Alastair Mayer's T-Space

Actually I think I’ve mentioned it here a time or two before Now I’m announcing that The Chara Talisman, the first full-length novel set in T-space, is now available in e-book and trade paperback form. (First to be published. A novel set earlier in the time-line is in progress.) This is the expansion of my Analog story “Stone Age”.

E-book versions are available from Amazon (for Kindle) and Smashwords (all formats) and should be available direct from B&N, Sony, Apple and others soon. The trade paperback version is available from Amazon (or should be, by the time you read this) as well as through bookstores (you might have to special-order it — bookstores rarely take chances on newer authors these days unless the publisher is doing a mega-marketing blitz) and my publisher, Mabash Books.

There’ll be some promotions for Chara Talisman and some of my other T-space stories going on over the next month or so, so stay tuned. I haven’t decided on the rewards yet, but I’ll be offering prizes for the first person who reports to me a typo or factual error (only one prize or reward for each typo/error) in the book. It could happen — Larry Niven had the Earth rotating in the wrong direction in the first edition of Ringworld.

(Update: added link (above) to paperback version at Amazon.)

Another MileHiCon — the Denver area’s annual SF convention — is underway. I have a full schedule this year, with four panels (FTL, collaborations, writing humor, and space mining), a reading — I share the slot with Kevin J. Anderson, which pretty much guarantees me an audience — an autographing — sharing the table with Vernor Vinge, so there’ll be a long line for one of us — and an interview for the Machine Readable podcast.

It promises to be a lot of fun, as always, and I get to announce the imminent release (on 11/11/11) of my novel The Chara Talisman, which I may have mentioned here once or twice already.

Hope to see you there.

(BTW, the astute among you may have noticed a gap here since the pre-Worldcon post. Mea culpa. There was plenty happening — Worldcon, Bubonicon, the report of possible FTL neutrinos, and more — and I took notes. But I didn’t immediately turn said notes into postings here, and a bunch of the other stuff happening (of lesser interest to anyone not me) got in the way. Some of those notes, particular on the possible superluminal neutrino observations, will make it here soon. Or perhaps I can figure a way to use superluminal neutrinos to post them a month ago. Cheers.)

I’m in the middle of prepping my story “Stone Age”, which appeared in the June issue of Analog a couple of months ago, for ebook publication. Here’s the cover, based on the Frederik Catherwood print which partly inspired the story. I’ll update this when it’s available, and probably do a special intro offer through Smashwords.

This story is, as I think I’ve mentioned before, based on a couple of the first chapters of The Chara Talisman. Publication plans for that are still pending — the traditional publishing industry moves slowly — but I’m considering making an e-version available sooner, possibly serializing it on-line. Let me know if you’re interested.

Update: “Stone Age” is now available in ebook format from Smashwords, and should be available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and outlets supplied by Smashwords (such as Apple and Sony) soon. Stay tuned for an offer in connection with The Chara Talisman.

Two months is a long time to go between blog updates. Things have been crazy busy around here, more chaos than usual.

I mentioned a few posts back that I’ve been having issues with hosting this site. Still am (my internet connection was just out for 2.5 days; that sucked), but I have a plan. As soon as I figure out an easy way to port the content database, this site is getting rehosted on a commercial provider (right now it’s on a server about ten feet from where I sit in my basement office). I’m giving up some control and gaining a bunch in reliability and connection speed.

I’ve already been using that provider to host the MagicBakeshop. As I explain there, the name Magic Bakeshop is adapted from Dean Wesley Smith’s “Magic Bakery” concept, the idea being that stories are like magic pies: you can keep selling (or giving away) slices of them and still have the whole thing. MagicBakeshop’s first product is a computer app to help authors and indie publishers track their sales through Amazon, Pubit, Smashwords, etc. If that’s up your alley, check it out.

Partly because I’ve been working on the above software, and partly because of some of the other events going on in my life, I haven’t been spending as much time writing as I’d like. I have two stories (shaping up to be novelettes in length, perhaps) about half done, one a Jason Curtis story, the other set in what may well be T-Space, but in our past rather than the future. I’m having a lot of fun with both of them, I just wish I had more time.

I have several more stories (including “Stone Age” from the June Analog) almost ready to up as ebooks. And I really need to get that redraft of Alpha Centauri finished.

Anybody got a time machine I can borrow?

No, nothing to do with Rocky Horror, sorry “Time Warp” fans. It seems that colliding black holes can severely warp space and time too, according to this article at Astrobiology Magazine. . The warped space vortex and tendex lines (read the paper referenced in the linked article) spiral out from the hole.

