There’s a knotty question I never got into with Foreigner, and there’s a reason I’ve always had a time-gap inside the shuttle flights…because while Mother Earth and her satellites behave in a totally sensible way, the ways in which we get to orbit are varied and in technological evolution. So I don’t have a clear answer for how long that flight is in Bren’s time, and while he was the translator for the archive for that technology, he’s a linguist, after all, not an engineer or a physicist.
The station, in fact, has moved. The only way to effectively ‘mothball’ the station was to boost it from LEO (low earth orbit) into geosynchronous orbit, on autopilot, so to speak, which would put it out of reach for the ‘petal sail’ tech the rebels were using to reach the atevi Earth. There may be a short story in this, actually. One is trying to gel, but I have to finish the current book.
Boosting it up—way up—would mean that it could stay in orbit indefinitely—centuries would be no problem. A space station in LEO has to boost itself periodically, and while this could be done robotically, the chance of things going catastrophic would be greater.
Geosynchronous orbit means you need more shielding…but mothballed, far less problem. It also means that while you can observe the planet, you stare at the same spot as the world goes around. When you’re in LEO, you go round the world multiple times a day.
When Phoenix returned initially, not finding the station where they expected, they would have figured out part of what had happened in their absence. Getting aboard the station and getting at records answered other questions. And if they wanted to find out about the planet, their next job was to move the station back into LEO, a delicate job, from which other decisions were possible. But they had no landing craft. Sending a robot down was possible, but they wanted more than that. They wanted to stay safe while figuring out what had happened. And Jase and Yolande were already ‘purposed,’ in a sense.
So that is one of those little background bits that may find its way into the story, or not, but it is one of those things I try to deal with without getting too technical.
I’ve been following Anton Petrov’s “What Da Math?” YouTube channel. I believe now it’s listed under his name. He has videos on astronomy and space science, exoplanets, at a beginner’s level. He uses Universe Sandbox and Space Engine (I think I have those right) to give illustrations via their 3D modeling of stellar / planetary data. He has a tendency to combine objects or blow them up at the end to see what happens. But the explanations are, to me, nearly always understandable and entertaining. He’s Russian (I think, rather than Ukrainian or other) originally, and went to a Canadian university. So there’s a nice Russian accent going, and a friendly, fun attitude (so you don’t know he’s teaching on a pop science level, I suspect). The topics are fun from a science fiction and science fact perspective.
One of his recent videos was on satellites in orbit, including the ISS space station, and a brand-new propulsion idea involving something like a long, thin tube, line, or, it sounded like an aerial, an old-fashioned car antenna or TV rabbit ears. The concept behind this was that there was an interaction between the line, the object (station, satellite, etc.) and gravitational forces from a planet or star, such that this new idea (covered in a paper written by other scientists) might provide a new alternative, more fuel-efficient, and so on.
In the video, he said the ISS is actually in a low enough orbit that it has some drag from the upper atmosphere, and so it periodically has to expend fuel to burn engines to adjust its course, to maintain orbit and rate.
This made me wonder how much would be involved to raise the station’s orbit to a more stable and efficient orbit, as well as eventual further expansion into a bigger, more capable station.
—–
Aside: Yay! A workman came by today and did all the needed repairs except replacement of a cracked window pane, which now has to be ordered, and should take about a week. My kitchen now has a nicer track lighting central fixture, which provides better spot lighting than the previous one, which was fluorescent tubes. I could still do with more/brighter light, but this is doable, sufficient. My bathroom sink light now works reliably without silly and maybe hazardous jiggling and still turning off. Other small stuff was fixed. So, once the glass pane is in, I’ll be in better shape with fewer tiny or bigger annoyances.
Also, I’ve now passed my one year anniversary of living in this apartment. On the whole, still liking it pretty well, still working out a few bugs, but overall, this is good.
I still have to pare down possessions and get the storage space emptied out, which will still take a while. But, progress, a little at a time.
Weather here keeps being mild to warm, with cooler to chilly nights, and a lot of overcast or rainy days.
There’s geosync, and there’s geostationary – they apparently aren’t exactly the same, according to Wikipedia. (I was looking for my own shuttle-to-orbit stuff. Different universe.)
I’m figuring three days, maybe four normally – it’s two from Earth to ISS now, so three or four to a much higher orbit seems reasonable.
FWI, Wiki:
Geostationary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geostationary_orbit
Geosynch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geosynchronous_orbit
List of orbits: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_orbits
Heliocentric: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliocentric_orbit
CJ, I have a comment with the Wikipedia links for this, that’s stuck in the moderation queue. Four links, all labelled.
The whole issue of upping and downing in gravity wells has been an increasing concern to me over the years. Particularly when it only takes a couple of hours point to point, possibly with antigrav, but without transmat (Star Trek, Dr Who). Some of the technical solutions are not terribly convincing either, but I guess they get the plot moving.
I suspect that in the far-ish future the time and cost of escaping planets (plus some other factors) will ensure that spacers will mostly stay spacers and grounders will mostly stay grounders. Rather like in CJ’s Alliance-Union universe (and many others).
Space elevators? Whatever happened to that idea? That seems a relatively low cost option to get something up into orbit — especially people.
