Writing Contests

So, I do this every so often. But this week I've had to send not one, but two, emails to Writer Beware about iffy writing contests.

So, I figured I'd post my list of contest red flags again. Some reasons why you should probably not enter a contest:

1. Disproportionate entry fees. Sometimes a smaller publisher will run a contest as a revenue generator. The one I found recently was a $20 entry fee for a $250 prize. This means they only have to get 13 entries to cover the prize. I've also seen $10 with the prize being publication...at one cent a word. Many legitimate contests do charge a reading fee. The fee is to cover the prize money and also costs like juries and paid slush pile readers, honorariums for the judges, etc. Look at the ratio of fee to prize money. Smaller publishers may be paying slush pile readers, but are generally judging the contest themselves.
2. Weird judges or critiquers. The same $250 prize people are also offering a "review" of the story by an "award-winning film producer." Many legitimate contests will not name their judges for privacy concerns, but they should give you some indication of their qualifications. Named judges are a good sign, and check previous years too: They may name the judges after the contest when it's too late for entrants to track them down and try to bribe them.
3. Rights on entry. Do not enter a contest where you sign away anything when you enter the contest. The rights grab that triggered this post was a contest which was claiming full, exclusive rights in all languages and media for life of contest on all entries. This happens. If they are providing a sample contract, read carefully and make sure you aren't agreeing to it when you enter (or that if you are, it only refers to the winner and is terms you are completely happy with). Also, bear in mind that if a publication takes rights on submission or entry and returns them on rejection you are screwed if they never actually respond. A red flag I've only seen once, but which alerted me right away: A request for all stories to never have been submitted to anyone else.

Also, as a note.

Sign away only the rights a publisher or contest actually needs and will execute. Only sign over audio rights if there's a good chance they'll use them (Some podcasts and audio zines will buy only the audio rights). Don't sign movie rights to a publisher. "All media" is not a phrase that should be in anything but a ghostwriting contract, which is a different world, and there's a reason ghostwriters tend to be paid rather well...

Because I'm getting annoyed...

Paleontology - the study of fossils
Paleoanthropology - the study of early humans and their ancestors through fossils and physical remains
Archaeology - the study of past cultures through tools, artifacts, ruins, etc (Collectively called "material culture.")

Archaeologists do not dig up dinosaurs, people! Well, intentionally...

Probing Mars...

So, apparently no matter how hard they try they can't get the InSight heat probe far enough into the surface of Mars to get results.

It seems there's a really solid soil layer not that far under the surface.

You know, if this was Earth, we'd be saying "Permafrost." There can't be that much water on Mars, but there's definitely something going on.

Or we're all wrong and it's permafrost.

(More likely it's old soil that's just dried out solid, but it resembles concrete).

Mars is weird.

Stellar...Twinkies?

So, this is interesting.

Apparently white dwarfs, which are the corpses of stars like the sun, may have centers filled with "cream" - churning quantum liquid that can last trillions of years.

I can't think of anything but stellar twinkies. Sorry not sorry.

Three Body Problem...

...or rather, three suns, one planet.

Actually, there is probably more than one planet in the system, but LTT 1445Ab is about 1.5 times the size of Earth and appears to be a terrestrial/rocky planet.

There's no way it's habitable - it orbits one of the three suns in a very tight orbit. But it might still teach us something.

And, yeah, the complex orbit of the trinary system is, shall we say, interesting. As in, we have no idea whatsoever how it actually, well.

Works.

Planetary Exploration

This is a long and perhaps rather convoluted read, but it's worth checking out:

Planetary Mission Concept Studies.

This is all stuff NASA is considering doing and it includes the first proper mission to Neptune, a mission to work out if there has ever been life on Ceres (which would also cover stuff we need to know if it does end up the refueling station for the Belt), dropping a lander on Mercury, and Enceladus (I've talked to NASA scientists who would much rather send a mission to Enceladus, with its convenient off-gassing, than Europa).

