I have a new patron-only post up on Patreon! This holiday season, why not give the gift of Xauri'EL Zwaan? Pledges start at just $5USD and include free copies of three short ebooks!
scifi
Spoiler of an old season that's years beyond standard spoiler rules
Edited 284d ago
👋I’m K. Llewellin
I’m a marine scientist turned sci-fi author & I write futuristic space opera. My stories dive into politics, war, & what happens when humans aren’t the good guys. I love creating strange & unusual races, so expect plenty of alien intrigue alongside starships & battles.
I’ve published 3 novels so far:
*A Candle Amongst the Stars
*Warriors Made of Glass
*Sins of the Gods
If you’d like to check out my first novel👉 https://books2read.com/u/38vVwB
My story "ReproTech RealWomb User Manual" is live on the Baffling Magazine Patreon! Just a quick meditation on platform capitalism, bodily autonomy, and the industrial progenesis of the next generation. The full issue drops for free on the 31st, but if you just can't wait and would be willing to donate a few simoleons to the cause of queer speculative fiction, go on over and give it a read!
Edited 329d ago
Bonjour! 🖖😎
Orbital Phase I
from In Slow Motion
https://solarphasing.bandcamp.com/track/orbital-phase-i
#music #fedimusic #musodon #mastomusic #electronicmusic #experimentalmusic #berlinschool #modular #modularsynth #electronica #ambient #drone #soundscape #atmospheric #experimental #scifi #sciencefiction #synthetizer #synth #spacemusic #art #culture #bandcamp
hi! for reasons, i'm asking my fellow nerds for any resources, advice, or good places to research about writing for video games and specifically developing something in the rhythm genre.
Hallelujah Baby Klaus!
Lust auf Sauerkrautfelder, Lauerschweine und insgesamt schönen Quatsch...but in space?
Es gibt jetzt eine neue Folge von #RaumschiffPaprika auf allen Streamingdiensten.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mLsaBmr8b54H3xZhdKz2NxwXSZvzUt9Kg
Fresh newsletter incoming in one week! Want to catch up on past missives and get a sneak peek at what you're missing? Check out the archive and subscribe today for a free ebook!
Time for a new #introduction post after the move!
I'm Sar, a 50yr old nerdy guy from Northern Ireland. I love IT, and am into tech and all things computing.
My hobbies include playing #WorldOfWarcraft, reading about World Of #Warcraft and thinking about #WoW
Seriously though, my *other* hobbies also include:
#Astronomy
#Linux (alternating between #Bazzite & #ArchLinux)
#Gaming on #Steam, #PS5 & #Switch (mainly on PC though, see above!)
#SciFi such as #StarWars, #Startrek, #Babylon5, #Marvel & #DC etc
Also a screenshot junkie #VirtualPhotography
I'm also awaiting the results of my #Autism diagnosis as I write this, and am also fairly confident I have #ADHD as well, giving me the #AuDHD super-deluxe wombo-combo 😂
I decided to make the jump to this self-hosted instance at the end of 2025 after many happy years on masto.ai/@sar, and have no regrets.
Yet.
Edited 319d ago
July's almost over! 🎉 ⬇️THU-THU July 23-30 weekly #Mastodon/ #Fediverse #WatchPartyCalendar screencaps
📅LiveCal at http://bit.ly/MastodonWatchParties
⏰️️All times US Eastern
🎭 #Comedon on hiatus till 8/6
#Westerns #Music #Mysteries #scifi #Action #Comedy #anime #Movies #FilmMastodon #CineMastodon
Thanks to all the hosts🌺 @MatthewTitus88 @MirrorAyako @Taweret @analgesicsleep @rsmon77 @hyde @greenpepper22 @kamikat @lilymarswrites @LisaMarieBowman @AlsoPaisleyCat @klu9 @GrillChill @revmagdalen
Bonjour! 🖖😎
Quantum Time
from Missing Time
https://solarphasing.bandcamp.com/track/quantum-time
#music #fedimusic #musodon #mastomusic #electronicmusic #experimentalmusic #berlinschool #modular #modularsynth #electronica #ambient #drone #soundscape #atmospheric #experimental #scifi #sciencefiction #synthetizer #synth #spacemusic #art #culture #bandcamp
I'm set to shoot #windShortFilm a #solarpunk comedy in June, so this last mile campaign is to cover basics like food, transport, etc. We made all costumes, props, and set constructions from scratch and it strained our budget since it is a futuristic story with no central governments, and no #capitalism Everyone participates in running the country. Help me make it!
