Kate Rauner's Blog, page 6

Superb Anthology of Sci-Fi and Fantasy #shortstories #scifibooks #fantasybooks

Yee ha! Stunning Short Stories in Fantasy and Science Fiction celebrates 3 years in Top 100 of its Amazon categories. I joined forces with my three best author friends for this anthology of short reads, each one perfect for a break during your busy holiday season. The ebook edition is free at favorite on-line stores, or order the paperback from Amazon. Makes a great gift for friends and family, or a treat for yourself.

FREE Ebook at all your favorite on-line stores

Otherworldly adventures to touch your heart and thrill your imagination.

Four superb authors present stories ranging from hard science fiction to ghostly fantasy. Whatever your mood, you’ll find a captivating tale.
~ A charming fable turns grisly as a scullery maid risks everything to save her daughter from a deadly mystery;
~ For a psychic fraud, chatting with spirits can’t end well on Friday the 13th;
~ This trunk-nosed alien sniffs out the truth behind a smuggler’s fatal delivery;
~ Chemist searches Jupiter’s storms for life, but finds catastrophe…
~ and more engaging stories.
Collection of eight tales, each offered in a distinct style with unique characters.

Winner of the 2021 New Mexico/Arizona Book Awards, eFiction category.

Click to Buy Now and Begin Your Journey

Stunning’s in Top 100 of
Science Fiction Anthologies (Kindle Store)
Fantasy Anthologies and Short Stories (Kindle Store)

May you never miss a celebration this holiday season #HappyHolidays

Never miss a celebration!

It must be time to open presents somewhere.

Take a break during the busy season for a good read.
Click here for over a dozen science fiction and fantasy stories.

Keep scrolling for more choices.

Like Iz, her brother was genetically engineered to survive vacuum. But his protective shell couldn’t hold forever. She soon learns that there is far more at stake than just their own lives. They must get to the near-mythical world of Earth or risk the destruction of the human Commonwealth itself. Click here for Spacer’s Bet – space opera science fiction.

As a scientist, Stenn didn’t believe in magic. But a monster from legend ground his equipment into dust. Now his fate hinges on his ability to embrace his greatest role: the new warlock. Click here for Selleneria, a science fiction fantasy.

The reads above are great values, but free is good too

When the powerful Koru unexpectedly abandon their embassy, Vik—a one-time activist and war hero—sets out to discover if this is a prelude to a war that would prove disastrous. Click here for Withdrawal.

Forced into a risky mission to the outer reaches of the solar system, Roxanne “Rox” Weaver is about to confront a horror from her past, and a threat to humanity’s future. Click here for Rox.

What’s a shiny whale got to do with science fiction fantasy? Click the creature and find out.

Holidays Continue and so do the Good Reads #HappyHolidays #scifibooks

My Thanksgiving turkey is gone – nothing but bones left in the trash bin. (If you celebrated in Canada, even the bones are long gone!) That means Xmas  is coming for sure. I got my decorations out of storage and have run out of energy to putting them up, so I’m done.

The core of the holiday season is now upon us! Celebrations approaching, sure, but also northern winter solstice for me. Darkness as a counterpoint to the past summer’s light.

Time for some reads that balance out all that sugar and cinnamon. Then keep scrolling for more books, some free reads, and a new cover for my latest Science Fiction Fantasy! (I’m excited – hope you’ll enjoy it too.)

Out of Time – What if the mysteries of space-time and the human mind were connected? Hard scifi adventures into time-travel and political intrigue. Click here for Out of Time.

Grip of Fear – Cass and her rescue dog, Daisy, face a perilous trek. Danger stalks them, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. A short read, post-apocalyptic EMP survival thriller. Click here for Grip of Fear.

December is a busy month, so short reads are perfect when you have a few minutes to curl up with a good story. Click here and select from this bundle’s variety of stories.

Holidays are a time for giving too. Download some scifi books for free – then post your reviews – a few words is all it takes. That’s your gift to other readers and to the authors too. How can you go wrong? Click here are choose your reads.

Now for my exciting news: My new scifi fantasy.

Colonists journey to a distant planet, but find an unexpected indigenous culture. With two reluctant leaders desperate to save their people, will their mutual first contact end in tragedy? Or can a tired old pilot be the hero they all need?

Chronicle of an Alien World is an action-packed science fiction adventure. If you like relatable heroes, fascinating what-if scenarios, and heartbreaking moral quandaries, you’ll love Kate Rauner’s thought-provoking tale. Click here to buy your kindle, paperback, hardcover, or read in Kindle Unlimited.

