James S.A. Corey's 'Cibola Burn' is another gripping, fast-paced entry in their SF-adventure 'Expanse' series. I enjoyed it enormously.
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/54355949-cc1f-4a95-b343-fdd3e9c9edeb
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#PennedPossibilities #PennedPossibilities side prompt: Elevator quick pitch of your WIP, only the worst pitch ever.
A daemon and a day angel fly to the moon. The lunatics there believe they're really a demon and an angel. They're as right as they are wrong.
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Guten Morgen allerseits! 
Mit Blick auf die Weltlage und die wohl von uns allen empfundene Ohnmacht in diesem Chaos hier ein wunderbares #Zitat der amerikanischen Schriftstellerin Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018):
"You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere."
Ursula K. Le Guin: The Dispossessed (1974)
#ScribesAndMakers 2504.12 — Shameless self-promotion day. Show us what you're proud of. Let's boost away.
Mars Need Women is a hopeful yet deeply dystopian feminist SF web-novel that leans heavily into Women's right's issues thanks to a set of writing prompts on the subject. It is a woman-centric adventure story of overcoming adversity while being female, with all the warts and frustrations, not as a man in disguise.
Our wannabe engineer heroine May Ri escapes a disheartening life, faced with becoming little more than a housewife because she lacks "blessings," to help colonize Mars—if you can call being shanghaied escaping and being contracted to have children a benefit. (She does get to choose the gorgeous supportive guy, though, so that's a positive.) As she learns to make martian machines, she keeps putting herself at the center of a global martian dust storm with her children as power shifts from being male-dominated. As the daughters of the Martian immigrants increasingly control Mars' future (how is spoilers), May Ri together with her five daughters shape a world (Mars) the way unfettered women might imagine it.
When the men of Earth take affront—of course they do—they learn that women don't fight like men, especially when their children's lives are threatened, and their wellbeing is at stake. #RSMarsNeededWomen
It remains free-to-read on Mastodon for a few more days:
https://eldritch.cafe/@sfwrtr/114088945266387178.
If you start reading it now, a comment or a private mention will tell me not to delete the posts until the end of next week. I consider it a beta read. I'm already revising an augmenting the original story, tying up loose ends, and might add more chapters along the path to publishing it as a book. Meanwhile, I'm going to start boosting chapters for a last hurrah.
See #alttext for book cover description.
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https://www.unitedstateszipcodes.org/94110/
Interesting data on the Mission (specifically 94110 zip code)
14,934 out of 68,336 (24%) don't have an income !
11% of the population is below 20 years old.
18,963 out of 29,790 (63.7%) housing units were built before 1939
#SF #TheMission #SanFrancisco #Data
#WordWeavers 2504.12 — MC POV: Name 3 dangers that exist in your world. How do you protect yourself from them?
[Thorn Rose speaks. She's a bit of an egghead.] The heat of day time is very dangerous, but nobody really thinks about this. Buildings big and small are designed to use convection to cool the interior. Since daemons, like me, are fairly common, you can pay for more efficient miraculous recirculation. Mostly, when the day shine is bright, most people sleep.
People are dangerous. Not just the prejudiced people who might gang up on you because they think you don't have a right to exist, or at least walk in their neighborhoods. I got the pleasure (NOT) to witness what the dragons did in their autonomous region; that type of thing skews your whole idea of humanity. Of course, there is also the armistice with the Wild, and even Rainy Day's does her best to tread quietly around them.
Last, the sky is falling. Literally.
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My first posting on here of what I hope will be at least a weekly thing. I'm mostly hoping to post a few times a week but as this is Day 1, I have zero clue how this will work out.
Well, today's universe-inside-my-head seems to be bigger than I was expecting. It even gave itself a title.
ZANUBIAN ADVENTURE
Nayan Len sipped the last of her drink, rolling the thoughts round her head as she moved her glass so the dregs of her drink rolled round the confines of the base. Caught the nearest bartender’s eye as she placed it firmly on the serving deck, sliding it over.
“A other of your finest swill, Donavan.”
“On your tab or are you paying it off this time?” He poured.