This is interesting enough in its own right (if you’re into that sort of thing), but it touches on something I’ve been pondering in my T-space universe: what happens if a ship in a warp bubble flies into a black hole? There’d be some similar effects, the edge of a warp bubble is highly curved space, like a black hole. Perhaps if you do it right, and the wormhole is rotating, you can create a “closed time-like curve”, i.e., travel in time. (Loosely based on the theory Tipler proposed in his paper “Rotating Cylinders and the Possibility of Global Causality Violation” — see also Larry Niven’s story of the same name.) It’s an idea I’ve been toying with for some stories. Guess I’d better start writing them.

Image credit: The Caltech/Cornell SXS Collaboration

I trust everyone survived April Fools Day? Personally I think it’s getting a little out of hand, you can’t trust anything you read on the web on April first. Okay, I’ll grant you that could also be said of just about every other day of the year, but still.

Anyway, it’s no joke that the June issue of Analog Science Fiction & Fact is now on the news stands. The next (July/August) issue goes on sale May 10, so you have until then to buy a copy if you want to read “Stone Age”.

The latest (June, 2011) issue of Analog just arrived and it includes my story “Stone Age,” my first Analog story that’s not a Probability Zero flash piece. Not that I have anything against PZ of course. They’re great fun (and a challenge!) to write as well as to read. But the length “Stone Age” gives me a chance to set up some real character and world building. It stands on its own (else Stan Schmidt wouldn’t have bought it), but in a slightly different form it kicks off my novel (pending publication) The Chara Talisman.

If you’re not a subscriber, the June issue of Analog should be on the stands around April 5th. (See the cover image over there on the right.) It’s also available electronically for Nook and Kindle. I’d be interested to hear what you think, good or bad.

I have finally started to make some of my stories available through Smashwords, for those with non-Kindle e-readers or who just don’t like Amazon. Smashwords also makes the files available through other outlets; I’m still sorting through the details on that. The process for uploading the books was fairly painless, and I like how fast Smashwords makes the work available on its site.

Three titles up so far. My first ever sale, Snowball, and two Jason Curtis stories, Into the Fire and Renee (aka Renee and the Space Raiders. Click any of the cover images below to get to the Smashwords page. Smashwords also makes possible discount coupons. Stay tuned for details, I’ll be putting something together a (time-limited) opportunity to download a complete book for free. You can already download samples (the first 20%) of each, to whet your appetite.
    

For those interesting in the publishing side, I’ll be posting stats when enough have accumulated to be interesting. One data point, I sold a copy of Snowball within a couple of hours of making it available, without any publicity on my part! (Smashwords links new books on their home page. I’m guessing somebody saw it and liked it.) If you want to prep your own books (or stories), Smashwords Book Marketing Guide is a free book that tells you how.

UDATE – Limited time free offer: I’m offering a coupon good for 100%-off the retail price of Into the Fire (which, for any of you doing math on an old Pentium with the floating point bug, makes it free ). Click on the red cover above (the middle one), and use the coupon code TM58S at checkout to get the deduction. The coupon expires on February 11 (2/11/11), so act soon. If you enjoy the story, you might consider leaving a review to that effect on Smashwords or Amazon.

Word Fantasy Con in Columbus, OH this past four days was a blast. This is not your average SF con, there’s a much higher proportion of writers and editors among the attendees at WFC, and much time is spent schmoozing. Between the late (and early) hours and the energy it takes for a natural introvert like me (and many other writers) to schmooze, I’m still kind of tired. More WFC details in a later post.

The galleys for “Small Penalties”, which will appear in Analog’s Probability Zero section, came in and look good. I don’t know which issue, but I’m guessing maybe the April 2011 issue, early March or late February. I’ll keep you posted.

And this is the first day for NaNoWriMo (see previous post). Of course NaNo’s servers are massively bogged down under the load, but that should ease up as thing progress. Anyway, you don’t need their server to begin writing. I’ve got over a thousand words in already on the new novel (a sequel, or perhaps it will end up as Part 2, to my last year’s NaNo, about the first expedition to Alpha Centauri. It’s set early in T-Space, and it tells (among other things) how Sawyer’s World gets its name.

It’s early days, so if anyone wants to toss me a plot bunny I might use it. That also goes for suggesting a lifeform that could have branched off from Earth fauna or flora 60 or 70 million years ago. (Sorry, no dinosaurs.)

The 2010 National Novel Writing Month is coming up in a week. I’ll be participating again, and I’m encouraging others.

One complaint/excuse/whimper of fear I hear is “but I don’t know how to write a novel, or what to write”. You know what, neither did I the first time I started — and the result (after revision and expansion) was a novel that a publisher has expressed interest in. If you read novels, then probably your subconscious at least already knows how to write one. You’ve learned story structure by osmosis. As to what to write…for the purposes of NaNoWriMo, anything you want. It doesn’t even have to make sense.

