump](https://fistfulofphotons.com/bob-zubrin-on-trump-and-mars-but-mostly-trump/) - A fisking of Bob Zubrin's statement re: the election and potential for humans-to-Mars programs under the new administration.
- [Why I Quit the Mars Society](https://fistfulofphotons.com/why-i-quit-the-mars-society/) - Having fisked Bob Zubrin's statement on the election, I think it's relevant here to tell the story of why I quit the Mars Society: it's because of the same kind of political B.S. I pointed out in that post. I was one of the founding members of the Louisiana chapter of the Mars Society, and
- [We'll See How Long That Lasts](https://fistfulofphotons.com/well-see-how-long-that-lasts/) - One lion on a hill applies as much to Bob and Elon as to Elon and the BOM. One expects that his support for any manned Mars mission will be contingent on how closely the mission plan resembles his own, and that his politics will drive him to be even less tolerant of deviations from his
- [Silas Hudson on Independent Thinking](https://fistfulofphotons.com/silas-hudson-on-independent-thinking-2/) - It's a puzzling thing, how often those who claim to think for themselves - to consider the facts and weigh different perspectives and thereby come to their own conclusions - hold views which just happen to be in lockstep conformity with the dominant narrative. When the outcome of their intellectual labors is indistinguishable from a
- [Better the Second Time Around](https://fistfulofphotons.com/better-the-second-time-around/) - Creating an entirely new Mars-focused fictional universe has not been quite as difficult as I expected it to be. I'd been toying with a few concepts for the past several months, and really started getting good ideas while on vacation - primarily about a "noodle incident" that creates the setting for the future history, a
- [Back From Vacation](https://fistfulofphotons.com/back-from-vacation/) - Sadly, not much of what I did was very relevant to writing, unlike previous big adventure trips - most of the trip had to do with medieval and pre-WWI history rather than exotic locations or futuristic (or futurizable) settings. You never know, though. The rise and fall of the Habsburgs and the shifting borders and
- [Journal Review Project Status](https://fistfulofphotons.com/journal-review-project-status/) - ...continues, albeit slowly thanks to family visits and summer activities. I started out by scanning and reviewing my collection of index card notes from about 2009 on, during which exercise I kept finding observations that worked as Silas Hudson quotes (indeed, I found the origin of a few of them that were ultimately used in
- ["Believe the Science"](https://fistfulofphotons.com/believe-the-science/) - "Believe the Science!" and "Trust the Science!" are not (in common usage) scientific, but examples of manipulation Appeal to Authority.
- [Jedediah Thoreson on Knowledge](https://fistfulofphotons.com/jedediah-thoreson-on-knowledge/) - We know so much that we lose sight of how stupid we are. — Jedediah Thoreson
- [Silas Hudson on Futile Conversations](https://fistfulofphotons.com/silas-hudson-on-futile-conversations/) - Never mind disagreement about the facts of the matter. You can't hold a meaningful or productive discussion with someone who disagrees with your capacity - or your right - to hold a view different from their own. — Silas Hudson
- [Silas Hudson on the Obsolescence of Technocracy](https://fistfulofphotons.com/silas-hudson-on-the-obsolescence-of-technocracy/) - Silas Hudson on the undermining of technocracy by the emergence of simulacrum intelligence. Based on an observation by Gustave le Bon.
- [We Went to Olympus Mons on a Dare, But it Turned Out Completely Boring](https://fistfulofphotons.com/we-went-to-olympus-mons-on-a-dare-but-it-turned-out-completely-boring/) - I plotted out a Dispatch involving the first men to summit Olympus Mons, which originally included a dramatic scene on the summit ridge on the rim of the caldera. Which, further research revealed, is not where the summit actually is. It turned out to be difficult to find the actual summit location, but in Google
- [Silas Hudson on Thinking Outside the Box](https://fistfulofphotons.com/silas-hudson-on-thinking-outside-the-box/) - There is often merit in 'thinking outside the box' for new and improved ideas and options. But when doing so is framed as 'setting aside old perceptions and conventions', or 'moving beyond old ideas', or 'embracing progress' as ends in themselves - throwing away the old because it is old, in favor of the new
- [Reading Analog, May/June 2024 Issue](https://fistfulofphotons.com/reading-analog-may-june-2024-issue/) - Which would be this one: So far, it's reminded me very clearly why I cancelled my subscription in 2008 (and stopped actually reading the issues I received sometime around 2002). Uncle Roy’S Computer Repairs and Used Robot Parts - I skimmed through this one once it started getting cringey, so I may have missed the good
- [Reading Analog, May/June 2024 Issue (Part II)](https://fistfulofphotons.com/reading-analog-may-june-2024-issue-part-ii/) - Continuing on from the earlier post: "Expert Witness": legal procedural. Pass. "Fertile Imagination": this story was for the most part the kind I remember reading back in the 1980s. An interesting setting, an intriguing and technology-driven dilemma, characters employing logic and reason to work out a solution (I think this used to be called "slide-rule
- [Silas Hudson on Shiny Utopian Futures](https://fistfulofphotons.com/silas-hudson-on-shiny-utopian-futures/) - Perhaps the most effective persuasion against technocracy was its own literature, especially science fiction depicting futures of pure reason and socialist brotherhood. These bright imaginary utopias of endless scientific progress stood in embarrassing contrast to the drab and stultifying reality that emerged from every attempt to implement in the real world the means by which
- [DIY Antikythera Mechanism Reproduction](https://fistfulofphotons.com/diy-antikythera-mechanism-reproduction/) - This guy did something I always wanted to do. And demonstrates just how difficult it is to do. Imagine how different the world would be if the Greeks of the time had recognized the possibilities in the technology it took to build the original version.
- [Silas Hudson on the Utopian Fiction Versus Reality](https://fistfulofphotons.com/silas-hudson-on-the-utopian-fiction-versus-reality/) - Perhaps the most effective persuasion against technocracy was its own literature, especially science fiction depicting futures of pure reason and universal brotherhood - the Perfection of Man. These bright imaginary utopias of scientific splendor stood in embarrassing contrast to the drab, stultifying, and corrupt reality that emerged from every attempt to establish in reality the foundations necessary
- [Speaking of Olympus Mons](https://fistfulofphotons.com/speaking-of-olympus-mons/) - It's curious how difficult it is to find the location of the actual summit of the volcano. Various sources will tell you how high it is, some will tell you it's near the south edge of the summit caldera, but you need to dig a bit to find that it's a little west of Pangboche
- [Doesn't Look All That Intimidating](https://fistfulofphotons.com/doesnt-look-all-that-intimidating/) - Came across this while doing some story research: Olympus Mons, complete with escarpment and aureole It's one picture of hundreds of its kind, cited as evidence of how impassible the escarpment around Olympus Mons is to surface-traveling explorers. Yet... Look at the left side in this picture (west-northwest on Olympus Mons). No escarpment. No
- [Silas Hudson on Intellectual Objectivity](https://fistfulofphotons.com/silas-hudson-on-intellectual-objectivity/) - The assertion of objectivity or neutrality is often an attempt to have it both ways, to split the difference between what one wants to be true versus what what one knows to be true. By taking a position in the middle, or not taking a position at all, one can at the same time avoid
- [Silas Hudson on Independent Thinking](https://fistfulofphotons.com/silas-hudson-on-independent-thinking/) - As children, we learn by imitation before we have our own knowledge base and life experience on which to base autonomous judgment. Those who fail to grow out of this phase grow into adults who continue to imitate the knowledge and judgment of others - certain that they are in fact the independent thinkers. —
- [Silas Hudson on Management](https://fistfulofphotons.com/silas-hudson-on-management/) - It's not just academia, either. High-functioning sociopaths end up in mid-level management positions far more often than you would feel comfortable knowing. — Silas Hudson
- [A Minor Shortcoming, Trivial Really](https://fistfulofphotons.com/a-minor-shortcoming-trivial-really/) - Plasma reactors could create oxygen on Mars Yet, by firing an electron beam into the reaction chamber, they were able to convert about 30% of the air into oxygen. They estimate that the device could create about 14 grams of oxygen per hour: enough to support 28 minutes of breathing, the team reports today in theJournal
- [The Drama of Space Nuclear Power](https://fistfulofphotons.com/the-drama-of-space-nuclear-power/) - Rolls Royce makes micro-nukes. And bombastic videos to promote them.
- [Silas Hudson: The Perils of Being Expert](https://fistfulofphotons.com/silas-hudson-the-perils-of-being-expert/) - "A problem faced by many of those who aspire to being considered an 'expert' in this or that field is that not only can they never know as much as they think they do, the maintenance of prestige compels them to pretend to know even and ever more than that." Silas Hudson, "The Technocrat's New
- [Russian Megarovers and Martian Industry](https://fistfulofphotons.com/russian-megarovers-and-martian-industry/) - Sure, they have mars rover analogues in Iceland. But this is a whole 'nuther level. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYPtppXoTvg The scale of the Kharkovchanka puts into perspective what would be required of a rover on Mars capable of what is described in the book and short stories (and especially in the in-work material). Granted, most travel would be on
- [Back to the Quote Mines](https://fistfulofphotons.com/back-to-the-quote-mines/) - Getting back to writing after the holidays, as work resumes on extracting Silas Hudson's observations and aphorisms from my notebooks.
- [Martin Beech on MAs](https://fistfulofphotons.com/martin-beech-on-mas/) - "They say that what a man names his dog tells you a lot about his character. Well, the same goes for his MA. " Martin Beech
- [Managerialism: Where the MDA is Headed](https://fistfulofphotons.com/managerialism-where-the-mda-is-headed/) - What does the MDA have in mind for the future of Mars? N.S. Lyons offers a glimpse of what it could be - and it's not pretty.
