Starting a blog.
Hi, I'm Laurence (goes by Laury) Dahners and I write science fiction. I've mostly published on Amazon since I love the Kindle. A lot of readers communicated with me and other readers on the Amazon Author's Forums, but those don't seem to be getting much support any more and there have been a lot of complaints.
So I thought I'd start a blog here on GoodReads as well as responding to "Ask the Author" questions that are posted on this site.
I'm not sure how well this will work for those of you who like to have discussions that don't necessarily involve me? Let me know if you're aware of a way for me to facilitate such discussion that I may not be aware of.
Hope this works for at least some of you who like to express your opinions!
Laury Dahners
So I thought I'd start a blog here on GoodReads as well as responding to "Ask the Author" questions that are posted on this site.
I'm not sure how well this will work for those of you who like to have discussions that don't necessarily involve me? Let me know if you're aware of a way for me to facilitate such discussion that I may not be aware of.
Hope this works for at least some of you who like to express your opinions!
Laury Dahners
Billvon,These are interesting ideas to think about.
By definition a kilocalorie (which we call a Calorie when we're measuring the energy in food) is:
"the energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 kilogram (1 liter) of water through 1 °C."
Wikipedia says the average human brain is actually 1.2 liters - so at 1.2 Calories per degree C it would take 12 Calories to raise the brain's temp 10 degrees C.
This doesn't sound like much - walking a mile burns 100 Calories.
Chemistry Explained says:
"temperature varies for different proteins, but temperatures above 41°C (105.8°F) will break the interactions in many proteins and denature them. This temperature is not that much higher than normal body temperature (37°C or 98.6°F), so this fact demonstrates how dangerous a high fever can be.
Read more: http://www.chemistryexplained.com/Co-...
Note that raising the temp 4 degrees (41C) above normal body temp (37C) will denature some but not all proteins. Some proteins will tolerate temps up close to boiling. A temperature in that range will do brain damage, but the temp must be sustained.
Medline says it takes a fever of 42C to cause brain damage
https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/....
Certainly a brain temperature of 47C (10C above normal) would cause a lot of damage, but as with anything toxic, it would depend on dose AND duration (you can touch a hot stove momentarily without burning) so that heat would need to be maintained at least briefly.
Heating the entire brain would be an extraordinarily clumsy way to kill someone, since some small parts of the brain are necessary for life and could more easily be destroyed. You die without a brainstem (20cc) and certainly could be killed by damaging just parts of the brainstem, though figuring out which parts might be difficult for an assassin. On the other hand, said assassin could just heat/destroy a thin transverse slice through the brain stem or upper spinal cord and thereby destroy her opponent (can't breathe with transections there).
For comparison, for the Hyllis book rules I worked under , Tarc's telekinesis (Afterword, book 1) produces 1 watt of power at 1 meter of distance (0.5 watts at 2 meters). A Calorie is 1.16 watt-hours (1.16 watts exerted for one hour) so he wouldn't be able to boil anyone's mug of water or kill them by heating their entire brain.
But, he could easily physically shear a slice through the brainstem (which is soft) and do them in if he were close to his target. From a distance it'd be easier to guide a knife or arrow.
This is a little bit like the difference between WW2 carpet bombing and recent wars' "smart bombs." Striking with precision can decapitate the enemy (if you know where to strike).
Thanks for giving me interesting things to think about - though this discussion is probably more than anyone wants to read!
Laury Dahners
Laurence wrote: "...Tarc's telekinesis (Afterword, book 1) produces 1 watt of power at 1 meter of distance (0.5 watts at 2 meters)
..."
Hm, I'd have thought that Tarc's power follows the inverse square law with the distance...
Hah, you caught me! It really should fall off exponentially and that was what I intended, but it made it really hard to tell the stories I wanted when it fell of that fast so I weenied out and made it fall linearly.
I really should write some stories where I toe the line on that...
Laury Dahners
Laurence wrote: "Hah, you caught me! It really should fall off exponentially and that was what I intended, but it made it really hard to tell the stories I wanted when it fell of that fast so I weenied out and mad..."
But the force is clearly not omnidirectional.