Excited? Some of these will be a decade in the making (the next feasible launch window to Neptune, barring a major propulsion milestone, is in 2029), but...

Neanderthal Glue and Civilization

So, Neanderthals glued tools together. This might seem like a simple thing, but the fact is?

Glue's not easy to make.

The specific glue they used was birch tar. Birch trees would likely have been common in Ice Age Europe, much as they are today in the upper Midwest, Scandinavia and parts of the UK.

And the thing is:

They were using this glue on relatively simple tools. Which means they were producing it in quantity. Producing it in quantity requires heating it to about 350F, which may be familiar as a common temperature for baking meat in a modern oven.

They likely did this by heating the bark in a clay vessel buried under earth, a primitive form of oven.

We tend to assume that Neanderthals were primitive. But these discoveries may indicate that far from being less advanced than anatomically modern humans...

Put it this way, the Neanderthals disappeared about 40,000 years ago.

The oldest pottery yet found was 20,000 years old, in China.

But if the Neanderthals were making clay ovens, then they had pottery. Maybe it was an accident the first time, heavy soil being heated and them discovering it fused.

They were at least as advanced as anatomically modern men at the time and may have been more so. Likely, this was due to their harsher environment driving technological innovation faster.

We already know that people don't invent things they don't need. A harsh or changing environment pushes innovation.

(Now, technologically superior doesn't mean superior in any other ways. But it does mean they were smart. And how much did we learn from them?)

So...

...the old concept of the Von Neumann machine is back. The tabloids are saying we've been invaded by nanoprobes.

What scientists are actually saying is that the use of nanoprobe swarms for deep space observation is feasible. Nanoprobes would, of course, use very little fuel and could be sent to "candidate" systems to observe and record data without being detected by any local civilizations.

(Which given we can't be trusted not to blow things up...)

But that doesn't mean they're out there.

Or does it?

Capclave Roundup

Due to being chained to a dealer table ;) (No, I really don't mind) and also doing the mass signing, I only made it to two program items. One of them was Dr. Inge Heyer's wonderful roundup of current Mars science. She caught me up.

(Arana doesn't go to Mars, neither does the untitled Transpecial sequel, but I plan on going back there eventually. The Red Planet has a place in my heart).

The new layout for the mass signing was a vast improvement. I got far more traffic and actually sold books. However, the Short Takes reading was slot-of-deathed opposite Robert Sawyer's interview and ended up being canceled :(.

Speaking of Robert Sawyer, he really is very nice. So is Martha Wells.

Next year will be Capclave 20, and it promises to be an epic party.

Off to Capclave

Getting ready to leave for Capclave. I will be at the Rantings of a Wandering Mind booth during dealer room hours and also participating in "Short Takes" at 1pm on Saturday.

Friday and Saturday evening you'll probably find me in the bar or something.

And yes, I will have books. And candy. And possibly other experimental goodies...

Did Viking find life on Mars?

Most likely, no, but the controversy has been stirred up again by a scientist who is, basically, complaining that we haven't been looking hard enough into certain sample results that may (but most likely didn't) indicate the presence of microbes in the Martian soil.

This crops up every so often, and the scientific consensus is that what Viking found proved absolutely nothing.

Of course, it didn't disprove life either...

Review: A Night Without Stars by Peter F. Hamilton

This is the sequel to The Abyss Beyond Dreams, and you do really need to have read the previous book. It helps somewhat if you've also read the Void trilogy.

I mean, I'm not saying it doesn't stand alone at all, but it sadly doesn't do so all that well. It's still a good book. It exists in the Commonwealth universe, which is a high tech space opera world, but this book comes more down to Earth, or rather Bienvenido. It's set on an isolated world located outside our galaxy, and the inhabitants enjoy about a 1960s level of technology, complete with astronauts going into space in reverse engineered Soyuz capsules.

