The main trilogy forming the Revelation Space universe (Revelation Space, Redemption Ark and Absolution Gap) are Alastair Reynolds’ fictional answer to the Fermi Paradox: if, as predicted, the emergence of intelligent life in the universe is very likely, then why are we unable to find any evidence of the existence of these alien civilisations? E.T. read more?»
Chasm City, Alastair Reynold’s stand alone “Revelation Space” novel, is a tense, interstellar roller coaster.
Tanner Mirabel is a man with a mission: the assassination of Argent Reivich, the aristocrat responsible for the murder of both Tanner’s boss, the arms dealer Cauhella, and his boss’ innocent wife. Obsessively, Tanner follows Reivich across light-years of empty space, from the planet Sky’s Edge orbiting 61 Cygni to Yellowstone, in the Epsilon Eridani system. What once was the greatest, most technologically advanced city in settled space, Yellowstone’s Chasm City is, by the time our villain and antihero arrive, reduced to a sickly impoverished shadow of its former glory. The Melding Plague, an alien nano-machine based disease, has corrupted the advanced technology of the city’s buildings and the inhabitants’ implants alike. Up, up, and away!»
How a terrible 80s pop-rock hit forces me to rant about the speed of light.
As a skeptic I believe that our obsession with 80s music is a prime example of confirmation bias: we tend to remember the few songs that were actually good and forget how utterly crap all the rest of the music was. But for some arcane reason the radio in the laboratory was tuned to an all 80s station today. My poor ears caught parts of the lyrics of Europe’s The Final Countdown and something just didn’t make sense… besides the über-cheesy synthesizer melody. Prepare for a jump to hyperspace»
In which my steam-powered opener opens a can of worms and I disagree with nearly the entire steampunk-loving world.
Set in a late 19th century America where, due to increased advances of technology, the civil war is still raging, Boneshaker paints a contrasting steampunk world removed from the Victorian frills of other novels in the same genre. Dirigibles away! »
An open letter from the Boomers to their children: “…We realized like no other generation that the purpose of politics is to line our own pockets. Yes, most of that has been at your expense, kids. Sorry about that…”
This has to be the most realistic side-scrolling platform game in the world: Dan the Man!
Yet another case of Haggard’s Law: right-winged, bigoted Baptist minister is going on a vacation and takes with him… a rent boy!
for The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi. Thorough “Caloriepunk” world-building and interesting morally ambiguous characters!
According to this latest journalistic masterpiece of the intellectually outstanding newspaper The Sun, an English DJ named Steve Miller is allergic to electromagnetic radiation. He’s not allergic to just any frequency, but to signals at 2.4 Gigahertz. In other words, Steve gets nauseous because you just happen to surf the intertubes using Wireless LAN. You are polluting his aether!
Click here to see a simple animation explaining the principles of frequency and wavelength.
Electromagnetic hypersensitivity, as this form of allergy is called, is a known phenomena in the medical literature. However, evidence that this is actually a real condition is lacking. Still, people who have vague symptoms claim it is caused by all the electromagnetic radiation around us, and in certain cases they are even trying to ban Wi-Fi (and other electromagnetic signals) in public buildings and private dwellings. Beam me to the rest of this article»