- [A Litmus Test of the "Scientifically Minded"](https://fistfulofphotons.com/a-litmus-test-of-the-scientifically-minded/) - Julian Jaynes' The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind has been making the rounds over the past year or so (despite originally having been published in 1976 - I blame Westworld.) I read it last summer, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I was wholly skeptical of the premise as I had encountered it prior
- [Silas Hudson on Innovation](https://fistfulofphotons.com/silas-hudson-on-innovation/) - "Innovative people respond to incentives, just like anyone. You can't punish them for innovating or taking rational risks and expect them to continue to do so. Nor can you merely deny them the rewards, recognition, and returns for their efforts without creating an atmosphere of indifference which is every bit as stagnating as an openly
- [Sagan on Scientific Inquiry](https://fistfulofphotons.com/sagan-on-scientific-inquiry/) - Looking back through my margin notes in Sagan's The Demon Haunted World, I found this: There are no forbidden questions in science, no matters too sensitive or delicate to be probed, no sacred truths. He couldn't say that honestly today. Indeed, there are many such observations in the book that don't hold up 25 years later,
- ["The Probably Likely Demon-Haunted World"](https://fistfulofphotons.com/the-probably-likely-demon-haunted-world/) - In skimming back through Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World, I'm struck by something that didn't catch my attention when I read it a year ago - or nearly did, to judge by my margin notes, but not consciously so. And no, it's not his smug, patronizing tone (impossible to miss), nor the tiresome and cliché takes on
- [Contrasting Views on What Science Is](https://fistfulofphotons.com/contrasting-views-on-what-science-is/) - While I've been bashing Sagan lately, he does get some things right about what science is supposed to be. However, despite his flaws as a writer/ranter, Bruce Charlton in Not Even Trying does a far better job of defining what science ought to be (along with what it actually is, which is something else entirely). My
- [Melodrama and Bootstrapping](https://fistfulofphotons.com/melodrama-and-bootstrapping/) - Came across this trailer the other day: I haven't watched any of the series, only a couple of other snippets, so I don't know what the content is actually like, but this trailer put me off ever finding out. When it first came out, I watched a couple of clips showing the launch of a
- [Martian Technology: Science Pins and Pingers](https://fistfulofphotons.com/martian-technology-science-pins-and-pingers/) - Science pins and pingers: small but important pieces of Martian science and navigation technology in the Ares Project universe.
- [Life Imitates Art: Death of Social Media Edition](https://fistfulofphotons.com/life-imitates-art-death-of-social-media-edition/) - In our unpublished backstory, if not in In the Shadow of Ares itself, we established that A) social media was a passing fad, regarded in the late 2040s like disco is today; and B) due to the proliferation of spam, lunacy, disinformation, and bot-created "information pollution" online, the internet would sprout a new super-layer of bespoke
- [Petty Gestures of Cost-Free "Solidarity"](https://fistfulofphotons.com/petty-gestures-of-cost-free-solidarity/) - Sure, we're in an unhinged fit of histrionics over Russia, so why not? “In light of current world events, the 2022 Space Foundation Yuri’s Night is renamed ‘A Celebration of Space: Discover What’s Next.’” ? https://t.co/xBS7ynmA41 — Jeff Foust (@jeff_foust) March 15, 2022 I mean, if you're going to cancel Tchaikovsky and Tolstoy for being
- [Endurance Wreck Discovered](https://fistfulofphotons.com/shackeltons-endurance-shipwreck-discovered/) - This has been sitting in my drafts box for a couple of weeks, so I'm a little late to the party with the news: Wreck of Shackelton's Endurance Found The state of preservation is remarkable, not only given its century-long submersion but compared to the crew's descriptions and film of what happened to the ship
- [Life Imitates Art: EuroSpace Edition](https://fistfulofphotons.com/life-imitates-art-eurospace-edition/) - This has some striking relevance to certain events at the beginning of Ghosts of Tharsis: Astronauts in Europe ask for their own independent crew spacecraft In fact, Ivanka has a thought along these lines, just before...very bad things happen: "While Europe is still at the forefront of many space endeavors, such as Earth observation, navigation, and
- [H.G. Wells on...Puppies?](https://fistfulofphotons.com/h-g-wells-on-puppies/) - "Very much of the Fiction of the Future pretty frankly abandons the prophetic altogether, and becomes polemical, cautionary, or idealistic, and a mere footnote and commentary to our present discontents." -H.G. Wells, Anticipations This is a prophetic observation indeed, having been written over a century before the Sad Puppies/Rabid Puppies foofaraw, whose core complaint was
- [There's a Story Here](https://fistfulofphotons.com/theres-a-story-here/) - I don't know what it is, but I can imagine a dozen of my own: If you take away the ray-gun rifle and the gas giant in the background, it's a retrofuturist take on the climax of our (eventually upcoming) story, "The Olympian Race". (Unfortunately, I found this several years ago and don't recall now
- [If I Were One to Squee...](https://fistfulofphotons.com/if-i-were-one-to-squee/) - ...I'd be squeeing about now.'Babylon 5' reboot in development with original series creator J. Michael Straczynski at the helm No word yet on what the story, period, or characters might be, but it does sound like it's a ground-up reboot a la Battlestar Galactica. As others have observed, it'd be difficult to simply re-film the original
- [Families in Science Fiction](https://fistfulofphotons.com/families-in-science-fiction/) - At Powered by Robots, James Pyles asks "Where Are the Families in Science Fiction?" I’m curious. Of the science fiction and fantasy you read, have you seen any family life shows in a positive way, especially in more recent publications? I haven't seen much in recent science fiction, because I haven't been reading much science
- [Safe but Boring: SpaceX Landing Sites](https://fistfulofphotons.com/safe-but-boring-spacex-landing-sites/) - SpaceX appears to have narrowed its potential Mars landing sites to four. Unfortunately for purposes of scenic interest, they're all pretty smooth and safe. Which is perfectly understandable, but nonetheless a little disappointing. I guess the landings near Valles Marineris and Olympus will have to wait a bit. https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/essays-and-commentaries/spacex-narrows-mars-landing-site-for-starship-to-four-prime-locationsspacex-downselects-mars-landing-site-for-starship-to-four-prime-locations/
- ["Redlands" On Sale](https://fistfulofphotons.com/redlands-on-sale/) - For a short time, we've reduced the price on "Redlands" to only $0.99. It's hard to believe that this story takes place only 26 years from now. That would make Silas Hudson around ten years old today, and Susannah Caillouet around three. When worlds-famous science popularizer Silas Hudson and his partner are brutally killed while
- [Helluva Ride](https://fistfulofphotons.com/helluva-ride/) - I had the same reaction to this that I had when LM started putting cameras on the Shuttle External Tanks: "Why haven't they been doing this cool thing all along?" The departure of the heatshield was especially fun, as it's exactly how I imagined the corresponding event in the prologue to "In the Shadow of
- [2020 Reading List](https://fistfulofphotons.com/2020-reading-list/) - A probably-incomplete list of books and short stories I read in 2020. I'd have expected a longer list, given COVID lockdowns, but then I've also been working a lot more than usual over the past several months. Most of the fiction was re-reads, as I haven't seen much lately that appeals to me. There are
- [Redlands](https://fistfulofphotons.com/redlands/) - When famed science presenter Silas Hudson and his companion are brutally murdered while visiting Redlands, an isolated settlement on Mars, settlers take the law into their own hands. The justice they seek carries greater danger than the crime, however, and their actions threaten to conceal another crime with far-reaching consequences. It's a pity
- [Silas Hudson on Utopias](https://fistfulofphotons.com/silas-hudson-on-utopias/) - From New Harmony to Ariadaeus Dome, utopias have been built on philosophical foundations by rational minds brandishing simple solutions to the eternal problems of human societies. The problem each has faced is that those eternal problems are the result of real people living in the real world and dealing with real circumstances. Utopias fail not
- [Movie Review: Ad Astra](https://fistfulofphotons.com/movie-review-ad-astra/) - In a word, it was regrettable. (spoilers ahead) The godawful storytelling. There was little in the way of a consistent story. The major plot thread was Brad Pitt conquering his daddy issues and "toxic masculinity" by chasing said daddy. Hmm. Okay. Right. But beyond that, it was an incoherent mess of seemingly random scenes that
- [Life Imitates Art: The Mars Rovers of Iceland](https://fistfulofphotons.com/life-imitates-art-the-mars-rovers-of-iceland/) - On my next to last day in Iceland, I drove the Kaldidalur route from Reykholt to Thingvellir, passing en route the Langjokull ice cap. Much to my surprise, there was a modestly-marked turnoff that led not merely close to the ice but out onto it (just left of the prominent hill in the center of the image): Between
- [Accidental Hiatus](https://fistfulofphotons.com/accidental-hiatus/) - Yes, we need to get back to blogging here. But you know how it is, sometimes other priorities intervene. Anyway, getting back to writing, we're (still) finishing up the crime story Dispatch we've been working on for a while. We've spent the past two weekends restructuring a portion of it to address a draggy sequence
- [Pence Calls for Human Return to the Moon by 2024](https://fistfulofphotons.com/pence-calls-for-human-return-to-the-moon-by-2024/) - I swore off reading most news as one of my new year's resolutions, so I'm a little behind on this item. Now I understand the sudden sense of urgency regarding proposals I've been busy with this past week. Pence calls for human return to the moon by 2024 "At the direction of the President of
- [Podcast](https://fistfulofphotons.com/podcast/) - Definition: a half-page of text inflated into an hour of monologue via repetition, digressions, and zero-content verbal filler, and commonly delivered in a halting, stammering, screeching, uptalking, mumbling, or droning voice unsuited to the task.
