2,000 Days of Writing!

Just after midnight, I opened one of my many writing projects and typed a few words adding to a sentence.  While not much, it means – if my counting has been correct over the past few years – that I’ve written something for 2,000 days in a row.  That’s over five-and-a-half years of writing.  Which isn’t bad.

Of course, few of those days were ones where I wrote a thousand words.  The vast majority of them were days where I just wrote a sentence or two.  And yes, there are untold numbers of wannabe writers who don’t even do that much, but at the rate I’m going it will take 2,000 years to finish some of my projects.  Which, if that was an option, I’d be all for. 

Maybe in the next 2,000 days I can pick up the pace a bit.  We’ll just have to see.

Moon landing sale!

I am a big supporter of returning to the moon; I think it’s our best way of becoming a spacefaring civilization.  As such, I will often spend an hour or so going over the list of future moon missions on Wikipedia.  As I write this, CAPSTONE is on its way, but there could be a dozen more missions within the next year.  I wish them all success. 

But the reason for this sale is to mark the Apollo 11 landing.  Even though it happened before I was born, I do see it as an important day.  So to mark this year’s anniversary, I’m having a sale on three of my ebooks.  Just so you don’t think I’m just having a sale to have a sale, two of them deal with the moon, and the third deals with the future. 

You’ll be able to grab the following three ebooks for free between Monday July 18th and Friday July 22nd.

 

The Moon Before Mars

Over the last few years a lot of people have caught Mars fever. It seems a week doesn’t go by without a report of some new group wanting to send people to Mars, or some big name in the industry talking about why we have to go to Mars, or articles talking about the glorious future humanity will have on Mars. All of this worries me. In my opinion, a Mars base is currently not sustainable because there’s no way for it to make money. A few missions may fly doing extraordinary science, but if it’s then cancelled for cost the whole Mars Project may just be seen as an expensive stunt.

Fortunately, there are other places in the solar system besides Mars. While bases on the moon and amongst the asteroids won’t be as inspirational as one on Mars, they will have opportunities for businesses to make goods and services as well as profits, meaning less chance of them being outright cancelled. This will make life better on Earth and secure a firm foothold in space for humanity. The essays in The Moon Before Mars: Why returning to the moon makes more sense than rushing off to Mars allow me to describe my ideas on what can be accomplished on the moon and with the asteroids, and why Mars isn’t the destiny of humanity its cheerleaders make it out to be.

The Future is Coming

As a science fiction writer, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how technology will change the way we live. I’ve come up with these ten short essays about science fictional elements that will – almost certainly – one day become science fact as a way for people to start coming to terms with them. Because I’ve spent time thinking about clones and AIs, I feel I’ll be okay when they do finally show up whereas most people will probably freak out. I hope these essays will get people to start thinking about the future because, no matter what we do, the future is coming.

A Cabin Under a Cloudy Sea and other stories

Hopefully, in the not too distant future humans will return to the moon. We will build bases and colonies, make farms and factories, and live, love and learn. A Cabin Under a Cloudy Sea and other stories contains five short stories that are all set upon the moon. They give the tiniest glimpse of the possibilities awaiting us there.