April Coupon

Click Image For Store

For the month of April, if you purchase the novel Time Wars on my online store and enter the coupon code, COUPON50, you will get 50% off the purchase price of $1.99.

Science Fiction #1

Science fiction is based upon the belief that the world is changing, that the way we live is changing, and that humanity will adjust to it, or will adjust change to humanity, or will perish.

- James Gunn

Online Store

I have a store for my ebooks now on a website called Payhip (it's a work in progress). When you buy a book from my store you get the ePub and mobi (Kindle) version. Unfortunately, I can not tell you how to move your purchase to your reading device since I read only on my computer, but I'm sure you can find the instructions if you do a web search.

Having an online store for an author means that he gets to keep 25 to 55 percent more of the sale price than if purchased from Amazon or one of the other online stores. So if possible, please consider purchasing from my store. 

Since this is new for me, if you have any problems with the purchase or the ebook please email me so that I can try to correct it.

Please see the store link on the right.

War Through The Pines: A Novella

If you would like to read the novella War Through The Pines in its entirety and free, go to the Future Chron Universe tab and click on the Reading Order link. On the Reading Order page you can click on the novella's link to read it.

AI #3

Not only are we unable to predict which specific AI capabilities will emerge at higher levels of scale, but we also lack the means by which to assess an existing AI system’s full range of capabilities.

New Releases

I have two books releasing today.

The first is Moon Hab, this is the first book in the new series, Remembered Earth Universe: Lunar Series. Here is a description:

Circling the Moon, alone, in a space station was easy.

It wasn't until I overnighted (remember a Moon night is two weeks of dim light) on the Moon's surface that things got difficult.

And life-threatening.

Moon Hab is available in both ePub everywhere and in Print on Amazon.

The other book Remembered Earth Short Stories Volume 1 is being released

in print only. It contains the following Remembered Earth Universe: Cislunar Series short stories:

Space Tug, here is the description:

When robots become smart enough to help humanity, will we be smart enough to help them?

Jax is new on the job, and alone in flight control at US Tugs, when one of the orbiting spacecraft has trouble. And then another has trouble, and then another.

But no matter what Jax does, the only response he can get out of the robots is, “Need help”. He couldn't figure it out but he did figure it would cost him his job.

He didn't know it could lead to a national security crisis.

The second story is Prototype, and here is the description:

James had made it to orbit, where he always wanted to be. He thought the hard work was behind him, but when you are responsible for a hundred million dollar prototype, the hard work may just be ahead.

A glitch, or something, had stopped the robotic inspection of the build site for the first fuel depot in space. James was alone, it was downtime for the build crew and his supervisor had gone to a meeting. James had been distracted when the spider-bot had its problem and now it wouldn't communicate.

James was sure the bot was more important to the company than him and that he would be terminated and sent back to Earth if he couldn't get it going. But without a link he would have to out there, and out there was not like being up here, with the station walls surrounding.

What do you do when your only choice is between your dreams and a nightmare?

Why a print version only?

There are some sites that have a lower limit on the page numbers for a short story to appear in print. These stories did not meet those requirements alone but can meet it when bundled in pairs. This allows those who like to read paper books their own versions of the short stories.

You may find these books on my Amazon and other book sites by clicking the blue Kindle icon or large red 2 icon on the right side of this website (please scroll to find if needed).

Thank you for reading.

AI #2

Conversations with researchers at large U.S. technology companies have suggested that their companies’ decisions to develop or release new breakthrough models, or to invest more heavily in their safety, are heavily influenced by concerns over public sentiment. This extends particularly to anticipated government or regulatory 

Forgotten Earth Universe

There is a new tab at the top of this page called Forgotten Earth Universe. This is a new universe I am developing which will be rich in future physics and technology. Right now I am posting chapters of a story that I am writing called Null Infinity. It follows the development of the warp drive (think Star Trek) as presented in many current physics research papers.

If you decide to follow along please understand that the story may die at any time. I am not a plotter but make up the story plot as I go and sometimes it only goes so far and stops. Also be warned that sometimes I have to back up and restart when I have written myself into a corner. With those caveats, I hope that if you do decide to read it you will enjoy.

Whatsoever You Do: A Novella

If you would like to read the novella Whatsoever You Do in its entirety and free, go to the Future Chron Universe tab and click on the Reading Order link. On the Reading Order page you can click on the novella's link to read it.

AI #1

These models [LLM AI] could begin to automate large portions of the economy. We believe that companies that train the best 2025/26 models will be too far ahead for anyone to catch up in subsequent cycles. - Anthropic

MOON 3D: A Novella

“All civilizations become either spacefaring or extinct.”