- [Rights Enforcement Without Government](https://fistfulofphotons.com/rights-enforcement-without-government/) - One of the common themes in the Ares Project universe is the problems that result from the lack of a government on Mars - or, to be more broad-minded about it, the lack of formalized mechanisms for resolving disputes, something traditionally handled by government. The Mars Development Agency is a non-governmental organization, and while some
- [Alistair1918](https://fistfulofphotons.com/alistair1918/) - Alistair1918 came up in my Amazon Prime queue this week, a found-footage movie with a science fiction (specifically time travel) theme. The story concerns a social work student making a video on homelessness for her master's program, who encounters a strange man who claims to be a British WWI soldier. At first she and the friends
- ["Look How Smart I Am!"](https://fistfulofphotons.com/look-how-smart-i-am/) - Thinking back on what I read in Analog over a twenty year span (as I've done a few times here recently), another all-too-common tropes that comes to mind is the use of some obscure scientific idea in a manner contrived to show off just how smart the author thinks he is. There's obviously going to be
- [Coming Soon: Dispatches from Mars](https://fistfulofphotons.com/coming-soon-dispatches-from-mars/) - In addition to the full draft of Ghosts of Tharsis, we have several stories in the works, more Dispatches from Mars by freelance journalist Calvin Lake, author of "Anatomy of a Disaster". While that story was written tongue-in-cheek as a satire of several "sci-fi" tropes (notably the fiery redhead stock character and the annoying cat-fetishism
- [Underlying Structure of Stories](https://fistfulofphotons.com/underlying-structure-of-stories/) - I'm a sucker for good "recipe" books on writing technique. and this looks like a particularly good one. Instead of the crit-lit hobby-horse riding or cultural marxturbation one risks with this genre, it breaks down children's literature into a dozen or so storytelling/mythic categories. And while it focuses on children's stories, from what I could
- [Shaver Mysteries - Fin](https://fistfulofphotons.com/shaver-mysteries-fin/) - I read about as much as I could tolerate, which was not quite to the end of Zigor Mephisto's Collection of Mentalities. I may tough it out through the last few pages, but that's enough. I still think there's a lot of interesting potential in the Shaver Mythos, some interesting ideas, situations, and settings. Unfortunately, that potential
- [Shaver Mysteries, cont'd.](https://fistfulofphotons.com/shaver-mysteries-contd/) - I'm a few pages into the wonderfully-titled "Zigor Mephisto's Collection of Mentalia", the second of the stories in the collection, and can already see why Shaver is compared to Ed Wood. The writing is schlocky, the names are cheesy, the dialogue is campy, and the overall quality is at the level of a high-school creative
- [They Make It Sound So Appealing](https://fistfulofphotons.com/they-make-it-sound-so-appealing/) - Resuming my personal project of reading classic SF from the 1930s - 1950s, I decided to give the oft-discussed Shaver Mysteries a try. I figured that if I'm going to make arch jokes about hell-creatures from the hollow Earth and Nazi flying saucers, I should probably know the source material. This wasn't what I expected to
- [Analog 2008](https://fistfulofphotons.com/analog-2008/) - Apparently I'm not the only one who gave up on Analog magazine circa 2008. Top shelf is 30 years of Analog from mid 70s to 2007-8 when I stopped getting them because they went all SJW. In truth, the SJW rot set in long before that, it just became insufferable in the mid-2000s.
- [Review: Analog January/February 2018 Issue](https://fistfulofphotons.com/review-analog-januaryfebruary-2018-issue/) - Several hours over the holidays spent putting my and my cousin's old Analog issues into archival bags made me curious about what I might have been missing over the ten years since I cancelled my subscription. Little, it turned out. I picked up a copy of the January/February 2018 issue a couple of weeks ago.
- [An Informal Survey of Analog Magazines](https://fistfulofphotons.com/an-informal-survey-of-analog-magazines/) - I may have mentioned that I inherited my cousin's collection of Analog magazines a while back, and now have (as far as I can tell) a complete set spanning from October 1958 through July/August 2008. Those are the dates when he started subscribing and I stopped, he having given up on Analog sometime around 2000.
- [The Trouble With Science Popularizers](https://fistfulofphotons.com/the-trouble-with-science-popularizers/) - More people are starting to notice the problems with Bill Nye: Holy shit Bill Nye is just getting destroyed by this AMA. pic.twitter.com/MDkCG8tqWu — Michelle Catlin (@CatTheUndying) November 8, 2017 The trouble with science popularizers in general is that by nature, the job entails talking about a wider range of technical topics than any individual
- [Springfield Needs a Hyperloop](https://fistfulofphotons.com/springfield-needs-a-hyperloop/) - Just in time for Christmas, it's the hot new hip and happening toy that all the technocrat kids want this year: Hyperloop! By way of pitching the Arrivo system, Colorado DOT officials speculated that a network of tubes filled with high-speed trays to carry cars could cut a one-hour and ten minute drive from downtown
- [Electronic Noses for Sniffing Disease](https://fistfulofphotons.com/electronic-noses-for-sniffing-disease/) - This is something I suggested to Lockheed Martin five years ago as an application of the cabin air monitoring technology we were developing for Orion: New Technologies Smell Sickness We've long known that sickness has a smell. Service dogs can smell and be trained to alert humans to seizures and even cancer. Now scientists are
- [Ringworld on Amazon](https://fistfulofphotons.com/ringworld-on-amazon/) - This is interesting news - Amazon is adapting Ringworld: “Ringworld,” a co-production with MGM, is based on Larry Niven’s sci-fi book series from the 70’s. It tells the story of Louis Gridley Wu, a bored man celebrating his 200th birthday in a technologically-advanced, future Earth. Upon being offered one of the open positions on a
- [Everything Serves the Narrative First](https://fistfulofphotons.com/everything-serves-the-narrative-first/) - I got a laugh out of the clumsy narrative servicing in this article: Americans Will Head to Space Again Without a Russian Taxi: Since the Space Shuttle’s retirement six years ago, NASA has been buying spots aboard Russian Soyuz craft to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station. It’s a politically awkward arrangement to say the
- [Asgardia, or How to Filter Out Undesirable Settlers](https://fistfulofphotons.com/asgardia-or-how-to-filter-out-undesirable-settlers/) - If I were setting up a space settlement, this is exactly how I would go about weeding out those unsuited to the undertaking: What Tops the Agenda for a New Space Colony? A Debate Over Taxes It's more than just taxes, and so much less. The project is tailor-made to draw in weirdos and whackjobs
- [April Fool's Day Redux](https://fistfulofphotons.com/april-fools-day-redux/) - Back online after a couple months of proposal work, two rocket engine designs, and a promotion. Whew. And despite all that, I've been writing quite a bit, having now completed the roughing-in of the "true crime" Dispatch and nearly completed the same for the "Marineris expedition" Dispatch. Next weekend, Carl and I will finish the
- [Dispatches: the Writing Technique](https://fistfulofphotons.com/dispatches-the-writing-technique/) - Carl and I came up with Cameron Lake, a freelance journalist visiting Mars and documenting its people, events, and culture, as a medium for using interesting elements of the Ares Project universe that we didn't have room for in books or stories. And then we sat on the concept (and about two dozen story ideas)
- [Innovative Science Fiction](https://fistfulofphotons.com/innovative-science-fiction/) - I may have to read this one - I have never seen these novel elements in science fiction before, let alone woven together in the same story. So original! I can't even. Now, after more than a century of exploring the stars, Keith Stoner returns to find that the world he has come back to
- [](https://fistfulofphotons.com/1585-2/) - Mars Needs Mixers: Nano-spike catalysts convert carbon dioxide directly into ethanol The team used a catalyst made of carbon, copper and nitrogen and applied voltage to trigger a complicated chemical reaction that essentially reverses the combustion process. With the help of the nanotechnology-based catalyst which contains multiple reaction sites, the solution of carbon dioxide dissolved
- [Science Must Fall?](https://fistfulofphotons.com/science-must-fall/) - "Science as a whole is a product of Western modernity, and the whole thing should be scratched off...If we want a practical solution for how we can decolonize science, we have to restart science from our own African perspective of how we experience science..." Mmkay. Good luck with that. "It's not true!" "You see? That
- [SpaceX to Mars](https://fistfulofphotons.com/spacex-to-mars/) - Some detail on what Elon Musk is proposing. I like the idea of landing directly on the launch mount and attaching a new payload while the stage is refueling. It's sporty. If they're serious about this architecture, it suggests that some of SpaceX's near-future developments will involve a different sort of launch mount/hold-down scheme that
- [AIAA Panel Discussion on Mars Settlement](https://fistfulofphotons.com/aiaa-panel-discussion-on-mars-settlement/) - Back in May, Carl and I sat on a panel at the AIAA Annual Technical Symposium in Houston. The panel was given a future scenario in advance, describing a number of technological and economic elements fifty years from now, just as Mars settlement is about to begin. During the luncheon, we were asked to consider
- [Life Imitates Art: the Farmer 'Bot](https://fistfulofphotons.com/life-imitates-art-the-farmer-bot/) - Readers of In the Shadow of Ares will recognize this invention: FarmBot is an open-source CNC farming machine -- it even resembles what I imagine the prototype of the farmer 'bot at the Jacobsens' homestead would look like: The three-axis machine employs linear guides in the X, Y, and Z directions, which allows for tooling such as seed injectors, watering nozzles,
- [Reminder: New Ares Project-Related Mars Stories on Kindle](https://fistfulofphotons.com/reminder-new-ares-project-related-mars-stories-on-kindle/) - At $0.99 apiece, they're steals. Why would you not buy them both? He Has Walled Me In Recently recovered from a crippling illness, Leon Toa sets out on his first solo trip to Port Lowell. For any other Martian settler it would be a routine drive, but for Leon it's a chance to rebuild his
- [Our Briny Nuclear Future](https://fistfulofphotons.com/our-briny-nuclear-future/) - With a bonus life-imitates-art use of adsorbents: Uranium From Seawater Could Keep Our Lights On for 13,000 Years We have 4.5 billion tons of uranium in seawater. Half of that amount is enough to power nuclear plants worldwide for 6,500 years. However, unfortunately, the costs of extracting uranium from seawater is three times the current
- [Life Imitates Art: The Visor Display](https://fistfulofphotons.com/life-imitates-art-the-visor-display/) - It seems the capabilities of Leon's helmet display aren't all that far off: Tyco’s Scott Safety is bringing a big upgrade to the field of firefighting with their newly released product, the Scott Sight. This hands-free device is the first in the industry that incorporates an in-mask thermal intelligence system, according to an April 18th
- [Imagine How Much Worse MAs Could Be](https://fistfulofphotons.com/imagine-how-much-worse-mas-could-be/) - Absent legal protections, social norms, and hard-coded and hardware-based preventative measures against this sort of thing: Your Devices' Latest Feature? They Can Spy On Your Every Move At least you can turn off your laptop: when it is shut, the camera can see only “the other side” of the laptop. But this quick fix doesn’t
- [Half-Interesting Anthology](https://fistfulofphotons.com/half-interesting-anthology/) - This collection put out by ASU's Center for Science & the Imagination looks partly good: Hieroglyph: Stories & Visions for a Better Future Judging by the blurbs, it's a mix of hard SF by Benford and Stephenson, medium SF by Landis, Brin, and Doctorow, soft SF by some (to me) unknowns, and "pink" SF by
- [Life Imitates Art - Gardener 'Bot Edition](https://fistfulofphotons.com/life-imitates-art-gardener-bot-edition/) - Hey, this sounds awfully familiar: This robot is a better gardener than you Vegetable expert Richard Hassell and his team recently revealed a new robotic system that grafts more quickly and efficiently than a human ever could. They modified a Korean-manufactured robot to grab two plants, precisely slice the upper shoot of one and the root
- [Boom](https://fistfulofphotons.com/boom/) - Good thing it didn't plunge into the Atlantic off the coast of France... The largest fireball since Chelyabinsk hit Earth earlier this month The event took place on February 6 at 14:00 UTC when a meteoroid exploded in the air 620 miles (1,000km) off the coast of Brazil. It released energy equivalent to 13,000 tons
- [Promo post, 2/20/16](https://fistfulofphotons.com/promo-post-22016/) - Jason Dyck's weekly indie promo post is up over at According To Hoyt.