“Pay day is round the corner, so we’ll see what Barker says when I go collect. Cheers.” She raised the glass and swigged a gulp as Donavan moved to serve another drinker.
Romeo, better known as, “Mechanic!” Sighed a weary sigh as he finished tightening the nut.
“Yep! What now Gerhal?” He paused his work as Gerhal stepped into the forward engine compartment.
“You fixed my monitor just great. Was wondering what’s up with my keyboard? Monitor is not much use with out it.”
“What?” Romeo started work on the next nut fastening. “Did Peats not tell you that that monitor is now fully functional, touch screen and all?”
A pause, “What? That thing is supposed to be a touchy?”
“Yep. Always was, just this heap wasn’t up to it. Peaty upgraded some computery, gimmicks & now you techy types can fly better & hopefully I don’t have to change parts or filters quite so often down here.”
“Huh? What-da-you know, Peaty actually did something useful.”
“Nay can be persuasive when she wants.”
In the Salferan Orbital Service Station The main draw of the retail arcade ring was the the Markets. The Traders Markets being nearest the two docking arms meant that they were the bigger of the four markets and the loudest with some traders having open repair shops for things that could be fixed off ship. Peaty was wondering through, eating a Mystery Meat Paté in a Watenwrack, a thing that looked and tasted like a cross between a baked thing and a potato thing. The seller was right, it wasn’t quite as bad as it smelled & it was cheap food, so…
Peaty continued to browse through the market as she looked for anything that might be either useful or fun to mess with. She’d already reserved a couple of things that she would collect on her way back towards the vessel she called home these days. One of them was something that should cheer Romeo up as he’d been a bit down since leaving the lovely Leonora on his home world as she had to get back to her university studies. He’d even tried to persuade Nayan to rename the Zanubian Baraheen after a nasty scrape removed most of the name from the starboard side.
At the Intrepid bar Nayan finished her drink & headed back to her home. She could probably do with a good sleep before facing Barker and his people tomorrow. She might be able to pay off the bar tab she & her crew had but whether there would be any money left for pay would be the rub.
Intro part?
#Story #Fiction #Writing #Freeform #Adventure #Scribbles #ShortStory
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Yep, la cardamine des prés est arrivée / Yep, the cardamine des prés has arrived / #photography #TeamPixel #GooglePixel #FungiFriends #Google #Pixel #naturephotography #SF #science-fiction #fleurs #flowers https://www.laurentvoyage.com/?L-Echo-des-Cardamines-Lumina
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@SFFMagazineCovers
Oscar watched the CAT display as the alien machine performed the transmutation on Glenda, his sister.
They'd tried it on the neighbour's sick dog first, and found that the cancers were not able to survive the process. Reversing the process also worked, and the dog seemed ok afterwards, if a little friskier than usual. But given how sick it had been, that was hardly surprising.
Glenda settled to the ground, now entirely made of living metal.
"Well Sis, it looks like you're clean now, according to the scans," Oscar said without looking up. It had been bad enough seeing her in her underwear. "Step in again, and I'll reverse it."
He heard her moving around. Nothing on the screen. "Sis?"
"Hold onto that thought Ozzy! I'm just going to see Annette. I might be a while, don't wait up!"
He heard the door close, and sighed. One day she'd come out. Everyone knew, but somehow Glenda though she was being soooo discrete.
There was a series of loud bangs from upstairs. He rushed up, only to see an unconcious stranger on the floor, with a .38 revolver still smoking in his hand.
Glenda was in her robe, sitting down and looking at something in her hand.
"Are you alright?"
"Hmmmm? Oh, yes." She held up a small metal blob, "I appear to be bulletproof."
Oscar looked back at the unconcious figure.
Following his gaze, Glenda helpfully continued "It appears that our intruder was not able to cope with a lady not dying when shot in the face." She got up, and started up the stairs. "I'm getting dressed, and going out. I don't think the police should see me, do you?"
Oscar looked down again, and sighed. Again. He kicked the gun aside, and got out the duct tape. The things you do for family.
#WordWeavers 2504.11 — Could your SC do your job?