250/500
Details: https://www.dilmandila.com/donate/wind-a-solarpunk-short-film
#mutualaid #sff #scifi #buyIntoArt #creativetoots #crowdfund #writing #writingcommunity
Edited 181d ago
#introduction
Hi, I'm Marianne, AKA Noodlemaz!
I've actually been here since 2022 but my old instance just got shut down (med-mastodon refugee). Please follow me again here 🙃
I'm a science communicator based in London, UK.
I'm in London's nerdiest choir, Ready Singer One - we do music from video games, film and TV!
My PhD was in cancer biology; molecular pathology of cancer.
I love games, nature, SciFi friends (hi!), music etc. and look forward to chatting here 
#videoGames #sciFi #London #choir #choralSinging #music #cancer #scicomm #videoGamesMusic #birds #medMastodon
Edited 320d ago
Wow, is it time for the year-end roundup already? But I only just did the last one! Anyway, this year I published 4 short stories, mostly flash, and self-published one. I'm calling that an "equals" for my previous record until I see significant sales on the ebook. As of today I have one story scheduled for publication next year.
I'll go in reverse chronological order this time, because my final publication of the year is also a release announcement! "ReproTech RealWomb User Manual" is now available to read for free in Baffling Issue 22. A quick little meditation on platform capitalism, bodily autonomy, and the industrial progenesis of the next generation. And the most exciting news of the year: the gorgeous cover art for this issue was inspired by my story! Go check it out, I'm very proud of what my editor and I created together.
The Winter of Sci-Fi & Fantasy vol. 2 Kickstarter has launched! Pledge $40CAD for a print edition or just $15 for an ebook filled with awesome speculative fiction sourced by invitation from previous Summer of Sci-Fi & Fantasy contributors! 80% of profits from the crowdfund go directly to supporting the authors, so if you back you'll be doing me a real solid!
Edited 18d ago
Fresh newsletter incoming in one week! What pots am I stirring in this month's mini-essay? Check out the archive to see if you'd like to find out, then sign up for a free sci-fi ebook and a monthly missive from Yours Truly!
The thing about a base on the moon is that everyone underestimates the amount of support the Earth provides. Even with a so-called sealed environment, there is considerable support provided by the outside.
So when they established the first moonbase, it was very short lived. To be fair, it was only really intended as a temporary establishment, but it only lasted just over one and a half times the design life. Which for a NASA project is abysmal. So 36 months after being established, it was abandoned. The next one, an ESA project, lasted about the same.
The third was a Chinese military one. It was meant to be permanent, but they abandoned it after two years because of the cost of resupply.
The fourth one was an attempt at a lunar hotel. It lasted three months before the company running it went bust, and a joint NASA/ESA rescue mission had to be sent to bring the staff home.
The fifth one was a genuine attempt at colonisation, headed up by a multi-billionaire. They were well funded, and established a large semi-underground city space. Several hundred people moved there. Most of them died there. The oxygen plant worked, the CO2 scrubbers worked, but the small population did not have enough depth in skills to keep it running safely. Eight people survived the catastrophic cascade that destroyed the biome and the containment. Only seven of them made it back to Earth. The last one remained behind to manage the launch of the one remaining earth-return ship.
The sixth and seventh ones followed similar patterns, at great loss of life.
This cooled the idea of a permanent moon base for several decades.
Eventually someone tried again. This time it was an international consortium of space agencies. Their objective was to try and determine what would be needed for any sort of permanent non-terrestrial colony.
