Tim Queeney's Blog, page 2
March 27, 2014
Research catches up to Dr. Crandee
Writers often do research for their books. And while most of that digging is routine — street names, bullet calibers and wine chateaus — it can delve into some wonky, specialized corners. Sometimes this stuff is so arcane that the NY Times hails the science as an exciting new development.
In my upcoming book The Ceres Plague, the next book in the Perry Helion thriller series, the brilliant and twisted microbiologist Dr. Taylor Crandee has fashioned a deadly yet highly targetable superbug called Crandium Donatellus (yes, he named it after himself!). Part of the genius of Crandium stems from Crandee’s ability to manipulate a bacteriological process called CRISPR. The CRISPR defense mechanism allows bacteria to fight off attacking viruses by cutting into and even editing viral DNA. Crandee discovers how to use this technique to target Crandium to attack human DNA in a fiendish variety of ways.
Naturally, CRISPR sounds like a writer’s fantasy. Bacteria would never have so sophisticated a defense, right? In fact, this devious microbial technique actually exists. The NY Times writes about CRISPR in a recent Science News section (“A Powerful New Way toEdit DNA”), hailing it as a possible major tool in microbiology research.
The Times makes no mention of Dr. Crandee or Crandium Donatellus. But I’m sure they’ll catch up soon enough.
Image courtesy National Institutes of Health
In my upcoming book The Ceres Plague, the next book in the Perry Helion thriller series, the brilliant and twisted microbiologist Dr. Taylor Crandee has fashioned a deadly yet highly targetable superbug called Crandium Donatellus (yes, he named it after himself!). Part of the genius of Crandium stems from Crandee’s ability to manipulate a bacteriological process called CRISPR. The CRISPR defense mechanism allows bacteria to fight off attacking viruses by cutting into and even editing viral DNA. Crandee discovers how to use this technique to target Crandium to attack human DNA in a fiendish variety of ways.
Naturally, CRISPR sounds like a writer’s fantasy. Bacteria would never have so sophisticated a defense, right? In fact, this devious microbial technique actually exists. The NY Times writes about CRISPR in a recent Science News section (“A Powerful New Way toEdit DNA”), hailing it as a possible major tool in microbiology research.
The Times makes no mention of Dr. Crandee or Crandium Donatellus. But I’m sure they’ll catch up soon enough.
Image courtesy National Institutes of Health
June 13, 2013
Literary guns
After reading an excerpt from my upcoming Perry Helion novel The Ceres Plague, Steve Konkoly, a writer friend who also pens thrillers, had a question. “What kind of guns were they?” In the excerpt, the bad guys confronted Perry with just “guns.” No further details given.
For Steve, however, this wasn’t enough. The firearms in Steve’s books almost always carry detailed descriptions: make, model, rate of fire, operational quirks, etc. For example, in a passage from his upcoming novel, Black Flagged Vektor, Steve might have just called a particular weapon a “submachine gun.” But for Steve’s type of thriller, gun specs matter — his readers want to know the details. So Steve made it a Skorpion vz 61, a 7.65 mm, 850-round-per-minute Czech-made submachine gun (video of full auto operation here). The high rate of fire of this compact gun actually becomes a plot point in the passage from Vektor.
I liked Steve’s interest in the details and thought he had the right idea. After all, Perry Helion has been around weapons and military technology for years. Why wouldn’t he know a thing or two about the guns the bad guys had trained on him? So, as a tribute to Steve, I equipped them with Skorpions. Here’s the excerpt:
“Lying astride their path was a submarine. The same sub that had skulked around during the salvage effort. Standing on its glistening hull were three men with Skorpion vz 61 submachine guns trained on the inflatable. A fourth man looked down on them from the conning tower, a semi-automatic pistol clearly visible.
“Perry released the inflatable’s throttles and raised his hands. He looked back and saw Lucy had already followed his lead.”
