In The Battle for Commitment Planet, the Hammer Worlds are holding Helfort's old sweetheart, Anna Cheung, as prisoner on their stronghold known as Commitment Planet—and they're demanding Helfort's surrender. Well, that's not going to happen; instead Helfort and his crew fly right into the face of the enemy, on a bold mission to set Anna free (along with all the rest of the POWs on Commitment).
Against all odds, Helfort and his crew go in, guns blazing—and before you know it, 350 pages are gone, the story's over, and you're looking forward to Helfort's next exciting battle.
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Written in Time
Jerry & Sharon Ahern
Baen, 644 pages, $7.99 (paperback)
Baen Webscriptions: $6.00 (e-book)
ISBN: 978-1-4391-3399-6
Genre: Alternate History, Military SF,
Time Travel
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For an SF writer, the idea is irresistible: take a military force armed with modern weapons and throw them back in time. As mentioned above, Poul Anderson pulled the trick in “The Man Who Came Early,” and other writers have been doing it ever since. Among the notable examples are Leo Frankowski's Cross-Time Engineer series, John Birningham's Axis of Time series, and the 1980 movie The Final Countdown. By far the biggest name in this area, however, is Eric Flint, whose Ring of Fire series tells of the contemporary town of Grantville, West Virginia, which is somehow thrown back to Germany in the 1630s. The Ring of Fire series has spawned a vast number of follow-up books by Flint and various other writers.
Add Jerry & Sharon Ahern to the list.
In Written in Time, a present-day Nevada family is transplanted back to 1904 by unknown hostiles. But they come prepared with modern weapons, and battle rages between the Naile family and a time-traveling army intent on conquering the world. Things look bad, but the Nailes have some unexpected allies: the Seventh United States Cavalry and Teddy Roosevelt.
Part alternate history, part military SF, Written in Time is all fun.
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Mass Effect: Retribution
Drew Karpyshyn
Del Rey, 368 pages, $7.99 (paperback)
Kindle, Nook: $5.00 (e-book)
ISBN: 978-0-345-52072-2
Series: Mass Effect 3
Genre: Games & Gaming, Military SF
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We're used to novelizations of SF movies; a more recent phenomenon is novelizations of hit video games. With so many games based on fighting, it's not surprising that such novelizations would be a good fit for military SF.
Drew Karpyshyn was lead writer on the game Mass Effect, and he does a good job of translating a rather complex story to the novel form. In the previous two books, Humanity discovered ancient alien technology on Mars and joined the galactic community. Scientist Kahlee Saunders, working for the Ascension Project to help so-called “biotics"—children with exceptional abilities—survived several run-ins with a covert organization called Cerberus.
Now there's a new enemy on the horizon: Reapers, horrific aliens who harvest human organs for their own vile purposes. Only Paul Grayson, a human implanted with Reaper technology, holds the clues to help defeat the Reapers.
There's only one catch: Grayson is being held in a hidden Cerberus facility, and the Reaper tech is slowly taking over his mind. Kahlee enlists the aid of a former war hero to rescue Grayson.
If you know nothing about Mass Effect or video games, don't worry . . . just tell yourself that you're reading another military SF novel, and you'll be fine.
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Galaxiki: A Fictional Galaxy That Anyone Can Edit
www.galaxiki.org
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If you're sick and tired of battles, action, and endless destruction, why not take a vacation and build something up?
Galaxiki isn't a book, it isn't a game . . . but it is science fiction. Sort of.
Created by Joopita Research as a nonprofit project, Galaxiki is a cross between Wikipedia, Facebook, and your favorite Galactic Empire. It's a fictional galaxy that claims to have 1.1 million planetary systems open for exploration—all of them generated according to some principles of astronomy and astrophysics.
Just looking around would be interesting enough, but there's more: users can edit those planetary systems, giving the planets names, inhabitants, whole ecologies. Many systems are community property that anyone can edit, a la Wikipedia. For a nominal charge ($1 as I write this), one can purchase a planetary system for one's exclusive use.
