#hypershipping

[crosseyedcricketart]

U.S. Space & Rocket Center: Travel Thoughts

Original post link / Original post date: September 14 2023

“The U.S. Space & Rocket Center is a Smithsonian Affiliate, the Official Visitor Center for NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, and the home of Space Camp. We have one of the largest collections of rockets and space memorabilia on display anywhere in the world.”

Information: Open Daily – 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. Closed on: Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s Day. Address: U.S. Space & Rocket Center One Tranquility Base Huntsville, AL 35805 (256) 837 3400 1 800 637 7223

Admission prices (General Admission): Adult & Senior: $30 Child: $20 Smithsonian Affiliate memberships are available for purchase.  This information is gathered from what is available on the website. Prices and such may differ in person as opposed to online.

Links: Home page Contact Page Plan Your Day

The U.S. Space & Rocket Center is one of the most interesting and insightful experiences for American History I have ever visited, and it’s located in Huntsville, Alabama. The museum is made up of the gardens and the exhibits, featuring both military and space technology.

This is the home of Space Camp, allowing for STEM education as a focus. A large part of the museum is the Saturn V Hall, featuring an authentic Saturn V rocket hanging from the ceiling, being one of the few in the entire world.

There are other activities at the rocket center available in your ticket or available to purchase on top of your ticket. Some of these include the SCUBA experience, DIVR+, G-Force Accelerator, Multi-Axis Trainer, Flight Simulator Experience, HyperShip, and more.

If you have the time to, I would take a trip to the U.S. Space & Rocket Center and see some amazing history and you might be able to meet a NASA scientist while you’re there.

*While we’re here: I do my absolute best to not post any persons who are in any of my photos. Even if there’s not much legality around public photos, I do not want to ever post someone without their consent. I do my best to blur out all faces that are in the frame of the photo. 

As always, I hope you’re having a good day/night wherever you are, and most of all- Happy travels!

[davidawko]

abaddones #vibe

#street #highlights

#freak #liminality

#liminalspaces #hlures

#making #artist

#vissual #vission

#texture #me #stories #streetlight #architecture #core #effect #photography #instagram #hlurs #hypercore #hyperskill #hypertext #hyperarchitecture #hyperial #hypermax #hypership #hyperfreak #max #HyperVision #HyperThing #Hypers #Hyper #HyperVision #HyperLiminality

#HyperFire #Fire #HyperHypes #HyperFreak #HyperFeeing #HyperFeels #HyperColor #HyperFeelings #Hypertask

[nulljeager]

Boop

Reblogs > Likes

[galaxies-unknown-a]

Headcanons - Soundwriter

Writer calls Soundwave ‘Vapor’ because his name reminds her of the music style ‘Vaporwave’.

Soundwave has yet to find an appropriate nickname for Writer that is not derogatory thanks to his recordings.

Soundwave has memorized certain pressure points on Writer but has never used them to his advantage.

He knows exactly how to make her uncomfortable and will only do so as a last resort so that she’ll s t o p whatever she’s doing.

Writer has called Soundwave ‘tentacles’ exactly once.

She has a tendency to hug any tendrils that come near her when they’re hanging out, for the sole reason that she likes hugging things but hugging people freaks her out.

Soundwave has confiscated all her pencils and only lets her use them when he’s present.

He has used a small triangle in the burn scar on her hand to tickle her before- it’s literally the one place she’s okay getting tickled.

Writer has a tendency to teleport onto Soundwave’s shoulder when he visits- at this point it’s so regular that he’s surprised when she doesn’t do it.

Soundwave has confided to Writer privately about his misgivings with the Decepticons. Writer has tried to remain a neutral party on that front, but she has made it clear and known that she would side with the Autobots over the Decepticons in that universe.- But she has yet to meet the Autobots of this reality.

Writer has, many times, randomly messaged Soundwave memes while he was aboard the Nemesis. His reply is usually a hug-attack the second he can find her... Alongside playing every vine he can find while she’s in his clutches.

Suffice to say... These two are the definition of ‘will make you laugh if at all possible’.

They’re both really soft with one another regardless.

Who’s more protective? GOOD LUCK FINDING OUT.

If you hurt one or the other I’d recommend lying down in your own grave right now, just sayin’-

[cherrygingers]

idk man this seems a little home of sexual

all of my straight guy friends: you need to watch jojo its my favorite show

me: ok

Avdol: polnareff, whip it out right now

me: ...this seems a little gay-

all my straight guy friends: THEYRE NOT GAY, THEY’RE COMFORTABLE WITH THEIR SEXUALITY AS STRAIGHT MEN

[balthaazzaar]

This movie is actually as gay as everyone is making it out to be and I love that

[thejennyeverywhereproject]

V.