For Steve, however, this wasn’t enough. The firearms in Steve’s books almost always carry detailed descriptions: make, model, rate of fire, operational quirks, etc. For example, in a passage from his upcoming novel, Black Flagged Vektor, Steve might have just called a particular weapon a “submachine gun.” But for Steve’s type of thriller, gun specs matter — his readers want to know the details. So Steve made it a Skorpion vz 61, a 7.65 mm, 850-round-per-minute Czech-made submachine gun (video of full auto operation here). The high rate of fire of this compact gun actually becomes a plot point in the passage from Vektor.
I liked Steve’s interest in the details and thought he had the right idea. After all, Perry Helion has been around weapons and military technology for years. Why wouldn’t he know a thing or two about the guns the bad guys had trained on him? So, as a tribute to Steve, I equipped them with Skorpions. Here’s the excerpt:
“Lying astride their path was a submarine. The same sub that had skulked around during the salvage effort. Standing on its glistening hull were three men with Skorpion vz 61 submachine guns trained on the inflatable. A fourth man looked down on them from the conning tower, a semi-automatic pistol clearly visible.
“Perry released the inflatable’s throttles and raised his hands. He looked back and saw Lucy had already followed his lead.”
September 8, 2012
Answering "The Questions"
Fellow writer dSavannah subjects me to her infamous "Questions" on her blog. Check out how I barely survive.
http://dsavannah.com/blog/index.php/t...
http://dsavannah.com/blog/index.php/t...
July 10, 2012
Continental Badass
Which continent is the harshest, the most difficult on which to survive? Well, there’s one we can definitely strike off the list right away. Unless you’re allergic to whipped cream or cabernet sauvignon, Europe is probably not the roughest place on the planet.
The other continents, however, could all vie for the title: Africa has the Sahara, ‘nuf said. Asia sports the “roof of the world.” The Himalayas will kill you just as soon as spin a prayer wheel. Then there’s the Amazon River of South America. How about freshwater crocodiles, called caiman, 17 feet long? Maybe practice your backstroke another time. And then there’s North America with its tornados, hurricanes, blizzards and fast food heart attacks — all potentially deadly.
Finally Australia. It’s like a whirlpool: somewhat safe around the outside edge, but get sucked into the middle and you’re a goner. Except instead of drowning, you get every last molecule of water baked out of your body. (At least you’d lose weight.)
So, all these continents can make a claim. But ultimately, only one continent can wear the crown: Antarctica — the highest, coldest, windiest badass in continentville. Higher on average than Asia, even with its “roof of the world” gig. Windier than fabled Chicago by the lake or Patagonia with its katabatic winds plunging into steep fjords. And cold, well, Anarctica is a freakin’ 5.8 million-square-mile slab of solid water — the ice is almost three miles thick in places. And even the expanses of the Sahara have some foliage. Not in Anty. A continent twice the size of Australia with not one leafy plant (lichen tries hard, but c’mon). Worst of all, when the sun sets in March, the cold continent staggers through in six months of darkness (alright, glaciers don’t really stagger). With the dark comes the UFC version of Jack Frost. The coldest temp ever recorded on Earth was -128° F at Vostok Station by some shivering Russians who spent the winter longing for balmy Siberia.
This deadly land is the setting for my next thriller, The Atlas Fracture. My protagonist (hell, that sounds vaguely medical and invasive, let’s just say the hero) Perry Helion must deal with not only the cold and the wind, but some twisted bad guys (I know, the best kind) eager to radically change the Earth’s climate with a single insane act.
In Antarctica no one can hear you scream — because only a handful of dedicated scientists would ever consider living there and they’re not venturing out of their huts to investigate a scream or two. “It was probably just the wind,” they say as they relight their pipes.
How about you, would you live in Antarctica for the six-month Antarctic summer? How about the Antarctic winter?
original post at timqueeney.com
The other continents, however, could all vie for the title: Africa has the Sahara, ‘nuf said. Asia sports the “roof of the world.” The Himalayas will kill you just as soon as spin a prayer wheel. Then there’s the Amazon River of South America. How about freshwater crocodiles, called caiman, 17 feet long? Maybe practice your backstroke another time. And then there’s North America with its tornados, hurricanes, blizzards and fast food heart attacks — all potentially deadly.
