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Newly Translated Christian Texts Discuss “Demon Circles” and “Wizard Battles”

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wizard - pixabay

Have you ever heard the story of a wizard battle that supposedly took place when an early church was constructed? Or how about the story of a border guard who defied King Herod’s orders and spared Jesus’ life? Scholars have now translated these and other “apocryphal” Christian texts (stories not told in the canonical bible) into English for the first time. More than 300 Christian apocryphal texts are known to exist, Tony Burke, a professor of early Christianity at York University in Toronto, Canada, wrote in the book he edited “New Testament Apocrypha More Noncanonical Scriptures (Volume 2)” (Eerdmans, 2020). … Read more

What Did People Use Before Toilet Paper?

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toilet paper - pixabay

Because inquiring minds want to know: In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, toilet paper was nearly as hard to come by as personal protective equipment. Though toilet paper has existed in the Western world since at least the 16th century A.D. and in China since the second century B.C., billions of people don’t use toilet paper even today. In earlier times, toilet paper was even more scarce. So what did ancient humans use to wipe after going to the bathroom? It can be difficult to tell using the archaeological record, said Susan Morrison, a medieval literature professor at … Read more

Viking Laid to rest for Likely “Mirror Afterlife”

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Viking Burial

Archaeologists in Norway have unearthed the 1,100-year-old grave of a Viking warrior, whose steel sword was placed in an unusual spot: on his left side. Though the sword’s sinistral position is still somewhat perplexing, one theory is that the Vikings perceived the afterlife to be a mirror image of the real world, so whoever buried this warrior may have been accounting for that, said Raymond Sauvage, the excavation’s project manager and an archaeologist at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) University Museum. According to that theory, the warrior would have been left-handed and worn the sword at his … Read more

ANNOUNCEMENT: To End All Wars – David Tallerman

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To End All Wars - David Tallerman

David Tallerman has a new gay sci fi/mystery out: “To End All Wars.” “Thoughtful and atmospheric. A haunting story about loss, empathy and the human soul.”—Adrian Tchaikovsky, Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning author of Children of Time. The horrors of the trenches unveil an extraordinary mystery… It’s 1916, in the heart of World War I. The eve of the Battle of the Somme. During a perilous night mission in No Man’s Land, Lieutenant Rafael Forrester witnesses a peculiar light followed by a vast explosion. Wounded and delirious, Forrester finds himself shipped home to England, to the country house hospital of Sherston, … Read more

SPACE: An Icebound Mars?

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ice planet - deposit photos

Early Mars may not have been quite the warm, wet paradise scientists have hoped for — not if the valleys scarring its surface work the same way as their counterparts here on Earth do. That’s the conclusion of new research that tried to suss out what the Red Planet really looked like during its first billion years by analyzing more than 10,000 segments of valleys on Mars. In particular, the scientists were inspired by the look of Devon Island in the Canadian Arctic, which is dry and frigid. According to the new analysis, some Martian valleys may have been formed … Read more

FOR WRITERS: Creating History in Sci Fi

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world building - deposit photos

FOR WRITERS Today’s writer topic comes from QSFer Scott: When writing future sci fi, part of the world building involves filling in the past. If it’s set in our own universe, readers want to know how we got from here to there. But even alternate-universe sci fi has a history. How do you deal with it? Do you have a detailed timeline with events and notes about the evolution of your world, and if so, how much of it makes it onto the page? Or do you fly by the seat of your pants and just throw in random references … Read more

Are You in the Market for a Vampire Slaying Kit?

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Vampire Slaying Kit

You’re in luck. Live Science has the details: Inside the box are eight compartments holding: a copy of the New Testament published in 1842; a knife with a silver blade; a percussion cap pocket pistol; pliers, crucifixes and rosary beads; a vial with a metal lid — “contents unknown;” and a small bottle containing sharks’ teeth, according to the listing. Vampire folklore and the belief in vampires can be traced to the ancient world. Indeed, burials dating to more than 1,000 years ago in Europe took safeguards to protect the living against the restless undead, with suspected vampires buried with … Read more

REVIEW: Merchants of Milan – Edale Lane

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Merchants of Milan

Genre: Historical, Fantasy, Romance LGBTQ+ Category: FF/Lesbian Reviewer: Devon Get It On Amazon About The Book Three powerful merchants, two independent women in love, one masked vigilante.  Love blooms between Florentina and Maddie, but Florentina’s role as the vigilante Night Flyer could lead to her death and Maddie’s broken heart. Florentina, set on revenge for her father’s murder, creates an alter-ego known as the Night Flyer. Madelena, whose husband was also murdered, hires Florentina as a tutor for her children and love blossoms between them. However, Florentina’s vendetta is fraught with danger, and surprising developments threaten both women’s lives.  The … Read more

Mystery of the Stone Balls Solved

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stone balls

For nearly 2 million years, ancient humans crafted stones into hand-size balls, but archaeologists were unsure why. Now they know: Ancient people used them as tools to get at the tasty marrow within animal bones, a new study finds. In other words, if a bone were a can of soup, these ancient stone balls were like ancient can openers. The finding is a remarkable one; archaeologists have wondered for decades exactly how ancient humans used these stone balls. “Our study provided evidence, for the first time, regarding the function of these enigmatic-shaped stone balls that were produced by humans for … Read more

SCIENCE: The Global Ocean

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open ocean - pixabay

What did Earth look like 3.2 billion years ago? New evidence suggests the planet was covered by a vast ocean and had no continents at all. Continents appeared later, as plate tectonics thrust enormous, rocky land masses upward to breach the sea surfaces, scientists recently reported. They found clues about this ancient waterworld preserved in a chunk of ancient seafloor, now located in the outback of northwestern Australia. Around 4.5 billion years ago, high-speed collisions between dust and space rocks formed the beginnings of our planet: a bubbling, molten sphere of magma that was thousands of miles deep. Earth cooled … Read more