Regularly Expressing

Category: science fiction

  • A New Cover for “Warriors of the Hollow World”

    I am pleased to announce the new cover for my wattpad story “Warriors of the Hollow World,” featuring the amazing Zahra.

    In the chapter depicted in this image, Zahra portrays the character of Olara who is speaking electrotelpathically with her dead friend/servant for the first time since he was killed.

    Does this cover make you want to read the story? I plan to tweak the cover over the coming weeks, so let me know what you think.

    Olara, the leader of the Claw Clan, has known only war her entire life. Vengeance, like the artificial world she lives inside, has circumscribed her every thought and action. However, the universe is much bigger than she imagines, and the darkness filled with stars beneath the ground is more than a mythical realm of magic and legends–it is the past and future domain of her people. She could share friendship with other, distantly related, humanoid races that travel through space–if she can put her hatred aside. But whatever she chooses, there will be war.

  • To the Stars!

    0.08% lightspeed is pretty fast. It will get you to the nearest star in 53 years. Of course, I’m not factoring in the time for acceleration and deceleration.

  • Memoirs of a Sith Lord

    Memoirs of a Sith Lord is now posted at FanFiction.net!

  • Sword and Illusion

    A few years ago my wife and I completed a book titled, “Sword and Illusion” about a warrior woman, accustomed to fighting dragons and leading armies. As she approaches middle age, she faces the most terrifying challenge of her life: finding a husband. Many men come to the competition to win her hand, and few of them are what they seem, least of all the Prince of Tellan whose magic comes from dreams themselves.

    We’ve just signed with Astraea E-Press, and I will give you all updates when release day comes.

  • By Your Command

    Just a few weeks back I was in Seattle for Supercomputing 11 and I got to see the Battlestar Galactica display at the EMP museum. There were a lot of cool things there, Saul’s eye patch, an electronically administered ethics test (would you make the same choices as the BG gang?). To fond memories of a great show (if we don’t think too hard about the last few seasons). So say we all.

    My viper, just prior to launch
    Tricia Helfer's actual dress. Why do I feel a strange desire to betray humanity to a race of killer robots?
    A toast to the toasters.
    Viper flying past guitars.

  • X-COM: Terror From The Deep

    The attached video is about a game I used to play back in 1995. Does anyone out there remember it? It was called X-COM: Terror From the Deep. X-COM: TFTD. I used embedded SWF to create the movie, so you may have to right-click for controls like stop/pause. Hope you enjoy.

  • Dune is More Likely to Exist than Earth

    The famous desert planet Arrakis is, according to recent computer simulations, a more likely type of planet to harbor life than Earth. In fact, “land worlds” (worlds with no oceans) have a habitable zone that is three times larger than that of Earth.

    But an ocean planet with an atmosphere consisting primarily of hydrogen could change the game. By means of the greenhouse effect it can maintain a comfortable temperature even at the orbital distance of Saturn. Anyone for a tropical vacation to planet Hindenberg?

  • Star Trek is Dead

    That Star Trek is dead came to me as a sad realization while attending the Teragrid 2011 conference. On Wednesday we made an excursion to the planetarium. There were two shows. The first was titled something like “This Violent Universe” and Patrick Stewart was the narrator. The second show was titled “Black Holes.” As I listened, I knew the voice sounded familiar–and it turned out to be John de Lancie! I thought, How cool. The shows have a Star Trek theme.

    When the show was over I went out to talk to my students and commented on how cool it was. One said, “Who’s John de Lancie?”

    I replied, “Why, he played Q on Star Trek.”

    “Who’s that?”

    My mind reeled. “Do you know who Patrick Stewart is?”

    Student 1: “No”

    Student 2: “He’s the guy that does the narration for the Discovery Channel.”

    Student 3: “He played Captain Kirk on Star Trek.”

    What is the world coming to when students of Computer Science give these kinds of answers? One can only conclude that Star Trek is dead, forgotten, and that its gravestone has cracked and molded over with age.

  • Every News Station is a Political Party

    The Max Headroom television series provided us with a dystopian vision of the future in which credit fraud was a more serious crime than murder, turning the television off was illegal, and network executives would do anything to increase their ratings for a few minutes. Oh, and every television network had its own political candidate. At first, of course, I merely thought this was as clever and funny idea. But now I think they may be on to something. (more…)

  • Brain Prosthetic

    Many of us have had the unfortunate experience of watching a loved one’s memory deteriorate through dementia of one for or another. If your loved one is a rat, there is already a solution, a device that connects directly to the brain and replaces long term memory. (more…)