Thursday, September 22, 2011

Will NASA build FTL drives with the help of TOR/Forge writers?

In late August, Tor/Forge and NASA announced their publishing partnership in which the writers will be paired with scientists to produce what NASA called "NASA inspired Works of Fiction". Is this an inspired attempt to keep the dream of space flight alive in the midst of economic crisis and cutbacks? Will writers turn out novels so chock full of NASA-inspired science that they will be an advertisement for NASA rather than lusciously logical novels full of imagination and engaging characters? We'll see. I'll see sooner than most - and let you know. ;)

I'm equally at home with numbers and words. I can't draw a decent stick figure, but I can paint a vivid picture with words. I don't think I'm predominantly left- or right-brained. Maybe that's why I write sci-fi. I should take a poll. I imagine many sci-fi writers are similarly equipped. It should be interesting to see what happens when writer geeks and science geeks unite.

Meantime, you might get a chuckle or two from Jon Methven's speculation about this pairing, complete with graphics and diagrams at THE AWL.

But what will the real possibility of faster than light travel do to those books? Isn't this good timing - relatively speaking...

CERN may have found a particle that moves FASTER THAN LIGHT! That's excellent news for sci-fi authors like me who insist that we must have FTL travel and the heck with E=MC2.

This is a year old, but I loved the graphics. How are those warp bubbles coming?


I'm definitely going to check this out on Monday. Join me.

And here's a little sci-fi music to kick your weekend off right. Oh. You still have Friday. Too bad. Today's my Friday. ;)

3 comments:

Reid Kemper said...

Yeah, how are those warp bubbles coming?

PeterC said...

Hi - as a Sci fi site you may be able to help me remember a book title that was triggered by the story in todays papers about discovering the speed of light may not be the fastest thing in the universe.

The story I can remember (pretty sure it was a short one) was about a man who notices that the speed of light has changed - but in doing so becomes conscious of the fact that his vision of the universe 'is' the universe - and now it's no longer in his sub conscious things begin to change and shrink substantially, eventually becoming not much more than a large island. I also think to save the world the inhabitants of his universe plot to kill / put him in a coma...

I know its a bit of a long shot - but don't ask - don't get.

Many thanks in advance

Peter

Ann Wilkes said...

Peter, it's not ringing any bells for me. Perhaps one of my readers will know. Ed? You listening?