Lmst

New (double!) Issue out: BCS #450, Science-Fantasy Month 8!

Science-fantasy stories by Natalia Theodoridou @nassos and Ewen Ma @ewenmaer live today, by RZ Held @rhiannonheld and Emily C Skaftun live next week (but available in the ebook now), a podcast of the Theodoridou story, and science-fantasy cover art by Tyler Edlin.

https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/issues/issue-450/
#fantasy #sff #sciencefantasy #shortstory #litmag #ebook #podcastfiction

Copying a little rant I made over on Bluesky yesterday, prompted by the attached Edna Mode "No pylons!" meme: https://bsky.app/profile/michaelhans.com/post/3mdvfjk3rgk2u

Honestly, this has been bugging me ever since Discovery jumped forward. To me, it's exemplary of the "designed to look cool" mindset rather than the "designed to make some amount of (even science-fictional) sense" mindset.

Has anyone done a treknobabble deep-dive into how these designs function?

It just reminds me of how Matt Jeffries originally put a lot of thought and drew upon his aviation background to create a design that made logical sense even when depending upon technologies that didn't exist yet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Enterprise_(NCC-1701)#Concept_and_initial_design

It was one of the things that really drew me into Trek when I was a kid (as evidenced by the various blueprints and technical manuals still on my bookshelves). There was a believable, logical solidity to the designs. Yes, they looked cool, but they also made sense.

These new designs with nacelles just floating near the ship don't do the same thing for me. They don't look like something that makes _sense_, they look like something that looks _neat_. It moves Star Trek away from science fiction and into the realm of the science fantasy of Star Wars.

Are there still engineering sections? Is there a centralized warp core containing and distributing the power from the dilithium crystals? We know those are still necessary for warp flight, after all, so they must be powered and managed in some way. If so, how does that power get to those nacelles?

What benefits are there to the floating nacelle design? How are they serviced, especially in emergency situations? What if the transporter isn't working (a long-standing Trek tradition, after all)? Having critical ship's infrastructure physically disconnected seems like a big potential liability.

And speaking of the transporter, that also seems to have crossed over into "magic" territory. People just blip in and out, and there doesn't even seem to be anything triggering it in most situations. I can go with the system being smart enough not to beam someone into an otherwise occupied space, but it sure seems like it would be startling to have people suddenly popping into existence at any random point and time. If I was doing something critical, I'm not sure I'd want to have a sudden *pwoof* startling me just because someone beamed in unexpectedly.

Picard's open "transporter doorways" really bugged me. There were people walking in and out of them from both directions, and yet nobody ever collided. People would constantly be bouncing off someone just coming out of or heading towards one of those portals! Those were entirely nonsensical.

I want a universe I can believe in. Things can even look cool; I'm not opposed to that! But even a far-future science fictional universe has to have some underlying logic and thought to make it believable, otherwise it's just magic without boundaries or limitations.

So, Star Trek tech geeks: What's the underlying logic and technobabble that makes these designs functionally believable? What makes them science fiction and not science fantasy?

#StarTrek #DIS #TOS #PIC #SNW #SFA #ScienceFiction #SciFi #ScienceFantasy

Meme showing five modern Star Trek ship designs with floating, detached nacelles. Under text that says "32nd century starship designers", Edna Mode from The Incredibles frowns at her sketch pad and declares, "No pylons!"

A portion of my bookshelf, with blueprints for the Enterprise-D and Excelsior, the TNG Technical Manual, and Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise pulled out to be more visible.

« The Red Hawker », c. 1977

by John Blanche (British illustrator, born 1948)
Features in "The Flights of Icarus", by Donald Lehmkuhl, Martyn & Roger Dean, Dragon's World / Paper Tiger, 1977
#vintagefantasyart #fantasyart #fantasyillustration #JohnBlanche #RogerDean #retroFuturism #scienceFantasy #spaceFantasy

« Space Wreck », c. 1977

by Syd Mead (American designer and painter, 1933-2019)
Gouache on paper, features in "The Flights of Icarus", by Donald Lehmkuhl, Martyn & Roger Dean, Limpsfield, Dragon's World / Paper Tiger, 1977

#vintagefantasyart #fantasyart #fantasyillustration #SydMead #RogerDean #FlightsOfIcarus #retroFuturism #scienceFantasy #spaceFantasy

Paperback now available: https://books2read.com/StoneProphet

Nicole seeks to collect the missing fragments of the magical city of Kurg from her home world, but the remaining pieces were deactivated and are hard to find. Luckily, she just found the first piece of the Seventh Sage, an ancient stone man that knows the future, which she hopes knows where to find them.

