“Who Goes There?” Oooh. I’m interested.

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Oct 232018

The first thing I read was that “Who Goes There?” the excellent John W. Campbell Jr. novella that inspired “The Thing From Another World” and John Carpenters “The Thing,” was going to be expanded to novel-length. And this… made me go meh. The story was quite good enough as-is, and someone else cobbling together their own expansion… meh. Meh, I say. I mean, what kind of hack author thinks he can expand upon a story written many decades ago by a far better, far better *known* author? Feh.

And then within a few seconds of further reading it turns out that Campbell actually wrote the whole novel his own self but never had it published… and now it’s a-gonna-be. And *that* is worthy of note.

Frozen Hell: The Book That Inspired The Thing

It’s a Kickstarter to get it published in hardback. It currently has 38 days to go, and is sitting at $52,568 of its one thousand dollar goal.

“Who Goes There?” was first published in the August, 1938 “Astounding Science Fiction,” around a year after the death of H.P. Lovecraft, and about two and a half years after the publication of Lovecrafts “At the Mountains of Madness.” The two share a lot of similarities, and I bet Lovecraft would have gotten a hell of a kick out of “Who Goes There?” Heck, it would not take a whole lot of effort to rationalize “WGT?” into a sequel of “ATMOM.” The “thing” is actually just an evolved Shoggoth; it didn’t crash here from outer space, but instead it crashed *back* into Antarctica when it tried to steal an Elder Thing craft of some type, then got frozen in the ice for a million years.

Selling some “Star Trek” stuff

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Sep 152018

I have two lots of Trek books. The first is a collection of old-school books, including “Spock must Die” (the first published Trek novel), “The World of Star Trek” and “The Making of Star Trek,” two good books on the making for the original series, from back when people didn’t really write many books about the making of TV shows; “Star Trek Logs One through Five” by Alan Dean Foster, which had the stories from the Animated Series turned into literature; and “Star Treks One through Twelve,” which included original series episodes written as long stories (from when that was just about the only way people could experience Trek unless they were lucky enough that the local UHF station broadcast scratchy re-runs). All are in decent enough shape. Twenty books for… let’s call it $60 (a mere $3 per book) plus postage to be determined at buyers request.

Also: a collection of “technical stuff.” Included are twelve Eaglemoss magazines, each covering one Star Trek spacecraft (“Krenim Temporal Weapon Ship,” “Nausicaan Fighter,” “Vulcan Surak class,” Andorian Battle cruiser,” “Romulan Drone,” “Xindi Aquatic cruiser,” “Goroth’s Klingon Transport Ship,” “Baxial,” “Xindi Reptilian Ship,” “Vahklas,” “Orion Scout Ship,” “Starfleet Academy Flight Training Craft”). Each magazine provides many illustrations of the ship, an in-universe description of the ship and its history, a description of how the ship was designed and, where relevant, the phyical model was made; how it was used in what episode of which Trek series. Also included in this lot is a set of “General Plans” for the “Joshua Class Starship.” This ship class was fan produced and is thus non-canonical (or is it?), but it well produced and a fine example of the sort of plans that used to be produced back in the day (and which I’d like to produce myself). The magazines seem to have an asking price of $12 on ebay, but I’m doing $6 each, with $10 for the Joshua class, for a total of $82… let’s call it $80 plus postage.

As always, if you want one or both of these lots, either comment below or end me an email. First come, first served… unless someone asks for both lots within the next day or so.

Sold: Instant space colony collection

books, history, projects, rockets, sales & specials, science, spacecraft 1 Response »

May 142018

A set of books, being sold as a lot. The prices in parentheses are what they seem to be going for on Abebooks.