There are all the usual social media accouterments: one can communicate with other members; share lists of your favorite books, movies, music, etc.; or discuss topics (including science fiction, of course) in forums. There are also options to buy a planetary system as a gift for someone else, or to “liberate” one for use by the community.
Currently Galaxiki has over 5,000 members and over 15,000 registered stars (only 1,085,000 left!), and seems to be a fairly lively place. It seems to be a place that any SF reader would appreciate; certainly worth a look.
That's about it for this month. Take it easy, and may all your battles be successful ones.
* * * *
Don Sakers is the author of All Roads Lead to Terra and The Leaves of October. For more information, visit www.scatteredworlds.com.
Copyright © 2011 Don Sakers
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Reader's Department: BRASS TACKS
Dear Stan,
“Enigma,” by Sean McMullen in the January-February issue, had me a bit concerned. First, there was the crew from Earth who had DNA from rats and wolves—who would want to do this?
But the almost pure oxygen atmosphere had me scratching my head. The crew descended in a parasol filled with hydrogen! One spark and the hydrogen and oxygen would explode! Then samples were sent up to the orbiting mothership by rocket. Flames from rockets, in an oxygen atmosphere?
Then there was “shots from a plasma weapon” and one of the crew shooting himself with a “beacon mortar.” All they had to do was light a match. To be sure, there has to be fuel present for the oxygen to burn, but a human body would be just fine.
And remember the Apollo I capsule disaster in 1967, when Grissom, White, and Chaffee died in a pure oxygen atmosphere due to a spark.
Frank Coulter
Pauanui Beach
New Zealand
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The author responds:
I do understand that pure oxygen is a risky environment to be in, but humans have a tendency to get their engineering as good as can be managed, then wear the risk. I commute to work precariously balanced on two wheels with 15 liters of petrol between my legs. It's called a motorbike. Even though my brother's motorbike caught fire some years ago, I wear the risk. NASA astronauts climb up beside a couple of enormous tanks of liquid oxygen and hydrogen, then light a fire underneath. Even after the Challenger disaster showed that this is not entirely safe, they continue to do so. A flame in a pure oxygen atmosphere is fine as long as it is kept away from combustibles. Pure oxygen and combustibles co-existed fine in the Apollo capsule until some worn electrical insulation provided a spark within range of both. A hydrogen-filled parasail is fine unless you mix some oxygen with it and provide a spark. That happened with the Hindenburg, but before that airships were circling the world without catching fire. My premise with Enigma is that exploring it would indeed be a risky business, but that we would do our best and then wear the residual risk. There would certainly be a vastly increased scope for corrosion in Enigma's atmosphere, but I assumed that the engineers of the future took this into account in their choice of materials.
Regarding the use of DNA splicing to enhance animal traits in humans, why not? Engineering one person to be the alpha and the rest to followers would certainly reduce conflict and enhance loyalty on a long mission. Tailoring someone else to be very curious yet ultra cautious should also produce an explorer who is not going to get herself killed when faced with unfami
liar dangers (I used to look after two thousand rats when I was a lab assistant, and they were cautious, curious, and great explorers). Is this any sillier than hiring the second-best candidate for a job because he is likely to fit the company's culture better than the very best? I have seen it done quite often.
In general there are plenty of boundary areas that I blurred in “Enigma.” Current theories regarding the size of Oort Clouds are very rubbery. Some say that they are smallish, with discrete boundaries due to galactic gravitational influences. Others say they are huge and diffuse, and that the Oort clouds of neighboring stars overlap. I chose to assume that they are smallish, with discrete boundaries. If I were able to prove that this was true, I would be publishing in Nature, as well as Analog. Then again, the echo tech I postulated would require petabit/second data transfer rates. This seems a bit of a fantasy, but when I first studied computing I was told by my tutor that megabit/second transfer rates would only ever be possible in science fiction. Today, at work, I'm drawing up plans for a system with data transfer rates speeds in the hundreds of gigabits/second, and that system has to be operational in a few months. The wisdom of a few decades ago can look just as silly as speculations about a few decades into the future.
