Sable Aradia's Blog, page 40
April 16, 2018
Sun’s Magnetic Cage Stopped Solar Eruption
A dramatic magnetic power struggle at the Sun’s surface lies at the heart of solar eruptions, new research using NASA data shows. The work highlights the role of the Sun’s magnetic landscape, or topology, in the development of solar eruptions that can trigger space weather events around Earth.
The scientists, led by Tahar Amari, an astrophysicist at the Center for Theoretical Physics at the École Polytechnique in Palaiseau Cedex, France, considered solar flares, which are intense bursts of radiation and light. Many strong solar flares are followed by a coronal mass ejection, or CME, a massive, bubble-shaped eruption of solar material and magnetic field, but some are not — what differentiates the two situations is not clearly understood.
Read the full article at NASA’s website.
April 15, 2018
Book Review: Blood Red Road by Moira Young
Blood Red Road by Moira Young
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Read for the Women of Genre Fiction Challenge and the Apocalypse Now! Challenge.
Method of the world’s destruction: ??? (not a clue)
I ended up with this book because I bought it (and its two sequels) for my stepdaughter, who gave it back to me when she moved. I thought, “What the hell? I’m doing an apocalyptic-fiction reading challenge, let’s give it a whirl.”
It’s a decent young adult post-apocalyptic adventure romance book. I suppose if I were a young adult, it might have a lot more appeal for me. The heroine, Saba, is really kind of kickass. I won’t say “badass.” She wants to be a badass and isn’t quite there. It frankly makes me want to mother her.
Some people have criticized or praised the writing style, which is first person personal, present tense, does not use quotation marks, and is heavily peppered with the terrible grammar of a backwoods hick, which the character is, so I suppose it displays that well. Personally I think that it’s a little overdone; like maybe Young read The Road by Cormac McCarthy, thought, “This is a hip and cool way to do post-apocalypse,” and tried her own hand at it. Nothing wrong with that, but McCarthy it is not.
Still, you forget about the style within a chapter or two, and just read, so that’s fine. You should always choose the style that tells your story the best, and present tense, first person personal is what’s needed here, so I applaud that choice. I’m not sure we needed the bad grammar, but okay, why not?
I would like this book a lot better if I didn’t despise the romantic subplot. Seriously, can we get the f*ck over the teenage romance where you know the boy is interested in the girl because he’s a leering, swaggering cock-of-the-walk who signals his interest by smoozing and being pushy, and then the girl rightfully tells him to take a hike, but he’s persistent and calls her mean and it’s love at first sight anyway, and so he just continues to stalk her and eventually she gives in because she’s sorry for being mean and look, it was meant to be? Seriously; bra-snapping is something boys do when they’re ten or twelve, not when they’re eighteen or nineteen, and we should teach them not to do it anyway. Jack does have some redeeming qualities – bravery and loyalty being chief among them – but the power dynamic is bad (Saba is depending on him to help her and her little sister survive) and I just don’t think guy is worth it.
Also, can we get over the this-is-a-young-adult-book-so-every-adult-in-it-is-either-abusive-crazy-incompetent-or-destined-to-die thing? The heavy-handed “drugs’re bad, mkay?” metaphor as an excuse for unbridled human evil for evil’s sake was a little distracting too.
On the other hand, the world was interesting, the action scenes were excellent, and I cared about the fate of the characters, so it’s not a total loss. It’s sort of Mad Max-esque; mostly a harsh, believable world complete with a Thunderdome, crazy people making use of grossly misinterpreted and even silly symbols of the old world, some weird stuff, the occasional new plant and animal, ruins, and something subtly supernatural that remains unexplained. I wish I knew more about what caused the apocalypse, but we don’t get told that in this book. Maybe Young explains in the sequels.
But I probably won’t know for a while, because while I cared to see if the characters survived this adventure, I’m not sure I’m going to go seeking out the other books. I think I have them lying around too, and I’ll probably get there eventually, but I’m not in a big rush.