@bookstodon
#author #indieauthor #writing #fantasy #scifi #sciencefiction #sff #sciencefantasy #scifi #actionadventure #fiction #books

(Left) The cover of Stone Prophet, by Owen Tyme.

At the center is a hexagonal coin with a golden appearance,. That bears a watercolor painting of a woman's face, which drips paint as if it were fresh.

Following the edges of the coin, the background is divided by a spiral of black lines into six images representing vital pieces of the titular stone prophet.

Upper right is an attractive woman with blue eyes and blond hair that's almost white. She stands in place of Memory.

Right is an eye with a blue iris surrounded by blue skin and golden decorations, representing Vision.

Lower right is a hooded woman in darkness, partially illuminated by a purple triangle that magically restrains her. She is Skill.

Lower left is a heart made of and resting in blue sand, with yellow light inside. That shines through cracks, hinting at fragility. This is Emotion.

Left is a gray sphere covered in black zeros and ones. More zeros and ones lay over the top, in blurred white. This is Reason.

Upper Left is a brass statue of justice, wearing a robe and blindfold. She holds a sword and scales. Behind her are the stars of space. This is Heart.

(Right) The same attractive woman from the upper right section of the cover, looking right at the viewer. The following quote frames her face, above and below:

“Does the Leader make the hard choices, or do the hard choices make the Leader?”

“Will she do what must be done, for the good of all?”

(Bottom) https://books2read.com/StoneProphet

Um hier auch mal ein bisschen was zu meiner #WIP #ScienceFantasy Reihe zu teilen:

Titel: Imperium der Engel
Titel, Band 1: Abaddon erwacht

Worum gehts?
Ohne zu spoilern: Die Erde versinkt im Chaos. Ein Pathogen verwandelt alles Lebende in einen Albtraum. Doch die Rettung naht, wie ein Engel Himmel.
Die 16-jährige Hannah lernt schnell, dass dieser Engel keiner sein kann...

#sciencefiction #scifi #fantasy #engel #imperium #buch #autorenleben

Ebook and paperback: https://books2read.com/FeyFighters

Two soldiers on opposite sides, pixie Commander Stargazer Candleflash and human Sergeant Edwin Harris, find their fates forever entwined, first by revenge, but as they crash together in a dangerous rainforest, they’re forced to work together, just to survive. Will they make it or will their bickering get them killed?

@bookstodon
#author #indieauthor #writing #fantasy #scifi #sciencefiction #sff #sciencefantasy #scifi #actionadventure #fiction #books

(Left) The cover of Fey Fighters, by Owen Tyme.

The background is the stars of space, with nebula-like clouds, in blue. This has been divided into jigsaw puzzle pieces by dark lines marking the lines between pieces.

The foreground features an enormous, stylized phoenix, which is composed of fire. The phoenix looms over an Earth-like world heavily obscured by cloud cover.

(Right) The same world from the cover orbits a purple gas giant, with a stream of flame above it, which may be the phoenix, with the following text over the top:

“We’re in a human-made, goblin-enchanted spacecraft, powered by a dryad that’s under the mistaken impression she’s a nuclear reactor, half-piloted by a pixie and half-piloted by a human.”

“Is there anywhere we can go we won’t be shot on sight?”

(Bottom) https://books2read.com/FeyFighters

BCS #450 ebook--double-issue for BCS Science-Fantasy Month 8! --out early @WeightlessBooks & Kindle Store and for subscribers, w science-fantasy stories by @nassos, @rhiannonheld , Ewen Ma, Emily C. Skaftun.

(Buying BCS ebooks or an ebook subscription at Weightless Books gets you BCS stories a week early on your e-reader and helps us pay our authors a pro rate and our First Readers an honorarium. Thank you!)

https://weightlessbooks.com/fiction/beneath-ceaseless-skies-issue-450/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GJN1JQWD
#fantasy #sciencefantasy #sff #ebook

Ebook and paperback: https://books2read.com/JigsawCity

Nicole’s brain is slowly being taken over by an ancient, magical artifact, a small fragment of a magic city. She seeks a cure, before the city can destroy her sanity and then eventually, take her life by replacing her mind. Racing against time, she gathers pieces of the city, hoping to find an answer among them.