As far as I am concerned, SF is about telling a good story based on reasonable projections from known science. Demand rigorous proof for everything and SF ceases to exist, leaving you with elves, fairies, and vampires. Nothing wrong with that, of course—some of my best friends are elves, fairies and vampires (and a couple of them are scientists when they take their costumes off), but I also like stories that make me think as well as just providing entertainment. That's why I read SF.
* * * *
Dr Schmidt,
I very much enjoyed your March editorial ("Adjectives that Aren't"). However, and perhaps I'm being a bit pedantic here, it's quite a leap from “a word that qualified or describes a noun or pronoun” to requiring that such qualification describe an “inherent characteristic.” A subjective qualifier is still a qualifier (adjective). Your larger point—that the structure of our language does not differentiate between subjective and objective qualifiers, and perhaps influences our thinking and culture, is well taken. Perhaps you might take a look at the influence of sentence structure in a future column—for example, the common observation that placing verbs at the end of a sentence (as in Latin and German) predisposes a culture to taking orders, vs. languages with a subject-verb-object structure (as in English) making it far easier for listeners to go off in their own directions, without waiting for the end of a sentence.
Miles Fidelman
Newton, MA
* * * *
P.S. Your editorial prompted me to do a little research. It's pretty amazing how many distinctions linguists and grammarians now make between types of “noun modifiers” (e.g., determiners vs. adjectives) and types of each. Not that this makes much difference to those of us who simply have to craft documents that make sense, read well, persuade, etc. (in my case, in the form of proposals, reports, the occasional non-fiction piece).
Actually, my point is that a “subjective qualifier” is nota qualifier—it just looks like one. It's presented as if it describes only the noun that follows (or precedes, in some language) whereas it really refers to the relationshipbetween that noun and somebody who is not mentioned. That's an important distinction, not “quite a leap."
Incidentally, in simple sentences German uses the same subject-verb-object order as English, as in “Ich lese das Buch” (I am reading the book). The “verb-at-the-end” effect only happens when an auxiliary verb is involved, in which case partof the verb moves to the end, as in “Ich habe das Buch gelesen” (I have read the book). How much effect prevailing sentence patterns have on thought patterns is an interesting subject for speculation; I don't know how much actual research has been done on it. (But I'll bet some of our linguist-writers have.)
* * * *
Dear Stan,
I enjoyed reading your thought-provoking (as usual) editorial “Adjectives That Aren't” (March 2011).
You wrote “The problem is exacerbated by widespread teaching that we should try to avoid saying ‘I’ whenever possible.” This reminded me of the book Anthemby Ayn Rand in which the word “I” had been outlawed and everyone was required to use the word “we” instead.
It also reminded me of the Buddhist teaching that although the world appears to be composed of individual entities each of whom refers to himself/herself as “I,” in reality the existence of an individual “I” separate from other individuals is an illusion. The habitual use in probably every language of a word meaning what “I” does in English makes it difficult to see that we are all one in some sense. People from Jamaica use the Rastafarian phrase “I and I” to indicate the oneness of everyone with each other and with God (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rastafarianvocabulary). When I listen to contemporary teachers of nonduality (also called neo-Advaita), I find it paradoxical and amusing when they frequently use the word “I,” but really it's very difficult to avoid using it.
A couple of months ago, after perhaps 55 years of buying Analog, Asimov's, and F&SF in the bookstore each month I finally subscribed to all three magazines!
David Savage
Vienna, VA
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Yes, in some senses we're all connected—but in some senses we're all separate, too. We need linguistic structures that reflect both those realities.
* * * *
Dear Mr. Schmidt,
I love a story that makes me grin and laugh with delight, and that's exactly what you gave me with “Betty Knox and Dictionary Jones in The Mystery of the Missing Teenage Anachronisms” by John G. Hemry (March 2011). I found the tale wonderfully enjoyable right from the beginning, and I absolutely adored the unexpected but magnificently perfect resolution! Thank you so much!
