Yet More Editing Progress

Proto-book-file-size: 301 pages. Editor: Tired. Other editor: sick as a sicker than the dogs. Work: ongoing anyway.

Trope-a-Day: Nerds Are Sexy

Nerds Are Sexy: In the Empire, almost universally so.  It’s an emergent consequence, and an entirely predictable one, of certain other cultural characteristics: see, for example, For Science, Serious Business, and Wrench Wench.  Also, thereby, self-perpetuating. Fic-wise and other-reason-wise, see also Nice Labcoat.

More Editing Progress

Proto-book-file-size: 251 pages. Longer story: all included. Everything referenced elsewhere: also all included. Requisite reprint permission: applied for. Cover art: In progress. Also, damn, guys, from these draft renders, it’s going to be awesome. …maybe another 180 pages or so awaiting final formatting, at this point. Woo!

Trope-a-Day: Wrench Wench

Yes, just like this. (Image from Serenity: Those Left Behind) Wrench Wench: Oh, my, there are a lot of these.  There are, of course, perfectly valid in-world reasons for this (population demographics and their effect on employment patterns; never having acquired human cultures’ weird attitudes about men’s and women’

Trope-a-Day: Naughty Tentacles

Naughty Tentacles (since removed from TV Tropes, but I think we all know what this one is about, yes?): Given that there are species with tentacles, and Boldly Coming is in effect, this does happen (consensually). However, no-one out there would understand why humans in general and the Japanese in

Editing Progress

Current proto-book-file page count: 175. That includes, now, the whole of the Core War (the edited epistolary experiment) and everything it depends on; so now, on to the next stage, the smaller task of polishing for formal publication all the pieces that have been quoted from elsewhere. (And then the

Trope-a-Day: National Weapon

National Weapon: There are really too many local variants on this theme to play it straight in the modern era; about the closest you can come are the Two Swords of the Old Empires (see Choice of Two Weapons), which the initial spread of the Empire on its own world

Trope-a-Day: Nanomachines

Nanomachines: One of the very common forms of Applied Phlebotinium in the Empire, and the Worlds in general.  However, this being at least firm SF, they don’t cause physically implausible superpowers – and in general obey the laws of physics – do require energy sources (be it chemical or external power

Notes on the Schedule (At the Starport)

2+6:36 – CMS Istry’s Bargain Procurer-class freighter; standard berthing; perishable-cargo priority. 2+14:48 – CMS Booze and Ores Skoufer-class smeltership; bulk discharge berthing. Please assign to bay 17-A; rock dust gets everywhere and 17-A is already overdue for cleaning. – Elin Vidrine, Cargomaster 2+20:00 – CMS Fimry Dancer

Trope-a-Day: Naming Your Colony World

Naming Your Colony World: Examples of most of them exist in various places, although the Imperial Grand Survey works really hard to discourage people from naming anything New Anything, to the point of refusing to register the names, on the grounds that in deep time, eventually naming things New New

Trope-a-Day: Named After Their Planet

Named After Their Planet: Mostly averted.  While the galari are from Galáré, those names were created by the explorers who met them, since the galari themselves don’t use spoken language in any sort of phonemic sense.  Similar considerations explain the myneni from Mynár, inasmuch as mynenio is an almost

Trope-a-Day: A Mythology Is True

A Mythology is True: Well, it is now.  See Deus Est Machina, Outgrown Those Silly Superstitions.