The answer was shocking to everyone.
Over thirty thousand people ended up needed to provide the required depth of skills. And for each of them approximately two hectares of wild space was needed, in addition to the farmed areas.
What was the extra space for? It provided sufficient complexity to the support biomes to ensure that they could not easily go into a systemic collapse. It provided for pollinators to breed, for detritus processors to grow, and all the millions of little things that were needed for an actual ecosystem.
It took them nearly thirty years to build it. And it remains the only one that Earth has ever successfully built.
The Selenites, as they call themselves, have, however, built two more as their population has grown.
#SF #SFF #SciFi #SpaceOpera #microfic #microfiction #tootfic #IAmWriting
Iconic #scifi series #Babylon5 is slowly being uploaded to YouTube in its entirety for free.
https://cordcuttersnews.com/babylon-5-is-now-free-to-watch-on-youtube/
(via @cos)
Alys considered the chip in front of her. A tiny low power particle accelerator. Barely 10KeV.
In the Great Collapse that followed the riots of 2032, Big Science - indeed Big Anything had gotten a bad name. A few projects survived - the LHC, Sea Sweeper, and a few others. But the rest? As dead as low orbit.
That was what had triggered the riots and the then the Collapse. LEO had undergone a Kessler event, and all space launches had been banned. Eventually the weather satellites had failed, and it only took a few major events for the giant multinationals to become the target of everyone's hate.
That had been twenty years ago - Alys had been a kid at the time - and they were predicting that launches would not be able to resume for another ten years at least.
So she considered her chip. A little low power accelerator like this could not achieve much. But it could ionise light atoms. Maybe....
A few weeks later, she had her circuit set up. One thing that the tiny chips had enabled was cheap small scale chip fabrication. So now she had an array of these chips with a feed for hydrogen, and a thermocouple array. And her collision chamber.
She started the hydrogen flow, and turned the circuit on. A second later the power metre started to climb. 5.5 volts, and 5000 milliamps.
She disconnected the dummy load, and routed the output into the circuit's input. And unplugged the external power.
The power remained stable.
It was not much, but it was a start.
She picked up the phone, and dialled the head of the department "Dr Fulsom? Can you come down to the workshop, please? I've got something to show you."
Naturally it was Dr Heather Fulsom that got the credit - at first. But Alys de Jute was the one who went down in history.
"Is there a way to fix a broken heart?" asked the robot.
The human was a little stunned but then shrugged, "Eat ice cream and cry a lot."
"I am not capable of those things."
"Hm... a fling? Or a new hobby?"
"Those do not seem logical solutions."
"Can you simply not delete the memories?"
"I... find myself unable to."
"Sounds like logic isn't the answer."
"So what can I do?"
"Have you ever tried painting?"
"No."
"We can start there."
I've got a new patron-only post up on Patreon! Want to influence the future of my release schedule? Pledges start at $1USD/month, which includes free copies of two short ebooks (with more to come!)
The Darwin Incident – Episode 1
The series wants to ask big questions about animal rights, extremism, and eugenics, but the writing so far is awfully broad for tackling such hefty issues.
https://www.animefeminist.com/the-darwin-incident-episode-1/
A Holiday in July: M. Pax Dimension Event Sale! For a limited time, step into worlds of space opera, steampunk adventure, magical realism, and strange discoveries with exclusive store-only deals. https://www.mpaxauthor.com/a-holiday-in-july-m-pax-dimension-event-sale/
#books #sciencefiction #readingcommunity #mustreads #scifi #fantasy #speculativefictioin #bookstodon
I'm reading Kurt Vonnegut's "Galapagos".
This is a novel from **1985**... and, while it's not "great", I'd still recommend it for anyone living this current time, plus, it's kinda funny.
It manages to:
- describe AI techno-bros as what they are: self-centred assholes.
- (shallowly) describe incels before those were a concept in our collective imagination.
- (very subtly) establish a clear connection between all those self-proclaimed "apolitical" people and... nazis.