Tobias S. Buckell's Blog, page 9

My METAtropolis novellas Stochasticity, Byways, and Tensegrity are now for sale as eBooks

If you enjoyed my novella Stochasticity from the METAtropolis anthology, know then that there were two sequels to that anthology and I wrote a novella for each one.

I’ve finally gotten these copyedited, turned into eBooks, and uploaded to Amazon as readers have frequently asked if they could buy them individually as well. Stochasticity, the first eBook of the three, is free for the next five days at Amazon.com. I hope if you’d read it you might leave a review, and if you haven’t, head over to...

Capsule Review: Revenger by Alastair Reynolds

This is one of the most fun reads I’ve had in a while.

Revenger is full of all the stock Alastair Reynolds world building that I love, since Chasm City (in some ways it’s a real return to his roots of mixing low, almost steam level punk technology and high space opera settings), yet the narrow focus on a single POV, that of Fura Ness, gives it a fast-moving whip pace that meant I ate through this book in a quick couple of days.

Set in the ruins of a galaxy that has seen many civilizations ri...

Bridging Infinity (which includes short story written by me and Karen Lord) is now available!

Earlier this year Karen Lord and I wrote a short story together (here’s where I documented the process of doing that). I’m psyched to say that you can now buy this anthology.

The latest volume in the Hugo award-winning Infinity Project series, showcasing all-original hard science fiction stories from the leading voices in genre fiction.

Sense of wonder is the lifeblood of science fiction. When we encounter something on a truly staggering scale – metal spheres wrapped around stars, planets re...

Author considered as a newly reconstituted gym rat, one year in

Tomorrow I visit my cardiologist one year after he cleared me to start exercising again (I have a heart defect, it’s likely Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy. You can’t tell for sure unless you biopsy the heart, which is a bad idea while you’re still living.)

Some reactions:

1. I’m still alive after a year of experimenting with exercising again. Go team!

2. I’m kinda nervous that I get told to ease back so I’m somewhat not looking forward to going in.

Seeing as that it’s been one year, I’m in an Au...

Check out the Blue Origins test of their capsule escape system

This is pretty amazing. Not only can SpaceX get a booster to restart its engines and land, but Blue Origins can as well. Here they are showing their ability to launch a booster, land it again after restarting the engines, and also test the escape system that shoots the capsule away in an emergency.

I know Blue Origins hasn’t gone orbital, but this puts us close to having two very amazing launch systems available going forward.

Capsule Review: Yoon Ha Lee’s Ninefox Gambit

A capsule review of Yoon Ha Lee’s Ninefox Gambit that I wrote on twitter:

Finished reading Yoon Ha Lee’s Ninefox Gambit last night. That was a great read. Very intriguing world building in particular. Fresh.

— Tobias Buckell (@tobiasbuckell) October 4, 2016

I’m thinking I need to do more capsule reviews as I read things, plus maybe a books received post as they come in. I’ve been so bunkered down I haven’t been very good about sharing bookish goodness!

After reading the above book I now wan...

Anthology Halo Fractures is available, contains my Halo story ‘Oasis’

Halo Fractures, which includes stories by me, Troy Denning, Matt Forbeck, Kelly Gay, Christie Golden, Kevin Grace, Morgan Lockhart, John Jackson Miller, Frank O’Connor, Brian Reed, James Swallow, and Joseph Staten, launched yesterday for sale.

Launch once more into galaxy-spanning conflict and legendary heroism…shards of an ever-expanding journey where human and alien alike find their finest hours in facing their greatest challenges. These scattered stories span untold millennia, from the ag...

Halo Waypoint Blog announces that Halo: Envoy is a thing

So a project I’ve been working off and on for over the past year has been mentioned over at Halo Waypoint:

But wait – that’s not all! We’re also excited to announce two more upcoming stories coming to the Halo universe…

Halo: Smoke and Shadow by Kelly Gay

Halo: Envoy by Tobias Buckell

These stories actually directly connect to Kelly and Tobias’ respective tales in Halo: Fractures, so if their stories get you excited after you read them in the anthology, be aware that even more is on the way!...

I’ll be a guest of the Reader Riot Book Festival in Florence, Alabama this April

I have a new event I’ve agreed to travel to:

Hey, #scifi fans, mark your calendars to hit the #Shoals in April to see @tobiasbuckell be awesome at our festival! pic.twitter.com/JnU178IscQ

— ReaderRiot (@ReaderRiot) September 7, 2016

I can’t wait to meet my readers in Alabama, as well as to talk about science fiction, futurism, and my work.

Florence-Lauderdale Public Library is excited to announce the first book festival in the Shoals, coming in Spring 2017!

The Reader Riot is a community-le...

First relaunch of a used SpaceX 1st stage will happen yet this year

This will be another epic step for the revolution in launch technology that SpaceX has shepherded in:

SES — an international satellite operator based in Luxembourg — will be the first company to launch cargo to space on a reused SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The rocket will carry the company’s SES-10 satellite, meant to provide telecommunications coverage to Latin America, into a very high orbit above Earth. That launch is scheduled for sometime in the fourth quarter of 2016 and will mark the firs...