@bookstodon
#author #indieauthor #writing #fantasy #scifi #sciencefiction #sff #sciencefantasy #scifi #actionadventure #fiction #books

(Left) The cover of Jigsaw City, by Owen Tyme.

The background is a futuristic city of sky scrapers covered in greenery, with water ways in place of some streets. The background has been divided by dark lines that cut it up, into a jigsaw puzzle.

The foreground is a hexagonal coin with an indentation in the center that follows the same shape, with raised lines forming a hexagram in the center, which has a smaller one turned at a ninety-degree angle inside the hexagon at the center of it. The smaller hexagram has another inside it, a pattern that repeats until the lines become so fine and indistinct, they blend together.

(Right) There's a pool of lava at the base of a rocky slope, with some sharp rocks sticking upward out of it and the following text over the top:

“I’m immune to heat and fire. I can easily carry and protect one of you…”

“Ye’d need to deliver an army to make a difference, not one person!”

“I *am* an army.”

(Bottom) https://books2read.com/JigsawCity

With "Shadows Upon Time," author Christopher Ruocchio is concluding his grand and epic science fiction / science fantasy / space opera adventure series "The Sun Eater." To learn more about this final installment, and this saga, check out this exclusive interview.
https://paulsemel.com/exclusive-interview-shadows-upon-time-author-christopher-ruocchio/
📖🚀⚔️
. . . . . . . . . . . .
#ChristopherRuocchio #ChristopherRuocchioInterview #ChristopherRuocchioShadowsUponTime #ChristopherRuocchioTheSunEater #ScienceFiction #SciFi #SpaceOpera #SpaceFantasy #ScienceFantasy

Ebook: https://books2read.com/TheWizardsScion

Levi Jacobs always dreamed of being like his father, the greatest wizard in the world, but had no understanding what it would be like. Follow Levi’s journey from bumbling teen to a great hero, while the young wizard learns to master magical powers that are initially completely beyond him and barely under control.

@bookstodon
#author #indieauthor #writing #fantasy #scifi #sciencefiction #sff #sciencefantasy #scifi #actionadventure #fiction #books

The cover for the omnibus edition of The Wizard's Scion.

The background is a symbolic representation of a wormhole, hinting at the time-travel elements of the series.

The foreground consists of four figures, in silhouette, each filled with a different texture and behind them is a black octopus with red eyes and a menacing, red aura.

The central figure is a wizard in the midst of casting a spell, with his arms and robe outstretched. The texture used is black, with patches of mottled gold, overlaid with eight pointed stars. He's surrounded by a golden aura.

To the immediate left of the wizard is a girl. The texture used has a black background, overlaid with symbols for music, in green, cyan and white. She's surrounded by a green aura.

Standing just ahead of the wizard, but also slightly to the left is a woman wielding a pair of short swords in a combat-ready pose. The texture used is of blood spatter on a black background. She's surrounded by a dark red aura.

Ahead and to the right of the wizard is another woman with short swords, in a more relaxed stance than the other dual-wielder. The two woman are very similar in appearance, hinting at the fact that the one is a clone of the other. The texture used for this figure is a combination of a golden sunrise and translucent parts of clocks, hinting that the clone was made by time travelers. She's surrounded by a dark golden aura.

New Ebook release: https://books2read.com/StoneProphet

Nicole seeks to collect the missing fragments of the magical city of Kurg from her home world, but the remaining pieces were deactivated and are hard to find. Luckily, she just found the first piece of the Seventh Sage, an ancient stone man that knows the future, which she hopes knows where to find them.

@bookstodon
#author #indieauthor #writing #fantasy #scifi #sciencefiction #sff #sciencefantasy #scifi #actionadventure #fiction #books

Ebook and paperback: https://books2read.com/TheInvertedGlass

After encountering the worst life has to offer, including the death of his wife and child, destruction of his home world, an addiction forced on him by the one responsible and a third of the galaxy falling under the heel of that tyrant, Levi Jacobs, a wizard, seeks to unravel the secrets of time and fate.

