Trope-a-Day: Encyclopedia Exposita
Encyclopedia Exposita: I never could resist doing this, and I have so many metafictional books to choose from! (See, in face, much of the Fic-a-Day section.)
Alistair Young
Trope-a-Day: Empathic Environment
Empathic Environment: Much of the Empire has one of these, one way or another. On a small scale, this is because of the assorted Genii Locorum around the place, the house brains and city manager AIs and planai and other assorted minds at least one of whose functions is to
Trope-a-Day: Genius Loci
(‘Bout time I got back to these, I think.) Genius Loci: Quite a lot of them, from the simple usually-non-sophont AIs that run people’s houses and apartments (the “house brains”) to the increasingly sophisticated “city managers” and other AIs that run cities, provinces, transport networks, ports, and so forth,
Ads in the Paper (in the Starport)
For sale, any offers: 24 crates, half-container, assorted xenowidgets, function and identity unknown. Take ’em, they’re yours. No manifest, no guarantees, no liability. Contact free trader Mostly Spaceworthy Parts, dock 21-1645, Vervian Orbital. Wanted: passage off this bloody planet, out-system, out-constellation. Can work passage. S-license only. Drop 4147. Fuel
For Those Following Along At Home: Map!
For those following along with these stories at home (or on holiday, or during your commute, or at work – why not?), I just found some time to clean up one of my rough sketch-maps of what the universe looks like, so thought I’d share it with you. This is
The Money, The Principle, or The Trouble
“Context is important.” “Take, for example, this syringe. From an objective perspective, it contains a small quantity of greyish fluid, a suspension of nanoviruses and proto-cytomachines in impure saline. Not the most commonplace of objects, but hardly a rarity, either.” “A pharmacist, however, would recognize it as an alpha-baseline corpus-editor,
Club Fightin'
“Those visitors unfamiliar with local custom in such matters should avoid those bars and other drinking houses displaying above the entrance a knotted wooden club, or a spaceman’s marlinspike. Such establishments thereby indicate that they are “brawler’s bars”, and as such, establishments which tolerate a nice friendly brawl
But I Don't Need One For This!
“Be advised that, following the recent series of incidents involving Imperial tourists, the Hierarchy of Transportation has added the following vehicles to the list of those requiring licensure for use on public roadways: flitters, hovercraft, psychokinetic amplifiers, skyhooks, grav-boards, floater disks, spiderpalanquins, rollagons, subterrenes, miniblimps, unispheres, brachiators, all forms of
Dubious Provenance
Causal weapons are a myth, an arms-dealer’s con trick. Their official mention in the Ley Accords was no more than a paranoid’s precaution, deliberate disinformation, or a warning to those who might become too attached to oracles and knight’s-move stratagems. The universe was block, that was known;
A Rule With Teeth
“Know, O traveler, that you pass through dedicated lands; these places are sacred to the Blue and the Purple, and to them alone.” “Drink deep, eat well our fruits, hunt for your meat; but light no fires, claim no holds, and harm nothing that grows. Those who pass freely may
We're the Phone Company
Lhaegár Rhuanhz, Vice President of Operations for Bright Shadow in the Hanth Cluster, looked around her office, eyes passing lightly across a dozen network status displays, a reassuring blue overall with normal local traffic and the brighter datatrails of the Selvaciy and Synnecy backbones, before returning to rest on the
Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual
…is today’s not-my-fiction story recommendation! (I’ve also been having a little fun today with their Pulp-O-Mizer cover generator. Check it out: )