(2005 repost...)

Jack Williamson's classic Legion of Space novel features Barnard's Runaway Star and the evil Medusae who inhabit that system invading Earth. John W. Campbell Jr.'s The Black Star Passes also features a invading star. E.E. "Doc" Smith did both one better and had the planets in two galaxies form when those two galaxies "collided".

Here's a star (for real) that's being flung from our galaxy at over 1.5 million miles per hour.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 07:37 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 78 words, total size 1 kb.

The list can now be found here.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 06:44 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 17 words, total size 1 kb.

The list can now be found here.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 06:07 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 17 words, total size 1 kb.

(2004...2004...2004...)

Carl Sagan: Cosmic Connection (with editing by Jerome Agel) (Cambridge University Press, 2000) and Other Worlds (with editing by Jerome Agel) (Bantam, 1975)

Review can now be found here.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 08:03 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 36 words, total size 1 kb.

(Still in 2004...)

Lewis Thomas: The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher (Lewis Thomas) (Penguin, 197

The review can now be found here.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 07:55 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 36 words, total size 1 kb.

Stanley L. Miller, who helped to demonstrate that simple organic compounds could be formed from simple processes in the early Earth, has died. I did that experiment for my Chemistry II senior thesis in high school.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 09:20 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 44 words, total size 1 kb.

The list can now be seen here.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 06:53 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 17 words, total size 1 kb.

Anyone who can't use a slide rule is a cultural illiterate,
and should not be allowed to vote.

—Robert A. Heinlein

Well, I used to know how to use a sliderule. I still can do some basic calculations on it and have a book on how to use a slipstick that I hope to get to this summer. Just to show that these "obsolete" devices can still be used, I present The International Slide Rule Group, The International Slide Rule Museum and The Slide Rule Universe!

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 11:40 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 100 words, total size 1 kb.

(Halfway through 2004!)

I've been reading Isaac Asimov's massive two-volume original autobiography (In Memory Yet Green and In Joy Still Felt). Yesterday I picked up Foundation, the first of the original Foundation novels, and finished most of it while traveling to and from a picnic. Between the autobiography and the novel, I was curious to see what the names of the original stories were. A query to a list I run (Space Opera, on Yahoo) turned up a link to this page by Raja Thiagarajan, who has done an excellent job of pulling together original art, changes in titles, and changes between magazine and book versions.

Interjection (May 23, 2007): This next section was posted as three separate items few days later at the Late, Great Planet Blog, so I'll post it here insrtead of as another item triplet.

more...

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 11:35 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 563 words, total size 4 kb.

(Posted from 2004. We're catching up!)

One of my favorite works of that much-maligned portion of science fiction known as "space opera" is a book called The Legion of Space by Jack Williamson. Much of the action takes place at "Barnard's Runaway Star", a star with a large proper motion. more...

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 10:28 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 97 words, total size 1 kb.

(Yes, I've mentioned this book before. Yes, this is another recycled posting. Yes, I will be mentioning this book again. And again.)

One of the biggest inspirations to science fiction has been a little book called The World, The Flesh and The Devil by J.D. Bernal. There are a couple of versions available online, this one is pretty good (if you ignore some of the additions).

For a good addition, however, I recommend this posting at Impearls. Michael McNeil got permission to post Freeman Dyson's look back and speculations forward from Bernal's seminal work.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 07:57 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 108 words, total size 1 kb.

One of the most invaluable sites on the web. By the time you work through the Atomic Rockets section, you'll be ready to fly your own spaceship!

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 07:55 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 43 words, total size 1 kb.

Another good non-fiction reference is Borderlands of Science by the late Charles Sheffield. As with the previous book mentioned, Baen Books has an electronic version available. If I could get anywhere near the level of these stories, I'd be a very happy camper.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 07:51 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 49 words, total size 1 kb.

Indistinguishable from Magic is a non-fiction book by the late Dr. Robert L. Forward. He takes a look at (what was at the time of the writing) some bleeding-edge science. A good book for reference if you're writing science fiction. And, even better, Baen Books has an electronic version available!

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 07:49 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 56 words, total size 1 kb.

One possible setting for a story that I'd like to write is on the Moon, around the time that it starts to get explored again. This work is considered one of the seminal papers on the structure of the Moon.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 07:46 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 50 words, total size 1 kb.

"Come on, then, back to Creation. I mustn't waste any more time. They'll think I've lost control again and put it all down to evolution."

(The Supreme Being, Time Bandits)

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 07:01 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 36 words, total size 1 kb.

"He showed me a little thing, the quantity of an hazelnut, in the palm of my hand, and it was as round as a ball. I looked thereupon with eye of my understanding and though: What may this be? And it was answered generally thus: it is all that is made."

(Julian of Norwich, a 14th century hermitess)

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 08:24 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 68 words, total size 1 kb.

(Made up of 100% previously blathered ramblings!)

Man, you never know where you'll end up on the information superhighway. Some chance remarks and related postings at the ever excellent Centauri Dreams led me to this site and then this site. I passed the links onto a friend, who passed back this link. And somehow or another, through various people, I've had some talks about Dyson Spheres, J.D. Bernal's The World, The Flesh and The Devil, Cordwainer Smith and the Instrumentality of Mankind and Olaf Stapledon and the origins of Star Maker, back to Dyson and this time trees in space, and the Orion "boom boom" rocket. more...

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 06:35 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 151 words, total size 3 kb.

(This posting is made of 100% recycled bits and bytes!)

I'm not qualified to tell if this guy has a legitimate set of theories or not. But, I often wonder if "mainstream scientists" are just feeding conspiracy theorists by ignoring him. more...

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 06:32 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 93 words, total size 1 kb.

Reasons Why A Slide Rule (And Paper Pad) Is Better Than An X-Workstation:

—A Slide Rule doesn't shut down abruptly when it gets too hot.

—One hundred people all using Slide Rules and Paper Pads do not start wailing and screaming due to a single-point failure. more...

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 09:10 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 276 words, total size 2 kb.