Author: Dan Harris

Writer of stories that haven't happened yet. 10% Sci, 90% Fi. Author of The Unity Sequence: ASCENSION POINT (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009TCE6G4) & VENUS RISING (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00C9PF35G)

In The (SFF) News This Week…

On By Dan HarrisIn Random, Reading, Sci-Fi and Fantasy, Self-Publishing, Writing3 Comments

A super-nerdy but awesome explanation of the Kardashev scale, which is ‘used to classify hypothetical alien civilizations according to the amount of energy at their disposal’.

‘This led him to speculate about a Type II civilization. For an [extraterrestrial intelligence] to reach K2, it would need to capture the entire energy output of its parent star. The best way to achieve this, of course, is to build a Dyson Sphere.

Conjured by Freeman Dyson in 1959, this hypothetical megastructure would envelope a star at a distance of 1 AU and cover an inconceivably large area of 2.72 x 1017 km2, which is around 600 million times the surface area of the Earth. The sun has an energy output of around 4 x 1026 Watts, of which most would be available to do useful work.’

As anyone who’s read Ascension Point knows, I’ve always been more of a Dyson Swarm kind of guy, but each to their own.

Next up, are you ready for season three of Game of Thrones? I know I am.

We should stop using nuclear weapons as a unit of measurement, says annoyed atomic historian.

“In general,” he added, “What I don’t like is … the idea that kiloton or a megaton is just an energy unit, that it’s equivalent to so many joules or something. Because you could do that. You could claim that your house runs so many tons of TNT worth of electricity per year, but it sort of trivializes the notion.”

Also at The Atlantic, a spectacular NASA video of three simultaneous solar phenomena.

‘…a solar flare, a coronal mass ejection (CME), and coronal rain, “complex moving structures in association with changes in magnetic field lines that loop up into the sun’s atmosphere,” NASA explains.’

Finally, in Dan-specific news, Venus Rising goes to my editor on March 8th, which means it should be out in just a couple of months!

Fifty and/or Ten SFF Works Every Socialist and/or Conservative Should Read

On By Dan HarrisIn Reading, Sci-Fi and Fantasy2 Comments

This is great. Wonderful spec-fic author and renowned socialist China Mieville put together a list for The Weekly Ansible of ‘50 Sci-Fi & Fantasy Works Every Socialist Should Read‘. Then The American Conservative, just for fun, did a counterpoint list of ten equivalent works for those of a more conservative bent.

intriguing stuff, and a great shopping list for readers who like some political theory with along with their hyperspace travel/dragons.

Spectacular Meteor Footage

On By Dan HarrisIn Random2 Comments

Just in case anyone hasn’t seen the news in the last four days, a 56ft-wide asteroid weighing around 10,000 tons and travelling at 40,000 miles per hour entered the Earth’s atmosphere over Russia on February 15th. (At which point it became a meteor, not an asteroid, I’ve learned.)

It disintegrated under the force of atmospheric pressure nine miles over the city of Chelyabinsk, causing a shockwave that shattered windows across the city and injured 1200 people.

This write-up at the New Yorker sums it up pretty well, and io9 has some science here.

The key lesson in all this? Space is very big, and IT IS TRYING TO KILL US.

Real Wars and Star Wars

On By Dan HarrisIn Sci-Fi and Fantasy9 Comments

There’s a really interesting article on io9 about SFF authors who served in the military, and how this informed their later works. Well worth a read, and features this blunt but powerful quote from Kurt Vonnegut:

The firebombing of Dresden was an emotional event without a trace of military importance… I will say again what I have often said in print and in speeches, that not one Allied soldier was able to advance as much as an inch because of the firebombing of Dresden. Not one prisoner of the Nazis got out of prison a microsecond earlier. Only one person on earth clearly benefited, and I am that person. I got about five dollars for each corpse, not counting my fee tonight.

It also reminded me that I somehow haven’t read Starship Troopers yet, which I should really get around to.

Oh, and Tor has a perceptive article on why J.J. Abrams directing the new Star Wars movie might be a bad thing. I don’t entirely agree that he’s not one to take artistic risks with his work–Lost was pretty out there at the time–but I accept the point they make about his Star Trek movie being awesome, but not really Star Trek. Hmm. Thoughts?

What’s Going On (Right On, Baby, Right On)

On By Dan HarrisIn Sci-Fi and Fantasy, Writing2 Comments

It’s been a little while. What have I been up to? There are a few strands.

Venus Rising is mid-edit. I’ve got feedback from a couple more beta readers coming in the next week or so, and then some edits to make. After that, the MS goes to Misti at Red Adept on March 11th for a good tearing apart and putting back together again. Stephanie is working on the cover, and I hope to have that ready to reveal in the next week or so. Can’t wait.

Meanwhile, I’ve pulled together the outline for the next book. It’s going to be a novella, and the third book in the still-unnamed series. I have a title which I love, but which I’m not quite ready to announce yet; I’ve got three parts, and a brief summary for all of the scenes. I still need to expand the character bios and write those up, and then I’ll be ready to start the first draft.

But before I do that, I’m doing something a little bit random. I’ve realised that it’s got to the point where I can’t quite hold all of the important details of the Ascension Point universe in my head. It’s crucial for the continuity and consistency of the other books in the series (and the trilogy I’ve got planned after that–watch this space) that I keep track of all of the people, places, factions, groups, landmarks and technology that I’ve created. So to help me do that I’ve started indexing everything in an already-massive spreadsheet. It’s pretty damn tedious, but it should mean that when I’m halfway through a draft of my sixth novel I don’t spontaneously change the canon I set up in the earlier books. That’s the idea, anyway.

So that’s my update. I’m still on track to release Venus Rising in April, so look out for that!

(P.S. If you didn’t get the reference in the title, it’s from ‘What’s Going On’ by Marvin Gaye. Do yourself a favour, and familiarise yourself: Marvin Gaye – The Best Of Marvin Gaye.)