The image of the tall, imposing woman with her dark hair cut short, wearing a trim white suit, was famous all over the hypercontinuum: Amelia Midnight, transtemporal adventuress, Captain of the hypership Zephyrus, and, in a number of different continua, one of the mothers of Jenny Everywhere.

The details varied, as they so often did. Sometimes she was Jenny's biological mother, sometimes she was her father, sometimes she found the infant Jenny adrift in the Overvoid after making an emergency shift. The result was the same: she hid Jenny away on the secret interdimensional island of Barbelo where she kept those she wished to protect. There, Jenny was raised by her other mother, a woman Amelia had rescued from dire peril, and at times other partners of theirs as well. Her other mother's name in those cases was usually the Princess Katerina Corwin, and it was her last name that Jenny often took.

Growing up, Jenny had heard much about her mother's adventures, her battles against tyrant kings and elder gods, even facing Abstracts themselves. Inevitably, one day Jenny ran away from home without telling any of her parents. Or someone--sometimes it was her fellow shifter Penny Anywhere, or Laura Drake--arrived there and Jenny became curious about the outside world. Or the Island of Barbelo had been destroyed by one of Captain Midnight's many enemies, and Jenny had been its only survivor.

Regardless, all those story-paths had converged and led her here. The Island of Barbelo was long gone. The Zephyrus had another Captain. The Princess Katerina lay in a glass coffin, still awaiting a cure for the curse her own mother had cast on her. And Amelia Midnight had settled down and achieved a kind of respectability, becoming an Archon of the Redoubt, passing on her scarf and goggles to her daughter.

[spenceraverywrites]

So, I don’t have a WIP to show off this Sunday in Six Sentences, but I do have the beginning of a story that I’m not sure I’ll ever develop further. It was really just a pick-me-up challenge: I was feeling a bit low today, and just let myself write.

It centers on a girl who gets broken up with by her fiance, and in a moment of resolution, decides that this is a sign to do something impulsive: in that case... well, read on and see.

Maybe this will be something I develope further. I’ve always kind of wanted to write a magic solarpunk story, which is where this is headed.

Sarina Maesin received the note at 3:53 a.m., one of the few times that Fable City was quiet and at peace.

The note was High Priority, so her implants forced her awake: anything set above Level 8 did, including work, which she hated but knew was a tiny bit necessary. Being a Bijou often meant odd hours when there were bigger, grander orders or jewels and augments to craft, and today had been an odd houred day: she'd only be tucked in bed an hour, bleary from the rare eight hour shift she'd had to suffer through, eyes still pinching at the corners from staring through her lenses as she formed new facets.

"Open," she groaned, fingers too stiff to do the proper twitch commands, and her eyescreens lit up in a faded orange, washing her vision with eye-stinging clarity a wide screen set to her mailbag mailbox popped up, and the Level 8 mail opened.

There was no title, but there was Aracelle's Link ID and a time stamp. Below, there were just two words:

We're done.

No preamble, no "It's not you, it's me", no simpering kindness to dull the blow that her fiance was leaving without any more than two words.

Sarina sighed and turned over in bed, and didn't even bother with tears: this

She thumbed through spam every time this happened because even in a near-perfect feature, people still built bots that pumped out more ads for male enhancement mods than society ever needed. She deleted those first with her waking, twi

Are you interested in being a kind colonizer?

Sarina sniffed a bit too loudly: hard enough that it made her cough. In another time, and definitely on Earth, her midnight skin would have meant she was being kindly colonized. Now, it only meant going to a genuinely empty rock in the void of space and trying to hardscrabble things for a while before going back home on the next hypership crossing the system.

Still, a big part of her wished they'd say "resident" instead of colonizer. Even here on Marte, still close enough to Earth, the word stung, as if a genetic memory.

There was a few paragraphs about Anemone: it was a sea planet with hundreds of island and a 90/10 split on water to land. It was tropical, and the pictures of the major cities -all with flowy sounding names like Peleram, Jutune, and Clari - had colorful sands, illuminated by the twin moons high in the sky. It looked like a vacation promo, more than her potential new home.

Like all experiemental planets, it had two variables meant to augment life so they'd seem "interesting": on this planet, everyone had to surge in gills and webbing -for living an amphibious life- and you had to get an augment so that you could interact with the hyper-strong magnetic field of the planet, thus producing what this company had flat-out called "magic".

That seemed pretty kick to Sarina.

If you said or even thought yes to any, consider becoming a new resident of Anemone, then please, read the information below, and take a chance: apply today!