I’ll confess, I’ve finished NaNo — meaning I wrote more than 50,000 words in a month — twice without having any idea what I was going to do even on the day it started. So how did I start? I just typed stream-of-consciousness until some part of my brain said Enough! and started feeding me ideas for what will become Alpha Centauri (I consider what I have — 53,000 words with a beginning, middle and end — to be more a combination detailed outline and “0th” draft than a real first draft).

Turn off your internal editor, sit down at your keyboard, and just write. Sooner or later something will start making sense, and if it doesn’t, don’t worry about. As I said above, for NaNoWriMo it doesn’t have to.

Want to see what I mean? Below I’ve quoted the first couple of pages that I wrote for the 2009 NaNo. It’s utter dreck, and will never again see the light of day. It’s here just to prove to you that even a professional writer’s first drafts can be crap, because you’re going to clean it before you show it to anyone else. Except for me this one time.

50K WORDS FOR NANOWRIMO
by Alastair Mayer

Blah blah blah. Wordy wordy word. The quick brown fox up and jumped over the reclining dogbat’s back. What the frack is a dogbat? Kind of like a foxbat only slower and dumber. Is a foxbat a flying forx? And just what is a forx anyway? King of the torx wrinches. Whatsa wrinch? I dunno but I’m coming up with some interesting words. Like Niven says, “keep your typeos” Also your typos.
A typeo is your typical Oreo, as opposed to your atypical oreo, like one with cream cheese feelings, or fillings. Man my fingers ware (also are) wibbly wobbly tonight. Danged eggety nog.
Here’s me typing with the silly sleevy things on my hands to keep my fingers from becoming fingersicles. Seems to improve my typing somewhat too. Oh frabjous day! Now if I jout er could just get some rational content as well as just wordy things. (And stop backspacing, dagnambit!)
Maybe I should take off the backspace key. Or type blindfolded.
Hey, I’m almost at the bottom of the first page. That’s it down there V (can’t do down arry or arrow easily, but whatever.)
And now, the second (fanfare please) page! Ta ta ra!
Man, this stream of consciousness stuff is easy to crank out but it sure don’t make a whole hell of a lot of sense. maybe it well will make cents instead. Or even dollars, thalers, pounds, sheckels,; inits, sols, yen, or even cumquats. Although why any one would use cumquats as currency is beyond me. Persimmons, perhaps. Small orangey fruity things that they are. I have a yen for some yen, or a pound of pounds. And that should be “intis”, not “inits” up there a few lines. So there.
The starship FANCYNAME entered orbit around the third planet from Aoph Centauri A (that’s Alpha, not Aoph). How? Did it aerobrake? Use thrusters? Either has Implications (with a capital I). What is the rest of the Centauri system like? How much do we know about it (then, in the future) from Solar-System based observation? Equatorial or polar orbit? Polar makes more sense for the initial survey. What do we know about it? It has to have a moon (stabilize). Any early signs of terraforming in the system? What about other stars with terraformed worlds?
Here’s the list from “Islands in the Sky”: Martyn Fogg’s article “A Planet Dweller’s Dreams” (NB Fogg wrote the expensive handbook on Terraforming from SAE):
Sixteen stars have better than 15% chance of having planets that could be “easily” terraformed, including: a Centauri A & B, e Eridani, e Indi, t Ceti, 70 Ophiuchi A & B, 36 Ophiuchi A & B, HR 7703 A, s Draconis, d Pavonis, n Casseopia A, 82 Eridani, b Hydri, and HR 8832. Highest percentage is alpha Centauri A at 44%. Cool.
So what do we know before we go?
Telescopic observation shows existence, maybe spectral evidence of free O2, other chlorophyll signatures (what would we see of Earth from as far?) Heavy planet in system would make it more difficult. Binary star more difficult yet at least through Doppler shifts. Terraform question: what would it take to move a planet from a Cen A to a Cen B (or vice versa?) How far out is stable zone ofr for aCen A :& B? Room for heavy planets?
Need to decide just what the Centauri system(s) look like.
We have: a Cen A has Sawyer’s World. a Cen B has Kakuloa, which has large ocean (and large moon, but then all Terraform planets have that. How large? needs to stabilize orbit.
What of Mars and Venus?

That’s where I stopped the first night. I didn’t even fix typos. (Don’t, until you’ve finished your 50,000 words.) It starts out pure crap. After a few hundred words I got the idea to write the story of the first Alpha Centauri landing (a paragraph in the early T-Space outline) and started brainstorming that.

So go ahead, sign up for NaNoWriMo. As Ms Frizzle in the kid series “The Magic Schoolbus” puts it, “Take chances! Make mistakes!” Go for it.