“Space Colonies, a CoEvolution Book,” published in 1977 by the Whole Earth Catalog. Filled with technical information an papers, but also a lot of terribly 1970’s semi-hippie cartons and such. Paperback, in pretty good shape. ($20)

“Space Manufacturing Facilities – Space Colonies,”published in 1977 by the AIAA. Hardbound, cover’s a bit scuffed, but the book itself is quite good. ($40 to over $500… go figure)

“Space Manufacturing 5 Engineering with Lunar and Asteroidal Materials,” published in 1985 by the AIAA.Hardbound, good shape. ($25)

“Space Manufacturing 7 Space Resources to Improve Life on Earth,” published in 1989 by the AIAA. Hardbound, great shape except for some light spotting inside the front cover. ($35)

“Space Settlements A Design Study,” published by NASA in 1977. Paperback, slight scuffing on the cover but otherwise great shape. ($15)

Total, ($135). If anyone wants it, the price is $125 plus postage (media mail for cheapness, or whatever else if you want fastness). If more than one person wants the lot, I guess I’ll do a bit of an auction between interested folks. If interested, either comment below or send me an email: I’ll give it a day or so to see who’s interested.

SOLD.

Selling some books

books, sales & specials 5 Responses »

May 112018

Selling some books, first come, first served (speak up via either comment or email: ). All books will require additional postage, which will be by least expensive option (Media Mail if in the US, or perhaps Flat Rate), calculated afterwards.

~~“The History of the American Sailing Navy,” Howard Chapelle. Hardbound with dust jacket, quite good shape. $10.~~ – spoken for

~~“US Destroyers An Illustrated Design History,” Norman Friedman. Hardbound with dust jacket, quite good shape. $20~~ – spoken for

~~“AIAA/ASME/SAE Joint Space Mission Planning & Execution Meeting, 1973” Hardbound, ex-library (NASA-Ames). $20 –~~ spoken for

“AIAA/ASME/ASCE/AHS 22nd Structures, Structural Dynamics and Materials Conference, Part 1, 1981” Softbound, good shape. $15

“6th AIAA/NASA/ISSMO Symposium on Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization, Part 1,” 1996, softbound, mostly good shape (one page loose). $20.

“Air Staff Historical Study, The United States air Force Basic Documents on Roles and Missions,” Softbound, a bit scuffed but otherwise good. $5

“FM23-85 60MM Mortar, M19,” 1967, Department of the Army Field Manual, softbound, good shape. $15

~~“TM 9-1425-1586-10 Improved Chaparral M48A1 Intercept-Aerial Guided Missile System,” 1981, Operators Manual, softbound (three-hole punched), good shape, $20~~ – spoken for

“FM 23-90/TO 11W2-5-13-21 Mortars,” 1990, Departments of the Army & Air Force, softbound, stapled & three-hole-punched, good shape, $15

Lunar Exploration Systems for Apollo

APR, awesomeness, blather, books, eBay, history, news, Patreon, projects, rockets, spacecraft No Responses »

Apr 192018

For the APR Patreon I try to acquire as much interesting aerospace documentation as I can, and these items fall into two categories:

Stuff that I can afford. This stuff winds up in the APR Patreon catalog of potential monthly rewards for patrons.
Stuff I can’t hope to afford.

There’s a lot of the latter category of stuff. Sometimes it’s because the item has a ridiculously high Buy It Now price or starting bid, or because the item will be popular among bidders, or because it’s *really* good/big and thus worth every penny. But unaffordable is unaffordable.

However, there is an option for “stuff I can’t afford:” crowdfunding. I’ve done this a number of times with considerable success, and I’ve just done so again, winning a trio of General Dynamics documents describing a 1965 program to develop a logistics system for extending the Apollo lunar exploration program:

This set of documents was just much too expensive for an individual (well, I’m sure Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk wouldn’t have flinched), but with a group of like-mined funders it came in at $30 per person. So what happens now:

1: I wait for it to show up in the mail.

2: I make a complete set of scans in 300 DPI grayscale (and color, where appropriate) and convert to PDFs

3: I make the scans and PDFs available to funders, generally via Dropbox

4: I find an appropriate archive for the documents, and then donate the originals to them.

5: And that’s it. The files are shared with the funders, but do not appear on future APR Patreon catalogs or as purchasable, downloadable “Diagrams and Documents.” What the funders choose to do with their scans & PDFs is up to them.

APR Patrons get alerted to each of these occasional “crowdfunding opportunities.” So if you’d like to participate, please considered signing up for the APR Patreon.