- [Ordnance Survey Maps Go Off The Planet ](https://fistfulofphotons.com/ordnance-survey-maps-go-off-the-planet/) - This looks good - one of my gripes about writing fiction set on Mars is that despite the huge volume of photographic and topographic data accumulated over the past fifteen-plus years, it's nearly impossible for a non-planetary-scientist to visualize the terrain using the information products planetary scientists have generated from that data. This effort appears to
- [You Never Know What You're Gonna Get](https://fistfulofphotons.com/you-never-know-what-youre-gonna-get/) - Scientists created a three-armed cyborg to play the drums like no human can This dovetails with a conversation I had on Facebook this week, regarding how for all its reputation as a glimpse into possible futures, the bulk of science fiction amounts to the humans of today placed in the situations of tomorrow. Meaning, even works
- ["He Has Walled Me In"](https://fistfulofphotons.com/he-has-walled-me-in/) - Just a reminder, our new Ares Project universe short story, "He Has Walled Me In", is available on Kindle for only $0.99: "He Has Walled Me In" Recently recovered from a crippling illness, Leon Toa sets out on his first solo trip to Port Lowell. For any other Martian settler it would be a routine drive, but
- [Technology: Mini-CNCs](https://fistfulofphotons.com/technology-mini-cncs/) - A Kickstarter that I'm hemming and hawing on buying into. It's impressive how far home manufacturing technology has come in just a few years. And it's funny how this kind of thing was not really foreseen in science fiction (at least in this form) until it actually appeared in the real world. Sure, you have
- [This Week's Promo Post](https://fistfulofphotons.com/this-weeks-promo-post/) - From Sarah Hoyt's place: Promo Post, the Triskaidekaphobia Edition- Jason Dyck
- [Bias? What Bias?](https://fistfulofphotons.com/bias-what-bias/) - The story is almost too absurdly perfect an example of The Bias That Does Not Exist to be true: Banned by the Publisher - this actually sounds like a clever spin on an AI Apocalypse: The Thinking Machines realize that one, if humanity decides something is a threat to its operational expectations within runtime (Thinking Machine-speak for “life”) then
- [Weekly Promo](https://fistfulofphotons.com/weekly-promo/) - I've meant to link to these for a while, but keep missing them. Here's this week's list of new/newfound SF/F from Sarah Hoyt's blog: Promo Is
- [Essential Technology](https://fistfulofphotons.com/essential-technology/) - For some reason, this is one of my favorite weird space-related topics. I don't know if I would eat the stuff (at least, not enthusiastically), but it's a fascinating bit of technology. Can 'Cultured Beef' Ease Meat Industry's Environmental Impact? Maastricht University has developed "cultured beef," which is created by harvesting muscle cells from a
- [Life Imitates Art: Timing](https://fistfulofphotons.com/life-imitates-art-timing/) - Elon Musk Says SpaceX Will Send People to Mars by 2025 - NBC News The SpaceX and Tesla founder said this week that he personally wants to visit space within the next five years and thinks that his company will launch a mission to Mars by 2025... Personal space travel ambitions aside, Musk also talked
- [Survival and Sacrifice in Mars Exploration](https://fistfulofphotons.com/survival-and-sacrifice-in-mars-exploration/) - This sounds interesting, if a bit pricey, like a cross between Big Dead Place, Endurance, and The Martian (and who knows, probably a bit of Alive! thrown in as well). Survival and Sacrifice in Mars Exploration: What We Know from Polar Expeditions [Erik Seedhouse] With current technology, a voyage to Mars and back will take three years. That’s a lot
- [New Short Story: "He Has Walled Me In"](https://fistfulofphotons.com/new-short-story-he-has-walled-me-in/) - We have a new story out in the Ares Project universe: "He Has Walled Me In". It's part mystery, part survival story, part Lovecraft homage, but all hard-SF.
- [No.](https://fistfulofphotons.com/no/) - No no no no no no no no no. Donald Trump Needs An Audacious Plan For Space I'm surprised that Milo of all people would regurgitate the ancient conventional wisdom about NASA and space - especially when he starts off with a nod to recent space successes, many of which have been achieved by private
- [Alternative 3 Called, Wants Its Premise Back](https://fistfulofphotons.com/alternative-3-called-wants-its-premise-back/) - Amazingly, this is not from the Grauniad, the usual home of this category of envy-driven drivel. Unsurprisingly, it's in Newsweak: 'Star Wars’ Class Wars: Is Mars the Escape Hatch for the 1 Percent? The world sucks right now. Terrorism. Climate change. Political acrimony. Nonstop Justin Bieber songs. 2011 is on line two...says it's calling about its pop-culture references.
- [Life Imitates Art: Smartphones to AI](https://fistfulofphotons.com/life-imitates-art-smartphones-to-ai/) - According to a new study of 100,000 consumers, mobile technology is expected to be replaced by artificial intelligence Smartphones to die out 'within five years', says new study It may be a little ahead of schedule (MAs in the Ares universe don't really become a thing until around 2045, when they emerge from the portabilization
- [This is Good News](https://fistfulofphotons.com/this-is-good-news/) - This looks like a positive development: Syfy is Releasing a Film, De-Rebranding, and Becoming Super Interesting Some 18 months later, what the mandate looks like is increasingly clear. The Expanse is the network’s showcase science fiction series, taking a series of popular recent SF novels and turning them into the sort of show that hasn’t
- [Nominative Determinism Runs Amok at the Guardian](https://fistfulofphotons.com/nominative-determinism-runs-amok-at-the-guardian/) - Poe's Law: you're soaking in it.Before we set up colonies on Mars, we need to discuss renaming its moons The words [Phobos and Deimos] essentially form the infrastructure for the barbaric violence in the Iliad. And names matter. Is it really possible that we haven’t complained about the names? That no petitions are circulating demanding
- [Life Imitates Art: (Micro-)Oasis Edition](https://fistfulofphotons.com/life-imitates-art-micro-oasis-edition/) - You know our concept for "oases" on Mars - a mass-produced prefabricated hut for ten, with a rover docking adapter and personnel airlock for access, equipped with hygiene and life-support, stocked with food, emergency equipment, and basic repair supplies, and with enough power to run a small gas separation unit for air and fuel? This is a larval version of
- [The New Atomic Age We Need](https://fistfulofphotons.com/the-new-atomic-age-we-need/) - Peter Thiel writes in the NYT about The New Atomic Age We Need While politicians prepare a grand bargain on emissions limits that future politicians are unlikely to obey, a new generation of American nuclear scientists has produced designs for better reactors. Crucially, these new designs may finally overcome the most fundamental obstacle to the success
- [Life Imitates Art - Smart Smartphones Edition](https://fistfulofphotons.com/life-imitates-art-smart-smartphones-edition/) - Boeing and DHS are working on neuroadaptive security features for smartphones, not unlike the biometric security features we imagined for MAs combined with an MA's capacity for simple learning: DHS WANTS BOEING TO TEST A BRAIN CHIP IN FIRM’S SELF-DESTRUCTING 'BLACK' SPYPHONE The "secret sauce" of the mobile device is a so-called neuromorphic computer chip
- [Humanitarians with Guillotines](https://fistfulofphotons.com/humanitarians-with-guillotines/) - An interesting overview of the growing threats to free speech from SJWs. I, too, am convinced that these activists, with their MO of hysterical crusades, are one of today’s biggest threats to free speech, open inquiry, and genuine tolerance, at least on college campuses. The illiberal climate fostered by these ideologues seems to be spreading throughout academia
- [The Adventures of Terra Tarkington](https://fistfulofphotons.com/the-adventures-of-terra-tarkington/) - Hard to imagine this book getting published today. Especially if it had been written by a man instead of a woman - The Adventures of Terra Tarkington: Terra Tarkington, a member of the Interstellar Nurses Corps assigned to a distant outpost in the constellation Taurus to treat the ailments of bizarre aliens, falls in love
- [Liz Lutgendorff Sieves SF/F Classics for Offense](https://fistfulofphotons.com/liz-lutgendorff-sieves-sff-classics-for-offense/) - And finds some, of course: I read the 100 “best” fantasy and sci-fi novels - and they were shockingly offensive Any more when a Progressive-type says "that's offensive!" I prepare myself to laugh - their sources of offense have become so contrived and trivial in recent years that this gimmick is now the a setup for a joke, with
- [Related Works](https://fistfulofphotons.com/related-works/) - When I think of "related work" Hugos, this kind of thing - and not someone's videoblog/telethon regarding her offendedness at certain video games - is what comes to mind: The Other Side of the Sky: An Annotated Bibliography of Space Stations in Science Fiction, 1869-1993 A companion volume to the author's Island in the Sky, this new book covers
- [Tomorrowland: The Future Ain't What It Used to Be](https://fistfulofphotons.com/tomorrowland-the-future-aint-what-it-used-to-be/) - Nathan Shafer reviews Disney's Tomorrowland: The Future Ain't What It Used to Be Tomorrowland is a movie about the way that we think about the future, and as the old saying goes, the future ain’t what it used to be. There was a time not so long ago when we looked to the days to come
- [Hmm...](https://fistfulofphotons.com/hmm/) - Somehow Carl rates an entry on Fantastic Fiction, but I don't: In the Shadow of Ares (Amber's Mars, book 1) by Carl Carlsson and Thomas L James Carl! Carl! Carl! /janbrady
- [Another Hugo Withdrawal](https://fistfulofphotons.com/another-hugo-withdrawal/) - Black Gate Withdraws From Hugo Consideration I'm starting to wonder if I wasn't onto something with my earlier post on this subject: An Alternative Strategy to No-Awarding the Hugos
- [An Alternative Strategy to No-Awarding the Hugos](https://fistfulofphotons.com/the-alternative-strategy-to-no-awarding-the-hugos/) - A modest proposal for dealing with the 2015 Hugo Awards Sad/Rabid Puppies controversy.
