Steven J. Pemberton's Blog, page 8
April 30, 2020
April's Writing Progress
I'm closing in on the end of the first draft of The Dragons of Asdanund. I managed 10,000 words this month, so it now stands at 108,000 words. I thought of a few clever twists that will need to be foreshadowed, so there's a lot of editing in store for the second draft... but I already knew that.
The final instalment of The Case of the Missing Shells will be released tomorrow. There will be more adventures for Doctor Fung and Dan Barrister once I've written them.
Until 31st May 2020, I'm taking part in the "Authors Give Back" sale at Smashwords. You can get any of my ebooks there at 60% off, including The Mirrors of Elangir, book 1 in the series that The Dragons of Asdanund is book 2 for. Just go to my profile on Smashwords and pick up whatever takes your fancy. The discount should be applied automatically. If not, use code AGB60 at the checkout.
Stay home, stay safe :-)
The final instalment of The Case of the Missing Shells will be released tomorrow. There will be more adventures for Doctor Fung and Dan Barrister once I've written them.
Until 31st May 2020, I'm taking part in the "Authors Give Back" sale at Smashwords. You can get any of my ebooks there at 60% off, including The Mirrors of Elangir, book 1 in the series that The Dragons of Asdanund is book 2 for. Just go to my profile on Smashwords and pick up whatever takes your fancy. The discount should be applied automatically. If not, use code AGB60 at the checkout.
Stay home, stay safe :-)
March 31, 2020
March's Writing Progress
The day job has calmed down a bit lately, so I managed 9,000 words of The Dragons of Asdanund this month. The first draft now stands at 98,000 words.
Of course, everything else has gone... well, you know. So far I'm still healthy, as is everyone I know (as far as I'm aware). I'm still working full-time, from home. I was a home worker long before the outbreak started, so my day-to-day life hasn't changed much, except that I go outdoors only to get food or empty the bins.
Stay safe :-)
Of course, everything else has gone... well, you know. So far I'm still healthy, as is everyone I know (as far as I'm aware). I'm still working full-time, from home. I was a home worker long before the outbreak started, so my day-to-day life hasn't changed much, except that I go outdoors only to get food or empty the bins.
Stay safe :-)
March 1, 2020
New genre, new (ish) characters
At last I can reveal the side project I've been working on. Fellow writer Jason Greenfield has created a shared universe where he and other writers can write interconnected stories. I'm one of those other writers.
This shared universe is known as the Fox Universe or Earth-F. It's based on a series of comic books published by the now-defunct Fox Feature Syndicate in the United States from the 1930s to the 1950s. Thanks to the vagaries of US copyright law, the stories and characters are now in the public domain, meaning that anyone can do whatever they want with them.
My stories (or story, since I've written only one so far) are about Doctor Fung and Dan Barrister, a Chinese detective and his American sidekick. They go all over the world, fighting criminals both mundane and supernatural - as if Hercules Poirot had teamed up with Indiana Jones.
My first story is called The Case of the Missing Shells. Here's the blurb for it:
February, 1942. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor has drawn the United States into World War Two. Democracy and freedom hang in the balance as the Allies struggle to halt the Japanese advance across the Pacific.
In Los Angeles, master sleuth Doctor Fung and his sidekick Dan Barrister are asked to investigate an apparent case of sabotage at an ammunition factory. It seems simple - almost too simple to be worth the time of such legendary detectives. But Dan and the Doctor soon discover a much larger and more sinister criminal scheme is in play...
You can read The Case of the Missing Shells for free on Wattpad, here: https://www.wattpad.com/story/2156150... (You might need to create an account before it will let you see anything.) Wattpad encourages writers to post stories a chapter at a time, so I'll be doing that, even though the story is finished. I'll post a new chapter every Friday. There are twelve chapters altogether.
Enjoy!
This shared universe is known as the Fox Universe or Earth-F. It's based on a series of comic books published by the now-defunct Fox Feature Syndicate in the United States from the 1930s to the 1950s. Thanks to the vagaries of US copyright law, the stories and characters are now in the public domain, meaning that anyone can do whatever they want with them.