I just noticed that the Kindle version of "Psychicians" (Hyllis Family #5) is on sale at Amazon for $2.32 -- I immediately bought it even though I own the paperback version.
Walter,Yeah, that's some kind of weird Amazon marketing thing that I don't understand, but I'm glad it worked out for you!
Laury
For those of your who like the stasis books, the 6th one (tentatively titled Deep Space - Hidden Terror) is available for preorderamazon.com/Deep-Space-Hidden-Terror-S...
Here's the blurb
This hard Sci-Fi novel is the sixth book in the “Stasis Stories,” a series of optimistic tales of technological innovation in the near future. They follow Kaem Seba, a young man with extraordinary math talents. With his friends, he’s come up with a device that allows time to be stopped within limited volumes of space-time.
In this 6th story, the company Kaem, Arya Vaii, and Gunnar Schmidt founded to commercially develop his time-stopping discovery is working with NASA to move into deep space.
Using the space tower from book 5 they launch large payloads into orbit to start building a rotating wheel space station and launch a successor to the James Webb Space Telescope. Then they put a space launch tower on the moon that’s aimed at sending craft all over the solar system.
Unbeknownst to them, the Haliq, a race of aliens in the Epsilon Eridani system, is launching its own ships to the Sol system with the intent of finding more room for their burgeoning population. When they arrive, they’re alarmed to find intelligent beings in the system they’ve come to populate, but the obvious solution is to exterminate the problematic humans.
The aliens have an advanced technology that lets them jump across interstellar and interplanetary space.
But they don’t have stasis…
Hope you enjoy it!
Laurence wrote: "so I weenied out and made it fall linearly."Hmm. So if Tarc wants to heat up as much water as he can as fast as he can, he'd want to be farther away and heat up a larger volume . . .
Billvon wrote: "Laurence wrote: "so I weenied out and made it fall linearly."Hmm. So if Tarc wants to heat up as much water as he can as fast as he can, he'd want to be farther away and heat up a larger volume ...."
Of course not. The efficiency still drops, but linearly instead of exponentially as you would expect. So the energy cost is cheaper then expected at longer distances but is still more expensive then at shorter distances.
Laurence wrote: "Heating the entire brain would be an extraordinarily clumsy way to kill someone."Yeah, that was my first thought, especially compared to your more in-depth consideration of the issue.
I find that in general I prefer the sort of science fiction where the author really does think about the details of the new effect/technology/discovery he's describing, as opposed to just using it as a big MacGuffin that's never really explained. Different authors do this to different degrees.
On the one hand you have things like the Spindizzy, the drive used in Blish's books as a literary device to imagine entire cities in flight. Not much about the drive itself is discussed, and none of the ramifications of such a basic change to the fundamental forces is explored. And there's nothing wrong with that; most science fiction answers the question "what if X happened?" and it's just as valid whether or not you define your X carefully.
On the other hand you have authors like Robert Forward, who takes a concept (tidal locking of planets, neutron stars, negative matter) and explores them in great depth, in sufficient detail (and with sufficient accuracy) that one can learn a bit about physics from his novels. And you have Larry Niven, who often postulates new technologies and then explores their ramifications. He explicitly comments on this in one of his early stories:
"Teleportation was like laser technology. One big breakthrough and then a thousand ways to follow up on it. We spent twelve solid years building teleport pumps for various municipalities to move fresh water in various directions. When all the time the real problem was getting the fresh water, not moving it." (He then goes on to describe how a teleporter can make a very efficient desalinator.)
Interestingly, the novella that was from (Flash Crowd) predicted today's flash mobs very accurately. Technology was different in his story (instantaneous transportation rather than instantaneous communication) but it had the same effect - and caused many of the same problems. Not bad for a book that's 48 years old.
And as a side note to THAT, one of the most prescient novellas I've read was "The Machine Stops" a story that describes quite accurately the problems that ubiquitous, instant communication has on society. The author accurately predicts the problems with obesity caused by a greatly reduced need to physically move, and discusses the sort of navel-gazing that is caused by everyone discussing what other people have said on the Net, instead of discussing things occurring in the confusing real world. "Let your ideas be second-hand, and if possible tenth-hand, for then they will be far removed from that disturbing element — direct observation!" And thus they are spared "the terrors of direct experience."