@bookstodon
#author #indieauthor #writing #fantasy #scifi #sciencefiction #sff #sciencefantasy #scifi #actionadventure #fiction #books

(Left) The cover of The Inverted Glass, by Owen Tyme.

The Background is a pink and purple nebula in space.

The foreground is largely line art, in white, with a black shadow outline.

At the center is an hourglass. The bottom has black sand, with a white figure standing in it. The top has is an inverted mirror image of the bottom, with a black figure in white sand.

The hourglass serves as the balance point for a set of scales, which hold a heart and a feather. The heart is on the left and the feather on the right. The heart is lower than the feather.

(Right) Lying in blue sand is a heart made of the same sand, full of cracks. It glows from the inside in a warm, yellow color. Over that is the following quote:

Nicole felt an extreme kind of loss, realizing she’d been stolen away from the afterlife, just before finding out if she deserved punishment or not!

“How dare you do this to me? Why?”

“I’m always in need of strong spirits and I’ve seen none stronger. You have unique talents I refuse to see go to waste.”

(Bottom) https://books2read.com/TheInvertedGlass

Ebook and paperback: https://books2read.com/TymeDarkMoon

On a world long thought to have no moon, its sudden appearance inspires wonder and terror. Hasty research links the full moon and catastrophe, revealing the existence of the so-called ‘Harbingers of Doom’, creatures from the moon that harvest souls. Can everyone survive or will they become part of the dark harvest?

@bookstodon
#author #indieauthor #writing #fantasy #scifi #sciencefiction #sff #sciencefantasy #scifi #actionadventure #fiction #books

(Left) The cover of dark moon, by Owen Tyme, illustrated by Ryan Johnson.

In the foreground, a redheaded witch and a dark haired wizard fight back to back, holding some rather large pistols. The witch is in a black dress and the wizard is in a black robe with golden decorations. Both looked a bit purple, due to the lighting. The witch's hair blows on the wind and she wears a necklace of bone beads.

Behind them, there's dust, mist and fog lit by twilight as a moon rises, framing their heads. Objects that look like shooting stars fall from the moon and there's a few visible impacts.

(Right) A white moon, on a background of the stars of space, with the following quote over the top of it:

“Idiot! You’ve likely killed us both, leaving us stuck out in the open like this.”

“We’ve got incoming. I know you’re angry and I suppose you’ve got every right to be, but we need to defend ourselves.”

“ ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend’, for now, and then we decide what to do about the conflict between us.”

(Bottom) https://books2read.com/TymeDarkMoon

‘The King Must Die’ by Kemi Ashing-Giwa is a fairly basic fantasy (flee a tyrant, meet outlaws and rebels, try to save the day) with a few sci-fi a description the author probably wouldn’t dispute since they volunteered that the first draft was a straight fantasy. Viewed through that lens it’s nothing special.

The book is more interested in the bond between adventurers than in the adventure itself leading to the last three phases (and the entire potential plot of another book) of a four phase quest being covered mostly in time skips because they serve only as backdrop to the relationships.

There is some interesting, though not unique, worldbuilding creating sci-fi justifications for fantasy tropes but at one point it has to invoke Clarke’s Law because the explaining it was in the middle of was so clearly not working. The idea that the founder of a data-harvesting empire into a literal empire is very believable and yet all that surveillance is so easy to avoid that it doesn’t even merit a mention.

#Reading #Books #Fantasy #ScienceFiction #ScienceFantasy

Ebook and paperback: https://books2read.com/TheThirdWish

Spies, aliens, trolls, wizards and a disowned prince use a time machine, to improve their place in history, but Levi Jacobs stands in their way, despite having just lost his parents in war. Will he stop them or will the time travelers kill his father at a pivotal moment, on which the fate of the galaxy hangs?

@bookstodon
#author #indieauthor #writing #fantasy #scifi #sciencefiction #sff #sciencefantasy #scifi #actionadventure #fiction #books

(Left) The cover of The Third Wish, by Owen Tyme, illustrated by Ryan Johnson.

A wizard in a black robe that glitters with hints of gold stands on a mountain and looks down at a city of sky scrapers covered in greenery. In his shadow lurks a creature with glowing red eyes.

In the background, the sun is setting and stars are becoming visible.

(Right Background) Four images separated by black lines, with the silhouette of a woman wielding two swords laid over them. She's outlined in black and her interior is yellow clock-based imagery that spirals outward from the center.