My stories (or story, since I've written only one so far) are about Doctor Fung and Dan Barrister, a Chinese detective and his American sidekick. They go all over the world, fighting criminals both mundane and supernatural - as if Hercules Poirot had teamed up with Indiana Jones.
My first story is called The Case of the Missing Shells. Here's the blurb for it:
February, 1942. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor has drawn the United States into World War Two. Democracy and freedom hang in the balance as the Allies struggle to halt the Japanese advance across the Pacific.
In Los Angeles, master sleuth Doctor Fung and his sidekick Dan Barrister are asked to investigate an apparent case of sabotage at an ammunition factory. It seems simple - almost too simple to be worth the time of such legendary detectives. But Dan and the Doctor soon discover a much larger and more sinister criminal scheme is in play...
You can read The Case of the Missing Shells for free on Wattpad, here: https://www.wattpad.com/story/2156150... (You might need to create an account before it will let you see anything.) Wattpad encourages writers to post stories a chapter at a time, so I'll be doing that, even though the story is finished. I'll post a new chapter every Friday. There are twelve chapters altogether.
Enjoy!
February 29, 2020
February's Writing Progress
The day job took up rather more of my attention than it's supposed to this month, and so I've written only 5,000 more words of The Dragons of Asdanund. The first draft now stands at 89,000 words. I started a map of the part of the world where the story is now taking place, only about 25,000 words after I should've done.
I should have another announcement to make soon, about the side project I mentioned in the blog for September 2019. Watch this space...
I should have another announcement to make soon, about the side project I mentioned in the blog for September 2019. Watch this space...
January 31, 2020
January's writing progress
Short and to-the-point this time... I finally resumed writing The Dragons of Asdanund. I managed about 10,000 words this month, so the first draft now stands at 84,000 words. I had to re-read the existing text to remind myself of where the story was supposed to be going, and can see some fairly brutal editing in its future.
January 1, 2020
Goals for 2020
This year, I'm going to keep it even simpler than last year. There's only one goal I'm going to acknowledge publicly, which is to finish The Dragons of Asdanund. I'm about 75,000 words into the first draft, so I should be able to finish that fairly soon and start editing it. I have a few other things I want to do and probably will, but I'll announce those as and when they happen.
Since you've been patient, here's the beginning of The Dragons of Asdanund. It follows on from the end of the previous book, The Mirrors of Elangir. Be warned that it has some big spoilers for that book...
A drizzly mist had descended by the time we got close enough to Glorious to hail her. To nobody’s surprise, the lookout’s shouts produced no response. The warship hadn’t moved since we spotted her an hour ago. She seemed to be tilting to one side. Had she struck a rock? I’d thought the sea was quite deep here.
“Raltarn!” My father called to me from the main deck, where he stood by my uncle, Tomaz. I still hadn’t got used to his being alive after a decade of believing he’d been killed in a burglary gone wrong… and I still hadn’t quite forgiven Uncle for not telling me the truth about him.
When I reached them, Father gestured to Uncle and said, “Will you talk some sense into him?”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“The Captain wants to send the boat over to the warship,” said Father.
“I don’t see that’s any concern of ours,” I said. “Besides, if this mist settles, we’re stuck here until the wind gets up enough to clear it.”
“No good will come of this,” Father replied. “There’s nobody above deck. Half her sails are missing, and the rest are frittered. But she couldn’t have been caught in a storm, because she was only half a day ahead of us. And she’s not flying a distress flag, so whatever happened happened quickly.”
“If there’s something around here that’s a danger to a warship,” I said, “we ought to know about it.”
“No,” said Father, “we ought to get away from it.”
“If the Captain wants to investigate,” said Uncle, “we investigate.”
“You’re his employers,” said Father. “Tell him you’re in a hurry to get back to Asdanund.”
“We are,” I replied, “but the Captain of the Glorious said we were obliged to help them under the Emergency Articles or whatever it was. He never rescinded that order, as far as I know.”
“He abandoned you!” Father exclaimed.
“We abandoned him, strictly speaking,” said Uncle. “And even without the Emergency Articles, what about the well-being of your fellow men?”