There were some flashy charts, some statistics, and a few videos that she skimmed through. She set the rest of them to brain load once she went into REM: she'd watch everything in depth later.

She did have Melo check it: house A.I. were snappy and smarter than any sapient, and could sniff out lies from a pile of nice-seeming facts. When it came back completely clear -Melo had even pulled genuine websites and links and profiles, along with the planet's data- Sarina scrolled down to the simple submission form.

Perhaps it was being awake so late. Perhaps it was a bit of loneliness. In all honesty, it was probably the dull thud of resolution she was feeling. The break-up rang through her, vibrating down to her bones.

Aracelle and her had been on the rocks for the last two years, on again only to be right back off. It'd become their thing: Aracelle would send her

This time, it had been just two words. That was enough to make it feel much more final.

There were a thousand spots left for Fable City: a thousand other people who'd get on a hypership next Friday, after a battery of medical. In two weeks, she could shift her work to another place: she freelanced anyways, and her office in the Artificer District was easy enough to fit into a few cargo crates and setup elsewhere.

She could do this: she could keep things permanently off.

Most of the information auto-filled from her public profile: she just had to select a few things. First,the type of living she'd like -compact and suburban- and what type of work she'd like to do. She almost opted for none: everywhere had Basic Income Guarantees, but she'd still want to freelance. Maybe Bijou were rare on Anemone. She could always switch if she just wanted the experience.

Finally, her preference for magic.

That felt strange, but as she looked at the list, she found herself imaging all of the holos she'd watched as a kid. Opus Alexandria -Earth's revival of the ancient library- had digitized all the books that could be found, and Sarina had tore through every bit of fantasy. She'd devoured everything from boy wizards to fae in forests, girls with swords who could see the threads of things and women who were half dragon.

She had thought that was kid stuff, but here she was, 29 and single, and about to choose magic. She snorted again.

Undecided. That felt best. She'd let what happened...happen. If this was even real, that is.

A few more clicks and she was able to submit. Her implants went dark, and she exhaled into the perfect cool of her apartment, ready to go back to sleep.

Twenty minute later, her implants woke her again with eye stinging clarity. It was a new note: not from Aracelle, but from The Anemone Movement. She thumbed it open with a groan, and blinked the letters into clarity.

Dear, Sarina Maesin,

We are happy to notify you that you have been accepted for placement on Anemone as one of the thousand residents of Fable City, located on Marte.

We will be in contact with you soon! Get ready for your new life as a new resident of the town of Nereilin!

"Nice," Sarina whispered. That was much quicker than she'd expected. A few pings came in with forms and digi-flyers advertising Nereilin. It was a smaller town of 6,141 sapients with a human and faerun leaning population: much, much less dense than Fable City, but still enough that she could find work.

At the very least, Sarina would chase this in a few days at the general meeting she'd received a pin for, just to see what happened. It was in one of the spires downtown, so it was sure to be safe: she wouldn't get inducted into a cult and not be able to tell anyone. And If it was legit, then she'd really do it: she had more than enough in her pocket to move rock any day, and now… no ties. Her family had relocated back to Earth to live in their genetic homeland once Sarina had finished university on the moon.

Now, It was all a matter of planning.

She opened a fresh note without thinking, not even bothering with a reply to Aracelle's original message because honestly, the break-up was stinging now, more than her eye screens ever could. Sarina even titled it, to be nice: About Breaking Up With Me. Might as well call it what it is.

I saw your message. Thanks.

That's fine that we're done.

I'm thinking of going into space anyways.

[alexanderrm]

I actually have the opposite feelings and love eg. what the 2004 Battlestar Galactica did where they use Jump Drive tactically (sometimes at great risk), making FTL integrated into an otherwise moderately hard SF setting rather than feeling tacked on, but this is a pretty cool idea for the opposite too.

I also had a different opposite thought while reading the first couple paragraphs; it'd be nice to see someone invert the trope altogether and just make Hyperspace an alternate dimension of totally normal space-time that happens to have incredibly compressed dimensions relative to ours, you can have trading posts there and if you meet an enemy ship you can have a totally normal fight there, with a relatively similar density of matter, probably some stars and planets that formed naturally and aren't full of demons where you can land, and perhaps fight over if the cost of switching back and forth to normal space makes them somewhat more valuable for taking on supplies.

This wouldn't be optimal for making a Star Trek-esque setting where you can travel around your own state and visit adjacent ones quite freely but crossing the galaxy is effectively impossible, since it would give you momentum-based travel rather than a maximum speed and a need to resupply (if you had a ratio of say 100 light-years to 1 light-day, that'd make it tremendously costly for the Enterprise to roam from system to system going in and out of planetary orbits, but any civilization able to send a sublight ship to alpha centauri could send a hypership to the delta quadrant for the same cost), but it could have all sorts of interesting effects for hard SF writing.