Is that you, Santa Claus?

Escape Misinformation – Let Captain Kirk Show You How #misinformation #socialmedia

Skeptoid has a new podcast episode on spotting misinformation. None of us wants to be duped, so let’s defeat the con artists.

Listen to the podcast or read the transcript by clicking here. The details are worth your time. For a summary, consider Star Trek, The Original Series, Day of the Dove.

An entity composed of pure energy [that’s the 0s and 1s of the internet, all flashing through servers somewhere out there]

… feeds on the hate and anger of other beings [social media platforms make more money when you engage, and posts that excite emotion get more clicks/likes/shares/comments]

The entity traps Enterprise and Klingon crews on a ship [social media companies get you and me addicted to their platforms]

… and exaggerates their pre-existing distrust, causing them to battle each other in bloody hand-to-hand conflict [algorithms promote content that generates outrage, drives hate, makes others seem like your enemy]

Captain Kirk figures out what the entity is doing, and the Klingon captain does too [check out the Skeptoid podcast: How to Spot Misinformation – you and I can so this!]

They cease fighting as enemies [stop feeding the social media beast – stop engaging with outrage]

… and literally laugh the creature off the ship. [Respect others. Watch videos of lol cats.]

Humans and Klingons don’t stop disagreeing, they don’t become best friends forever, but they join forces and make life better for them both. Yes, this can definitely be you and me.

If you see a post that punches your emotional buttons, be suspicious. That tingle in your chest, heat rising in your face, heart beating faster – all red flags.

Whenever you see a post on social media that you recognize to be algorithm-driven propaganda, starve it of oxygen. Hide it. Block or mute the sender when appropriate. If it’s posted by a friend, message the friend that it looks like it’s probably algorithm-driven propaganda — make sure you do it as a private message and not as a comment on the post itself, because any comment (even a negative one) counts as engagement and boosts that article even more.

What news sources are both reliable and unbiased? Fortunately I can give you my favorite four right now: Associated Press, Reuters, United Press International, and the BBC. These are according to my preferred source, the Interactive Media Bias Chart from Ad Fontes Media.

If the story’s bogus, someone else has almost certainly already done the work for you. Check it out. Search for it on a couple of your favorite of these top four fact checking websites: Snopes, Politifact, FactCheck.org, and BBC Reality Check. Skeptoid [Are these sources any good? Check them against each other. See if they raise those red flags!]

Everything important in life, I learned from Star Trek.

Is it again time for airships? #flight

This bit of new/old technology caught my eye. A sort of blimp that may be perfect for transporting cargo (I guess like a slow train in the sky) including to areas where disasters destroy infrastructure… and maybe carrying passengers too.

LTA Research is about to test the largest aircraft to fly since the gargantuan Hindenburg airship of the 1930s. If you find that reference cringe-worthy, fear-not. This airship is buoyed with helium.

In 2021, Reader’s Digest said that “consensus is that there are about 25 blimps still in existence and only about half of them are still in use for advertising purposes”

Helium is plentiful in space, but how about on Earth? Haven’t I read about shortages? Russia was a major source, and we won’t buy from them until they withdraw into their own borders. This current airship, Pathfinder 1, needs one million cubic feet, and larger ships are planned. We’re talking way-larger than the Goodyear Blimp.

Most helium on Earth is a result of radioactive decay. Helium is found in large amounts in minerals of uranium and thorium… because they emit alpha particles (helium nuclei, He2+) to which electrons immediately combine as soon as the particle is stopped by the rock. In this way an estimated 3000 metric tons of helium are generated per year… helium is extracted by fractional distillation from natural gas, which can contain as much as 7% helium. Wikipedia

So, helium supplies are related to fossil fuel extraction, which we’re trying to get away from (though natural gas may be a bridge away from oil.) I found a price of $210 per thousand cubic feet of helium from 2022, so over $200,000 to fill ‘er up.

I assume helium must be released for the ship to descend, and that amount would be lost, but if it can really carry 4 tons of cargo as LTA Research says, they won’t have to empty the ship to land. Plenty of articles say the price of helium is increasing and supplies dwindling. Still, for responding to a humanitarian crisis, the cost may be reasonable, and for transporting heavy cargo, perhaps it can compete with airplanes. (Or trains? That I can’t say – any railroad buffs want to comment?)