Rachel Bexell
Coon Rapids, MN
* * * *
Dear Dr. Schmidt,
Edward M. Lerner's articles are always interesting and I treasure several for the information they contain. His March 2011 language ruminations spark me to comment.
Firstly Esperanto was never meant to be adopted as a first language by anyone. (Although it has been by some families.) Its general use would enable any group to retain their distinctive language and culture but still enable them to communicate without learning other, often very difficult, languages. I think its spoken use will always be limited to enthusiasts but the written form could be very widely used indeed.
There is pressure to have it adopted as a standard European language. Imagine the advantage of being able to give a speech in your own little spoken tongue with only the need to have one translation—into Esperanto. For myself as an engineer it would be a great advantage if all technical articles were also presented in Esperanto. It would not be difficult—I was reading books within three months of starting to learn Esperanto.
Secondly: Edward missed one important mode of communication here on Earth now. Some insects, particularly moths, communicate by detecting waves at infrared frequencies. The male moth, with its Yagi-like antennae, homes in on the female moth but is not detecting its pheromones chemically—as school children are still taught—but by the infrared signals given off by those pheromones when activated by sunlight.
This is one of the findings of Dr. Philip S. Callahan, one time professor of entomology at the University of Florida, Gainsville. His fascinating story is told by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird in their book Secrets of the Soil, Chapter 20. This chapter would make a worthy Science Fact article. Callahan has also published books of his own.
After 65 years reading Astounding and then Analog the stories still displace whatever else I am doing whenever the magazine arrives.
Henry Broadbent
Australia
* * * *
The author replies:
Thanks for the kind note. Doubtless I omitted more than one esoteric sensory mechanism. As biologists
are reminded each time they look anyplace new, life on Earth is endlessly adaptive and inventive.
Imagine how fascinating extraterrestrial life is apt to be when we finally encounter it.
* * * *
Dear Analog,
Dr. Schmidt, you have outdone yourself this time. I laughed out loud at the Probability Zero by Mr. Prestridge. Too happy? We'll schedule a toothache and a couple of IRS Audits. That'll knock those silly happy feelings right out of you. I had to laugh. But then Bud Sparhawk bummed me out with Geologic Times inevitability. Bad Bud, bad. But John G. Hemry saved the day again. Betty Knox and Dictionary Jones will save the world from itself and we all—Lived? Will live? Are about to live?—happily ever after. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Bill Seiler
Chambersburg, PA
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Reader's Department: UPCOMING EVENTS
by Anthony Lewis
1-4 July 2011
WESTERCON 64 (Western North America Science Fantasy Conference) at The Fairmont, San Jose, CA. Guest of Honor: Patricia A. McKillip; Artist Guests of Honor: Kaja & Phil Foglio; Fan Guest of Honor: Mike Wilmoth. Membership: Attending (as of January 2011): $65, more later, supporting $25. Info: www.westercon64.org/; [email protected]; PO Box 61363, Sunnyvale, CA 94088-1363
8-11 July 2011
NORTH AMERICAN DISCWORLD CONVENTION (Conference highlighting Sir Terry Prachett's series) at Concourse Hotel, Madison, WI. Guest of Honor: Sir Terry Prachett. Membership: until 1 March 2011, more thereafter $85 (12+), $45 (3-12), $30 (supporting). Info: www.nadwcon.org/index.html; [email protected]; NADWCon, Post Office Box 259411, Madison, WI 53725-9411.
14-17 July 2001
READERCON 22 (literary SF-oriented conference) at Burlington Marriott, Burlington, MA. Guests of Honor: Geoff Ryman & Gardner Dozois. Membership: $55 until 15 June 2011; more thereafter. Info: www.readercon.org/; [email protected]; PO Box 65, Watertown, MA 02472
29-31 July 2001
Analog SFF, June 2011 Page 22