A good book to read if you want to make a flight or a bus trip go quickly.
April 14, 2018
Four New Elements Added to Periodic Table
By Alexandra Ossola
Elements with atomic numbers 113, 115, 117, and 118 have been added to the periodic table.
The new elements were added after the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) reviewed scientific studies published by teams of researchers in the United States, Japan, and Russia. The committee deemed that the researchers had “met the criteria for discovery,” as the press release notes, which essentially means that the researchers were able to create them in the lab, if only fleetingly.
Read the full article at Popular Science.
April 12, 2018
9 Easy Tips That Will Improve Bland Writing
By Karen Hertzberg
Just like food, your writing needs spice. Keep these tips in your cupboard to take your writing from bland to scrumptious.
About a year ago, I got interested in cooking. For most of my adult life, I’d been making things like spaghetti with sauce from a jar, macaroni and cheese complete with powdered “cheese,” and the occasional boxed meal (just add ground beef!). Sometimes, I went a little wild and threw some canned tuna into the mac and cheese, or added real frozen broccoli to the boxed meal. My family ate it. They didn’t know any better.
But then, spurred on by a retired chef I befriended, I decided to give cooking a try. Real cooking. I bought fresh veggies and meats. I practiced until I had the knife skills to slice, dice, and julienne. I learned that stovetop burners aren’t meant to be set to high heat unless you’re trying to boil something. (Who knew?) I learned that basic salt and pepper make everything delicious. Throw in some well-chosen herbs and spices, and I can elevate the taste of my food to a whole new level. The kind that makes another friend kiss the backs of his fingertips like a French chef in an old movie and declare my meals delectable.
Writing is a lot like cooking. You can string together bland, canned phrases and hope that readers who don’t know any better won’t mind, or you can pull some spicy new tricks off the shelf and make your content truly delish.
Read the full article at Grammerly.com.
April 11, 2018
Book Review: The Super Hugos, Presented by Isaac Asimov
The Super Hugos by Isaac Asimov
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This collection was an outstanding tour of some of the very best science fiction of all time. If you can lay your hands on this book, if you’re a science fiction fan, you really must read it.
I have reviewed most of the individual stories. The links below will take you to my reviews:
Featured Stories:
Sandkings
by George R.R. Martin – Read for the 12 in 12 Challenge and the Big Fun in a Little Package Novella Challenge. This story won the Hugo, Nebula and Locus Awards for Best Novelette (1979 and 1980). This is an outstanding story about the dangers of hubris and cruelty that is the height of science fiction cleverness. If you’ve got GRRM pegged as strictly a fantasy writer, think again: and note that the signs of greatness were recognized back in 1980. 5 stars
The Bicentennial Man by Isaac Asimov
Enemy Mine by Barry B. Longyear
The Big Front Yard by Clifford D. Simak
“Repent, Harlequin!” Said the Ticktockman by Harlan Ellison
Neutron Star
by Larry Niven – An excellent story about relativity, tides, and the effects of gravity. 5 stars. Read for the 12 in 12 Challenge.
I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison
Flowers for Algernon
by Daniel Keyes – Read for the 12 in 12 Challenge and the Big Fun in a Little Package Novella Challenge. This story won the 1959 Hugo for Best Novella. I’ve read this classic science fiction before. This was the original novella that was eventually expanded into the novel Flowers for Algernon, which was also excellent. I remember reading this in grade school, and it stuck with me clearly enough that I remembered almost everything about it. The novel also won a Hugo in 1967 for Best Novel, and a Nebula in 1966. I’m not sure the novelization adds anything, but it doesn’t take anything away either. I think this is exactly what science fiction is all about. 5 stars.
In a nutshell: brilliant, brilliant, brilliant! Go read it! Why are you still here?
