Category: Science
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Coming Soon: Prisoner of the Mind
Prisoner of the Mind, near-future novel of mine set in the Shadow Space Universe, is coming soon! Prisoner of the Mind is a techno-thriller set in the near future, where people with psionic abilities have emerged and society hasn’t adapted well to their existence. How do you know right from wrong if every memory, every…
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The Mars Plan
To say that I was excited about SpaceX’s mars plan announcements last month would be an understatement. Their plan is ambitious and exciting and my first thought was: “where do I sign up?” For those of you who haven’t heard at this point, they want to transport people, 100-200 at a time, to Mars to…
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Boundless Optimism: Tomorowland Movie Review
I just saw Tomorrowland yesterday. This is a statement where the tense is correct but your brain pauses and says, “Wait, what?” The movie has become one of my must-haves as far as DVD/Bluray. Yes, it was that good. In Tomorrowland, they’ve built a movie which manages to look at the future in a way…
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Second Star to the Right: Interstellar Movie Review (Spoilers)
I’ll preface this by saying that Interstellar is the best movie of 2014 that I nearly didn’t see. Why did I nearly decide to discount it? Well, the trailers did a terrible job of telling me what the movie was about. The trailers made it out (with me reading between the lines) that the movie…
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Orion and Getting Back into the Space Race
The Orion spacecapsule has returned successfully after it’s first real test… and I’m excited. Yet at the same time, I can’t help but feel it’s a hand-wave. The Orion is incredible… yet it is still feels like too little, too late. Paul Bertorelli wrote an excellent article (below) that matches a lot of my feelings on…
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Robocop Movie Review
I am not, as a general rule, a huge fan of movie remakes. Now and again, however, I’ll be pleasantly surprised. When I went to see it, I expected it to be a simple action flick. Lots of shooting, some explosions, and robots and bad guys getting mowed down left and right. What I didn’t…
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The Romantic Pessimist’s Argument for Space
I consider myself a romantic pessimist. I hope for the best… and plan for the worst. That said, I’m also a dreamer and most of my hopes and ambitions are tied to space. Not surprising, then, that I write science fiction, eh? I’m writing this post as something of a dialogue, a hope that we…
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Characterization Case Study: Gravity
The best way to study characterization and plot is to look at examples, both good and bad, and to note what worked and what didn’t. I’m going to do a quick case study of the recent movie Gravity. It’s an interesting movie that (due to a very small cast and a rather linear plot) can…
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Space Warfare: I Have the Power!
I’m continuing my blog post last week Friday and discussing space warfare technology. More specificially, I’ll address what I see as one of the big issues: power generation and density. The big issue with any kinds of space technology is the power source and power density. If three quarters of the vessel is taken up…