What makes it remarkably prescient (and a little creepy) is that it was published in 1909.
Billvon,That's some really cool stuff!
Thanks
Laury Dahners
Hey some comments on Deep Space - Hidden Terror.Great examination of the use of staze as a weapon; that's one of the things I thought of immediately when it was first described, perhaps because of all the other uses of stasis as both offensive weapons and defense in other science fiction.
The sudden 15 year jump in the middle of the book was a little jarring. I had to reread that section several times because I was confused - "wait, his daughter is in high school? Wasn't she just born?" I was also a little (irrationally) disappointed to not see any of those 15 years pass, but I understood the need for it to get to an age where space travel is commonplace.
Re: the Stade solar blimps/platforms - one of the problems there is that winds typically increase in intensity as you go higher, and thus you're going to have a stationkeeping problem. However, one interesting aspect of winds-aloft is that they tend to change direction with altitude very predictably due to the Coriolis force. When you have two different media moving in different directions you can generate a force in a third direction (i.e. how sailboats work) - so largish stade sails on the top and the bottom could theoretically drive the platform in any direction you wanted, and/or keep it in one place. They'd have to be large enough to penetrate through to two different wind directions, so you'd have (say) a ten degree difference in wind speed to work with.
That does not tilt the array in the right direction, but an interesting result from the incredibly low prices of solar lately is that direction has become less important. On residential installs, often they will overpanel a house (i.e. put 10kW of solar on a 7.6kW inverter) and put panels on the west and east sides of the house. That way the inverter never sees the full 10kW, and since solar is so cheap, it's cost effective to get a longer production time during the day. (In fact, the utilities around here are trying to encourage west-facing panels to deal with the peak of demand, which occurs around here at 5-8pm when people get home from work.)
So a "sailing stade" sort of platform could use PV on any available surface; the vertical panels on the sails would produce during the mornings and evenings, and the horizontal panels would produce around noon.
Finally a question. Is this the end of the series? It seems like the next logical book in the series would have a primarily military theme, and you haven't done that much in the past. (I mean, I hope it's not, but the next book would almost have to be significantly different than the previous books.)
Billvon,Thanks for the thoughts!
A lot of people complained about the rapid forward movement in time in book 6. I wanted to move forward to a time when humans were doing more in space without going through all the years in between but I thought it would be helpful to hit a few highlights on the way. I think probably readers would have preferred a simple jump where Part 2 began "20 years have passed...".
As to wind speeds, they actually are quite low at 25,000 meters and much lower than at higher and lower altitudes.
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/A...
I take your point on panel direction, but using the flywheels for gyroscopic control of the tilt of the solar blimp, they can face the panels whatever direction is best (I've even wondered whether on a cloudy day you can improve energy intake by pointing toward a clear part of the sky even if the sun is somewhere else behind the clouds - I can't find anything on the amount of energy coming from those areas though.
I am indeed writing a militaristic Stasis #7 on the idea of a fight with the Eridanis. Ell Donsaii #3 (Lieutenant) was pretty militaristic and a number of readers have asked for more of that over the years. I had some ideas for how that might work and I'm interested to see where they go.
Thanks again,
Laury Dahners
My post-reading comment was critical, not so much because of the time skip, but more because the main character in stasis #6 seemed to not be Kaem or even his immediate family and that we rarely got a PoV from them. I still give it a 5/5 after deducting a point for that (dahners books are usually 6/5. Lol). Now as for stasis #7, I hope we also see more inventions and discoveries coming too. Its been 20 years and just look how technology has changed for us in the last 20 years between 2000 and 2020.
I do have some ideas for new tech in #7, wondering how they'll turn out.L
For you audiobook fans, A Tower in Space-TimeThe Stasis Stories, Book 5 is available for pre order
https://www.audible.com/pd/A-Tower-in...
Laury Dahners
For those of you who've been hoping for the Bonesetter books to come out as audiobooks, Bonesetter 1 just became available.amazon.com/Bonesetter-Volume-1/dp/B09...
