Let's Get Off This Rock Already!
An Author's Adventures in Space Travel, Science Fiction, and Worlds Beyond
When we last saw the Next Generation crew on the big screen, they took over from Captain Kirk with an awkward, confused, ultimately anticlimactic passing of the torch. Not the film debut they deserved. Thankfully, the next movie got things on the right track again—and boy is it a movie. It's got action! It's got... Continue Reading →
You find the darndest things in the back catalog of Amazon Prime. One of those darndest things is the 1980 feature Saturn 3—a film that tried to ride the wave of late-'70s sci-fi (Star Wars, Alien, Star Trek: The Motion Picture) by deploying ambitious effects, A-list actors, and a dizzily imaginative script. It did not... Continue Reading →
A thousand years after the collapse and rebirth of civilization, the General of the Armies of Eurasia accompanies her Emperor on a hunting trip. (Science Fiction) (Incomplete)
The good news is, nature has provided us with a planet startlingly similar to our own, orbiting almost within reach just 4.3 light-years from Earth. The bad news? It might not be a very good neighborhood. Despite being the best-studied exoplanet out there, scientists can scarcely make heads or tails of what it's really like,... Continue Reading →
Anyone who has worked retail knows that the customer is often wrong. By extension, the market is often wrong. Nowhere is that truer than at the box office, where a copy-paste rehash can rake in billions if it pushes the right buttons, while audiences turn up their noses at works of genuine beauty and creativity.... Continue Reading →
An astronomy pop quiz for you: How large does a planet have to be before it can have a natural satellite of its own? It's a trick question, you see. There's no lower limit. In fact, moons aren't just the province of planetary-mass bodies like Jupiter, Pluto, and our own Planet Earth---asteroids have them, too.... Continue Reading →
When it comes to making quick, flashy imagery for this site, Midjourney has long been my tool of choice. It's a godsend for my sillier and more lighthearted posts; I've used it to generate eye-popping covers1 for my short stories, and visuals for book reviews that would otherwise lack them. But it might not be... Continue Reading →
Event Horizon has long held a special place in my heart, and in my nightmares. Few other films have frightened me quite the way that one did, when I first watched it as an impressionable teenager, and to this day I list it among my very favorite horror movies. Some of you may recall the... Continue Reading →
Robert Zubrin is a persistent man. An engineer, author, and above all, space advocate, he's lobbied for a human voyage to Mars for about three and a half decades now, even as the US government has dilly-dallied its way through various questionable exercises in pork-barrel spending. It's 2025 and human boots haven't even returned to... Continue Reading →
The hiatus is finally over---and I'm starting things up again with some very big news. You may remember the novel I've teased on and off over the past year. I'm pleased to report that, after many delays, I can finally tell you what it's about. Ladies and gentlemen, I present you: Pathfinders. Fans of deep-space... Continue Reading →