Thought on science fictional hyperspaces:

So, like a lot of science fiction writers, in a couple of my science fiction settings I explain “fast” interstellar communication and travel by saying it involves sending messages and spacecraft through “hyperspace.” Hyperspace is a sort of “basement” of our universe that messages and ships can pass through; it is more compact than our space, and there is a correspondence between locations in hyperspace and locations in our space. So, a ship can enter hyperspace, travel a few hundred or thousand AU or a light year or something, go back to our space, and be in the Alpha Centauri system. This is possible because hyperspace offers a possible path where e.g. the distance between our solar system and Alpha Centauri is less than 4 light years; hyperspace is a cosmic short-cut. You can send radio messages through the same short-cut, if you stick the right parts of the transmitter and receiver into hyperspace.

So far, so I good, but like a lot of science fiction writers I also prefer to limit hyperspace travel so it’s more-or-less useless for relatively short journeys, e.g. between planets of our solar system within the orbit of Uranus. This is mostly because I like that hard SF stuff where space travel within a solar system is treated relatively realistically and a solar system still feels big. I’m OK with hyperspace for letting my characters get to Tau Ceti in less than twelve years, but when it comes to asteroid mining, space battles, etc., I want that stuff to work more-or-less like it would in real life. Larry Niven had a nice approach for this: just say you can’t enter or exit hyperspace close to a large mass, so e.g. you can’t enter or exit hyperspace within 20 AU of our sun. To travel to Alpha Centauri through hyperspace you have to travel out beyond Sol’s hyper-limit, then go into hyperspace and take the hyperspace short-cut, then exit hyperspace outside Alpha Centauri’s hyper-limit, then travel the rest of the way in our space. A hyper-limit limitation on hyperspace travel works well for me. I’m less satisfied with it as a limitation on hyperspace communication though, and a few days ago I had an idea for that which I like.

It came to me as I was thinking about how hyperspace travel is kind of analogous to being able to travel through the interior of a sphere instead of being limited to travelling on its outer surface. If you have a sphere the size of Earth and you want to get to a point on the exact opposite side of it, if you have to travel along the outer circumference that’s a journey of 40,000 kilometers, but if you could travel in a straight line through the center of the sphere that’s only 12,750 kilometers. Travelling from Sol to Alpha Centauri in our space is analogous to being limited to travelling along the outer circumference of a sphere, making the same journey through hyperspace is analogous to taking a short-cut through the interior of the sphere.

And it occurred to me to mentally pull on one feature of this analogy: a short-cut through the interior of a sphere would be much more useful for long journeys than for short ones. Again, let’s say the sphere is the size of Earth. If you only want to travel one meter, the difference between a path along the outer circumference of the sphere and a short-cut through its interior is very small. A 1 meter path along flat ground is pretty close to being a straight line. On the other hand, if you want to get to the other side of the sphere, the path along the sphere’s outer circumference is more than three times as long as the path through the center of the sphere.

And I had the idea: what if hyperspace works in a way that’s analogous to that? Maybe the distance between, say, Earth and Jupiter is analogous to a 1 meter distance on the surface of the Earth; so small that the shortest possible path through hyperspace is almost as long as the shortest possible path through our space. Then the distance to Alpha Centauri might be more analogous to a journey across a large fraction of Earth’s circumference; it’s big enough that the shortest possible path through our space is orders of magnitude longer than the shortest possible path through hyperspace. The geometry involved is probably a lot less straightforward than spherical geometry to humans, so for short distances the relationship between our space distances and hyperspace distances might even invert; you might have a set-up where 100 light years in our space is 5 light years in hyperspace, 4 light years in our space is 1 light year in hyperspace, and 1 AU in our space is 4 AU in hyperspace.

This might get you a set-up where you can have relatively fast interstellar communication and travel, but within the orbit of Neptune (or equivalent distance) you’re stuck dealing with light lag.

It would also have the interesting effect that hyperspace travel gets faster for longer journeys. A 1 year voyage might take you to Alpha Centauri, a 5 year voyage might take you 100 light years, a 20 year voyage might take you to the other side of the galaxy, a 100 year voyage might take you to a distant galaxy billions of light years away.

[konnl]

Edward Willett expands the Worldshaper universe with his new novel, Master of The World

For September’s guest author we have Edward Willett, who is a writer and performer from Regina, Saskatchewan. He has authored more than 50 books of various types. He is well known for writing in the science fiction and fantasy genres. Some of his work has been published by DAW Books in New York, such as the novels Lost in Translationand 2009 Aurora Award-winning novel Marseguro. He has also been published with Bundoran Press. Let’s welcome him to the blog.

