FOR READERS Today’s reader topic comes from QSFer Marina Justyaoi: Queer historical fiction that plays fast and loose with reality – does it irritate you or make you wish it had been that way? (Particularly with LGBTQ+ relationships). What are your faves? Writers: This is a reader chat – you are welcome to join it, but please do not reference your own works directly. Thanks! Join the chat
Earth’s continents may have been born under large mountain ranges like the Andes. New research combining a mysterious missing trace element, a 66-million-year-old rock burped up by an ancient volcano, and a database of all the rock chemistry analyzed by scientists in the past century explains why Earth has continents. Published Jan. 16 in the journal Nature Communications, the study suggests that where mountains are born, so are continents. “It’s like a jigsaw puzzle,” said study leader Ming Tang, a postdoctoral researcher in geology at Rice University in Houston. “There is a missing part in this continental jigsaw puzzle, and it … Read more
QSFer August Li has a new MM mythological/paranormal book out: Nomad’s Dream. Two men, each with a hidden destiny. Can they defeat a web of deceit and dark magic to ensure their fates intertwine? Bedouin Isra al-Grayjaab’s dreams lead him to Janan, an amnesiac beggar on the street of Qena—one who steals his heart and starts him on a seemingly hopeless quest. With only their wits, Isra’s knowledge of the desert’s secrets, and the aid of a mercurial djinn, they must recover Janan’s past. But neither can predict his true identity or the lengths others will go to see that … Read more
FOR WRITERS Today’s writer topic comes from QSFer J. Scott Coatsworth: What kinds of governments have you written for your fantasy and sci fi? How are they different from what we have today? Writers: This is a writer chat – you are welcome to share your own book/link, as long as it fits the chat, but please do so as part of a discussion about the topic. Join the chat
QSFer Michael G. Williams has a new gay sci fi book out: A Fall in Autumn. WELCOME TO THE LAST OF THE GREAT FLYING CITIES It’s 9172, YE (Year of the Empire), and the future has forgotten its past. Soaring miles over the Earth, Autumn, the sole surviving flying city, is filled to the brim with the manifold forms of humankind: from Human Plus “floor models” to the oppressed and disfranchised underclasses doing their dirty work and every imaginable variation between. Valerius Bakhoum is a washed-up private eye and street hustler scraping by in Autumn. Late on his rent, fetishized … Read more
FOR READERS Today’s reader topic comes from QSFer ‘Nathan Smith: How consciously do readers ‘vote with their dollar’? (By which I mean I try very hard to purchase and pre-order LGBTIQA and AoC authors, #ownvoices, etc.)? What other ways do you support your favorite authors? Writers: This is a reader chat – you are welcome to join it, but please do not reference your own works directly. Thanks! Join the chat
Something punched through ice on Mars, leaving behind what looks like the indent from an evil character in a cartoon movie: a dark splat. The impact crater, less than 0.62 miles (1 kilometer) across, resulted when a space rock such as a meteoroid, asteroid or comet hit the southern ice cap of the Red Planet between July and September of last year, according to a statement from the University of Arizona. What resulted was a two-toned splat: a dark inner tone, surrounded by a lighter shade. When the impactor hit the planet, it punctured the thin ice, launching dark sand from … Read more
QSFer Miranda Turner has a new MM urban fantasy out: A Blaze in the Dark. Bain never thought he’d escape the prison he’d lived in for the last five years. He spent his days chained up like an animal, and his nights…they were better not spoken about. Until one day Antonio came stumbling into his darkness, lighting a fire in his soul and giving him a chance at a new life. Antonio loved his position as a Bellator, and he loved his brother Luc; it was Luc’s friends he could do without. When he came upon an emaciated and beaten … Read more
Auroras paint the sky around the poles when the sun is particularly active, flinging highly charged particles at Earth’s atmosphere. Scientists once thought that the gorgeous events were mirror images, but to their surprise, displays at the north (the aurora borealis) and south (the aurora australis) don’t precisely match. Ever since scientists realized these two celestial displays don’t line up, they’ve been trying to sort out why. Now, a team of researchers thinks it has found the reason — asymmetry in Earth’s magnetic tail. But what’s stranger is that the asymmetry is caused by the precise inverse of what scientists … Read more
