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
message 401:
by
Rachael
(new)
Nov 01, 2020 07:01AM
I hope you will explore stade in deep sea exploration and artifical island creation. We're still finding new fish that are useful in medical treatment. Stade wouldn't be displacing the water and raising sea levels and if a tsunami comes you can get out of the way.
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Rachael wrote: "I hope you will explore stade in deep sea exploration and artifical island creation. We're still finding new fish that are useful in medical treatment. Stade wouldn't be displacing the water and ra..."Rachael,
I'm not sure I follow all your ideas. Can you explain more?
Laury Dahners
If you can put a building on a 1 mm square stick you can put an island on one. You can raise it when a wave is on the way. We still don't know enough about the deep ocean because it is very expensive to build craft and structures capable of handling the pressure. Stade wouldn't even notice. Underwater research labs would be at no risk of imploding.
Ah, I've got you now. I'll keep them in mind.Laury Dahners
I would suggest using the design of deep-sea oil drilling platforms (from what I understand they are already raised above the sea to eliminate the problems of waves). Since the stade supports would be much smaller, you could park boats, etc. under the platform in the open space
I hate to be a bother, but I was wondering how the next book is going :-) I'm assuming it will be another Stasis book or has different inspiration struck?
Yeah, Stasis still captures my interest!Have 60k words written (these books have been in the 40-90k range and I think this one will be about 75k). But then there'll be several editing passes.
Should be out sometime in late December or early January I think.
Hope you like it as much as I do!
Laury Dahners
Super fantastic day!So you are saying there is a possibility for an extra Christmas present (even if a little late)? Cool!
Cheers!
I am not a doctor or ambulance attendant, but it should improve things if the ambulance contains a statis box so the injured person can be stazed until he/she reaches the hospital and a doctor is ready to see him/her
Walter wrote: "I am not a doctor or ambulance attendant, but it should improve things if the ambulance contains a statis box so the injured person can be stazed until he/she reaches the hospital and a doctor is r..."Ignore most of my previous comment. I just read "Halting the Reaper" for the sixth time. Dr. Jonas's introductory remarks started by suggesting using a stazer in ambulances for cardiac patients. In effect, I just expanded that to have a stazer used for all ambulance patients.
Walter wrote: "I would suggest using the design of deep-sea oil drilling platforms (from what I understand they are already raised above the sea to eliminate the problems of waves). Since the stade supports would..."Thats because the tsunami problem is only an issue if your really close to sure. The farther out at sea you are the energy moving through the water simply moves around you. so drilling platforms are simply tethered to the ground to keep them in the same place.
So raising them out of the way wouldnt be needed. But providing a bubble for a research lab would be very very useful
Hey, for those of you who like the stasis storiesA Tower in Space-Time (The Stasis Stories #5)
is available for preorder.
amazon.com/Tower-Space-Time-Stasis-St...
Hope you enjoy it!
Hey, for those of you who like the stasis storiesA Tower in Space-Time (The Stasis Stories #5)is available for preorder.amazon.com/Tower-Space-Time-...
Hope you enjoy it!
This hard Sci-Fi novel is the fifth 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 developed a device that allows time to be stopped within limited volumes of space-time. Those volumes of space—because time is stopped within them and nothing moves—can be used as impossibly strong structures. In this 5th story, Kaem’s newfound physical fitness is letting him perform at an astonishing level in physical endeavors such as soccer and the martial arts. The company he, Arya Vaii, and Gunnar Schmidt founded to commercially develop his time-stopping discovery is making money hand over fist. Currently, their profits come from their use of the phenomenal physical properties of a time-stopped segment of space-time to build rockets. But now they’re building a space tower. Taking off at a thirty-degree angle from eastern Virginia, it’s 200 kilometers long and a hundred kilometers high. By placing the interior of their spacecraft—and its passengers—in stasis they can accelerate launches at fifteen gravities, reaching orbital speeds before the craft leaves the rail. This lets them put payloads in orbit a thousand times more cheaply than it can be done with a rocket! The world is turning to Kaem to further humanity’s exploitation of orbital space. Unfortunately, some unscrupulous people would also like to get a piece of the pie.