Finally Australia. It’s like a whirlpool: somewhat safe around the outside edge, but get sucked into the middle and you’re a goner. Except instead of drowning, you get every last molecule of water baked out of your body. (At least you’d lose weight.)
So, all these continents can make a claim. But ultimately, only one continent can wear the crown: Antarctica — the highest, coldest, windiest badass in continentville. Higher on average than Asia, even with its “roof of the world” gig. Windier than fabled Chicago by the lake or Patagonia with its katabatic winds plunging into steep fjords. And cold, well, Anarctica is a freakin’ 5.8 million-square-mile slab of solid water — the ice is almost three miles thick in places. And even the expanses of the Sahara have some foliage. Not in Anty. A continent twice the size of Australia with not one leafy plant (lichen tries hard, but c’mon). Worst of all, when the sun sets in March, the cold continent staggers through in six months of darkness (alright, glaciers don’t really stagger). With the dark comes the UFC version of Jack Frost. The coldest temp ever recorded on Earth was -128° F at Vostok Station by some shivering Russians who spent the winter longing for balmy Siberia.
This deadly land is the setting for my next thriller, The Atlas Fracture. My protagonist (hell, that sounds vaguely medical and invasive, let’s just say the hero) Perry Helion must deal with not only the cold and the wind, but some twisted bad guys (I know, the best kind) eager to radically change the Earth’s climate with a single insane act.
In Antarctica no one can hear you scream — because only a handful of dedicated scientists would ever consider living there and they’re not venturing out of their huts to investigate a scream or two. “It was probably just the wind,” they say as they relight their pipes.
How about you, would you live in Antarctica for the six-month Antarctic summer? How about the Antarctic winter?
original post at timqueeney.com
The Lowly Revolver
For several reasons, the gas-operated, top slide semi-automatic pistol has won the hearts of Hollywood, TV and thriller writers. The dominance of the 9mm pistol (there are a variety of ammo loads available other than 9mm, but it’s shorter than writing out “semi-automatic” so I’m sticking with it) over the legacy revolver is all but complete. In part this reflects the widespread use of this type of handgun by bad guys and good guys alike (I know, it’s hard to tell the bad/good guys apart some times, but that’s another story) in the real world.
But I’d wager that Hollywood and TV directors, actors and sound guys really love the 9mm because it provides so much cool business to put on film. There’s the ritual of the character sliding out the magazine, checking whether its full of bullets, sliding the magazine back into the grip and then working the slide back to chamber a round.
Directors love this sequence of actions because it hooks the viewer into the deadly action to come, sound guys love it for all those hard-edged metallic clicks they can dial up. And actors love it since it gives them something to do during a scene. That’s why actors love to smoke so much. There’s so much business. Pulling out the cig, pulling out the matches, striking the matches, lighting the cig, blowing smoke, switching hands, knocking off ashes — a nearly endless number of actions to perform. Otherwise, actors get all fidgety (other than the ones who’re good at playing robots, like Michael Fassbender)
Anyway, how can a revolver compete with the many benefits of a 9mm? Loading a revolver is a slower, less sound-intensive effort (sorta‘ boring actually). And once its loaded there’s no slide to work to show a character’s ultimate dedication to ultra violence.
I’ll be the first to admit, the 9mm wins hands down on these points. Still, I do have a soft spot for the revolver on film. Seeing one of those round-chambered beauts gives me a little pang. Kinda‘ like seeing the Stingray bike I rode when I was a kid, or the Maserati 1957 Maserati 200SI I used to drive down to Capri with Marion Cotillard before she go so big and refused to answer my texts.
Okay, at this point you know I’m a writer, so you also know I’ve never owned a 200Sl nor spent a languorous weekend with, let alone texted, Marion Cotillard. But if I did meet her, you can be sure that when I looked in her purse I’d find a sweet little snub-nosed .38, not some honking 50 caliber Desert Eagle.
original post at timqueeney.com
But I’d wager that Hollywood and TV directors, actors and sound guys really love the 9mm because it provides so much cool business to put on film. There’s the ritual of the character sliding out the magazine, checking whether its full of bullets, sliding the magazine back into the grip and then working the slide back to chamber a round.