Hope you like it!
--
Laury
Wag more, bark less...
Sorry to hit you with back to back announcements butImpact! (an Ell Donsaii story # 12) has just become available as an audiobook as well
amazon.com/Impact-Ell-Donsaii-Story-B...
I hope the audiobook lovers amongst you will enjoy it.
It looks like Zage is alive and well in our reality. They've got an AI doing protein folding with decent accuracy:https://www.bbc.com/news/science-envi...
Yes!Very cool I think.
Could make a real difference in medicine!
Laury Dahners
Watching the olympics makes me think of Ell Donsai, so I’m wondering when we will get to see another Donsai book (or Bonesetter book, or Vaz book, or Hyliss book, or Stasis book…)?Hahaha, basically I guess I’m asking when your next book is out - whatever series you choose to progress?
Hope all is well and you’re still wagging more and barking less!
Brent,It's a bummer that Simone Biles is out!
Right now I'm writing on Stasis #7, then I've had some ideas for a different kind of book (possible series) I might try on.
Thanks for your interest.
Laury Dahners
Yes, my wife had just mentioned Simone was out! Hate to see that. It highlights the high amount of pressure these athletes tend to live in. Hope she does well.I have not been disappointed in anything you have written, so I’m looking forward both to Stasis 7 and your new series - should you choose to pursue it.
Best,
Brent
For those of you who like AudiobooksDeep Space - Hidden Terror: The Stasis Stories, Book 6 is out.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09...
Hope you like it!
Be forewarned, we've got a new narrator, Lee Goettl. I hope you'll like him too. Podium Audio and I are going our separate ways and Andre Blake, the narrator for the other books, was contracted with them.
Laury Dahners
I apologize for being a little late to the stasis stories, but one thing that struck me about Kaem's theory was that it was initially about time and how he initially thought that he was sending something forward in time to the future, and Stade was the unintended by-product of that. I have to say that my first thought was, "What would it look like if he sent something backward in time?" It seems that it would be consistent with the story if the effect would be to instantly age the space that was anti-stazed. Or, from the perspective of the sample, as if the entire rest of the universe had been stazed for the designated length. (Might be an excellent way to take an uninterruptible nap?) There would be a lot more potential risks to it than stazing for living and heat-producing creatures, which, along with the immediate usefulness of Stade & stazing, and the fact that it would be another window into Kaem's still-secret theory, would be reasons for him not to advance that application. However, I can't help but think that there would still be many fun what-ifs to be answered. One could presumably unstaze the universe from inside the sample, for example?
Hate to be pushy, but it is starting to feel about right for another book to be coming out :-) I saw you were working on the next Stasis book, any updates you'd like to share?
Couldn't the "heat island shields" mentioned in Stasis #6 be used as fire breaks in some of the big wildfires ? You could make a wall by tilting them vertically. They wouldn't be fully effective, because the land is usually not flat, but it should reduce how much fire gets past them.
Chris, Walter,Interesting ideas.
I'll put them down to think about when/if I get back to the Stasis series (I'm thinking about writing something else next).
Dana, sorry I missed your query earlier (seems like Goodreads frequently doesn't notify me when things are put up on these blogs and I forget to check)
As you'll see in the next post, the next stasis book will be out on Oct 12.
Laury Dahners
For those of you who've liked the Stasis Stories, the 7th one is up for pre-order or you can directly order it on October 12th. (amazon.com/dp/B09G8LNXS1)Hope you like it!
Here's the blurb:
The Mistress of
Space-Time
The Stasis Stories
#7
This hard Sci-Fi novel is the seventh book in the “Stasis Stories,” a series of optimistic tales of technological innovation in the near future. This one is about Kaem Seba’s daughter, Zaii, a young woman who, like her father, has extraordinary math talents.
Eager to do her part in the war against the aliens from Epsilon Eridani, she becomes a Space Force ROTC cadet. Soon after that, she’s proving to be a superb young officer. However, as she studies potential warfighting strategies that might be used against the Eridanis, she realizes that the defenders of Sol system have a problem.
