We all collect things … some of us more obsessively than others. And we’re all proud of the highlights of our collections, those items that give us big kudos among those with similar interests. Which means that an unnamed friend of renowned artist COOP has secured the kudos crown among space-geeks, having located and purchased the only remaining Gemini spacesuit that wasn’t destroyed or put in a museum somewhere. That’s got to be well worth the re-mortgage he probably had to take out to buy it.
Monthly Archives: August 2007
The invisible cyborg hearing aid
Via Bruce Sterling – a high-tech hearing aid that can’t be seen in use, because it’s completely embedded into the user’s skull. That’s one hell of a body-modification … I hope by the time I’ve deafened myself with too many rock concerts they’ll be making a version with a mind-operated volume control.
Water-propelled jetpack patented
I’m sure I’m not the only one in the room who’s always wanted a jetpack. But they’re dangerous things; not only due to the risk of flying out of control and doing yourself a serious injury, but to the potential of the engine exploding while strapped to your back. A new patent for a water-propelled jetpack removes the latter risk, leaving you at the mercy of nothing but your own piloting skills … which, considering it will only be usable over bodies of water, might not be as much of a problem as it could be. And while we’re on the subject of propulsion and fuel, a Scottish university is studying the possibility of using brewery by-products to make biofuels for car engines. I’ll drink to that.
Cooking up supernovae in the lab
A detailed study of a supernova could tell scientists an awful lot of useful things … but there are obvious reasons why, even if we were able to travel the distances involved, we’d not want to just blast on over to check one out up close and personal. So, we do the next best thing – we recreate a some of the phenomena of a supernova under laboratory conditions.
Friday Free Fiction for 24th August
The times, they are a’changing, as Dylan once whined. Nowhere is that more true than in genre fiction publishing, it seems, with some interesting examples of new delivery systems among this week’s free reads:
At Manybooks.net, they’re rocking the old-school sf novels for free: Gordon Randall Garrett and Laurence Randall Janifer’s The Impossibles and Supermind, to be precise.
Free Speculative Fiction Online list a whole batch of newly available works; go and see, and give the gift of traffic.
Pete Tzinski (of Blood, Blade and Thruster magazine fame) is blogging an online fiction serial called God in the Machine. (As a side note, I reckon this will be one of the fiction formats of the future, so I’ll be watching closely to see how this does.)
The webzine Byzarium returns from the metaphorical wastelands of the intarwebs, complete with their archive of previous material. All new material will be for paid subscribers only – another interesting potential business model for short fiction online.
Classic free pulp-era science fiction: Edmond Hamilton’s “The Man Who Evolved”.
Don Sakers is inviting people to subscribe to his latest ongoing Scattered Worlds novel, Hunt for the Dymalon CygnetHunt for the Dymalon Cygnet. You can read everything that’s been published already for free, and then sign up to get the latest parts before anyone else.
Here’s Paul McAuley’s short story “Gene Wars”.
The first stages of Subterranean Magazine‘s Fall 2007 issue have started to appear – columns, audiobooks and fiction by the big guns of the genre, costing you nix.
Electric Velocipede’s John Klima has Ezra Pines’ story “Antevellum” available as a PDF – read about this satire on Hal Duncan at the EV blog, then grab the file.
And a few bonus tidbits for the writers among the readers:
Nick Mamatas on the scene break, and why you shouldn’t overuse it.
Futurismic’s own Jeremiah Tolbert shares a nugget of wisdom on “the holy math of story”.
Enjoy!
Writers, editors and anyone else – if you want something you’ve written or published on the web for free mentioned here, drop me (Paul Raven) an email to the address listed for me on the Staff page, and I’ll include it in next week’s round-up.