interstellar travel

Another month, another story in Analog magazine

Analog is the highest-circulation and longest-lived science fiction magazine on the market today. Its first editor of note, John W. Campbell, channelized much of what we think of as traditional science fiction, publishing authors like Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov. (He also believed L. Ron Hubbard was onto something with Dianetics). Campbell’s successor, Ben Bova, …

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An Exterminator-Free Galaxy

Quoting Nick Land, expat Brit philosopher in Shanghai, “The cosmic reality visible to us is characterized by an intense, efficient aversion to the existence of advanced civilizations.” He calls whatever it is that prevents the existence of advanced civilizations “The Great Filter.” Longtime science fiction readers familiar with Gregory Benford’s Galactic Center series or Fred …

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Novel Acorn: Operation Iago

Quick note: this blog post may look familiar to my mailing list subscribers. It was one of those exclusive, pre-release bonuses my mailing list subscribers received almost three weeks ago, and almost a week before Operation Iago became available. You can get similar bonus content about my next books by subscribing now. Scroll down on …

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The Fermi Paradox and the Drake Equation – From Intelligence to High-Tech Civ (f_c)

So far in the series, we’ve gotten a range for N, the number of detectable civilizations in the galaxy, to [5e-7 to 8e-6] * f_c * L. Today’s post will estimate the value of f_c, the fraction of intelligent species that go on to develop a civilization detectable (through electromagnetic transmissions and/or probes travelling at …

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Economics of Space Settlements, Part I

As a longtime sf fan, one of the toughest realizations I ever came to is that Space settlements will never happen for economic reasons. In part, the costs of getting to space are too high.  Charles Stross has discussed the costs at great length here.  To get one person to the Moon, bringing along the …

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