The humans won the first battle against the Eridanis by using the technical advantage afforded by the invulnerability of stasis. But, the Eridanis jump and biowarfare technology could easily allow them to wipe out the human race on Earth and thus win the war.
Offered the opportunity, she sets out to study the wreckage of the Eridani ships from the first battle. She hopes to figure out how jump works, thus appropriating that technology for human use and evening the playing field.
Can she figure this out in time to keep the Eridanis from exterminating homo sapiens?
It turns out to be a lot harder than she’d hoped; and to require help from someone she tries to avoid asking…
--
Laury Dahners
Hi,For those of you who like audiobooks, Bonesetter 2 is available now.
amazon.com/Bonesetter-2-Winter/dp/B09...
--
Laury Dahners
Hey, Laury.I just started & finished reading MOST, thanks for that. (Although I'm not sure I believe in the updated Kaem Seba.)
Now I see you're thinking about writing a follow-on story from Porter. Can I implore you not to do that?
First, because Porter's "done." So it doesn't need a follow-on story. But more to the point, you've already done ports. There's a whole series about ports. And another whole series about people with spooky mental powers. I just don't think ESP (extra-sensory ports) really has that much to add to what you've already written.
I'll suggest instead a Tau Ceti follow-on where our favorite extra-terrestrials go off to rescue others from the aftermath of thir catastrophic impact.
Or a Bonesetter update featuring ... written language?
Or ... perhaps a space-based life form that communicates with others of its kind using DNA. Which coincidentally ends up seeding planets. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Mr. wrote: "Hey, Laury.I just started & finished reading MOST, thanks for that. (Although I'm not sure I believe in the updated Kaem Seba.)
Or ... perhaps a space-based life form that communicates with others of its kind using DNA. Which coincidentally ends up seeding planets. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Hmmm…. That last idea brings new meaning to the concept of pan-sperm-ia…. LOL…
Clay
Thanks for another great book. When I imagine Vera I picture Bobbie Draper from The Expanse.I have a question: Military now have a claim to jump technology because they gave examples to reverse engineer and Vera is active duty officer, how X now can claim ownership of jump technology.
Just finished stasis 7…Really good. I like how Kaem changes over his lifetime, and how what’s most important to him changes.
I can hardly wait until he’s a grandfather as well!
Like he always does, Laury has an exciting action book that embeds amazing characters doing amazing things, but somehow believable…
Thanks for the book…
Clay
Farez,You are correct about patenting things while in the military. Almost any employer has partial rights to the proceeds of a patented invention, invented while in the employ of that entity. It's difficult to find good information on what the military's stance on patents actually is. This linked article suggests the US Navy tries to screw over in-service inventors - https://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...
However, you might recall that Staze doesn't take patents on stasis tech, instead keeping their proprietary methods as secrets - a path that's fraught with the possibility that someone else will learn the secret and manufacture without inhibition. On the other hand a patent's only for 20 years while a secret can be forever...
Laury Dahners
Clay wrote: Hmmm…. That last idea brings new meaning to the concept of pan-sperm-ia…. LOL…Clay,
That was the idea. It could go a bunch of different ways, including the one where life as we know it is descended from a shopping list, or a breakup letter, or a work email, or ...
=Austin
Hi Doc,Just finished Stasis 7 (“The Mistress of Space-time” to me in the US), and wanted to pass along my compliments. Well done, and thanks for the book!
Reading the comments from Mr., it seems as if you have different titles for different parts of the world. I’m deducing this from Mr.’s reference to “Most” and “Porter”, but I may be reading too much into his comments…
Thanks again!
Brent
Brent wrote: "Hi Doc,Just finished Stasis 7 (“The Mistress of Space-time” to me in the US), and wanted to pass along my compliments. Well done, and thanks for the book!
Reading the comments from Mr., it seems a..."
I think MOST = Mistress Of Space Time
Clay
I think Clay's right, MOST = Mistress Of Space TimePorter is a short story in my collection of short stories called "Six Bits."
I'm thinking of writing a book about controlling the speed with which time passes that will feature Allie Dans, the main character of Porter, as a secondary character. Allie also features in the story Guitar Girl.
