SnakeBots

I found this snake robot climbing a tree, and just love how some of the whacky ideas I had for my Gate Walker setting are coming to fruition.

Of course, I'd heard of flexible robots before writing my novels, and just thought "wow, that's cool," I've got to have them in my story.

Moving on. The last couple of weeks have been difficult.

Full of unexpected obstacles that stole from my writing time, and the worries of juggling stuff outside of my control, have left me drained with fewer new words written than I would like.

But despite all that, I've been putting together a short novel.

It's a collection of my three novelettes set in the World of Drei AI cybertank universe with an additional prologue I wrote. Reviewing the text I found a shed load of typos that I'm in the process of correcting.

Once that's done then I just have to sort out a cover. It is what it is.

Two Moons Progress

When writing a story I prefer to start with the seven point novel structure.

My first three novels were action adventures. This means you have a leader who is surrounded by a team to solve the problems they face.

Two Moons, and my other novel The Bureau, are effectively mysteries.

So a center person solves the puzzle, and has others do the physical action, provide humour and perspective, with a fixer, and a boss that the team reports to. This has totally discombobulated me.

Last time I mentioned Two Moons, I was at 14,856 words. I've stalled and restarted this work several times over the last few months just because the narrative is driven by a different set of needs.

Who would've thought, huh!?

Anyway, I'm now entering the middle of the story, running at 32,714 words. Here's a taste of the opening of Two Moons.

TRANSCENDENCE 

I wake in the darkness, stretched out on a cold surface. The air musty from the passage of time. Only the sound of my breath fills the silence.
   "Is anyone there?' My voice echoes around me.
   A soothing voice replies, "You are safe."
   Emotions rush through me. A sadness that is full of grief and loss. "Are you my mother?"
   "No, I am a machine. You can call me mother, if you wish."
   My senses adjust, the reality of the room coalesces around me. Machinery lines the walls, and in the center I lie on a table, with tubes that snake up from my body into a machine.
   Confused, I ask, "What is happening? Where am I?"
   "You are being cared for. The facility exists to create life."
   The answer triggers a flood of jumbled memories.
   This is where we changed the genetic heritage of my kind. A place where the seeds of all life can be shaped. A place where our learning is recorded for all time.
   I am last of my kind, trapped in a secure facility, all alone, waiting to die.

HyperStealth

In my Gate Walker series I call this concept ChameleoFlage, and World of Drei series I call it Adaptive camouflage. Either-way, meta-materials might well be a game changer.

If you follow the link above you can see that this stuff interferes with thermal imaging, which I thought wasn't possible.

First Generation Power Armour

 

Here's a link to Onyx from Lockheed Martin, a further development of their earlier HULC system. For those of us who have dream of power armour and exoskeletons this is exciting news. While Onyx is only a lower torso enhancement it does look promising.

There was a thread on the Heavy Gear FB group about the practicality of mecha – larger walking power armour. I posted this:

In general to the OP. It all depends on your assumptions whether or not large bipedal combat suits make sense. When writing my novels I made some assumptions on how they developed (basically a step on from riding a mechanical horse), to use (dense terrain), and factored in adaptive camouflage (reduce chance of being seen).

So it's all about the assumptions. Open field advances across the steppes of Russia, not so much. Lurking around in urban areas providing fire support for infantry and able to keep up with vehicles, possibly what's needed.

The last couple of weeks I have been writing more, working on my novel Two Moons, which will give the readers more information on where the series story arc is going that the characters will have to work through. I'm excited.

Black Holes

Black Holes have been in the news lately, and I've been working to get my head around why a Black Hole looks the way it does, because quite frankly it was doing my head in. The above image, which you can click on to enlarge, explains why a black sun looks like this.

This link will take you to an article with further explanation.

Besides research, because I'm always looking for nifty new science, I've been writing more. This week was the first time in a long while where I managed to beat my target of 200 words a day.

In other news, the world seems to have gone insane, by world I mean the news on the internet, not the planet.

Another Twitter user seems to want to muckrake a dead SF author, which caused me a certain amount of sense of humour loss, because the author was cleared after a Police investigation, and the primary motivator seems to be that awards shouldn't be named after people.

Other than that, I've been reading more. I will have to compile a list of books I've enjoyed and post them here at some point. That's all, catch you on the bounce.

NB: New links first one explains the above. Second explains rotating black holes.

Keeping Up With Tech

I found this on New Scientist; Spies and soldiers might soon be able to go behind enemy lines using a parachute or glider made from a polymer that vanishes on exposure to sunlight.

The idea was that these sensors could be spread across a battlefield, say, and used to collect information for the army. “But you don’t want anyone to discover it and take it apart and see how it works,” says Kohl.

That’s why he and his team wanted to invent a self-destructing material. They began with polymers that have a low ceiling temperature, which is the point at which the key bonds holding the substance together begin to break.

Lots of polymers break down slowly when they reach this temperature because many bonds have to be broken. But Kohl designed his material so that as soon as one bond breaks the whole thing rapidly unzips.

Those of you who have read Strike Dog will remember the scene where the drop sleds are deployed and what happens after they land. So it was cool to see an article describing this tech.

September Already

 

I could say where has the year gone, but I already know the answer to that.

The Bank holiday and this weekend were spent shooting my new longbow. The one I made back in January that was too strong for me to pull. Now home after Master Bowyer Pip Bickerstaffe fettled the tillering to bring the poundage down to my level.

So all is good with my bow. The fact that my shooting fell off a cliff is down to me. Good news I have an appointment in early October for a scan and injection to fix my left wrist. Fingers crossed it does the job.

I'm currently researching archaeology, getting the lowdown on how it is done from a friend who is an archaeologist. So the next block to moving forward with the novel is about to be breached.

Other than that, I've been reading a lot. I will at some point put a list I recommend checking out. Until then, see you all on the bounce.