Killswitch Cover

Here is the new cover for Killswitch, the third of the Cassandra Kresnov series. I've also added it on my main webpage, for the drooling pleasure of being able to see all three of them lined up together on the same page. Much credit again goes to Stephan Martiniere, who as you can see, rocks.

Breakaway Review

Here's a very nice review of Breakaway by Harrier Klausner, where she says in part:

Readers who have read CROSSOVER, the first CASSANDRA Kresnov novel will find BREAKAWAY is just as good. The tale contains great characterizations especially the heroine, a cultural look at an advanced civilization, and plenty of political intrigue. All this contributes to make Breakaway a one sitting reading experience.

It Flies!

So Elon Musk's Falcon 1 rocket from his company Space X actually flies!. Well, the second stage had a problem that prevented it from achieving the desired orbit, but Elon reckons it's a fixable problem. Given that he's fixed costs for Falcon 1 flights at $7 million, there will be a lot of big rocket companies getting very nervous, as his cheapest competitors in that size range don't do anything for less than $20 mil. And that $7 mil, apparently, is before even taking into account the intent to reuse the vehicle's first stage (no report on whether they've recovered the first stage on this one yet, or if it'll still be working when they do).

Bigger vehicles will follow, based on the same design, including the human-rated Falcon 9. This technology is still nowhere near what's required to make a full-scale commerical boom in space, but it's a start. Today, a flight on a Russian Soyuz costs about $20 mil for a tourist. I'd guess Falcon 9 could get that down to $5 mil or less. And a guy named Bigelow is working on private space stations for tourists to stay at when they get there.

The first transistor radios were pretty simple too, compared to today's ipods and other gadgets, but they did something very important -- they demonstrated a demand for a product. Once recognised, money poured in, companies competed with each other to develop superior products, and technology was invented with all that investment that made the original transistor radios look obselete. Falcon 1, and Falcon 9, are the transistor radios of what's to come. Imagine what the ipod will look like.

The Great Global Warming Swindle

This is the name of a documentary that was screened on England's Channel Four a few days ago, and is now available on You Tube. I watched it, it takes an hour and fifteen minutes, and I thought it very good. Better yet, thanks to the wonder of the internet, it's spreading unbelievably fast -- when I watched it yesterday, it had been viewed about 25 thousand times. Looking today, I see it's been watched about 125 thousand times. The word is out.

Most likely all the same criticism that was levelled at 'An Inconvenient Truth' can be levelled at this documentary too -- it's one sided, it makes no attempt to explore both sides of the issue, etc. But it does do one thing extremely well, it destroys the notion supported by global warming believers that the debate is over. I think it's pretty hard to watch this documentary and still conclude that there is no point in continuing the debate, even if you're not entirely won over by the arguments.

UPDATE: The original link was taken down on You Tube, but thankfully others are just breaking out all over, so I switched to a new one.

Interview Found!

Here's an interview I did with Tobias Buckell a fair while ago, that he's only recently found and posted.

Guilty Pleasures

I think most of us have guilty pleasures in various entertainment genres. You know, that TV show, or those books, that you really shouldn't like, because they're pretty silly, but you can't help liking anyway?

My primary guilty pleasure right now would be the TV series NCIS. As an actual representation of anything vaguely serious, it's preposterous -- a naval crime investigation unit that of course sees more action in a week than most such units would see in a career, and is populated by a crew of very attractive, or very weird (or both) people who spend more time behaving like teenagers on camp than as professionals of any description.

But it's the very weirdness of the characters that is the show's greatest strength, because the characterisation, while unrealistic, is lots of fun. In particular, the female characters are terrific. American TV has gone through phases where I found many new shows almost impossible to watch simply because I could barely tell the female characters apart. I mean, any heterosexual male will tell you that there's no single, exclusive 'type' of attractive female, thus this great fraud perpetuated on teenage girls in magazines to try and convince them if they don't fit the 'type' no guy will want them. I'd have thought the male response to Gillian Anderson in the X-Files pretty much disproved that idea, when the producers reportedly wanted someone blonder and taller, but the lesson didn't seem to be learned... although I think it's getting better now.

NCIS's female characters also do not exist merely to be someone else's sidekick, or to fill a role as 'the female' -- they pretty much fill their own unique space, and do their own unique thing, which I find rare in these kinds of shows. 'Abby the Goth' is a scene stealer, Ziva the Mossad agent is a nice twist away from the usual 'struggling to cope' portrayal of a hard bitten agent, because she enjoys her work a little too much, and Director Shepard doesn't have much to do, but hey, I've liked Lauren Holly since 'Picket Fences'. The men are also fun, Gibbs is a study in blunt practicality, Dinozo a study in political incorrectness, and Ducky a good old fashioned English gentleman cliche, but an entertaining one.

I think one of the things that makes it work is that being what could be described as more to the right, politically speaking, it manages to escape the orbit of leftist political correctness that occassionally strangles some of the others, like your various 'Law and Order's. The 'Law and Order' shows are more serious, and arguably more realistic, because they're imbued with that very left wing, 'we care so much', 'my gosh look how serious this is' kind of ethic, where all the characters become screwed up psychologically because they empathise with the victims, and it all gets very dark and brooding after a while.

NCIS is light relief by comparison because the characters all mostly love their jobs, but that enables it to have more straight out, 'guilty pleasure' fun. And the characters get to do things you won't see on your 'Law and Order's -- like where a female cop will always be expected to interview a traumatised female crime victim, because of the feminine sensitivities involved. In NCIS, Ziva's the last person to talk to grieving women, because she usually upsets them, makes them cry, and gets along much better with men. In a Law and Order show, this would be considered a deep character flaw, and would inevitably be linked back to some traumatic experience of childhood. In NCIS, it's just funny. Perhaps NCIS is not so much a 'right wing' show as a libertarian one. How else to explain how a girl with tatoos, black mascara and a dog collar works in the forensics lab of a naval investigation agency? The characters get away with stuff that would get most people fired, and Gibbs and Director Shepard's attitude is 'we don't care, so long as it works'. Maybe that's why I like it.

India Photo Threads

Check out these two threads of Indian photos, here and here.

The second one I think is a new ad campaign, and just unbelievable. The first one's not bad either.

UPDATE: In comments below, Lou Anders suggests this collection of China photos via the blog of Pyr author Chris Roberson. Also pretty amazing.