Thanks for the great book. Now homemade A-bomb is reality. You only need to encase fissile material core in stade deflector and the rest is question of time. No need in enrichment. Stade will contain and deflect neutron to the core. With enough time I think we could reach total matter energy conversion. Now we label stade bomb as homemade fresh meal and transport it to the city of choice to be destazed.
I just finished A Tower in Space-Time and I loved it and am looking forward to more. I see you didnt take my advice to have the government actually do the smart thing for once, especially since it was too late to actually do much of anything to Stade. I will admit, the stupid/incompetent government guy seems to be becoming a theme in your books. Not that i mind or anything. Its might just be too realistic to me. I prefer fiction over nonfiction you know. Jokes aside, I really loved the book. Now for the traditional post release question, whats the next book gonna be. :)
Farez,Horrifying thought...
How do the good guys stop it?
Maybe a good use of the idea would be for a "Project Orion" type spaceship where you enclose some plutonium then put it on your pusher plate set to destaze in an hour. If pusher plate is Stade and you staze the ship for the explosion you get a big acceleration without risk?
Tyson,Ya gotta have a bad guy for your hero to struggle against.
The real world has plenty of bad guys.
I'm still full of Stasis ideas so planning to continue them for a while.
Laury Dahners
That's the problem. With stade you don't need plutonium. You only need unenriched uranium or even thorium.
I'm reading your latest stasis novel and for the first time I am disappointed with your choice of technology for launching spacecraft from the tower. Did you consider the technology of an electromagnet railgun? A miles long chain drive seems primitive and loud, as you stated, compared to a miles long railgun.
James,How much money would be spent to buy all that metal to build railgun?
I stand corrected, but not because of the money - because of the weight and volume. The chain drive fits the story technology.
How would the hospital deal with claustrophobic patients? Would they get to jump the queue? Liars would get out of the hospital faster that way.
Hmmm,Would you be as worried about your wait in the hospital if you weren't bored and, to you, it seemed like you hadn't wasted any time? Plus, you knew that the time you "wasted" in stasis was going to be added on to the end of your lifespan?
Downside, you could use up vacation or sick days in stasis waiting for treatment.
Upside, your investments could go up!
Interesting question!
Laury
If you like audiobooks, Telepath a Hyllis Family Story #4 is now available.https://www.amazon.com/Telepath-Hylli...
Hope you like it!
Laury Dahners
Any timeline on continuing the proton field series?
Jeff,Sorry, after I finish a book, I just write what I feel like writing next. No real plan to it, just writing what I feel like I have good ideas for. Recently that's been the stasis series which I still have lots of ideas about. I don't feel like I'm done with any of the series, so may feel like coming back to any of them at some point in the future (including proton field). I don't want to try to force a book on anything though - seems to me that some of the authors I've liked have gotten off track and started turning out weak stories doing that.
Laury Dahners
Hey mr Dahners, does the new book cover mean any new changes? I have almost all your books but since the new covers came out it shows that i haven't bought any of your books but i got them with the old covers. Does this mean i have to but them again? I bought all your books through kindle
Joe,I'm assuming that you mean the new covers on the Hyllis Family books.
Those books were taken over by a publisher who's doing the audiobooks and wanted to brand all the books with their own covers. There are no changes to the text in the e-books. I've also occasionally redone the covers of books myself, though not for a long time. Those new covers haven't had anything to do with changes to the text either.
I do revise the books anytime someone points out an error or I reread them and find a better way to say something - unfortunately it's almost impossible to get Amazon to send out updates for anything they don't consider a Major Error.
Laury Dahners
Hey, For those of you who like audiobooks, Podium Audio has released the following pre order link for their "Publisher's Pack" Radiation Hazard.
https://www.audible.com/pd/Radiation-...
