“The Wick” by Julianna Baggott is a look into the future of AI (Artificial Intelligence) and Genetic Engineering that is both engrossing and disturbing. The narrative structure itself tells the reader right away that something unusual is going on here. The story is told from the first person point of view of a being we later come to know as Bukef. Bukef is a genetically engineered AI know as a Hull. Hulls are war machines that envelop and bond with soldiers, known as their Wicks, for life. Bukef’s narrative is related in the second person to a young woman named Roan. Roan knows nothing of her ..read more

Anna Rose Johnson’s THE STAR THAT ALWAYS STAYS is middle-grade fiction that so engrossed this old guy that I forgot it was supposed to be for young people. Johnson’s prose are very immersive and she keeps such a tight POV on the main character, Norvia, that the reader lives the story from the inside. I can certainly see why this book was recommended on ABC’s The Book Case podcast (discussed at the 43-min mark). @HolidayHouseBks https://t.co/QmtX10nIAN Norvia Nelson is a child of divorce in the early twentieth century when such a thing was a cause for shame. She is of Ojibwe heritage and confl ..read more

An article in Science relates a study of earthquake activity near volcanoes being used to warn of impending eruptions. The study was based on the Cumbre Vieja volcano on the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands chain that erupted last September. Data from the article is shown to the left. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen articles concerning this effort to develop reliable ways to predict volcanoes, but I am surprised that we don’t hear more about it. This got me thinking about large scale environmental changes and how we as humans react to the threat they pose to our existence. The one ..read more

Midnight at the Well of Souls by Jack Chalker has been re-released as a CAEZIK Notable book. From the publisher: “CAEZIK Notables is a series of speculative-fiction books marking important milestones in science fiction or fantasy. Each book published in the series has a new introduction highlighting the book’s significance within the genre.” This gives me a more durable trade paperback format to read and re-read, so I can give my well-worn mass market paperback a rest before it starts shedding its pages like a tree in autumn. More importantly, it gives me a chance to talk about an author who ..read more

As a kid who grew up obsessed with robots, I have to wonder why I’m still mowing my lawn or grocery shopping. Where’s my personal robot? Perhaps the same place my flying car got lost. Oh well. More seriously, we are on the verge of some very cool robotic things. I had the opportunity to look into robotics as part of my company’s Advanced Concepts Team a few years back and was amazed by products just over the horizon. Several recent articles highlight this. Researchers at Google have used machine learning methodologies to develop an autonomous system for learning legged locomotion in real world ..read more

No, I’m not talking about Orson Welles invading homes with his War of the Worlds radio broadcast (something I imagine would spread on social media today). I’m talking about radio signals from space finally resolving the Fermi Paradox: Where are all the aliens? Radio signals abound in space from natural phenomena, so an alien signal must be sorted out from all the background noise. Such signals will likely stand out by having an unusual pattern different from all the noise. I, for one, get very excited when any unusual signal is discovered, like the one recently found by a Canadian team of spac ..read more

We are currently experiencing the first know visit by an alien comet to our solar system. Last Saturday, 7 December, marked its closest approach to the sun. The only other object ever detect coming in from deep space was a rock. This doesn’t mean this never happened before, only that we’ve recently gotten good at detecting and identifying such objects. This comet, created in an alien solar system, will burn bright thanks to the sun boiling off the alien ice. Gas spectra will give scientists insight to any differences in composition from our local comets. Personally, it inspires me with awe to ..read more

Physics and Art makes the Top 25 Best Science Fiction Blogs for 2019 ..read more

I was stunned to discover an inspirational message within the movie Ad Astra. I’d read about the dramatic cinematography and went into the theatre expecting an entertaining but essentially “light” experience. In all honesty, I’d avoided reading much about it, because I didn’t want to read any spoilers. The only thing that might have given me a hint was a blurb somewhere comparing it to the movie Solaris. But reading reviews after the movie, I’m surprised to see how few reviews even mention what, to me, was a stunning surprise. Most reviews focus on the cinematography and mention how this was b ..read more

First image from the Event Horizon Telescope, a global collaboration of radio telescopes from around the world, all synthesized into one big virtual telescope. The whole point was to find out what a black hole looks like, and now we have it. This is a bit blurry and low-resolution, but still amazing when you realize what you are looking at: a real black hole! It’s the supermassive black hole at the centre of a giant elliptical galaxy called M87, which is about 6.5 billion times the mass of the Sun. Perhaps more amazing is that this thing is 55 million light-years away. When the l ..read more