“I’ve never known you to show much concern for that,” Father muttered.
A splash from the other side of the ship told me that our boat had been launched.
Father watched men climbing over the railing to descend to the boat before saying to Uncle, “Admit it—you’re hoping the Elangics who Buronoskol put on that ship went mad and killed everyone, so you can help yourself to the artefacts he gave them.”
Uncle snorted. “If that is what I want, what are you so worried about?”
Father’s gaze returned to Glorious. “That not all of them are dead.”
Since you've been patient, here's the beginning of The Dragons of Asdanund. It follows on from the end of the previous book, The Mirrors of Elangir. Be warned that it has some big spoilers for that book...
A drizzly mist had descended by the time we got close enough to Glorious to hail her. To nobody’s surprise, the lookout’s shouts produced no response. The warship hadn’t moved since we spotted her an hour ago. She seemed to be tilting to one side. Had she struck a rock? I’d thought the sea was quite deep here.
“Raltarn!” My father called to me from the main deck, where he stood by my uncle, Tomaz. I still hadn’t got used to his being alive after a decade of believing he’d been killed in a burglary gone wrong… and I still hadn’t quite forgiven Uncle for not telling me the truth about him.
When I reached them, Father gestured to Uncle and said, “Will you talk some sense into him?”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“The Captain wants to send the boat over to the warship,” said Father.
“I don’t see that’s any concern of ours,” I said. “Besides, if this mist settles, we’re stuck here until the wind gets up enough to clear it.”
“No good will come of this,” Father replied. “There’s nobody above deck. Half her sails are missing, and the rest are frittered. But she couldn’t have been caught in a storm, because she was only half a day ahead of us. And she’s not flying a distress flag, so whatever happened happened quickly.”
“If there’s something around here that’s a danger to a warship,” I said, “we ought to know about it.”
“No,” said Father, “we ought to get away from it.”
“If the Captain wants to investigate,” said Uncle, “we investigate.”
“You’re his employers,” said Father. “Tell him you’re in a hurry to get back to Asdanund.”
“We are,” I replied, “but the Captain of the Glorious said we were obliged to help them under the Emergency Articles or whatever it was. He never rescinded that order, as far as I know.”
“He abandoned you!” Father exclaimed.
“We abandoned him, strictly speaking,” said Uncle. “And even without the Emergency Articles, what about the well-being of your fellow men?”
“I’ve never known you to show much concern for that,” Father muttered.
A splash from the other side of the ship told me that our boat had been launched.
Father watched men climbing over the railing to descend to the boat before saying to Uncle, “Admit it—you’re hoping the Elangics who Buronoskol put on that ship went mad and killed everyone, so you can help yourself to the artefacts he gave them.”
Uncle snorted. “If that is what I want, what are you so worried about?”
Father’s gaze returned to Glorious. “That not all of them are dead.”
December 29, 2019
2019 Retrospective
This was what I said I wanted to do in 2019:
- Publish another audiobook (probably The Reluctant Dragonrider ).
- Complete the first draft of The Dragons of Asdanund (the sequel to The Mirrors of Elangir ).
I achieved the first, but am still beavering away at the second (I'm now about 75,000 words in).
As usual, I did a few other things that weren't on the list...
- I published an audiobook of Escape Velocity.
- I wrote another short story as a bonus for subscribers to my mailing list (click to subscribe). This is a science fiction story called Provisional Report on Laniakea Alpha. The previous mailing list bonus, History Lesson, is still available if you haven't read it yet, or would like to read it again.
- I made a couple of short videos. The first is called Helpdesk, and was inspired by some of the frustrations I face in my day job. The second is an anecdote about accents inspired by something that happened to one of my great-aunts many years ago.
- I wrote a couple more science fiction short stories, though I haven't decided how (or whether) to publish these yet.
- I took over as editor of the One Million Project's blog. Mostly this means I schedule posts and remind contributors when it's their turn to write something. Officially, articles are supposed to further the project's aims, which are to raise a million pounds for Cancer Research UK and Emmaus, a charity that helps the homeless. Unofficially, I'm fairly generous in interpreting that.