April 10, 2018
Representation Matters
By Shaun David Hutchinson
I tell stories because the real world sucked for me when I was a teen. No. Sucked doesn’t even begin to cover it. The real world nearly killed me. The real world told me that I was going to hell because I was gay. It told me I would die of AIDS or have the crap kicked out of me or spend my life as an unfulfilled sex addict or as someone’s campy gay best friend without a real life of my own. I tried to escape the real world by reaching out to books and movies and television, but found only the same poison that infected reality.
More and more I’m seeing members of the YA community (led primarily by women of color) standing against and calling out books that feature harmful representation of race or gender or sexuality or disability. Rather than allowing these books to continue to be published unchallenged, they’re taking a stand and shining a light on these problematic books and the system that continues to publish them. At the same time, within minutes of someone calling out a book, someone else will come along and say, “What’s the big deal? It’s only fiction.” You can set your watch by it. I promise.
Read the full article at Teen Librarian Toolbox.
April 9, 2018
Fifty Years Ago, a Grad Student’s Discovery Changed the Course of Astrophysics
The dipole array telescope—a mass of wires and poles stretched across an area the size of 57 tennis courts—took Cambridge University students more than two years to build. But after the telescope was finished in July 1967, it took only a few weeks for graduate student Jocelyn Bell Burnell to detect something that would upend the field of astronomy.
The giant net-like telescope produced enough data to fill 700 feet of paper each week. By analyzing this, Bell Burnell noticed a faint, repetitive signal that she called “scruff”— a regular string of pulses, spaced apart by 1.33 seconds. With help from her supervisor Antony Hewish, Bell Burnell was able to capture the signal again later that fall and winter.
The signal looked like nothing any astronomer had ever seen before. Yet before long, Bell Burnell discovered more little beacons out there, just like the first but pulsing at different speeds in different parts of the sky.
Read the full article on Smithonianmag.com.
April 8, 2018
A Writer’s Guide to Firearms
A series of posts about firearms by William R. Bartlett:
A Writer’s Guide to Firearms: Assault Rifles
Mar 13, 2018 | My friends’ Guest Posts, Writing
This is a guest post by my author friend, William R. Bartlett. It continues his discussion of all things firearms. Assault rifles have featured prominently in the horrific events in Florida, Las Vegas and elsewhere, so I wish to repeat that this series is only meant…
A Writer’s Guide to Firearms: Rifles
Feb 25, 2018 | My friends’ Guest Posts, Writing
This is a guest post by my author friend, William R. Bartlett. It continues his discussion of all things firearms. It was originally scheduled for earlier in the month, but we decided to push it back because of the horrific events in Florida. Even though nothing we…
Read more at Nicholas C. Rossis’ blog.
April 7, 2018
Story Review: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison
I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Read for the 12 in 12 Challenge and the Apocalypse Now! Reading Challenge.
This story won the 1967 Hugo Award.
I cannot tell you how brilliant, and how deeply disturbing, this post-apocalyptic horror story is. I imagine it strongly influenced Clive Barker in his mastery of body-horror.
What can I tell you that won’t ruin the plot? I guess I can say that in a post-apocalyptic future, a small group of human survivors are at the mercy of a demented artificially intelligent computer who hates them. In many ways, I think it’s the natural, 20th century outgrowth of the same issues pondered in Frankenstein.
Just read it. But don’t do it right before you go to sleep (trust me, this was a bad plan.)
April 6, 2018
Generation Ships
When it comes to crossing the vast gulfs between the solar system and other stellar systems, SF writers turn to two main solutions: small and fast1 or big and slow. Perhaps the best known example of “big and slow” is the generation ship, large enough to qualify as a large town or even a small nation, slow enough that entire lives will be consumed getting to its destination.
Generation ships live in that delightful overlap between “seemingly practical” and “nearly certain to inflict lives of deprivation and misery on their inhabitants.” You might wonder what sort of person imagines the immiseration of many many others. SF authors do. Misery is drama. Generation ships offer so very much drama.
Read the full article at Tor.com.