Directors love this sequence of actions because it hooks the viewer into the deadly action to come, sound guys love it for all those hard-edged metallic clicks they can dial up. And actors love it since it gives them something to do during a scene. That’s why actors love to smoke so much. There’s so much business. Pulling out the cig, pulling out the matches, striking the matches, lighting the cig, blowing smoke, switching hands, knocking off ashes — a nearly endless number of actions to perform. Otherwise, actors get all fidgety (other than the ones who’re good at playing robots, like Michael Fassbender)
Anyway, how can a revolver compete with the many benefits of a 9mm? Loading a revolver is a slower, less sound-intensive effort (sorta‘ boring actually). And once its loaded there’s no slide to work to show a character’s ultimate dedication to ultra violence.
I’ll be the first to admit, the 9mm wins hands down on these points. Still, I do have a soft spot for the revolver on film. Seeing one of those round-chambered beauts gives me a little pang. Kinda‘ like seeing the Stingray bike I rode when I was a kid, or the Maserati 1957 Maserati 200SI I used to drive down to Capri with Marion Cotillard before she go so big and refused to answer my texts.
Okay, at this point you know I’m a writer, so you also know I’ve never owned a 200Sl nor spent a languorous weekend with, let alone texted, Marion Cotillard. But if I did meet her, you can be sure that when I looked in her purse I’d find a sweet little snub-nosed .38, not some honking 50 caliber Desert Eagle.
original post at timqueeney.com
Why the Higgs Boson is like Kim Kardashian
Sure, you’ve heard plenty about the Higgs boson (what’s a boson? is it like a bosom? They’re only a letter apart, right?). Lately, it’s hard not to hear about the damn boson of Monsieur Higgs. The Higgs is everywhere on broadcast, Internet and print media. Pretty amazing for a tiny particle that has cost humankind billions of dollars, euros, and sheckels to find. The Higgs has now become so famous that the question is obvious: Was the Higgs search intended as real scientific inquiry or was it part of some viral marketing campaign?
Think: Herr Higgs and his incredible traveling boson has passed the event horizon of media hype. In fact, the Higgs boson has reached something of a hallowed benchmark. The shy particle of 1,000 physicists’ wet dreams is now as famous as Kim Kardashian. That’s right, it can call a meeting in Hollywood and agents, producers, cable companies, networks and JJ Abrams will dutifully show up.
Everybody wants to get Higgy. This kind of zeitgeist window doesn’t stay open forever, just ask Sony Betamax or Rebecca Black. The Higgs people need to do right by their subatomic particle and strike while the iron is hot. Get everyone’s favorite boson a TV show, “Hanging with Higgs?” They need to get it an interview with People magazine and video of the Higgs showing some beach skin on TMZ. This is the Higgs moment. Parlay the fame into more fame and some serious scratch. Kim did it — it should be easy for the “God” particle.
original post at timqueeney.com
Think: Herr Higgs and his incredible traveling boson has passed the event horizon of media hype. In fact, the Higgs boson has reached something of a hallowed benchmark. The shy particle of 1,000 physicists’ wet dreams is now as famous as Kim Kardashian. That’s right, it can call a meeting in Hollywood and agents, producers, cable companies, networks and JJ Abrams will dutifully show up.
Everybody wants to get Higgy. This kind of zeitgeist window doesn’t stay open forever, just ask Sony Betamax or Rebecca Black. The Higgs people need to do right by their subatomic particle and strike while the iron is hot. Get everyone’s favorite boson a TV show, “Hanging with Higgs?” They need to get it an interview with People magazine and video of the Higgs showing some beach skin on TMZ. This is the Higgs moment. Parlay the fame into more fame and some serious scratch. Kim did it — it should be easy for the “God” particle.
original post at timqueeney.com