- [Through the Looking Glass](https://fistfulofphotons.com/through-the-looking-glass/) - The comments here (and on the preceding two threads on the subject) make for some interesting reading: Making Light: The 2015 Hugo finalists. It's like peering into a madhouse where self-reflection and self-awareness don't exist. I wonder if these folks recognize that they are using the same arguments to defend their own positions that their ideological opposites use
- [How the Hugo Awards Became a Battleground](https://fistfulofphotons.com/how-the-hugo-awards-became-a-battleground/) - Milo Yiannopoulos offers an interesting if brief sampler of the SFWA conflicts over the past few years along with background on the "Sad Puppies" Hugo slate: How the Hugo Awards Became a Battleground. But while the examples of manufactured grievance may be absurd, few members of the SFF community are laughing. New York Times bestselling author
- [Nancy Drew and Charles MacKay](https://fistfulofphotons.com/nancy-drew-and-charles-mackay/) - Ann Althouse points to an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, citing a set of favorite books that both amused and impressed me: "When I was 9 or 10, in Kenya, the Nancy Drew books showed me a type of empowered girl that I was not used to at all." I'll just bet that an African Muslim
- [See? We Told You So](https://fistfulofphotons.com/see-we-told-you-so/) - Forbes has a short piece on the ethics and practicalities of having babies on Mars: Birthing Babies On Mars Will Be No Small Feat. They cover the core reasons why having children (at least for the first fifteen or so years of settlement activity) is a taboo in the Ares Project universe: mainly, there's no telling whether it will
- [Everything Old is Even Older Again](https://fistfulofphotons.com/everything-old-is-even-older-again/) - Contra Naomi Klein... dystopian fiction was popular in the 1970s, too: ...Naomi Klein apparently has no idea whatsoever that the 1970s was probably the Golden Age of Dystopian fiction, Eco-collapse edition. Including, I might add, a lot of overconfident predictions about global warming that never actually happened. In fact, pretty much none of the things
- ["Destiny's Road"](https://fistfulofphotons.com/destinys-road/) - So much potential, and it's actually pretty decent, but having done some writing of my own since I last read it (July 1997), it suffers in the re-reading. Don't get me wrong, the prose is nice, the worldbuilding is interesting (there's less of the everywhere-is-California feel to this than many of Niven's other books...I suspect parts of it
- [Stuck On Mars With Nothing But Disco](https://fistfulofphotons.com/stuck-on-mars-with-nothing-but-disco/) - A good column on Andy Weir and The Martian: Stuck on Mars with nothing but disco: Ars talks with The Martian’s Andy Weir. What I found surprising was that he actually never worked for NASA - I apparently misread other accounts of his background. I was also astonished by just how much detailed work he put
- [Exploding the Myths of Explosive Decompression](https://fistfulofphotons.com/exploding-the-myths-of-explosive-decompression/) - Contrary to science fiction tropes, it takes more than a drop from one atmosphere to vacuum to do it. But it's happened: Byford Dolphin Diving Bell Accident Came across this while looking for information on the effects of the more likely 1-to-0 atmospheres depressurization for a scene in Ghosts of Tharsis. (Not really a spoiler, since you
- [Re-Reading "Tunnel in the Sky"](https://fistfulofphotons.com/re-reading-tunnel-in-the-sky/) - I've only read Tunnel in the Sky once before, probably in the late 1980s when I first discovered Heinlein. I remember having liked it then, but with some vague misgivings. Reading it again, I can better put my finger on what I did and did not like about the book. What I liked: The premise of
- [Re-Reading "The Giver"](https://fistfulofphotons.com/re-reading-the-giver/) - I've been re-reading much of my SF collection over the past couple of months, and am currently on Lois Lowry's The Giver. And I'm even more impressed with it than I was the first time I read it. What strikes me this time around is her use of language. On the surface, the book is
- [Cognitive Dissonance](https://fistfulofphotons.com/cognitive-dissonance/) - Sci-Fi's Hottest New Writer Won't Tell You the Sex of Her Characters The book contains a noteworthy social/political message, which is why it merits discussion, and why it is being brought to your attention, and why you should read it. Until people mock it for being propaganda. At which point said message is downplayed as a minor
- [Life Imitates Art, #Ivelostallcountatthispoint](https://fistfulofphotons.com/life-imitates-art-ivelostallcountatthispoint/) - This is what we had in mind with the skinsuits in the Ares Project universe, when we refer to "tensioners": Future skintight spacesuits could snug up at the touch of a button.
- [Heinlein Biography - Review](https://fistfulofphotons.com/heinlein-biography-review/) - Just finished reading the second volume of William H. Patterson, Jr.'s authorized biography of Heinlein. I suspect the book would have been better had it been divided into two volumes. Each of the as-published volumes cover roughly forty years of Heinlein's life, but there was so much to cover in the latter forty that Patterson can't
- [Life Imitates Art (A Few Times Over)](https://fistfulofphotons.com/life-imitates-art-a-few-times-over/) - Tech blog Gizmag.com has been on a roll the past two weeks where "technology borrowed from the Ares Project universe" is concerned. A step towards Amber's ill-fated scroll-screen: LG "rolls out" latest flexible and transparent OLED panels An early variant of the gardener robots: "Ladybird" autonomous robot to help out down on the farm. A prototype hopper: Dropship quadcopter concept
- [Worldbuilding 101](https://fistfulofphotons.com/worldbuilding-101/) - Anyone interested in speculative world-building could do worse than reading Carroll Quigley's The Evolution of Civilizations. I just finished chapter 5, which is for such purposes a scaffold on which one can construct a fictional society - whether on the small scale (an organization, corporation, colony, etc.) or large (an extrapolation of current civilization into a
- [Virginia Edition](https://fistfulofphotons.com/virginia-edition/) - Okay, I'm a huge Heinlein fan, but there are limits on what I'm willing to do: Virginia Edition | Complete Works of Robert A. Heinlein. Leatherbound copies of his entire oeuvre, plus selected correspondence on the background of each work. Only $1500! Not to say I wouldn't want this collection. I would. I'm just cheap.
- [The Evil League of Evil is Given Pious Advice ](https://fistfulofphotons.com/the-evil-league-of-evil-is-given-pious-advice/) - John C. Wright gives a certain molting vulture the (very genteel) back of his hand. It's a pity more people don't write this way. And it's funny that you won't see people on the other side of the argument doing so - too few opportunities for dropping f-bombs, and it's an unsuitable style for using "Riiight?",
- [Larry Correia and the Hugo Nominations](https://fistfulofphotons.com/larry-correia-and-the-hugo-nominations/) - This is interesting: An Explanation About the Hugo Awards Controversy Larry is an awesome writer. No question. But damn - he writes more in a single blog post than I manage to write in a whole day of dedicated writing. Makes me jealous. The shorter short version of the linked article is that he's exposed
- [Life Imitates Art #9845761: Splat](https://fistfulofphotons.com/life-imitates-art-9845761-splat/) - NASA Mars orbiter examines dramatic new crater. Impressive. Now, imagine a few dozen of these happening. At the same time. I just drafted that scene last weekend... I find it a bit surprising that this sort of thing (to various magnitudes) happens about 200 times per year. Not that it should be all that surprising,
- [Re-Reading Some SF Classics](https://fistfulofphotons.com/re-reading-some-sf-classics/) - I just finished re-reading Dune for perhaps the fourth time, and am about two-thirds of the way through Footfall for I think only the second time. Both are good, of course, but they seem to have held up in different ways over the years. I think the last time I read Dune was around 2003, [...]
- [Coffee-Table Mars](https://fistfulofphotons.com/coffee-table-mars/) - NASM has what looks like a fascinating exhibition of select images from the MERs: Spirit & Opportunity: 10 Years Roving Across Mars I’d love to see NASA eventually issue a series of Full Moon-style coffee-table books, giving the highlights of each of the rovers.
- [Life Imitates Art #2934568749: Stepping Closer to MAs](https://fistfulofphotons.com/life-imitates-art-2934568749-stepping-closer-to-mas/) - Sensors, biometric access, and edge-to-edge displays. Did we not call it? Smartphones set to become even smarter - FT.com.
- [Work Update and New Year's Resolution](https://fistfulofphotons.com/work-update-and-new-years-resolution/) - Work continues on the sequel to In the Shadow of Ares, tentatively titled Ghosts of Tharsis. We have the book fully outlined, in detail, with the prologue and a bit of the first act boilerplated. Amber and Ivanka get new friends, Amber gets a little more than she expected from her first off-Mars trip, and
- [The 10 Best Sci-Fi Movies—As Chosen By Scientists - Popular Mechanics](https://fistfulofphotons.com/the-10-best-sci-fi-movies-as-chosen-by-scientists-popular-mechanics/) - The 10 Best Sci-Fi Movies—As Chosen By Scientists Not necessarily the ones I would have expected - the criterion seems to be "what made an impression on me as a scientist or scientist-to-be" rather than what impressed them with its scientific accuracy. The latter would make for an interesting article in itself, but this is
- [Prototype Diggers](https://fistfulofphotons.com/prototype-diggers/) - Crablike robot walks on walls, ceilings with magnet feet Oh sure, for now it only walks on steel surfaces. It's only a matter of time...