- I've been interviewed several times on Chat and Spin Radio, an online radio station based in Tyne and Wear in the UK. The co-owners of the station, Ian Johnson and Ron Clark, present a show where they interview numerous authors and musicians. I'll probably be on again in the new year. The best way to find out when I'm scheduled is to like my Facebook author page, where I post announcements about my appearances. I'll also tell you when the replays of the shows become available on Mixcloud.
- For the month of December, I'm one of the sponsors of Chat and Spin Radio. If you listen to any of their live programmes (the ones that don't say "(REC)" on their schedule), then about three times an hour, you'll hear someone say, "Fantasy author Steven J Pemberton sponsors..." and a little promo for the Barefoot Healer series.
Come back in a few days to see my ambitions for the first year of a new decade!
- Publish another audiobook (probably The Reluctant Dragonrider ).
- Complete the first draft of The Dragons of Asdanund (the sequel to The Mirrors of Elangir ).
I achieved the first, but am still beavering away at the second (I'm now about 75,000 words in).
As usual, I did a few other things that weren't on the list...
- I published an audiobook of Escape Velocity.
- I wrote another short story as a bonus for subscribers to my mailing list (click to subscribe). This is a science fiction story called Provisional Report on Laniakea Alpha. The previous mailing list bonus, History Lesson, is still available if you haven't read it yet, or would like to read it again.
- I made a couple of short videos. The first is called Helpdesk, and was inspired by some of the frustrations I face in my day job. The second is an anecdote about accents inspired by something that happened to one of my great-aunts many years ago.
- I wrote a couple more science fiction short stories, though I haven't decided how (or whether) to publish these yet.
- I took over as editor of the One Million Project's blog. Mostly this means I schedule posts and remind contributors when it's their turn to write something. Officially, articles are supposed to further the project's aims, which are to raise a million pounds for Cancer Research UK and Emmaus, a charity that helps the homeless. Unofficially, I'm fairly generous in interpreting that.
- I've been interviewed several times on Chat and Spin Radio, an online radio station based in Tyne and Wear in the UK. The co-owners of the station, Ian Johnson and Ron Clark, present a show where they interview numerous authors and musicians. I'll probably be on again in the new year. The best way to find out when I'm scheduled is to like my Facebook author page, where I post announcements about my appearances. I'll also tell you when the replays of the shows become available on Mixcloud.
- For the month of December, I'm one of the sponsors of Chat and Spin Radio. If you listen to any of their live programmes (the ones that don't say "(REC)" on their schedule), then about three times an hour, you'll hear someone say, "Fantasy author Steven J Pemberton sponsors..." and a little promo for the Barefoot Healer series.
Come back in a few days to see my ambitions for the first year of a new decade!
November 30, 2019
November's Writing Progress
I finally finished editing the audiobook of Escape Velocity, and it's now on sale from Amazon, Audible and iTunes. You can listen to a five-minute sample here (the middle of chapter 7, spoiler-free).
I've eased back into "writing writing," producing 560 words of new fiction in the last week.
I appeared on Chat and Spin Radio a few more times, promoting the Barefoot Healer and Dragonrider series.
I've eased back into "writing writing," producing 560 words of new fiction in the last week.
I appeared on Chat and Spin Radio a few more times, promoting the Barefoot Healer and Dragonrider series.
November 19, 2019
Moving to Mars at the Design Museum
Moving to Mars is an exhibition at London's Design Museum about the exploration and possible colonisation of Mars.
The exhibition is divided logically into themed galleries: studying Mars pre-spaceflight through telescopes (with emphasis on Schiaparelli's and Lowell's notions about canals and shallow seas); the present era of robotic exploration; how humans might travel to Mars; and how we might live and work when we get there.
One highlight is a huge video screen with a compilation of panoramas taken by NASA's Curiosity rover. The presence of a hulking concrete pillar in this room rather spoils the view, unless you stand or sit close enough to the screen that you can't see all of it at once... though I suppose that's the point of a panorama. Superimposed on each picture is (among other facts and figures) a note of how far the rover had driven when it took it. That brings home why scientists are so keen to send humans to Mars - Curiosity is the most advanced and sophisticated machine ever to land on another planet, but it averages two miles a year. Partly this is because the rover is mostly driving itself. Mars is too far away for it to be feasible for a human to drive the rover by remote control, so the scientists tell it "go to that rock over there" and it figures out for itself how to do that. Partly it's because they have to be cautious - the terrain is quite rough, and if anything breaks, there's no way to fix it.