The upper left quarter is a queen in a red, furred robe, wearing a gold and diamond crown. She has dark eyebrows and blond hair.

Upper right is a planet seen from orbit.

Lower left is a symbolic wire frame representation of the view inside a wormhole, in green and yellow.

Lower right is dandelions among grass.

The angle of the planet, one of the woman's swords, the yellow highlights of the wormhole and some of the dandelions form a line that draws the eye along a sweeping curve.

(Right Foreground) The following quote:

He admired the flawless beauty of the insane swordswoman’s fluid movements as Ida took desperate step after step, backwards!

He felt waves of mental energy pour off the panic-stricken troll, but the energy bounced right off of Nicole’s mind, as though she’d shut herself inside a solid, red-hot, steel box of rage!

(Bottom) https://books2read.com/TheThirdWish

Ebook and paperback: https://books2read.com/ForgottenLegends

In a time when science and reason have largely displaced myth and legend, humans stumble on a mysterious space station in unexplored space. Inadvertently angering the ancient, forgotten gods and monsters living inside, war between mankind and the abandoned legends begins, with the fate of the entire galaxy at stake!

@bookstodon
#author #indieauthor #writing #fantasy #scifi #sciencefiction #sff #sciencefantasy #scifi #actionadventure #fiction #books

(Left) The cover of Forgotten Legends, by Owen Tyme, illustrated by Ryan Johnson.

The covers shows a child in bed, reading a book, while a black, misty, red-eyed monsters lurks under his bed.

The blanket of the bed is made of squares in yellow, red, and two shades of blue, depicting the sun. The rug on the floor is blue and has toys scattered on it. The bed's frame is bright red.

The dresser beside the bed has been painted to display a cross-section of a dwarf mine, with the bottom of the four drawers appearing as the interior, the next layer as the surface, the third layer shows white clouds on blue sky and the top layer is the stars of space. On top of the dresser is a model of a space station that resembles a twenty-sided polygon, which has a light mounted inside the open docking bay, effectively turning the model into a lampshade.

The wall and floor are wood. The corner of a window is visible above the dresser.

(Right) Many dark-colored flying saucers float in space, near a white star that dominates the background. The following quote is displayed over the scene:

War trembled in rage, ranting, “Do you not know the indignities they’ve forced on me? They put me in a dress! With sequins!”

“They forced the incarnation of War to sit quietly in the corner, all dressed up, while they talked peace!”

(Bottom) https://books2read.com/ForgottenLegends

Ebook and paperback: https://books2read.com/TrollSong

Having an abusive assassin for a sister was bad enough, but when Lyra’s older sister, Nicole, becomes obsessed with killing the teenage troll, her life becomes a special kind of nightmare. Will she escape, or become just another victim of the unstoppable woman?

@bookstodon
#author #indieauthor #writing #fantasy #scifi #sciencefiction #sff #sciencefantasy #scifi #actionadventure #fiction #books

(Left) The cover of Troll Song, by Owen Tyme, Illustrated by Ryan Johnson.

There's a woman in mud spattered white, leather armor crossing a pair of short swords against the neck of a terrified, shirtless dwarf.

The woman has white hair and a darker skin tone on the left side of her face. Her left eye is green and her right eye is blue.

The dwarf's hair and beard are blond.

The background is a green forest, with some flowers among the tall grass.

(Right) The background is a snow-covered forest, with a pair of dark silhouettes in it, one small and the other large, like a giant. The smaller silhouette is of a young woman walking away and the interior is filled with musical symbols, in green, white and two shades of blue. The larger silhouette is a woman wielding two swords and the interior is full of blood spatter. The larger one appears to be chasing the smaller one.

The following text is laid over the scene:

“I can’t die until Lyra takes her last breath! She’ll regret betraying her sisters!”

“There’s no price I won’t pay to see that happen, no pain I won’t endure and I’d sacrifice the whole world to seal her fate!”

(Bottom) https://books2read.com/TrollSong

Coming soon: https://books2read.com/StoneProphet

Stone Prophet will soon be available for purchase. The Ebook will be available on January 23 and print copies should hopefully be available on January 30.

#author #indieauthor #writing #fantasy #scifi #sciencefiction #sff #sciencefantasy #scifi #actionadventure #fiction #books

#ScienceFantasy

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