- [Covers](https://fistfulofphotons.com/covers/) - Sarah Hoyt offers some advice on cover design for independent publishing: Of Covers and Sales. I've never been entirely happy with the cover for In the Shadow of Ares, mainly because it's a landscape with no explicit connection to the events of the novel. This is mainly the result of wanting to get the thing
- [But I Don't Even *Like* Cats: Blake Snyder's Template](https://fistfulofphotons.com/but-i-dont-even-like-cats-blake-snyders-template/) - To put it mildly, I was disappointed when I read this article and the associated sidebar: Save the Movie! Summer movies are often described as formulaic. But what few people know is that there is actually a formula—one that lays out, on a page-by-page basis, exactly what should happen when in a screenplay. It’s as
- [Alternative Technological Universe](https://fistfulofphotons.com/alternative-technological-universe/) - Sure, I like the alternative universe of Larry Correia's Hard Magic, in which dirigibles play a major role in travel and the military, but what would really be fun is an alternative post-WWII universe in which the weird aeronautical technologies developed before and during the war actually reached fruition. Things like the Vought V-173 or
- [The Ethics of Martian Babies](https://fistfulofphotons.com/the-ethics-of-martian-babies/) - Rand Simberg probes the issue over at PJM: The Bioethics of Mars One. It's funny to see Rand and the commenters on his article echoing the sentiments we present in In the Shadow of Ares regarding Amber's parents having a child on Mars and the continued reluctance of other settlers to have children. One criticism
- [Grasshopper Flight Test](https://fistfulofphotons.com/grasshopper-flight-test/) - Watching this, I had to wonder what it would have been like had NASA done something like this with a Saturn V first stage back in the day... What I find especially interesting and useful about SpaceX's Grashopper effort is the applicability to Mars landers and (later on) surface-orbit shuttles - which is probably the
- [Ideology (and Ideological Rot) in Science Fiction](https://fistfulofphotons.com/ideology-and-ideological-rot-in-science-fiction/) - Vox Day has an interesting dissection of the problems with "mainstream" science fiction and fantasy nowadays - The Cancer in SF/F: One need only look at the increasingly mediocre works that have been nominated for, and in some cases even won, science fiction's highest prizes to realize that the genre is dominated by the ideological
- [Advanced Robotics](https://fistfulofphotons.com/advanced-robotics/) - So, who thinks Carl and I were too sporty with the diggers and other robots in In the Shadow of Ares? The humanoid robots are a little creepy in an uncanny valley way, but quite impressive for what they can do if even part of it is autonomous (it looks to me like the [...]
- [World-Building](https://fistfulofphotons.com/world-building/) - I'm currently re-reading Jim Aikin's Walk the Moon's Road, a book I've only read once before, about eight or nine years ago. I really liked the book back then and wondered how it would hold up against my recollection. So far, so good. What I liked about it the first time (as well as now)
- [A Little Reminder](https://fistfulofphotons.com/a-little-reminder/) - If you bought In the Shadow of Ares, and you read it, and you liked it, why not write a review of it on Amazon or B&N?
- [Speaking of Things That Look Like Settings From the Book...](https://fistfulofphotons.com/speaking-of-things-that-look-like-settings-from-the-book/) - This image at Wikipedia bears a striking resemblance to how I pictured the Ares IV "homestead" site in the simulation at the beginning of Chapter I, minus the "rump" portion of ERV Lilith. You can almost imagine the suited figure as Amber preparing to fire up her jetpack.
- [Mars on Iceland, v2.0](https://fistfulofphotons.com/mars-on-iceland-v2-0/) - Thanks to a cheap promotional airfare and some friends willing to go on a weekend trip to the Arctic north, in the winter, on a lark, I now know what Iceland looks like in the dark. Something like this… …which reminded me of the agricultural bubbles at the Green in In the Shadow of [...]
- [Life Imitates Art (Sorta): Disaster at Xichang](https://fistfulofphotons.com/life-imitates-art-sorta-disaster-at-xichang/) - Hmm...without knowing any of the details of this accident (though I do recall it happening), we had planned a similar incident for the prologue of the third book in the series: Disaster at Xichang The rocket began to rise, and the American engineers in the satellite test room ran out the door. “I got out, turned
- [Happy New Year](https://fistfulofphotons.com/happy-new-year/) - Did you get a Kindle or other e-reader-capable widget or gadget or whoosiwhatsit for Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or Festivus? Boy, do I have the perfect book for you! A 2012 Prometheus Award finalist, now only $2.99! What a steal. And yes, we continue to work on the sequel. One of the downsides to changing [...]
- [Did I Mention…?](https://fistfulofphotons.com/did-i-mention/) - In the Shadow of Ares is now only $2.99. If you’re buying a Kindle, iPad, Nook, or other such device for someone (especially a young adult) this Christmas, it’d make a perfect gift.
- [E-Book Reviews](https://fistfulofphotons.com/e-book-reviews/) - Another thing I wish I had time for is reading and reviewing hard-SF e-books, to help promote quality work and authors who, like us, are not part of the traditional publishing industry. Instapundit often links to new SF e-books at Amazon, such as today's link to Robert Sapp's Lunar Dance, but (unsurprisingly) does not review all
- [(Hand)Writing](https://fistfulofphotons.com/handwriting/) - I was an hour late to work this morning. Why? Because while getting dressed I got an interesting idea. Which I had to write down. And which, an hour later, had become seven handwritten pages describing a fictional universe and its central SF gimmick, exploring a number of social and political-economy consequences of that gimmick,
- [New Price!](https://fistfulofphotons.com/new-price/) - We've lowered the price on In the Shadow of Ares to $2.99. Tell your friends. Buy it for your relatives. You do need to buy Christmas presents, right?
- [Hard to Keep Up With The Technology](https://fistfulofphotons.com/hard-to-keep-up-with-the-technology/) - It's stuff like this that makes it hard to write science fiction set very far into the future - Gesture control is wave of the future: Touchless computers are coming to a store near you, likely sometime next year. These are computers that operate with simple hand gestures — either through the use of sensitive
- [Nano Muscles](https://fistfulofphotons.com/nano-muscles/) - Hmm - Wax-filled nanotech yarn behaves like powerful, super-strong muscle: The combination of yarn volume increase with yarn length decrease results from the helical structure produced by twisting the yarn. A child's finger cuff toy, which is designed to trap a person's fingers in both ends of a helically woven cylinder, has an analogous action.
- [No More Bushels](https://fistfulofphotons.com/no-more-bushels/) - Sarah Hoyt discourses on on the politics of SF writers, and outs herself along the way (heh, like we didn't already know someone who won the Prometheus Award and writes for Instapundit and Pajamas Media was not a leftie): And so, whatever it costs my career, it’s time to come out. I think it’s time
- [Reviews](https://fistfulofphotons.com/reviews/) - I’m not saying you have to. I’m just saying, you know, it would be nice, if you’ve read In the Shadow of Ares, to go post a (hopefully glowing) review on the Amazon page. Consider it your good deed for the day. It’ll make you feel good about yourself. And who doesn’t want another reason [...]
- [Yet More Publishing Disintermediation](https://fistfulofphotons.com/yet-more-publishing-disintermediation/) - This looks interesting, almost like an embodiment in business form of the "human wave" manifestos from a couple months back: Liberty Island Our new venture, Liberty Island, will identify and publish the best of a new generation of politically independent and culturally contrarian writers. We’re recruiting writers in a wide range of genres, including thriller,
- [Mars Missions of the Past](https://fistfulofphotons.com/mars-missions-of-the-past/) - Mars Direct must not have been crazy or weird enough: Humans on Mars: The Craziest, Weirdest, and Most Plausible Plans in History I suppose it makes an appearance via the reference under the Design Reference Architecture, but it’s a little surprising that it didn’t get an entry of its own as an example of a [...]
- [Killer Weeds, Pt. 2](https://fistfulofphotons.com/killer-weeds-pt-2/) - I finished The Day of the Triffids on the flight to Krakow on Sunday, and I have to say that Wyndham managed to keep up the quality right until the end. The twist involving Josella should have been pretty obvious, in hindsight, but surprised me anyway given Bill’s fixation with finding the group from the [...]
- [Ambulatory Weeds that Spit Poison and Kill](https://fistfulofphotons.com/ambulatory-weeds-that-spit-poison-and-kill/) - Returning from a meeting in Cleveland on Thursday, I started reading John Wyndham’s Day of the Triffids (yes, the source material for the movie). I’m about halfway through it, and it is so far a pretty decent post-apocalypse novel – one with a very different premise from your usual nuclear holocausts or zombie free-for-alls. The [...]