The gallery about sending humans to Mars mostly concentrates on SpaceX's plans, mainly because nobody else seems to be taking it seriously at the moment. Tucked away at the side of this gallery are some drawings and concept paintings of a proposal for a manned mission created by Werner von Braun, first published in English in 1952. It was on an epic scale - 70 astronauts would travel in 10 ships, assembled in Earth orbit, each with a mass of nearly 4,000 tonnes. (The International Space Station, the biggest man-made thing ever put into space, masses a "mere" 420 tonnes.) He didn't foresee the advances in communication technology or automation. He seems not to have considered the possibility of sending supplies in advance on unmanned missions, or of having robots build a base on Mars before the humans arrive. He also seems to have assumed that the astronauts would be completely on their own after leaving Earth, unable to radio home for advice or instructions. Hence the large crew - it needed to be that big to have expertise in everything that might need to be done in space or on Mars. One thing that von Braun couldn't have known is that the atmosphere of Mars is much thinner than was generally thought at the time. His landing craft were gliders with huge wings that would have landed on one of the polar icecaps, those being the only regions with a large enough flat area. Probes that have actually landed on Mars have used a nerve-wracking combination of aerobraking, parachutes and retrorockets.
If sending humans to Mars is tough, living there is tougher. The harshest habitable place on Earth is a paradise compared to anywhere on Mars. It's colder than Antarctica. The air is thinner than at the top of Mount Everest. The sun bathes the planet in deadly ultraviolet radiation and charged particles. (Earth's atmosphere blocks most of this from reaching the ground.) Dust storms can envelop the planet for months. The dust itself is toxic to humans and sticks to everything, shorting out electronics and jamming machinery. (A clever idea for keeping the worst of the dust out of the habitat is to have the spacesuits attached to the outside when not in use, and for the astronaut to climb into and out of the suit via a hatch in the back. Effectively the spacesuit becomes the outer door of the airlock.)
The final gallery shows various proposals for living on Mars, most of which involve robots 3D-printing a outer shell from the Martian soil before humans arrive. At the end is a full-scale mock-up of a module of one of these designs, with a video wall showing other modules next to it. The furniture is made of low-density plastic, and has the characteristic "ridged" look of low-fidelity 3D-printing. One of the chairs is easy to get into, but difficult to get out of. I thought it would be easier to get out of on Mars, with the lower gravity, and then wondered whether it should've been adjusted to simulate this on Earth.
The problems of going to Mars and living there are psychological as much as technological. The astronauts will be cooped up with the same few people for years, able to talk to the rest of humanity, but not in real time. (Even when Earth and Mars are at their closest, it takes around 15 minutes for a message to go from one to the other and a reply to start coming back.) They'll be allowed to bring reminders of home, though space and weight allowances will be limited, so presumably many of the reminders will be digital. One idea is a device that contains smells of favourite things or places (or perhaps can synthesise them - it's not entirely clear).
Finally we have some videos of various experts talking about what a trip to Mars might mean for science and for humanity. Humans are adventurers and explorers, and going to Mars is the biggest adventure that's likely to be feasible in the lifetime of anyone visiting the exhibition. Meeting the practical challenges will push technology forward, just as the Space Race did in the 1950s and 1960s. In one day, one person could do more science than all the landers and rovers we've ever sent there.
On the other hand, the enormous likely cost of a mission could be off-putting, though it's much less than the cost of some advanced weapons programmes and various futile wars. (This is where I grumble that most people aren't good with numbers, especially big numbers. Many people seem to think that NASA's budget, for instance, is much bigger than it really is. It's currently around half a percent of the total that the US government spends each year. That share peaked at around 4% during Apollo and has been falling ever since.)