It actually has the audio for two Stasis books: Number three, (Radiation Hazard), and number four, (Halting the Reaper).
Hope you enjoy it!
--
Laury
Wag more, bark less..
Is it too soon to ask about your next book?
Dana,Ask away...
I'm thinking you're wondering what I'm writing next? That would be Stasis # 6 with them building in orbit and sending out spacecraft to the rest of the solar system.
Laury Dahners
I really enjoy “what if” stories in general and the the Ell Donsaii series in particular. I want to point out that in the Ell Donsaii universe there is no point in trying to colonize planets that already have life. It would be much better to find a dead world that could be terraformed to a near match for earth. There are several reasons for this.
The first is quarantine. I think that everyone underestimates this problem in at least two ways. Even if you had a long quarantine period where earth life inhabited a new living world without cross infection, you could never be POSITIVE that a serious problem wasn't just one mutation away. The kudzu problem is even worse. Consider what would happen if an alien algae analog colonized our oceans, A low level invasive organism would only use carbon dioxide, oxygen, water, etc. and would not need to feed on earth organisms to survive and spread. Higher level earth organisms would certainly wind up eating the alien species mixed with there normal food. However, the alien biochemistry would certainly produce a large number of novel biologically active chemicals. Some of them would likely be poisonous, or at least carcinogenic, to earth organisms. The result would be some form of ecological collapse. I don't see any way around this.
The second is that if a new planet's gravity was say 20% less than earth's, it's hard to imagine that children born on the new planet ever returning to earth to live. Other mismatches like day length or different atmospheric pressure might well have surprising long term results for children born and raised on other planets.
All in all, it is probably less safe and slower to colonize a living world than terraform a dead one.
Since a permanent colony would presumably last for hundreds of years, it makes sense to look hard for a world that could be terraformed into a close match for earth. Ell Donsaii could afford to launch a fleet of thousands of search spacecraft designed to look for lifeless worlds in the habitable zones of stars. At first the time required to approach nearby world's could be minimized by doing single port openings for days rather than hours. As distances become greater it would be necessary to stage port placement either by sending single ended ports through single ended ports or by setting up waldo inhabited way stations at strategic locations. Many permutations are possible.
The huge value of a second earth make huge expenditures for relatively rapid terraforming possible. Safety would suggest colonizing a planet near a distant star, if possible.
Changing subjects. A pet peeve I've had with some older science fiction stories was the idea that aliens from planets with earlier type stars would be less sensitive to UV radiation than humans. I would predict the opposite. The vastly increased solar wind and extreme UV radiation of an early type star would vastly increase the rate at which ozone would form in the upper atmosphere. (Extreme UV radiation could never penetrate the atmosphere because it would be blocked by any molecule.) Thus, with a thickened ozone layer and blocking most the UV and the blue end of the visible spectrum, the native life would probably be less resistant to UV damage than we are. BUT, the thickness of the ozone layer depends on the rate of destruction of ozone as well as its rate of creation. I don't have any handle on the rate of destruction.
Changing subjects. One of your stories had someone charging the inside of a container to repel statically charged styrofoam balls. I assume someone has already told you why that can't work. If not ask a tame physicist about it (mention Gauss' law). I can do it in a pinch but its trivial with diagram and hard without one.
Hey mr Dahners, did you hear about a new weight loss drug that was just published recently? I is almost directly from your story of zage's drug! Lol but nit sure if its a protein? It dies say that up to 20 percent if body weight loss is achievable, which has the scientists claiming game changer! Lol hope with this article will get you to go back to El Donsai stiry line! Lol
Joe wrote: new weight loss drug that was just published recently? ..."Semaglutide?
Yes! Lol it just reminded me of Zage's product lol
Donald Brandshaft wrote: One of your stories had someone charging the inside of a container to repel statically charged styrofoam balls. I assume someone has already told you why that can't work.Donald, I was interested in your comment about static separation. Is your point that you can't separate the styrofoam balls from the wall of the container? You can certainly find plenty of YouTube videos of the ball separating from one another.
i.e. - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixk4Q...