- [Life Imitates Art #983745345367: The Wallscreen](https://fistfulofphotons.com/life-imitates-art-983745345367-the-wallscreen/) - One of the fictional technologies we imaged for In the Shadow of Ares is the “wallscreen”, a wallpaper-like display of practically unlimited extent which interacts with the characters’ mobile agents and other computing systems. In the scene where this technology is introduced, Amber’s mother is playing an ambience video loop of a tropical beach, which […]
- [RIP Ray Bradbury](https://fistfulofphotons.com/rip-ray-bradbury/) - Sad news: Ray Bradbury has passed away at 91. I haven’t read anything by him in years, probably since junior high when I voraciously consumed any of his books I could get my hands on. He did however have a big influence on my subsequent science fiction interests, and is one big reason I like […]
- [Life Imitates Art: Planetary Resources](https://fistfulofphotons.com/life-imitates-art-planetary-resources/) - Looks like some big-name entrepreneurs are teaming up to pioneer asteroid mining - Planetary Resources: Planetary Resources’ mission is clear: apply commercial, innovative techniques to explore space. We will develop low-cost robotic spacecraft to explore the thousands of resource-rich asteroids within our reach. We will learn everything we can about them, then develop the most
- [Why We Need Big, Bold Science Fiction](https://fistfulofphotons.com/why-we-need-big-bold-science-fiction/) - Glenn Reynolds' article from Popular Mechanics is now available online. He opens: The future isn't what it used to be.And neither is science fiction. While books about space exploration and robots once inspired young people to become scientists and engineers—and inspired grownup engineers and scientists to do big things—in recent decades the field has become
- [Human Wave Science Fiction](https://fistfulofphotons.com/human-wave-science-fiction/) - I think Sarah Hoyt is on to something: For too long writing what we do has been considered verboten or at best “stupid.” By revealing the philosophical underpinnings of our way of writing, we will hopefully convince some reviewers and critics to consider that our way is as valid as what has been accepted as
- [A Simple Thought on "Hunger Games"](https://fistfulofphotons.com/a-simple-thought-on-hunger-games/) - The problem with writing a novel from first-person perspective is that it's safe to guess that the point-of-view character is not going to die. And when it's written in present tense, you can be certain of it -- there's no plausible literary device by which they can recount events after the fact, and it's stretching
- [This Is Not The Synthetic Meat We're Looking For](https://fistfulofphotons.com/this-is-not-the-synthetic-meat-were-looking-for/) - Yuck - Is Pink Slime in the Beef at Your Grocery Store? As seen in the movie Food Inc., the low-grade trimmings come from the most contaminated parts of the cow and were once only used in dog food and cooking oil. But because of BPI’s treatment of the trimmings — simmering them in low
- [Design Fiction](https://fistfulofphotons.com/design-fiction/) - Over at Slate, author Bruce Sterling shares some thoughts on "design fiction", the use of (science) fiction to imagine and explore new technology: Slate: What’s one design fiction that people might be familiar with? Sterling: In 2001: A Space Odyssey, the guy’s holding what’s clearly an iPad. It just really looks like one, right? This actually showed up in
- [Synthetic Meat – Coming Soon to a Burger Joint Near You?](https://fistfulofphotons.com/synthetic-meat-coming-soon-to-a-burger-joint-near-you/) - Well, maybe not all that soon – they’re predicting 10-20 years, which would fit nicely with our timeline for In the Shadow of Ares: Scientists Prepare Test-Tube Burger Starting with bovine stem cells, the Dutch researchers have grown muscle fibres up to 3cm long and 0.5mm thick. The fibres are tethered and exercised as they [...]
- [Denver Area Science Fiction Association February Meeting](https://fistfulofphotons.com/denver-area-science-fiction-association-february-meeting/) - Now that I have a little more free time on my hands, I've been looking for ways to get more plugged in to the local science fiction fan and author communities. To that end I attended DASFA's February meeting this evening. This month's meeting featured a panel of three local authors, discussing the topic “Salty
- ["Darkship Thieves" - Not on Kindle?](https://fistfulofphotons.com/darkship-thieves-not-on-kindle/) - Surprising, but true. I'm trying to read more new science fiction, particular SF with a libertarian slant (since we need more of that), so imagine my disappointment when I discovered that it's apparently only available on dead trees. I thought Baen was all hip with the e-publishing nowadays. Of course, my complaining about this is ironic,
- [The Disappointment of “Star Wars”](https://fistfulofphotons.com/the-disappointment-of-star-wars/) - Over at PJM Kathy Shaidle lays out Five Reasons Star Wars Actually Sucks. Having seen large portions of several of the old and new movies over the Thanksgiving holiday, I can add one more to the list: Obi-Wan Kenobi is a despicable “hero”. Prior to the release of the prequels, I always had this impression [...]
- [Indian Migrations and Space Settlement](https://fistfulofphotons.com/indian-migrations-and-space-settlement/) - I’m doing some reading in Indian history as part of my research for the sequel to In the Shadow of Ares. In John Keay’s India: A History, I came across this interesting passage in his discussion of the ‘epic age’ of the Mahabharata and Ramayana: As for the retreat into exile, the other central theme [...]
- [Paypal's Peter Thiel on the Collapse of Science Fiction](https://fistfulofphotons.com/paypals-peter-thiel-on-the-collaps-of-science-fiction/) - I'd agree with his assessment, except I think the problem is actually much worse: One way you can describe the collapse of the idea of the future is the collapse of science fiction. Now it's either about technology that doesn't work or about technology that's used in bad ways. The anthology of the top twenty-five
- [Welcome Instapundit Readers!](https://fistfulofphotons.com/welcome-instapundit-readers/) - Glenn Reynolds kindly links to the In the Shadow of Ares page on Amazon. Note that the book is also available for Nook users at Barnes & Noble.
- [Life Imitates Art: Moving Asteroids](https://fistfulofphotons.com/life-imitates-art-moving-asteroids/) - There is a moment very early on in In the Shadow of Ares where Amber and her refer in passing to an asteroid, Eleanor, which for several years had been gradually nudged to an eventual orbit around Mars for future mining. It looks like someone is looking at a similar idea for Earth-crossing NEOs - A
- [Life Imitates Art: Solar Power Paint](https://fistfulofphotons.com/life-imitates-art-solar-power-paint/) - Looks like researchers at Notre Dame are well on their way to developing the solar-power paint we mention in In the Shadow of Ares -'Sunbelievable' Solar Paint Could Power Home Appliances, Scientists Say: The paint, dubbed "Sunbelievable" by developers at the University of Notre Dame, looks no different from any other paint used to coat
- [Not Quite Life Imitating Art](https://fistfulofphotons.com/not-quite-life-imitating-art/) - ...but you can imagine an MA-gone-bad doing something like this: If a report from The Sun is to be believed, a demo unit for the iPhone 4S caught fire for telling 12-year-old Charlie Le Quesne to "Shut the f--- up, you ugly t---." Charlie reportedly asked Siri "How many people are there in the world?"
- [This Year, Give Them Mars for Christmas](https://fistfulofphotons.com/this-year-give-them-mars-for-christmas/) - Know someone who owns (or will be getting) an e-reader? Send them a copy of In the Shadow of Ares as a gift! Over at fistfulofphotons.com, I explain how to do it via both Amazon and Barnes & Noble — it’s as easy as can be.
- [Giving "In the Shadow of Ares" As A Gift](https://fistfulofphotons.com/giving-in-the-shadow-of-ares-as-a-gift/) - A friend asked me today how she could send In the Shadow of Ares as a gift. Through Amazon, it's very simple (as, with Amazon, you might expect it to be). Navigate to the product page using the link above or on the fistfulofphotons.com sidebar. In the upper right corner of the product page, among
- [9/11 and Science Fiction](https://fistfulofphotons.com/911-and-science-fiction/) - Glenn Reynolds (prompted by a post by Andrew Fox) muses on the absence of 9/11 (and by extension the War on Terror) from science fiction, which Fox speculates is a taboo subject. Carl and I started writing In the Shadow of Ares one week before 9/11, so the genesis of the book spans the world
- [Price Reduction!](https://fistfulofphotons.com/price-reduction/) - Yes, it's true -- if you haven't already downloaded a copy of In the Shadow of Ares from Amazon or Barnes & Noble, you can now do so for only $3.99 -- a $3 reduction, which brings the price in line with similar books. Everything else might be inflating, but you're getting an even better
- [Finding E-Readers in Unexpected Places](https://fistfulofphotons.com/finding-e-readers-in-unexpected-places/) - The first time I ever saw an e-reader with my own eyes was in the gatehouse at O'Hare around Thanksgiving 2009. I attended a friend's wedding a couple weeks ago, and was surprised and amused that the minister was conducting the ceremony using her Kindle DX: Technology evolves quickly, and sometimes even the most traditional institutions
- [What I Did On My (Last) Summer Vacation](https://fistfulofphotons.com/what-i-did-on-my-last-summer-vacation/) - After about eleven months of problems with my DSL connection at home, I’ve finally finished uploading the HD video I shot while in Iceland at this time last year. The playlist is here, but this is probably the most relevant video for MarsBlog in the sense that aside from the prominence of water, it best [...]
- [PJ Interviews Sarah Hoyt on "Darkship Thieves"](https://fistfulofphotons.com/pj-interviews-sarah-hoyt-on-darkship-thieves/) - Over at PJ Lifestyle, Patrick Richardson interviews author Sarah Hoyt about her SF novel "Darkship Thieves", which recently won the Libertarian Futurist Society's Prometheus Award for best novel. What I found particularly interesting about the interview is Hoyt's experience with other writers and publishers regarding her political leanings. Having grown up with Heinlein, I generally
- [Kindle Million-Seller](https://fistfulofphotons.com/kindle-million-seller/) - Well, this certainly puts to rest any qualms I had about e-publishing In the Shadow of Ares - Self Publishing Writer Becomes Million Seller: John Locke, 60, who publishes and promotes his own work, enjoys sales figures close to such literary luminaries as Stieg Larsson, James Patterson and Michael Connelly. His remarkable achievement is being
- [Inspiration From Real-Life Experience](https://fistfulofphotons.com/inspiration-from-real-life-experience/) - Somehow, somewhere, I lost my Blackberry yesterday. Yes, of course, I did all the usual things to try to find it: searched high and low, called it using the land line, rooted around under the seat in the car. But it was no use, it went missing somewhere between Conifer and Five Points (north of
- [Concrete-Forming Robots for Mars](https://fistfulofphotons.com/concrete-forming-robots-for-mars/) - It may not be intended for use on Mars, but this is what we had in mind when we wrote about teleoperated "formers" building the foundations for the Green's agricultural domes.
- [Mars Society Links to "In the Shadow of Ares"](https://fistfulofphotons.com/mars-society-links-to-in-the-shadow-of-ares/) - I missed this a couple weeks back, but the Mars Society linked to In the Shadow of Ares. Unfortunately it isn't a review of the book, so there's no telling what they thought of it. The Mars Society has an important role in bringing about ITSOA. The Ares mission design is of course derived from Mars Direct,
- [Fog on Mars](https://fistfulofphotons.com/fog-on-mars/) - This report on a newly-released analysis of data from the Phoenix lander pretty closely describes what we had in mind for the "yardang" scene...only in reverse.