Hi Edward Willett, thank you for joining us. Can you introduce yourself to the readers?

Hi, readers! As the introduction says, I’m a multiply published author—I’ve actually lost count of exactly how many books I’ve had published. They run the gamut from non-fiction (local history, science books, biographies, and computer books) to my first love, science fiction and fantasy. There’s even one book of poetry! I’ve written for children, young adults, and adults.

I started my career as a newspaper reporter at the weekly Weyburn (Saskatchewan) Review. (Weyburn was the town where I grew up.) At the ripe old age of 24r, I became news editor there. Then, in my late 20s, I became communications officer for the then-fledgling Saskatchewan Science Centre, which is what brought me from Weyburn to Regina, where I’ve lived ever since. After five years at the science centre, I quit my job and became a fulltime freelance writer, which I’ve now been for 26 years.

In addition to writing (and some editing), I’ve done quite a bit of acting and singing, both professionally and just for fun. I’m married to a telecommunications engineer and have one daughter, who is currently enrolled at the University of Toronto. Oh, and we have a black Siberian cat, Shadowpaw—can’t forget him, since I used his name on my own little publishing company, Shadowpaw Press.

Tell us about your latest release, Master of The World.

Master of the World is the second book in the Worldshapers series, published by DAW Books, which began with Worldshaper last year. In Worldshaper, the main character, Shawna Keys, has a pleasant, low-key life: she’s just opened a pottery studio in a small city in Montana, she has a great boyfriend, she has a wonderful best friend. But then everything changes in an instant. Black-clad gunmen storm the coffee shop where she’s having lunch with her friend. Her friend is killed. She’s about to be killed. She refuses to believe it’s happening…and just like that, it isn’t. It hasn’t. The gunmen are gone. The coffeeshop is undamaged…but her friend, Aesha, isn’t there, and no one remembers that she ever existed.

A mysterious stranger, Karl Yatsar, shows up and explains to Shawna that her world, which she thought was the only world, is in fact a Shaped world—and that she Shaped it exactly the way she wanted it when she was thrust into it ten years before. Not only that, it’s only one of a plentitude of Shaped worlds in a vast extra-dimensional Labyrinth. And now, she’s about to lose control of it. The Adversary, the leader of the gunmen, who touched her forehead before threatening to kill her, has stolen her knowledge of the world and is already turning it against her. They have to flee her world entirely…not just to save her life, but because Karl believes she is a powerful enough Shaper—even though, much to his shock and bewilderment, she didn’t remember being one—to travel through all the worlds of the Labyrinth, gathering the knowledge of each, and taking it to the mysterious Ygrair, the one who gave all the Shapers, who originally came from the First World—our world—their own worlds to Shape. Ygrair has been wounded and weakened, and needs someone to bring her the knowledge of as many worlds as possible so that she can save the Labyrinth and all its myriad worlds from the depredations of The Adversary, who wants to enslave and then destroy them all.

In Worldshaper, Shawna and Karl embark on a hazardous cross-country journey, trying to stay one step ahead of The Adversary, to find the only place where a Portal can be opened into the next world, where Shawna can begin the quest she’s been saddled with

 In Master of the World, Shawna finds herself in that next world over, but without her guide and mentor—Karl was left behind. In her first two hours, she’s rescued from a disintegrating island by an improbable flying machine she recognizes from Jules Verne’s Robur the Conqueror, then seized from it by raiders flying tiny personal helicopters, and finally taken to a submarine that bears a strong resemblance to Captain Nemo’s Nautilus. Oh, and accused of being both a spy and a witch.

Shawna expects—hopes!—Karl Yatsar will eventually follow her into this new steampunk realm, but exactly where and when he’ll show up, she hasn’t a clue.

In the meantime, she has to navigate a world where two factions fanatically devoted to their respective leaders are locked in perpetual combat, figure out who the Shaper of the world is, find him or her, and obtain the secret knowledge of this world’s Shaping. Then she has to somehow reconnect with Karl Yatsar, and escape to the next Shaped world in the Labyrinth…through a Portal she has no idea how to open.

Master of The World is part of the Worldshaper storyline, how many novels do you estimate to have in the series?

The series is open-ended: the concept allows me to tell any kind of story in any kind of world. Potentially, it could have any number of novels (although I know how it ends, there’s no rush getting there). I’m currently writing Book 3, which takes place in a world with werewolves and vampires!

You’ve done a lot of writing, as mentioned on your website, over 50 books. When and what did you first start writing about?