I'm retired. Pretty much any of them could do that. To the extent that the main series antagonist is also a secondary character, getting to be retired is the WHOLE POINT of her existence from her point of view!
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@Heliograph Thanks for posting that; I feel better about some literary choices. When I wrote my Mars novel I decided to use a single universal time for the entire planet. People can't live on the surface and most development is underground for radiation reasons. No windows. Some population is on spaceships or a station. One zone gives the same diurnal schedule to everyone everywhere. When they rarely need to use the surface, they use offset and solar terms, "like local dusk is just before lunch."
The Apple tv series adaptation of Martha Wells' "Murderbot" stars Alexander Skarsgård.
my friend orion needed his finale act for into the mouth of the wolf for some reason so i quickly threw it together for whatever he needs.. it was nice to revisit and see his skill yet again. check it out !
Dudes in Gutter punk lesbian bars.
#35 #35mm #film #filmisnotdead #kodak #portra #portra400 #sf #sanfrancisco #cali #california #bnw #blackandwhite #ilford #bar
#35 #35mm #film #filmisnotdead #kodak #portra #portra400 #sf #sanfrancisco #cali #california #bnw #blackandwhite #ilford #bar
Continued thread
#ScribesAndMakers 2504.10 2/2 — Show us a book cover you like. What makes it special?
Well, I like the cover I mocked up for my web-novel. What makes it special other than I did all the work? It sets the tone for what isn't seen in the story since most of the scenes either occur inside domes on Mars or inside an arcology on Earth. There's a lack of contrast between living on Mars and Earth.
The image is from Jezero crater. When the protagonist's eldest daughter finishes training 2,000 young people her age to wear Mars suits, in celebration, she asks to visit in a scene late in the book because it's so "famous."
The Mars globe in a Triskelion is the tattoo all the Mars contract colonists imported from Earth wear on their right forearm.
I like the overall effect of the image and the metallic wire lettering, with the tiny bit of asymmetry, as it evokes a sense of quiet desolation. With a very thin atmosphere, Mars is often very quiet and I see the cover as contemplative.
Not sure whether a publisher's marketing department would think it would sell the book, however.
More in #AltText
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#HUD threatens funds for #sanctuary cities, risking #homelessness for 15,000 #SF residents.
https://www.sfpublicpress.org/theyll-all-be-homeless/
San Francisco Public Press · ‘They’ll All Be Homeless’San Francisco housing advocates say a HUD plan to cut funding to sanctuary cities and states will likely lead to a surge in homelessness.
#PennedPossibilities 640 — MC POV: Tell us about the good habits you have.
[Devil-girl:] I'd been asked this question and it hadn't occur to me that habits could be good or bad. It was while I was training for my first prize fight, so I asked Rabbit, who was doing roadwork with me, running the pedestrian path between Northfork and downtown along the river.
He said, "You read."
"Doesn't everyone?" I asked.
"Well, if it were the newspaper, the funnies or the sports page—" He was a little winded. "—I might understand, but a book? The pavement is uneven, too!"
I was getting a twofer, levitating the tome three hand widths before my face. It allowed me to properly swing my arms and shadow box as I ran. "I've got good peripheral vision. You wanna look? It's on quantum thaumadynamics—"
"No thanks. I'm a muscle nerd not an egghead."
"But… is it a good habit?"
"Only if you don't trip and break your pretty neck."
"Don't worry." I giggled. "I won't."
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#WordWeavers 2504.10 — Antagonist POV: How do you feel about the government?
[Rainy Days gives Thorn Rose a big hug for asking such an insightful question! Even after the pressure Rainy Days put the young woman under to test her mettle and the hell she'd force her to deal with (20K words), she had hoped she'd finally ask, but hadn't been holding her breath…]
The government is a work in progress, pretty much like always. These days I keep the central population under tight regulation. Instead, I perform my social experiments in the autonomous regions. It rather irked me, however, when their leaders took their freedom to choose and chose to enslave people by criminalizing them. The dragon lords were unhappy when I told them to knock it off, then outraged when I started this war to assert my authority? In what way is an autonomous region actually sovereign? Come on!
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