- [Suits for Mars](https://fistfulofphotons.com/suits-for-mars/) - They're not quite skinsuits, but someone is thinking ahead to what sort of suits future Mars settlers will need. Wikipedia has a useful backgrounder on the skinsuit (aka "mechanical counterpressure suit" or "space activity suit"), which includes the basis for several details of how the concept is applied in In the Shadow of Ares. But
- [Life Imitates Art: Smart Goggles](https://fistfulofphotons.com/life-imitates-art-smart-goggles/) - Something akin to what we use in In the Shadow of Ares as part of the telepresence control system made its appearance at the Consumer Electronics Show this past week: The Android-powered micro-LED screen in these goggles turns average skiers into cyborgs, displaying everything from GPS-enabled trail maps to your current speed and altitude. If
- [This Ares is Not Part of Constellation](https://fistfulofphotons.com/this-ares-is-not-part-of-constellation/) - A common question about In the Shadow of Ares concerns whether the "Ares" of the title is connected to the NASA Constellation program. It isn't. In fact, our use of the name precedes it's adoption by NASA for it's now-mostly-cancelled rocket family by at least two years. In the backstory, the Ares Project is a
- [On E-Publishing](https://fistfulofphotons.com/on-e-publishing/) - Sarah Hoyt has come to the same realization that we did regarding e-publishing our novel: But the field is opening, expanding, and offering a lot of other chances. As for writers? Well, while there are books I'm not willing to let go small press or e-only - not yet - that is changing, too, and
- [The Mysterious Mr. Rana](https://fistfulofphotons.com/the-mysterious-mr-rana/) - There's more to Rajiv Rana than we let on in In the Shadow of Ares. What could he be hiding? And how did he really break his nose?
- [Not Forgotten](https://fistfulofphotons.com/not-forgotten/) - What would happen if a spacecraft and its crew were lost tens of millions of miles from Earth, where there were no ground-based cameras and radar watching, no clues from telemetry data, and no way to retrieve and study the wreckage?
- [Move Over, Taco Bell, Here Comes Vat-Meat](https://fistfulofphotons.com/move-over-taco-bell-here-comes-vat-meat/) - Walter Russell Mead sings the praises of those entrepreneurs who might one day bring us an environmentally-friendly and guilt-free source of protein: synthetic meat. Now I don’t know whether this particular technology will ever pan out, so that PETA activists will be stopping in at the local McDonalds for a tasty shamburger. Dr. Mironov might
- [On the Radio](https://fistfulofphotons.com/on-the-radio-2/) - I'll be on the radio here in Denver again Friday (2/4/2011), with my People's Press Collective co-conspirator Michael Sandoval. We'll be discussing In the Shadow of Ares for at least part of the time. If you want to tune in, we will be on KLZ 560 AM, between 10:00 am and 11:30 am.
- [Concept Art](https://fistfulofphotons.com/concept-art/) - While rooting around in a desk drawer this evening, I came across a bunch of sketches of our early concepts from 2002-2003 for several locations and bits of hardware for In the Shadow of Ares. It's surprising how similar most of them were to what ended up in the book -- and that only one
- [Life Imitates Art: MAs and 5G](https://fistfulofphotons.com/life-imitates-art-mas-and-5g/) - While looking at upgrading to a 4G phone/hotspot combo this afternoon I got to wondering if there was a "5G" in the works. It turns out there isn't, exactly, but there are a few hints on the Wikipedia page on what that wireless standard might include when it emerges around 2020: * Pervasive networks providing
- [Mars on Iceland](https://fistfulofphotons.com/mars-on-iceland/) - I was too busy with other projects this weekend to scan in the aforementioned concept sketches, but I'll try again to get to them this week. In the meantime, here's another picture of Iceland as Mars...but for the green and blue, it could be a scene from Sylvia's Valley:
- [Farming in Space](https://fistfulofphotons.com/218/) - Whether it is the fresh atmosphere of a small homestead garden or the large park tucked into one corner of an industrial-scale agricultural bubble, greenhouses will offer settlers a reminder of Earth and a break from their otherwise wholly artificial surroundings.
- [Agriculture on Mars](https://fistfulofphotons.com/agriculture-on-mars/) - Interestingly (or perhaps not surprisingly), we came to some of the same conclusions as these researchers. Of particular note, the morale benefit to settlers in an inescapably indoor environment of having an open green space (or Greenspace, if you've read the book).
- [Feeding Martians](https://fistfulofphotons.com/feeding-martians/) - An interesting project at the South Pole, involving agriculture in a controlled (and in this case, sunless and soil-less) environment: To the moon…South Pole greenhouse model for growing freshies on other worlds Crops of lettuce, kale, cucumber, peppers, herbs, tomatoes, cantaloupes and edible flowers comprise many of the plants grown in the climate-controlled chamber. Because [...]
- [Life Imitates Art: Portable DNA Sequencers](https://fistfulofphotons.com/life-imitates-art-portable-dna-sequencers/) - FuturePundit points to a NYT article describing something very similar to a piece of technology readers might recognize from the Oasis scene of In the Shadow of Ares - Taking DNA Sequencing to the Masses: Dr. Rothberg is the founder of Ion Torrent, which last month began selling a sequencer it calls the Personal Genome
- [Interview With Ari Armstrong](https://fistfulofphotons.com/interview-with-ari-armstrong/) - Ari Armstrong and his video camera catch me at a Christmas party...
- [Interview With Ross Kaminsky](https://fistfulofphotons.com/interview-with-ross-kaminsky/) - Here's the audio from my radio interview with Ross Kaminsky two weeks ago -- note that the first half concerns In the Shadow of Ares, while the second half concerns People's Press Collective: Backbone Radio - December 19, 2010, Segment 5 (mp3 audio) It wouldn't be to bad being homeless if I could afford on
- [Now Available on Nook](https://fistfulofphotons.com/now-available-on-kindle/) - In the Shadow of Ares is now available for the Nook, for all of you who found a shiny new reader under the tree this morning. Merry Christmas!
- [On the Radio](https://fistfulofphotons.com/on-the-radio/) - I'll be on 850KNUS here in Denver on Sunday, talking about In the Shadow of Ares with my PPC co-blogger Ross "Rossputin" Kaminsky. The show is on from 5 PM to 8 PM on 710 AM KNUS in Denver and 1460 AM KZNT in Colorado Springs. I will be on between 7:00 and 7:30PM. For
- [On the Radio](https://fistfulofphotons.com/on-the-radio-3/) - I’ll be on 850KNUS here in Denver on Sunday, talking about In the Shadow of Ares with my PPC co-blogger Ross “Rossputin” Kaminsky. The show is on from 5 PM to 8 PM on 710 AM KNUS in Denver and 1460 AM KZNT in Colorado Springs. I will be on between 7:00 and 7:30PM. For [...]
- [McDonald's on Mars](https://fistfulofphotons.com/mcdonalds-on-mars/) - One theme running through In the Shadow of Ares is the economics of early human settlements on Mars, and one way in which we explore this theme is through the contrast between the entrepreneurial independent settlements and those subject to the meddling of the Mars Development Authority. Readers of MarsBlog may find familiar the following
- [Kindle and Nook](https://fistfulofphotons.com/kindle-and-nook/) - The Kindle version of In the Shadow of Ares is now available at Amazon.com. Thank you to everyone who has already purchased the book -- plus the helpful feedback from sharp-eyed Ari, who discovered an editorial comment left behind like a bad surgeon's forgotten scalpel. The mistake has been corrected and the text republished, but
- [In the Shadow of Ares - Story Synopsis](https://fistfulofphotons.com/in-the-shadow-of-ares-story-synopsis/) - To kick things off, here's the description we used for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest entry: The world was shocked and saddened by the Space Shuttle Challenger and Columbia disasters. But after the memorials, recovery efforts, and detailed investigations were over and the hard lessons were learned, we moved on. But what if a spacecraft
- [“In the Shadow of Ares” – Now Available!](https://fistfulofphotons.com/in-the-shadow-of-ares-now-available/) - “In the Shadow of Ares” (formerly known around here as “Labyrinth of Night”) is now available for download at Amazon.com: In 2029, the third exploration mission to Mars vanishes without a trace. Two decades later, the success of human settlement of Mars and the life of a young girl hinge on the secret of what [...]
- [Name Change](https://fistfulofphotons.com/name-change/) - Small change in plans: in order to avoid confusion with the twenty-odd other science fiction books set on Mars which use the same name, the book previously known as Labyrinth of Night will now be titled In the Shadow of Ares. And yes, I’m still struggling to get it ready for Kindle. Almost there… UPDATE: [...]
- [In the Shadow of Ares: Story Synopsis](https://fistfulofphotons.com/in-the-shadow-of-ares-story-synopsis-2/) - I thought I posted a summary of the novel here, back when we entered it in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. But since I can’t find it in the archives, here’s the description we used for the contest entry: The world was shocked and saddened by the Space Shuttle Challenger and Columbia disasters. But after [...]
- [Labyrinth: Excerpt from Chapter 19](https://fistfulofphotons.com/labyrinth-excerpt-from-chapter-19/) - After a minor catastrophe forces the Jacobsen family to move to a new settlement, Amber and her mother get a tour of the place. Having spent her whole young life within the cozy spaces of habs, settlement tunnels, rovers, and suits, Amber finds certain parts of her new environment a bit unnerving at first. Margolis [...]
- [Labyrinth: Excerpt from Chapter 6](https://fistfulofphotons.com/labyrinth-excerpt-from-chapter-6/) - For those unfamiliar with the novel, or who may have forgotten the synopsis from the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award entry some time back, Labyrinth of Night is a young adult science fiction novel following the struggles of Amber Jacobsen — the first and so far only child on Mars — to prove her value to [...]
- [McDonald’s on Mars](https://fistfulofphotons.com/mcdonalds-on-mars-2/) - Commenter Wally expresses concern over the development of space: Besides, who wants to go to McDonald’s Restaurant on Mars? I do. Not because I find the food appealing, but because of what the fact of a McDonald’s on Mars would say about the planet’s level of development. Shipping in from a distribution center on Earth [...]

## Pages

- [About the Author](https://fistfulofphotons.com/about-the-authors/) - Thomas L. James has been hooked on space exploration since the age of three, when he watched coverage of the Apollo 17 splashdown on television. Thomas lives in Denver, Colorado, where he is an engineer in manned spaceflight and small-sat programs.

## Categories

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- [The Man in the High Castle](https://fistfulofphotons.com/tag/the-man-in-the-high-castle/)
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