I’ve always been drawn to science fiction and fantasy. I have two older brothers, both of whom read it, so the books were around the house. My very first complete short story, written when I was eleven, was called “Kastra Glazz: Hypership Test Pilot.” My mother typed it up for me and I showed it to my Grade 7 English teacher, Tony Tunbridge, who did me the honor of taking it seriously and providing some actual criticism—criticism which, rather than prompting me to give up, instead prompted me to try to make the next thing I wrote better. (I dedicated my recent stand-alone science-fiction novel The Cityborn to Tony by way of thanking him.) I went on to write three science fiction and fantasy novels in high school, so my course was set early on.

Edward, you are a performer too. Care to elaborate more about this aspect of your life?

I’ve always sung—my father was a choral director—and I got the acting bug at age 11 when I played Petruchio in a one-act adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew. I carried on acting and singing, whenever I got the chance. In Weyburn, while I was at the newspaper, I was a founding member of Crocus 80 Theatre, a new community-theatre group, and had leading roles in many plays, and also directed twice. When I moved to Regina, I immediately gravitated to Regina Lyric Light Opera (now Regina Lyric Musical Theatre), a community theatre group that did musicals (it was in a production of The Music Man that I first met my future wife.) I did a lot of shows with Lyric, Regina Little Theatre, and Regina Summer Stage.

When I went full-time freelance, in addition to writing, for three years I performed with a professional opera company, Prairie Opera, which did six-week tours of Saskatchewan schools, typically two shows a day. That made a nice addition to my fledgling freelance income. A few years later I was hired by Regina’s professional theatre company, Globe Theatre, for a production of On Golden Pond (I played the boyfriend from California). As a result of that, I became a member of Canadian Actors’ Equity. I’ve continued to perform every chance I get, both professionally and (more often) just for fun. I’ve been in dozens of plays, musicals, and operas. I’ve also sung with many choirs, including the Canadian Chamber Choir, an auditioned group made up of singers from across the country.

I’ve combined my writing and performing sides a few times in shows I’ve written and directed. Two I’ve done for Regina Lyric Musical Theatre had fantastical elements. In 2013 I wrote and directed As Time Goes By: A Love Story with Music and Ghosts, which did indeed have ghosts in it, and this past year I wrote and directed The Music Shoppe, which might not sound fantastical, but in fact took place in a mystical music store with an ageless proprietor and a mysterious mechanical pianist with magical abilities. Both were hits with audiences.

What was your most challenging novel to write to date?

Worldshaper was challenging because it’s designed to set up an open-ended series. My editor at DAW Books, Hugo Award-winner Sheila E. Gilbert, and I spent a lot of time trying to make sure that everything that was needed to enable the series to work going forward was built into the first book. It was also a bit challenging to write because it’s an interesting mix of first-person (the main character, Shawna Keys) and third-person (her guide and mentor, Karl Yatsar, and her enemy, The Adversary) viewpoints.

Now that Master of the World is released, do you have other novels in the works?

In addition to Book 3 of the Worldshapers series, I’ve got a middle-grade fantasy, Fire Boy, in circulation to publishers; I’m finishing the editing of a young adult science fiction novel, Star Song, which I’ll be bringing out myself through Shadowpaw Press; and I’ll be writing another young-adult story, a dark fantasy called Changers (involving shapeshifters) for ChiZine Publications. I have some other books I want to bring out through Shadowpaw in the not-too-distant future, novels I’ve never found a home for that I think deserve a chance to see the light of day, but I have to fit those in around other work so they won’t be for a while yet.

And I have ideas for many more…

Is your writing and performance inspiration intertwined or are these parts of your life entirely separate?

It’s all one thing. I find there’s a great overlap between being and actor and director and being an author. Actors pretend to be other people; writers do the same. Directors move actors around on stage and guide them in their interactions with each other in order to best tell the story being presented. So do writers. I’ve always felt, when I’m acting, even though I’m bringing some other author’s characters to life, that I’m using many of the same mental muscles as I do when I’m trying to make my own characters live and breathe on the page.

Also, in Worldshapers, I’m able to make lots of musical -theatre jokes, so there’s that.

Any final thoughts you’d like to share with the readers and aspiring writers?

I urge both readers and aspiring writers to check out my podcast, The Worldshapers. It features hour-long conversations with some of the biggest names in science fiction and fantasy writing, with a focus on their creative process, from the generation of ideas to the planning process, the writing process, and the editing process. I also ask them about their philosophy of writing: why they do it, why they think anyone does it, and what impact they hope it has on readers. The interviews are all fascinating and offer great insights into the writing process. You can find it www.theworldshapers.com.