Laury Dahners
For those of you who like audiobooks, Creative Texts has put up the audio version of Psychicians (a Hyllis Family story #5).https://www.amazon.com/Psychicians-Hy...
Hope you enjoy it!
--
Laury
Wag more, bark less...
Joe wrote: "Yes! Lol it just reminded me of Zage's product lol"Laurence wrote: "Donald Brandshaft wrote: One of your stories had someone charging the inside of a container to repel statically charged styrofoam balls. I assume someone has already told you why that can't work.
..."
Joe wrote: "Yes! Lol it just reminded me of Zage's product lol"Love the videos. Thanks.
Yes the problem is the sides. Gauss's law says the surface integral of the electric field over a closed surface is proportional to the total charge enclosed by the surface. Imagine an empty container. Now consider a surface just inside the container wall. No matter what the charge distribution on the container walls, the integral over the entire surface of the component electric field normal to the surface must be zero. That means if the field points inward on one part of the surface it must point outward on some other part. So you can't repel the balls from all parts of the surface by electrostatic fields alone. It may be possible to use some combination of centrifugal and electrostatic force to do the job, but I don't see how.
That was NOT clear. I doubt I could understand it if I didn't already know the answer. But anyone who has taken sophomore physics (which normally includes an introduction to electricity and magnetism) should be able to explain it with the aid of simple diagrams.
Donald Brandshaft wrote: "Joe wrote: "Yes! Lol it just reminded me of Zage's product lol"Love the videos. Thanks.
Yes the problem is the sides. Gauss's law says the surface integral of the electric field over a closed su..."
You can add me to the "confused" column. So you can have a balloon attract from it's entire surface, but can't have the inside of a box repel from it's entire surface?
Scott wrote: "Donald Brandshaft wrote: "Joe wrote: "Yes! Lol it just reminded me of Zage's product lol"Love the videos. Thanks.
Yes the problem is the sides. Gauss's law says the surface integral of the elect..."
In reply to Scott:
Consider a spherical balloon with a charge on its surface. Outside the balloon there will be an electric field pointing away from the center of the balloon. Inside there will be no field at all. For example consider a point far outside the balloon. Then all the charges on the balloon are more or less in the same direction and their fields add up. Next consider a point at the center of the balloon. The charges on the surface are symmetric so that the field from one charge is cancelled out by the field from a charge in the opposite direction. Of course these examples are not a proof, but I hope they make the result seem more reasonable.
Someone tell me - when I reply to a message do I click the reply above or below the message? My replies never seem to come out where I expect them.
Love all your books, but I am in serious need of another Ell book - that series is the best near future sci-fi out in the book world. I just finished reading the series for the third time and need something new.
Arly wrote: "Love all your books, but I am in serious need of another Ell book - that series is the best near future sci-fi out in the book world. I just finished reading the series for the third time and need ..."And I really want to know what you have in store for the twins!
For those of you who like audiobooksRescue, an Ell Donsaii story #11 is available now.
amazon.com/Rescue-Ell-Donsaii-Stories...
Hope you like it!
Laury Dahners
It seems like it is just about time for your next book - any news you want to share about how that's going?
Dana,Sorry. This one's going slow. Not exactly sure why. I'd like to blame it on all the research and calculations I've been doing to get distances and accelerations and times around the solar systems correct...
Or on my amazing social life (not! there's a pandemic on!)
Or the navel contemplation necessary to figure some stories out...
But the book I wrote last winter (Transporter, Ell Donsaii #16) took longer too - maybe it's just the seasonal doldrums.
Laury Dahners
Thanks for the update, as with most things creative, it will be done when it's done. Thank you for the stories!
Looking forward to your next book, whatever it is. While you have done some that I like more than others, I can honestly say that a new book in any of your series is a "must buy" for me.While I love El, Tarc, and Kaem, a revisit to the Blindspot, Vaz, and Bonesetter universes wouldn't be unappreciated.
