The Economist had an interesting series of articles recently on great unsolved mysteries of science including the nature of time, what is dark matter, and the one that interested me most, consciousness: What is it? Where is it? How do we … Continue reading
I just returned from the movie, The Martian, with Matt Damon. I dreaded seeing it because I was disappointed with the book. But I considered it research, part of my self-education into the world of sci-fi. The movie is about … Continue reading
One reason I enjoy the Arizona Mystery Writers’ monthly meeting is the variety of expert speakers who help us write imaginative and realistic stories. See (www.arizonamysterywriters.com). This week, a captain from the county sheriff’s department will give a talk on … Continue reading
One’s personal viewpoint, constrained as it is by embodiment in time and location, is necessarily only one way of seeing things. Fortunately, we are capable of abstraction and generalization, so we can imagine viewpoints other than our own, and even, … Continue reading
I found myself reading the Garbanzo Gazette, official organ of the Silver City Co-op, while enjoying a mushroom and feta quiche with sweet-potato crust. I learned that most coops struggle with the Diet Coke Dilemma: customers request that soda when … Continue reading
The second-person narrator, Balram Halwai, is a boy who wipes tables in a bakery in a poor village in India – a bakery his grandfather once owned but which was seized by a rich person. His father now pedals a … Continue reading
The revision of “Robin,” the second android novel, is done. It’s a big improvement over the first draft, but it’s obvious there will be another re-write. As is my style, the story is too complex and I struggle to write … Continue reading
An astronaut is injured in a dust storm on Mars. His crewmates give him up for dead and head home. Miraculously, he survives (some extreme hand-waving is needed to explain that). He makes it to the inflated canvas habitat left … Continue reading
I’m still struggling to focus my latest android story on my lead character, Robin, one of two androids. I’ve put her on stage more frequently and tried to keep the spotlight on her. I changed an important dramatic crisis by … Continue reading
This sci-fi adventure gets points for creativity. A small crew from earth investigates an alien ship somewhere out in the Oort cloud. The stimulating questions include, how would you communicate with aliens, and, what are the aliens like? Usually in … Continue reading