Science Fiction Author Quote of the Day

It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power.

Attributed to David Brin, author of The Uplift War, which won the 1988 Hugo Award.

Science Fiction Author Quote of the Day

I repeat Sturgeon's Revelation, which was wrung out of me after twenty years of wearying defense of science fiction against attacks of people who used the worst examples of the field for ammunition, and whose conclusion was that ninety percent of it is crud.

The Revelation: Ninety percent of everything is crud.

Corollary 1: The existence of immense quantities of trash in science fiction is admitted and it is regrettable; but it is no more unnatural than the existence of trash anywhere.

Corollary 2: The best science fiction is as good as the best fiction in any field.

Theodore Sturgeon

Private Space Flight

Memories of SpaceShipOne:



SpaceShipTwo is coming...

Strange Indie Band for a Friday Night

If you're bothered by bad language don't watch this video, We Are All Going to Hell:

On the other hand, it's funny.

I don't know anything about the Bastard Fairies, but their songs made me laugh. If you enjoyed We Are All Going to Hell, be sure to check Whatever:

Also funny. I think. But then I am sort of warped.

Unusual Book Title of the Day

Eleven years a drunkard, or, The life of Thomas Doner: Having lost both arms through intemperance, he wrote his book with his teeth as a warning to others, by Thomas Doner. Forty-two pages long, it was published in 1880. Amazon lists it as "currently unavailable."

Friday Morning Zombie Attack

Archeology.org has an interesting (and amusing) article entitled Zombie Attack at Hierakonpolis, by Renée Friedman:

On the other hand, in support of the earlier date, some have claimed that the famous Palette of Narmer (ca. 3000 B.C.), also from Hierakonpolis, far from recording a victory in the war of unification of Upper and Lower Egypt, is instead a celebration of the successful repulse of a zombie attack. Although we tend to focus on the verso where the king is shown smiting a kneeling enemy, it is the other side that is actually the front. It is the side with the depression for mixing the cosmetics for adorning the cult statue, and so it would seem that the scene of the king marching in procession to view a pile of decapitated bodies is the really important message. Nevertheless, while this scene may be evidence for zombie activity, reliance solely on pictorial records for such claims is scientifically questionable at best. There may be more to this in that Narmer's name means catfish-chisel, which sounds strange, and a catfish and chisel appear on the palette. But this could make sense if the palette refers to a victory over zombie forces. Perhaps Narmer wielded a large Nile catfish, Clarias?, grasping the tail and using it as a sort of black jack to stun the zombies, then removed their heads with a chisel. While it is an attractive idea, no serious archaeologist would hang their fedora on it without further evidence.

Read the whole thing.

Science Fiction Author Quote of the Day

For it is a mad world and it will get madder if we allow the minorities, be they dwarf or giant, orangutan or dolphin, nuclear-head or water-conversationalist, pro-computerologist or Neo-Luddite, simpleton or sage, to interfere with aesthetics. The real world is the playing ground for each and every group, to make or unmake laws. But the tip of the nose of my book or stories or poems is where their rights and my territorial imperatives begin, run and rule. If Mormons do not like my plays, let them write their own. If the Irish hate my Dublin stories, let them rent typewriters. If teachers and grammar school editors find my jawbreaker sentences shatter their mushmilk teeth, let them eat stale cake dunked in weak tea of their own ungodly manufacture.

Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, Coda 1979

Science Fiction Author Quote of the Day

People who put principles before people are people who hate people. They don’t much care about how well it works, just about how right it is . . . they may even like it better if it inflicts enough pain.

John Barnes, A Million Open Doors

Space Highlights

The Space Shuttle Discovery landed on time Wednesday. Meanwhile, the Space Shuttle Atlantis moves toward the launchpad for a December 6 launch which will place the European laboratory module, Columbus, in orbit. Columbus is the next major piece of the space station.

Meanwhile, the crew of the space station will conduct three space walks this month to get ready for Columbus. The biggest job will be moving the Harmony node from the spot where Discovery just put it, to the place where it needs to be for Columbus.

Science Fiction Author Quote of the Day

Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had. Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period.

"Aliens Cause Global Warming" - A lecture at the California Institute of Technology (17 January 2003)

The Bots are Back

Mystery Science Theater 3000 has launched a new website; it includes new animated content as well as clips from the old TV show. Check it out if you enjoyed MST3K.

Science Fiction Quote of the Day

Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done, and why. Then do it.

Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough For Love

Private Space Flight

SpaceX is another privately funded space company. Their goal is to develope orbital launch vehicles, including sending human crewed vehicles to the International Space Station. They have attempted twice to launch the Falcon 1; the first attempt failed shortly after launch. The second attempt, last March nearly made it to orbit:

Additional details can be found on their website, Space Exploration Technologies Corporation. The company is profitable, just broke ground on a new launch pad at Cape Canaveral, and intends to launch their first heavy lift vehicle, Falcon 9, in the fourth quarter of 2008. Their third attempt to send a Falcon 1 into orbit is scheduled for the first quarter of 2008.

Science Fiction Quote of the Day

I don't know how you perceive my mission as a writer, but for me it is not a responsibility to reaffirm your concretized myths and provincial prejudices. It is not my job to lull you with a false sense of the rightness of the universe. This wonderful and terrible occupation of recreating the world in a different way, each time fresh and strange, is an act of revolutionary guerrilla warfare. I stir the soup. I inconvenience you. I make your nose run and your eyeballs water.

Harlan Ellison

Private Space Flight

Bigelow Aerospace, headquartered in Las Vegas, has placed two inflatable space station prototypes in orbit, Genesis I and II. They are both functioning normally. Their first human rated station is scheduled for launch by 2010. Images from Genesis II:



For more information, visit Bigelow Aerospace.

Science Fiction Quote of the Day

You are disoriented. Blackness swims toward you like a school of eels who have just seen something that eels like a lot.

Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy text adventure, published by Infocom.

Science Fiction Quote of the Day

When a wise man does not understand, he says: "I do not understand." The fool and the uncultured are ashamed of their ignorance. They remain silent when a question could bring them wisdom.

Frank Herbert, The Godmakers

Private Space Flight

Scaled Composites is not the only private space program. The owner of Amazon.com has put a lot of time, money and effort into a vertical take off and landing vehicle.

About Books Today

As an undergraduate, I majored in history. I'm also a big fan of the science fiction subgenre, "alternate history." Therefore, I very much enjoyed the book What If and its sequel What If? 2, both filled with essays written by historians who ask that question about several pivotal points in history. What if things had gone the other way, what if the losers had somehow won? How would history of gone then?

CNN has a review of the first book, "Book asks what might have been"

Science Fiction Quote of the Day

The plans and schemes of tyrants are broken by many things. They shatter against cliffs of heroic struggle. They rupture on reefs of open resistance. And they are slowly eroded, bit by little bit, on the very beaches where they measure triumph, by countless grains of sand. By the stubborn little decencies of humble little men.

In the Heart of Darkness, by Eric Flint and David Drake