55 pages ain’t bad

art, blather, books, Crazy, My Fiction, science fiction, War With The Deep Ones 3 Responses »

Mar 162018

I started on a story for Book 2 of my “War With The Deep Ones” on Sunday night (based on an idea I had last Friday afternoon) and finished the first draft moments ago. Works out to about 55 pages. Not a bad pace… ten or so pages a day would finish a good sized novel in less than a month. Of course, 55 pages might not necessarily be 55 *good* pages, but it’s better to have them down and trim a lot, than to have nothing written down.

Book One is not as “cosmic doomy” as a lot of Lovecraftian tales are, more “regular doomy” since the Deep Ones are fairly mundane critters compared to cosmic horrors like Yog Sothoth and Nyarlathotep and Justin Beiber. But things ramp up on the Doom Scale in Book Two.

Still not quite sure what to actually *do* with all this. I’m going through the latest version of my first “Zaneverse” novel, hopefully to wrap up my final edit and then to try to convince a publisher to publish it, but as for “War?” Dunno.

As a reminder, the first “War” story is Honolulu, the second is Champion of the Seas. Feel free to check them out.

War With The Deep Ones: Champion Of the Seas

AARRRGH, books, Crazy, My Fiction, new products, science fiction, War With The Deep Ones 4 Responses »

Feb 112018

Who wants some fiction? A tale of a cruise ship on the high seas when the world is attacked by Lovecraftian sea monsters, Champion of the Seas is, I think, pretty good. This is the second full yarn in the “War With The Deep Ones” book that I’ve released; the first being “Honolulu.” I also released a bit from the “interstitial tales” that will be wedged between the main stories.

To read a preview of the story and to order the whole thing in PDF & EPUB formats, click the “Continue Reading” below.

“Ignition!” is about to be reprinted

awesomeness, books, history, news, rockets, science 3 Responses »

Feb 042018

John D. Clark’s “Ignition!” is basically *the* book to read if you want a readable history of modern rocket propellants. The problem has been that it has been *long* out of print and the only ways you could read it were:

Interlibrary loan of a tattered copy
Online purchase of a *minimum* of a $200 copy
Crappy free downloadable PDF.

Fortunately, Rutgers University is going to re-release printed (and electronic) versions in May. And it’s available on Amazon for pre-order, which is awesome because if you buy it through a link in this blog post, I’ll get a small fraction of a pittance and thus “Ignition!” will help feed some cats. It’ll be available in paperback, hardback and Kindle. I’m’a get me the paperback.

War With the Deep Ones: another one done

books, Hmm..., My Fiction, science fiction, War With The Deep Ones 2 Responses »

Jan 302018

Finished another tale, “Brass Valley.” Not a terribly long one (one of the shorter ones), but still kinda interesting.

I’ve ordered the stories in the spreadsheet according to the order I think they’ll go in the book. Irritatingly, the second story, the one following on after “Honolulu,” is one that I kinda stalled out on… and it’s one I need to not only finish but make work.

Clearly it’s turning into a good-sized work, but I suspect a good editor would go through it with a woodchipper. I could easily see half of the length being filtered out.

It had been my plan to release the stories in the proper order, since it would make more sense that way (there is a process to the invasion that explains why some places are surprised and others aren’t). But I think I’ll release “Champion of the Seas” next… I think it’s a pretty good one, and stands well on its own. Stay tuned.

Progress on the Voynich Manuscript

awesomeness, books, history, Hmm..., news, science 14 Responses »

Jan 302018

Huh.

Using AI to uncover ancient mysteries

The Voynich Manuscript is a centuries-old (early 1400’s) book of gibberish and odd illustrations. It has been untranslatable… until perhaps, now. An artificial intelligence system was taught hundreds of languages to figure out their patterns, then fed the Voynich manuscript… and it determined that it was written in coded Hebrew. With that understanding, the letters were found to be coded into alphagrams, where the letters in words are re-ordered into alphabetic order (Example: “example” becomes “aeelmpx”). The result is that 80% of the words are clearly Hebrew, and sentences are, if not really clear, at least comprehensible as being non-nonsense.

It still requires analysis by people who actually understand old Hebrew to make the book make any sort of sense, but it’s interesting to see that machines have cracked this old mystery.

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