But who wants to be a wet blanket when the largest flying machine in almost a century is about to make its first test flights? Read the article at TechCrunch.

Space Trash a Real-Life Problem, and a what-if for sci-fi #scifibooks #satellite

Ever drop a tool while working outside? Suppose that happened in space? Suppose it was an entire tool bag?

“Flight controllers spotted the tool bag using external station cameras. The tools were not needed for the remainder of the spacewalk. Mission Control analyzed the bag’s trajectory and determined that risk of recontacting the station is low and that the onboard crew and space station are safe with no action required.” Smithsonian

This isn’t the first item astronauts lost in Earth orbit. “Famously, in 1965, during the first-ever American spacewalk, astronaut Ed White lost a spare glove.” But, the junk isn’t harmless.

Wikipedia animation

The amount of space junk is growing—and, as more satellites prepare to launch, this debris is becoming increasingly problematic. Though most of the pieces are small, they are moving at very fast speeds, which means collisions could cause damage to satellites, spacecraft or even the space station itself. Smithsonian

Orbiting junk is dangerous, even when the pieces are not intended to cause damage. What if a rogue probe hunts satellites? What if a space pilot hunts that probe, and now someone on the company’s lunar base hunts her, with deadly intent? That’s what science fiction is for!

Newly minted space pilot Winnie Bravo is brash, reckless, and more than a little annoying as she sets out to prove herself. Capturing a stealth probe that’s destroying satellites seems the perfect way to demonstrate her talents, but the mysterious craft escapes. Now, someone at her corporation’s lunar base is willing to kill to stop her.

Can she track down the lunar spies before they strike again?

Click now and head into orbit today

Cancer that spreads like a virus?! Eek! #cancer #health

Cancers are a complicated set of illnesses. Science has discovered some are caused by viruses… but cancer cells that spread like viruses? Apparently, not in humans with healthy immune systems – yet – but there’s lots to learn.

“Transmissible cancers” are particularly known in invertebrates like clams, where a fatal leukemia-like cancer spreads when cells from one creature are expelled into the water and ingested by another.

Vertebrates have more evolved immune systems, but “Tasmanian devils pass their cancer around through the violent face-biting that typifies their fierce mating rituals. Dogs spread theirs through sexual contact—the tumors grow on the animals’ organs and shed cells during the act.” The article on wired.com opens with the canine cancer.

Successful parasites don’t generally proliferate by killing their hosts (at least, not quickly) and cancer cells can act similarly. “Dogs don’t seem to be affected by it much, you don’t see the cancer trying to get better, because it’s already good enough. If it does as little harm to the dogs as possible, it can survive indefinitely.”

Survivable cancers lead researchers to a different idea for the treatment of human cancers.

The natural immune system plays a major role.

Rather than killing a tumor, adaptive therapy researchers want to keep it alive but small, mild, and stable. A half-dozen clinical trials employing this dosing strategy with existing cancer drugs are already underway in the US. [Adaptive dosing exposes tumors to medication intermittently, rather than in a constant barrage. The idea is to prevent the small subsets of cancer cells with genetic changes that render them resistant to drugs from taking over tumors and turning them into an unstoppable force] … Evolution can already do that [in dogs.] Like the dogs whose body it inhabits, the cancer has been domesticated. wired.com

View your cancer as a permanent house guest? Wow, is that a new idea for me, though dodging the side effects of common cancer treatments is appealing. Viruses can remain in my body, mostly dormant, for the rest of my life, and I guess I’ve gotten used to that. So now, maybe cancer cells? I’ll be watching for more news from those clinical trials.

Favorite Stories I Read in 2023 – from Kate and More Authors

As the holiday season progresses, our thoughts turn to books to gift to friends, family, and ourselves too. I found a new site to share: Shepherd.com

Shepherd covers all genres, so you can discover stories beyond scifi and fantasy (I have heard there are other types of books.) Click here to check out their Top 100. Or, search for their top books in the genre of your choice – top reads, not only from those released in 2023! Because a good book never gets old.

Here are the books I offered on Shepherd. I must be picky, because I don’t finish every book I start. Some just don’t grab me, and life is too short to spend hours reading a book you don’t enjoy. But I recommend these! Click to check them out and find more good books too.

You’re welcome to leave one of your favorite reads in the comments.

Happy Holidays.