The characters are solid, but in a couple of cases it suffers from the fact that some of them are essentially superheroes, due to a vast disparity in tech. The biggest flaw is a twist that is so obvious it had me rolling my eyes. YMMV, of course.

Overall, the plot is interesting, and the stakes rise through the book until they hit planetary levels with....well, spoilers, but the world nearly ends. Of course, that is mitigated by the fact that this is one isolated human colony, with the entire Commonwealth still out there. But he does make us care about the characters, if not the world of Bienvenido itself. (It's rather messed up).

It's a solid read, but I'm taking off half a star for not standing alone and another half for the insultingly obvious twist.

Four stars - Recommended

Black holes...

...keep getting more and more interesting.

I'm linking this video rather than embedding it because it haas a strobe effect and I don't want to give anyone seizures:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9V-sjuOzVVA

This is an active black hole in the process of eating a companion star, and look at how black it isn't. (Yes, this is an artists' impression, but black holes generally aren't)...

Marvin!

Actor Stephen Moore, who voiced Marvin the Paranoid Android in the Hitchhiker's Guide TV show has passed away at the age of 81.

He also showed up in Doctor Who, playing the Silurian Eldane.

But he'll be best known as the iconic Marvin...and thus remembered by those of a certain generation with fondness.

On the topic of better spacesuits...

...NASA claims that the next astronauts on the moon will have suits that allow them to, well, not bunny hop around ridiculously.

They're also solving suit fit problems with modular suits and 3D printed components, meaning we're one step closer to the science fiction ideal of the fully custom pressure suit.

But we still shouldn't be canceling missions because of suits, so...

NASA Reschedules All Woman Space Walk

NASA has rescheduled the all woman space walk for October 21.

The original was infamously canceled because one of the astronauts discovered that a suit which fit on the ground no longer fit in orbit. They are assuring us that this time there will be no suit fit issues...

Let's hope so.

(We need better spacesuits. Badly).

"Batwoman and the Male Gaze

So, I watched the long-awaited pilot for Batwoman, the CW's replacement for the long running Arrow show.

It was not perfect. It had a certain amount of what I hope was pilot-itis (the storyline was a bit cliched and I wasn't too keen on the flashbacks).

But it had something else that makes me hope this show soars.

Kate Kane, ably played by Ruby Rose is, in the comics, Bruce Wayne's cousin. She's also canonically a lesbian.

Batwoman has thus been marketed as the first TV superhero show with a lesbian lead. Which it is, but this show goes past that.

This is our girl in street clothes. Look at that aesthetic.

Kate isn't just the first lesbian superhero to lead her own show.

She's unashamedly, completely butch.

This is a female character who won't be weaponizing her femininity, because she doesn't have any. If she does something feminine, she'll be wearing a costume as heavy as the batsuit. (The trademark red hair over the cowl does not show up right away, but apparently will later, there are pictures).

It's not just the hair, the clothes. Ruby Rose, who is non-binary and exclusively attracted to women, moves and sounds like a butch woman. (Although she identifies as genderfluid, she still uses she/her pronouns as far as I can tell). She brings a gender ambiguity to the role.

The second really huge thing the pilot does is this:

The bad guy, Alice, played by a brilliant woman named Rachel Skarsten, gets into a fight with Kate.

It is something you almost never see:

A fight between two women that is not a chickfight. (Now, I have to admit. The bisexual part of my brain enjoys chickfights. But...) When the two get together physically it is a knock down, drag out brawl. It is ugly.

This is female characters being allowed to be ugly in a fight.

There was nothing in the pilot that was put in there for straight men. Nothing of the male gaze. It does not put a lesbian on display, it does not make of her kisses and loves something for others to enjoy.

Batwoman is seen entirely through the gaze of queer women. It is by us. It is for us. It's not as good as Black Lightning.

Yet.

And if it fails it certainly won't be the fault of Ruby Rose.

(And, of course, it is being utterly panned on Rotten Tomatoes, so maybe we need to go give it some love).