- Carl Sagan

TO THE READER

In this story (and most of my stories), if I use a date, I know I am using the antiquated dating system, A.D. I blame this on the book Daybreak – 2250 A.D. by Andre Norton, which I read some time in elementary school (and of which I recently bought an old paperback copy). So, I was imprinted early with that dating system and think it sounds cooler than C.E. No social, political or any other kind of statement is meant.

Science and technology are important to me and I enjoy developing them as I develop a series. However, a problem arises if I have to reintroduce the science and technology in each story as the series progresses. For a reader that has been reading all along the reintroduction must be tedious and somewhat boring. For a reader entering later in the series (and I do like for the stories to stand alone) the lack of explanation could be off putting. So, as a compromise I have included the previous science and technology explanations in a Glossary at the end of this story, it also contains other facts about the series. Probably not a perfect solution, but the only one I could come up with at this time.

CHAPTER 1

2038 A.D.

Joan Hartridge had gotten the promotion, but it wasn't in the way she would have liked. Someone had been killed and Joan was next in line (for a promotion, not to be killed).

Still, she took her job as lead foreman on the first commercial space habitat to be established on the Moon seriously. In Mare Frigoris just south of the crater Timaeus, the settlement Tima was being built by the Luna Limited company. A store of water ice had been discovered at the base of the southern wall of Timaeus and would eventually be the civic supply for the settlement.

Tima had started as a single inflatable hab transported from Earth by the Space Trucks company. Once inflated with oxygen manufactured at the Moon's south pole and nitrogen brought from Earth the hab was “rigidized” by filling a layer of the flexible wall material with a mixture of what had come to be known as “Moon cement.” The cement was made from an alkali binder and the Moon's regolith, and besides rigidizing the hab, the cement also functioned as a radiation shield. It also was used around the base to anchor the hab. Fourteen crew, including Joan would live in the three-story structure for up to three months before having to rotate back to Earth. Half the crew were already on the third month of their contract.

Joan had overseen the installation of the hab and was now tasked with building the first of a series of habitats made from Moon cement and a 3D printer. The printer had arrived and some of the crew had it assembled. It was capable of autonomous movement once it was given a plan for a dwelling. The on board AI, called an Em which stood for emulated brain, handled the coordination. The only job for the crew once the printer began was keeping its tanks of cement, water, and liquid hardener filled.

The two week lunar day was about to begin. In the first twenty-four hours the team would begin processing the lunar regolith stored near the Moon cement mixer. Small, AI automated bulldozer like machines, carried the material from the regolith pile over to the mixer which was under the “porch” (the aluminum framed bucky-sphere covered with a sandwich of kevlar and high atomic-weight gel which provided some protection from the ever present particle rain and radiation of the lunar “atmosphere.”)

Under the porch, workers could monitor the mixer in suits that weren't as big and bulky as the normal spacesuit worn in the out-vac (outside vacuum of the Moon). This saved time and money as the suits were easier to put on and take off and cheaper. They could also assemble machinery brought from Earth under the protection afforded by the porch, such as the 3D printer and mixer.

The seven crew, including Joan, had the cement ready and the 3D printer in position. If all went well the printer would have the shell of the habitat printed within seventy-two hours including drying time. Air-locks and other mechanical equipment, like for heating and cooling, would be added later.

Once the mix was ready and the printer initialized, the building began. Like paste out of a tube the Moon cement began flowing. The continuous bead was four inches wide and built at a rate of about two inches per layer. The printer straddled the twenty feet wide building footprint, plus the wall thickness of three feet. The thick wall would not only provide a strong foundation but also radiation protection.

A track ran alongside the length of the building, forty feet. The nozzle moved down the nearside and then swung across the width of the building to where the end airlock would be installed and then doubled back. While building up the outside wall the printer also built the inner walls so that the building was completed in a continuous circuit.

It would work on one side until the walls were nine feet high and then it would build the opposite side.

Science Fiction Writers - Frank Herbert

In an interview in the book Four Science Fiction Masters with Frank Martin, the author Frank Herbert said: "We change our past by what we learn. If a person began reading the trilogy [Dune] by reading Children of Dune, then read the other two [Dune and Dune Messiah], it would change them. They'd be different books.

Science Fiction Writers - Algis Budrys

Algis Budrys had this to say about science fiction to Charles Platt author of Dream Makers:

"I think that all forms of fiction and art are actually survival mechanisms. Far from being frills and decorations on the face of some kind of practical world, they are just about the most practical thing there is. They consist of a series of affirmations or