I particularly like the episode where E.C. Blake (the pseudonym under which I wrote a fantasy trilogy called The Masks of Aygrima) interviews me…

Thank you Edward Willett for joining us!

You can find Edward through the following links below.

Website: edwardwillett.com

Amazon: amazon.com/Edward-Willett/e/B001IR1LL6/

Goodreads: goodreads.com/author/show/22635.Edward_Willett

[gamejunkiewebsite-blog]

Now On Steam Hypership Out of Control 2 SUMMARY: Space is an unsafe put for even the most prepared starship pilot, brimming with space rocks, kaleidoscopic drifting squares, space mines, and sweet coins.

[davidawko]

abaddones #vibe

#street #highlights

#freak #liminality

#liminalspaces #hlures

#making #artist

#vissual #vission

#texture #me #stories #streetlight #architecture #core #effect #photography #instagram #hlurs #hypercore #hyperskill #hypertext #hyperarchitecture #hyperial #hypermax #hypership #hyperfreak #max #HyperVision #HyperThing #Hypers #Hyper #HyperVision #HyperLiminality

#HyperFire #Fire #HyperHypes #HyperFreak #HyperFeeing #HyperFeels #HyperColor #HyperFeelings #Hypertask

[the-hidden-village]

Log Tape 12

Red sat there in the chair, holding a bottle of run in one hand and a recorder in the other. “Oh look, what a shock, another reason why Pink was a little bitch-I mean, Pink was flawed.” Stars, it was finally getting to the boy, and manifesting in physical form. Whenever it came to his mother, he’d now turn Pink and his powers would be magnified for a short amount of time. It was a double edged sword though; his emotions would be unstable and he’d be working on a emotion minimum. He sighed as he began to chug the bottle. “I warned that kid that he’d need to see a therapist, I warned him not to hold it all in, yet here we are, in the future, where it seems like shit’s about to hit the fan.” The inner warrior in his gut kept nagging him that something was around the corner. Something...he wasn’t sure what, but something was coming!

On a side note, there was something more important to take care of.

“Shit, I nearly forgot about the gem ring. Gotta take care of that first.” He gulped down more of the rum. “Something’s about to happen, I can feel it. Too bad I ain’t gonna be around to see it.” Swinging the keys of a hypership, Red glanced out the window as he saw boxes near the port entrance of the ship. “Anyways, I’ve got a gem ring to take care of.”

[randomisedgaming]

The very best of Xbox 360 Indie titles and what other platforms they are available on

Over the last week Randomised Gaming has been researching and playing the best and worst games on the Xbox 360 Indie Games (XBLIG) format. While playing 3398 in the space of a week is impossible, we have tried to cover as many games as we can in the time frame. Before the shutdown event on October 7th 2017, which is the end of day tomorrow. We’ve also covered a nice sections of them in our reason three part video series:

So today we present a work in progress list of the best games on the platform, some of these titles are already available on other platforms. No doubt we have also missed a few of the great games on this service, but this should serve as a guide. Randomised Gaming will update this list over the weekend up until the shutdown. As there is so many games on the service no doubt we have missed a few classic.

Quite a few of these games are available on Steam and PSN network and even Xbox One, but many aren’t and will be lost once this service closes. It’s fair to say there are plenty of awful games on the service but many should be re-released on the Xbox One, this is the best of the games we have played so far. And also where if possible you can still buy them or not!

Games highlighted in bold are available on another format.