Others argue that we need to establish permanent settlements elsewhere in the solar system as an insurance policy against a disaster that kills off most or all humans on Earth, like an asteroid strike or a pandemic. Then again, many of the threats that could drive us extinct are of our own making, and if some humans live in places where those threats can't reach, that might lead us to relax our vigilance against them.
I found the exhibition informative and (on the whole) well-presented, and thought-provoking on several levels. It's probably longer than most of the ones we pay to see - we were there for about three hours, though I don't know how much of that was because we were with a friend who really enjoyed it.
Moving to Mars runs until 23 February 2020. Tickets for adults start at £16, including an optional donation to the museum.
The exhibition is divided logically into themed galleries: studying Mars pre-spaceflight through telescopes (with emphasis on Schiaparelli's and Lowell's notions about canals and shallow seas); the present era of robotic exploration; how humans might travel to Mars; and how we might live and work when we get there.
One highlight is a huge video screen with a compilation of panoramas taken by NASA's Curiosity rover. The presence of a hulking concrete pillar in this room rather spoils the view, unless you stand or sit close enough to the screen that you can't see all of it at once... though I suppose that's the point of a panorama. Superimposed on each picture is (among other facts and figures) a note of how far the rover had driven when it took it. That brings home why scientists are so keen to send humans to Mars - Curiosity is the most advanced and sophisticated machine ever to land on another planet, but it averages two miles a year. Partly this is because the rover is mostly driving itself. Mars is too far away for it to be feasible for a human to drive the rover by remote control, so the scientists tell it "go to that rock over there" and it figures out for itself how to do that. Partly it's because they have to be cautious - the terrain is quite rough, and if anything breaks, there's no way to fix it.
The gallery about sending humans to Mars mostly concentrates on SpaceX's plans, mainly because nobody else seems to be taking it seriously at the moment. Tucked away at the side of this gallery are some drawings and concept paintings of a proposal for a manned mission created by Werner von Braun, first published in English in 1952. It was on an epic scale - 70 astronauts would travel in 10 ships, assembled in Earth orbit, each with a mass of nearly 4,000 tonnes. (The International Space Station, the biggest man-made thing ever put into space, masses a "mere" 420 tonnes.) He didn't foresee the advances in communication technology or automation. He seems not to have considered the possibility of sending supplies in advance on unmanned missions, or of having robots build a base on Mars before the humans arrive. He also seems to have assumed that the astronauts would be completely on their own after leaving Earth, unable to radio home for advice or instructions. Hence the large crew - it needed to be that big to have expertise in everything that might need to be done in space or on Mars. One thing that von Braun couldn't have known is that the atmosphere of Mars is much thinner than was generally thought at the time. His landing craft were gliders with huge wings that would have landed on one of the polar icecaps, those being the only regions with a large enough flat area. Probes that have actually landed on Mars have used a nerve-wracking combination of aerobraking, parachutes and retrorockets.
If sending humans to Mars is tough, living there is tougher. The harshest habitable place on Earth is a paradise compared to anywhere on Mars. It's colder than Antarctica. The air is thinner than at the top of Mount Everest. The sun bathes the planet in deadly ultraviolet radiation and charged particles. (Earth's atmosphere blocks most of this from reaching the ground.) Dust storms can envelop the planet for months. The dust itself is toxic to humans and sticks to everything, shorting out electronics and jamming machinery. (A clever idea for keeping the worst of the dust out of the habitat is to have the spacesuits attached to the outside when not in use, and for the astronaut to climb into and out of the suit via a hatch in the back. Effectively the spacesuit becomes the outer door of the airlock.)
The final gallery shows various proposals for living on Mars, most of which involve robots 3D-printing a outer shell from the Martian soil before humans arrive. At the end is a full-scale mock-up of a module of one of these designs, with a video wall showing other modules next to it. The furniture is made of low-density plastic, and has the characteristic "ridged" look of low-fidelity 3D-printing. One of the chairs is easy to get into, but difficult to get out of. I thought it would be easier to get out of on Mars, with the lower gravity, and then wondered whether it should've been adjusted to simulate this on Earth.