I guess Mr. didn't like Porter but I'm pretty excited about the new story in which Allie's ability to open ports will be a minor part.
Hope he'll give it a try anyway (one of the amazing things about Kindle is the ability to read 10% of a book before deciding if you're going to buy it).
Laury Dahners
Laurence wrote: "I think Clay's right, MOST = Mistress Of Space TimePorter is a short story in my collection of short stories called "Six Bits."
I'm thinking of writing a book about controlling the speed with whic..."
Your plans sound interesting -- I really liked "Guitar Girl" and also liked "Porter". I think the objection "Mr." had was that Allie Dans had a human-generated Donsai port ability.
Hahaha, sounds obvious now that you’ve explained it! 🙄I always thought it would be interesting to do something further with Porter (now that I’m calibrated with the name -Guitar Girl I would have recognized right off). Chalker did some interesting things along the lines of actions initiated by holding the proper math in your head in his “Midnight at the Well of Souls” series. Allie/Eva could be unconsciously doing this when she builds a port. In any case it’ll be interesting to see what you further do with it!
Best,
Brent
Brent wrote: "Hahaha, sounds obvious now that you’ve explained it! 🙄I always thought it would be interesting to do something further with Porter (now that I’m calibrated with the name -Guitar Girl I would have ..."
It seems more like the teleportation in Hyliss to me…
Clay
It seems more like the teleportation in Hyliss to me…"I think you are right -- I just got confused because (a) 'Mr.' talked about ports and (b) 'Porter' vs. 'ports' sound similar.
First love your work, your in my top five. It might be me getting older ( mid 40s), but im getting picker on my books. Happen with movies and tv series in my 30s. Ive notice im not that into most new books. Still find them, but not as many. That being said this series getting old for me. Was never a favoret, but i understande when when authors want try something new. So first few book were good, but i mised your helix, or eli. When started book 7 found i did not remember most of book six. i took that not remebering and not wanting to reread the series as a bad sign. So what im asking if we can write some of your other work. I will read a book 8, your worst for me still worth reading, but i miss eli
Kevin,Thanks for your thoughts and very glad you like the books.
I am moving on from the Stasis stories, though not ready to go back to Ell yet. If you'll read some of the posts above this one, you can see what I've been thinking about writing next.
Laury Dahners
For those of you who like audiobooksDNA (an Ell Donsaii story #13) is available
on Audible and Amazon.
Sorry, Goodreads won't let me post a link, but searching the title should find it for you.
Laury Dahners
Sisters, A Hyllis family story is also availableon Audible and Amazon.
Laury Dahners
Hey Mr. Dabners just finished sisters and i love the new narrator so much better! Was that done by you or a company decision? Not that the old narrator was that bad but the new one is head and tails better, lol also finished DNA i want more ell or just about Zage would be fine too! Lol
In his recent book "Dead Lies Dreaming" Charles Stross has a character, Eve, who has TK abilities. She demonstrates this at one point by making coffee. She manipulates the mug, water, beans etc - and then heats the water in the cup to almost boiling. The author mentions this takes a lot of energy - it causes her to sweat and resulted in her "face being a mask of tension."
She uses her talent several other times, but that was the most descriptive. She can rip wires out of things but that takes a lot of effort on her part.
Later she kills someone by heating up their brain until death occurs. In her words - "A mug of coffee contains about half a liter of water. I can bring it to a near boil in about a minute. A human skull contains about two liters of stuff that can be approximated as greasy water. I can raise its temperature by about 10 degrees C in 15 seconds. That's enough to denature proteins . . ."
Her enemy dies and she ends the story as the antagonist-gone-good.
I thought the fact that Stross bothered to do the math was a plus, but also thought that cooking someone's brain was very inelegant, given that it seemed to cost her some of her own health to do so. It would seem likely that since she had done ill to other people, she would have had a similar opportunity to the Hyllises to learn how to create maximum effect with minimum effort.
In defense of Stross, her TK ability was not the focus of the story, so a superficial treatment of it isn't the end of the world from a literary point of view.