2D Voxel Madness (Listed on Steam Greenlight) A Voxel Action Aah Impossible Rescue Aah Little Atlantis (Free Flash web browser version available) AardBloxX (Developer Bat Country Entertainment, website closed) Aban Hawkns & the 1000 Spikes (1001 Spikes on Steam) Ace on Steroids Aeternum (Available on Steam) Akane the Kunoichi (Available on Steam) All the Bad Parts Along Came a Spider (Released on Desura for PC, but this service is now defunct also listed on Steam Greenlight made by WobblyTooth) Alpha Squad Amazing Princess Sarah (Available on Steam, Xbox One and Mobile) Ancient Trader Aphelion 1 & 2 Apple Jack Apple Jack 2 Aqua Kitty Aqualibrium Arcadecraft Arkedo Series – 01 Jump! Arkedo Series – 02 Swap! Arkedo Series – 03 PIXEL! Astralis Astroman Avatar Ninja 2 Avatar Ninja Avatar Typing Bad Caterpillar Battle High 2 Battle High: San Bruno Beat Hazard Beat Hazard Ultra Biology Battle Bird Assassin BitStream Bleed Blood & Bacon Bloody Checkers (Supposed to be coming to Steam 2017) Boot Hill Heroes Border Wars. Break Limit Breath of Death VII Breeze Broken Pearl CarneyVale Showtime Cell: Emergence Chester (Chester One on Steam) Chompy Chomp Chomp Chronoblast Chus Dynasty Compromised Coral's Curse Crosstown (Author released a donate what you like PC version) Cthulhu Saves the World Cubicity Cubism Cursed Loot Dark Quest (Available on Steam) Dark Reign (delisted) Dead Kings (Supposed to be coming to Steam 2017) Dead Pixel Death Goat DELTA Desert Commando Diehard Dungeon Distant Galaxies DLC Quest DLC Quest: Live Freemium or Die DUENDE ＜デュエンディ＞ Earth Shaker (ZX Spectrum title) ENGO Entropy Escape Goat Evil Quest Explosionade Final Rift Fist Puncher Flight Adventure 2 Flotilla Flowrider Funky Balls Gateways! Ginga Saikutsudan (delisted) Glow Arcade Racer Gravitron360 Grid Space Shooter Head Shot 2 Heavy Recoil Hypership Out Of Control Hypership Still Out of Control HYPOTENUSE I, Zombie Inferno! Infinity Danger (Available on gamersgate.com) Invasion Ionball Iota Jet Set Willy (ZX Spectrum title) Johnny Carnage Juggle!, Junk Fields Kung Fu Fight! Lair of the Evildoer Laser Cat Leave Home Lightfish. Little Racers Little Racers Street. Lots of Guns Lumi Magicians & Looters Manic Miner (ZX Spectrum title) Mechanoid Army Meep 2 Mega Shooter 11 Midnight Bites Missile Escape Monsters (Probably) Stole My Princess Motorheat Mount your Friends Niji (koi) Ninja Train Ninja War STOLEN SCROLLS Nuclear Wasteland Odyssey 3011 Office DisOrders Ogre's Phantasm Sword Quest One Finger Death Punch Oozi: Earth Adventure 1~4 (All in one on Steam) Opposites Orbitron: Revolution OSR Unhinged Overdriven (Overdriven Reloaded available on Steam) Parasitus: Ninja Zero Pendulous Pester Pixelbit Helicopter Challenge Pixelbit Snooker & Pool Platformance: Castle Pain Platformance: Temple Death Poopocalypse Power Up Prismatic Solid qrth-phyl (Available on Steam) Rad Raygun RadianGames Ballistic RadianGames Crossfire RadianGames Crossfire 2 RadianGames Fireball RadianGames Fluid RadianGames Inferno RadianGames JoyJoy Rasternauts Raventhorne Retrofit Overload Revolver 360 Robotriot Saturn 9 Score Rush (Score Rush Extended available on PS4) Shipwreck Shoot 1UP (Available on Steam) SHOOTING CHICKEN REVENGE Sins of the Flesh Smooth Operators Snops Attack!: Zombie Defense Soulcaster II Spartans in Candyland Speedrunner HD Squid Squid Yes! Not So Octopus! Star ninja Storage Inc Super Amazing Wagon Adventure Survivalist (Available on Steam) Sushi Castle T.E.C. 3001 Tacticolor Take Arms Techno Chopper Techno-Kitten Adventure The Deep Cave The TEMPURA of the DEAD The Undead Syndrome The Zombie Shotgun Massacre 2 There Will Be Brains, Thunder Moon Tic Part 1 Titan Attacks Treasure Treasure Fortress Forage Tunnelvision Ultratron Uncraft Me 2 Valkyrius Vampire Rage Vidiot Game Vintage Hero Vorpal Weapons of Choice Wizorb (Available on Steam and PSN and PSN) Wool WoOOPuP! Xenominer Swarm Zombie Football Carnage ダウンタウン激凸ドッジボール！/ Downtown Smash Dodgeball! まもって騎士 / Protect Me Knight 一>◇ 鉄鋼歩兵 / Steel infantry 魔物な勇者と謎の遺跡 / Demonic braves and mysterious ruins 龍炎高校伝説 / Legend of the Dragon Flame High School

Our final word one the matter is this, if any one at Microsoft reads this please keep the Indies service open to at least the end of 2017. There are some truly great games on this service that just haven’t been advertised at all well. Once this service is turned off many of these games will be lost forever.

[protohypfarid]

Link to Protohype Webpage

[wildyoungboy]

[DailyIndieGame] DIG SUPER BUNDLE 89 - Akin Puzzle Cube Hypership Out of Control Russian SuperHero Dead Ivan Torsion Beerman ($1.49 or BTA and get 2 bundles)