Get Your Flu Shot

Friendly annual reminder: Get your flu shot now.

Flu season is already underway and the first deaths have happened. If you're going to fall conventions, it's even more important to protect not just you but the people who come to cons who can't be vaccinated for any reason.

So, get your shot. Please. I don't want anyone getting hurt... (Even if you do get the flu, it will be milder).

Mind-controlled exoskeletons?

French researchers built one. It's a proof of concept, but it did allow a completely paralyzed volunteer to walk again, albeit in the constrained world of the lab.

Whether these will become common is uncertain, although the volunteer is also using his surgically implanted hardware to control a wheelchair, an approach that seems much more likely to become available.

Cost is obviously another issue with the technology, but we now know that it can be done.

Review: Thin Air by Richard K. Morgan.

Richard K. Morgan's Thin Air is not quite being marketed right - I have seen no mention that this novel is set in the same world as his earlier Thirteen/Black Man (US/UK titles). This might be an attempt to distance the new work from what's often considered not to be one of Morgan's better works.

Personally, I loved Thirteen. But Thin Air is night and day better. It's a thick book and the action takes place entirely on a noir vision of Mars, and a surprisingly reasonable one. Mars has been colonized with the help of atmosphere-holding forcefields and biological improvements that allow the colonists to survive on a lot less oxygen.

The title is, like the original UK title of Thirteen, something of a pun...except even more so. Thin Air refers not just to the Martian atmosphere but to the mysterious disappearance at the center of the story.

Our protagonist, Veil is, like the protagonist of Thirteen, a genetically engineered human "variant." Unlike the earlier book, he was not created to be an aggressive super soldier, but rather to be an overrider - a human pilot who is pulled out of cryosleep when a long distance spaceship gets into trouble. But he's still basically a super soldier. And one who got mustered out after a screw up and left stranded on Mars. His goal: To get back to Earth.

But he gets pulled into a wonderful web of crime, conspiracy, and arguments over the future of the "high frontier."

Thin Air is part noir, part cyberpunk and even a good chunk western. Morgan is the master of noir cyberpunk, and it shows in this book, which demonstrates a mature writer on the top of his game. The book is morally ambiguous, deals with themes of nature, nurture, and breaking free of both in a way that almost equals (in a very different way) the work of C.J. Cherryh. We get a deep view into the mindset of somebody who is at once very human and not quite so.

This is Morgan's best work yet, and I highly recommend it to people who like noir, grittier futures, and a reasonably decent mystery (I wouldn't call this a mystery book, but...)

Content warning: This book contains explicit violence and somewhat explicit M/F sex.

We Need To Check Enceladus

Analysis of the Cassini data shows that plumes coming from Enceladus contain proteins that could easily turn into amino acids.

I've already talked to scientists who actually think Enceladus, not Titan or Europa, is the best place to look for alien microbes (We're not expecting to find anything more due to the low amounts of energy available). And that those plumes are part of why - no need to drill through the ice.

Unfortunately, and I blame Stanley Kubrick, people are more interested in Europa. "All these worlds are yours" and all that.

But Enceladus may teach us a lot about how life starts. Or even doesn't start.

...and maybe it's not a black hole at all...

...because maybe we're completely wrong about black holes. I don't actually buy it, but I'm going to leave this here while I go off and try to finish the short story that's kicking my butt.

https://www.livescience.com/black-holes-may-not-exist.html

No, Near Earth Asteroids are (Probably) not Alien "Lurkers"

Yeah, the paparazzi are at it again. We're being watched by alien probes disguised as asteroids.

The originator appears to be James Benford, and he has a point: If there are alien probes, disguising them as near earth asteroids would be a good idea.

However, it's pure speculation (sorry Dr. Benford) and there's absolutely zero evidence of the theory.

Of course, examining near earth asteroids is a good idea anyway, especially given the potential threat they pose.