The problems of going to Mars and living there are psychological as much as technological. The astronauts will be cooped up with the same few people for years, able to talk to the rest of humanity, but not in real time. (Even when Earth and Mars are at their closest, it takes around 15 minutes for a message to go from one to the other and a reply to start coming back.) They'll be allowed to bring reminders of home, though space and weight allowances will be limited, so presumably many of the reminders will be digital. One idea is a device that contains smells of favourite things or places (or perhaps can synthesise them - it's not entirely clear).
Finally we have some videos of various experts talking about what a trip to Mars might mean for science and for humanity. Humans are adventurers and explorers, and going to Mars is the biggest adventure that's likely to be feasible in the lifetime of anyone visiting the exhibition. Meeting the practical challenges will push technology forward, just as the Space Race did in the 1950s and 1960s. In one day, one person could do more science than all the landers and rovers we've ever sent there.
On the other hand, the enormous likely cost of a mission could be off-putting, though it's much less than the cost of some advanced weapons programmes and various futile wars. (This is where I grumble that most people aren't good with numbers, especially big numbers. Many people seem to think that NASA's budget, for instance, is much bigger than it really is. It's currently around half a percent of the total that the US government spends each year. That share peaked at around 4% during Apollo and has been falling ever since.)
Others argue that we need to establish permanent settlements elsewhere in the solar system as an insurance policy against a disaster that kills off most or all humans on Earth, like an asteroid strike or a pandemic. Then again, many of the threats that could drive us extinct are of our own making, and if some humans live in places where those threats can't reach, that might lead us to relax our vigilance against them.
I found the exhibition informative and (on the whole) well-presented, and thought-provoking on several levels. It's probably longer than most of the ones we pay to see - we were there for about three hours, though I don't know how much of that was because we were with a friend who really enjoyed it.
Moving to Mars runs until 23 February 2020. Tickets for adults start at £16, including an optional donation to the museum.
November 1, 2019
October's Writing Progress
Late again... though as I write this, it's still October somewhere in the world...
My "writing" time this month has been entirely taken up with editing the audiobook of Escape Velocity. I've finished the editing, where I delete all the mistakes and close up the gaps. I'm now doing what I call the "proof listen" (by analogy with "proofread") where I listen to the edit and make sure everything's as I want it to be. I'm up to chapter 42, which is about four-fifths of the way through. Then I need to do the pickups, meaning to re-record the bits where I made a mistake and didn't notice when I was recording. I should be done with the book in the next week or two, then it can go off to the distributor, and I can get back to "writing writing"!
Last weekend, I was interviewed by an online radio station, Chat and Spin Radio. The replay is here: https://www.mixcloud.com/chatandspinr... I'm on for about five minutes at 1 hour 50, talking about the Dragonrider series. (This programme interviews lots of authors and musicians, so play the whole thing if you're looking for something new to read or listen to.)
I'll be interviewed again on the same station tomorrow (Saturday 2nd November) at 3pm UK time. Listen live at https://chatandspinradio.com or keep an eye on https://www.mixcloud.com/chatandspinr... for the replay, which should be available 24 hours after the broadcast.
My "writing" time this month has been entirely taken up with editing the audiobook of Escape Velocity. I've finished the editing, where I delete all the mistakes and close up the gaps. I'm now doing what I call the "proof listen" (by analogy with "proofread") where I listen to the edit and make sure everything's as I want it to be. I'm up to chapter 42, which is about four-fifths of the way through. Then I need to do the pickups, meaning to re-record the bits where I made a mistake and didn't notice when I was recording. I should be done with the book in the next week or two, then it can go off to the distributor, and I can get back to "writing writing"!
Last weekend, I was interviewed by an online radio station, Chat and Spin Radio. The replay is here: https://www.mixcloud.com/chatandspinr... I'm on for about five minutes at 1 hour 50, talking about the Dragonrider series. (This programme interviews lots of authors and musicians, so play the whole thing if you're looking for something new to read or listen to.)
I'll be interviewed again on the same station tomorrow (Saturday 2nd November) at 3pm UK time. Listen live at https://chatandspinradio.com or keep an eye on https://www.mixcloud.com/chatandspinr... for the replay, which should be available 24 hours after the broadcast.