Get a Jump on Some Great Scifi Reads – Not a Turkey Among Them #scifibooks #goodreads #HappyHolidays

Halloween left-overs, turkeys, and scifi & fantasy today, so let’s get to it. Want some creepy stories via podcast? Suitable for scaredy-cats. Scroll all the way down for the link. But first…

American Thanksgiving is nearly here, and I haven’t seen any wild turkeys below my bird feeder this fall. But I know they’re out there in the forest. Turkeys are incredibly alert all the time – not just as the holidays approach. I’ll keep my camera ready, and here’s a picture I got last year.

Don’t worry, wild turkeys. My Thanksgiving bird will come from the supermarket. Now, scroll on for today’s selection of good reads through Story Origin. No turkeys among them.

Science Fiction Box Sets offer hours of reading at a great value. Choose from over two dozen Science Fiction series. Click here to check them out.

Not ready to commit? Discover a New Favorite Series among these series-starters. Click here for dozens in Fantasy and Scifi.

Holidays can be expensive, so it’s a perfect time for Free Science Fiction. From short reads to full novels, loads of fine stories. Click here and share the link with your friends.

I want to specially point out two fine offerings.

Here’s the complete Federation Diplomat series. With grit, determination, and a flair for the unexpected, Federation Diplomat Kate Stevens dives into the volatile crises that are poised to rip worlds apart or mire them in bloody war. But can she remain untouched by the deadly violence, or will she end up a casualty of the forces of destruction?

Travel through flickerspace with Kate, her quirky but expert crew, and her cat Shebang. Click here and hold on to your space helmet because the ride is going to get bumpy.

In the Heisenberg Corollary, a nerd squad blind-hops across the omniverse from high-tech galaxies to magic-powered medieval planets, while hunted by ridiculously persistent aliens. With laugh-out-loud geeky pop-culture references. Click here to join the fun.

Now for those creepy stories I promised. What’s the most frightening thing that’s ever happened to you? Plenty of Skeptoid’s listeners sent in stories, and click here for eight of them with some broad-daylight thoughts on the happenings.

Skeptoid is one of my favorite sites. It’s fun. Can you resist clicking into more episodes? I never can. Try some that are season-appropriate, like The Exorcism of Anneliese,
Siberian Heel Sounds, or the Real Amityville Horror.

Happy Holidays!

Contest for Authors – need help with your book descriptions? Chance to win #authors

This post is for authors, though you’re all welcome to read on. Do you hate writing the description for your book? Don’t know what to do? Enter here for a chance to win a free description written by Best Page Forward:

Click here to check it out: https://upvir.al/ref/65453762ab147M

If you’ve never tried, you may not know that writing a book is hard work. Also satisfying and sometimes even fun, but hard. Marketing the book is a sad necessity if you want anyone to find it and read your story, so: the dreaded book description. Dreaded because, how can I possibly condense my story into 200 words in a way that leads anyone to want to read it?

I’ve used the outfit offering this contest. They wrote the description (aka blurb) for my latest release, so here’s a sample of their work:

A journey to a new world. An unexpected indigenous culture. Two reluctant leaders desperate to save both their people.

The far future. Trey Jackson yearns for purpose. Burdened by guilt over his lover’s death four decades prior, the old pilot languishes in a small community fearful of exploring the planet they colonized. But he’s inspired by a fresh-faced teen studying native whales… and shocked when their research raft gets dragged by one of the creatures to the aliens’ shore.

Zahra strives to protect her own kind. Unwillingly serving as a Shamanic herbalist for an abusive chieftain, she struggles to stop him from his murderous raids by keeping him drugged. But once her herbs lose their effectiveness, she desperately steers the violent man’s attention from her birth home to plunder other islands.

When Jackson seeks Zahra’s help returning to the colony, his communication with the mysterious natives risks triggering a dangerous chain of events. And while Zahra fears her leader’s unquenchable greed and plots the unthinkable to save those she loves, she senses the tired old man could be the hero they all need…

Will their mutual first contact bring opportunity and understanding, or end in tragedy?

Chronicle of an Alien World is an action-packed science fiction adventure. If you like relatable heroes, fascinating what-if scenarios, and heartbreaking moral quandaries, you’ll love Kate Rauner’s thought-provoking tale. Click here to buy Chronicle of an Alien World to cross faraway frontiers today!

Well, what do you think? Are you inspired to read the book? The blurb is only part of marketing. If you do read the story, please leave a review to help other readers find the book. It’s easy – a few words is all it takes.