No known material is strong enough.
It’s beginning to look pretty clear the cheapest practical lift to orbit is carrying an orbital vehicle to high altitude aerodynamically.
I didn’t mention space elevators because I have little faith in their success. Apart from a host of other potential issues, the energy cost of escaping the gravity well is still an important factor.
I should admit that back in the early 70s, when 8″ floppies were being used to bootstrap IBM mainframes, I suggested that they’d never become reliable.:=)
The whole bit about what satellites are around the earth of the Atevi isn’t really clear. What’s in orbit besides Alpha? Comm satellites? Weather satellites? Nav satellites? What sort of satnav is available on Mosphiera? Or in use by the Guild?
In order to deliver weather predictions for shipping in the Southern ocean are they going to rely on just observations from the Station?
They haven’t had auxiliary sats to speak of. They make weather observations on a grand scale, but information on planetary atmospheres has not been relevant to the ship folk or the Reunioners for centuries—they’re studying it now, but in general, weather knowledge is more likely to develop on Geigi’s staff. Geigi has his lander-stations, built to defend themselves and observe and relay communications on the ground. But now that the dowager is urging the construction of ships that can handle the weather and the development of weather satellites, communication satellites will not be far behind.
I would imagine the humans would tend to put up a set of fewer satellites, but multi-purpose, to minimize space junk clutter and maximize efficiency. Plus, their tech from the Archive should be a few centuries ahead of ours in miniaturization, functionality, and robustness. I would think.
The atevi, I wonder how they’d proceed. Since they’re developing on their own, independent of human intervention mostly (or they have been up until recently, since they’re advancing closer to parity) then they might tend to have more single-purpose satellites as they learn initially, then add as they learn. I’d also expect their tech might branch in different ways, advance at differing stages than human tech developed. Maybe they’d see in advance the advantages of certain things, but their tech would have to proceed enough to achieve those?
I’m speculating, of course, armchair fannish speculation. — CJ probably has something else worked out instead.
Hmm. The atevi are getting chances to observe human technology on the station, Phoenix, and Reunion, and whatever they got from afar (or aboard) about kyo tech. So I wonder what atevi are cooking up now.
Ilisidi is this fascinating mix of traditionalist and progressive, practical-minded, with ideas about what’s worth keeping from their past and what needs changing.
Then Caeiri and his human teen associates are growing up in the middle of all this rapid change and inter-species contact starting, which must have its effects for him and for the human teens. — That’s an area I don’t think has ever been much covered by many other authors, how kids and teens, human or alien, grow up and really live in these science fiction settings, like stations and starships. I like seeing that. — One of the things I’ve liked about Foreigner and about Alliance-Union is that we get to see that, occasionally, comparable to pioneer-era kids and teens growing up and working on frontier farms and ranches and on ships and boats at sea. Really few movies and TV series have done much with that. There’s the gee-whiz space cadet trope, but so often, that either gets the juvenile characters stuck in the background, or put into actions that make them out to be mini-adults, geniuses, improbably saving the ship / base / galaxy, even if a real-life genius kid would likely not have the know-how or experience, seasoning yet to do so, or as if the adults suddenly forgot how to do their thing, work, be heroic. (There are also examples where it’s done well.) (And I’ll admit, I still like those shows and characters, despite that I feel they could be better developed.) The curious thing is, in pioneer settings, kids and teens really did work like adults, and could be pretty remarkable at doing things, and yes, there surely are extra-smart or talented or genius-level juveniles out there, in the pioneer era and right now. I just feel like how they’re portrayed often in fiction, misses the mark to a greater or lesser degree, so seeing it done well, realistically, is both rare and more enjoyable. Just IMHO.
You know, back when I was a kid and teen, reading and watching SF, I didn’t quite notice that so much, but as an adult, I notice it more. I think of stories my parents and grandparents told about growing up on their farms and what they and others, adults and kids, did, or historical examples, or some fiction, and it really is amazing.
CJ, one of the things about your writing on the whole, is that it feels real and lived-in, like these people (humans and aliens) really are living and working in space or on colony planets. I get the feel that they really could be doing all that. And for the most part, it feels like places I’d want to be, people I’d want to be with.
Oh — And short stories are always welcome, whether Foreigner or other established story-universes, or something brand new. — It looks like I may need to get a new (nouvelle) copy of Visible Light. I want to reread it and haven’t found my copy yet. I also got a kick out of one of the sword and sorcery tales in an anthology a few years back. Even though I’m more an SF fan, I still love fantasy sometimes, and I still maintain you’d be great at historical fiction. 🙂
@BCS — In re: Your young adults/teens in scifi, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller have a series of books set in their Liaden Universe that are from the POV of a teen/YA, the Theo Waitley books, the first one of which is “Fledgling.” They started publishing it on line on a “subscription” basis — $x amount of donations and we publish the next chapter — It’s the book that got them back on the map and got them with their current publisher. As a thank-you to their fans and because they’d already published it on line, you can get it free in e-book format from all the usual suspects. It’s told from the POV of a young teen woman character, but I think it’s beautifully told. It is interesting to me because of Theo’s societal context, and her parental context (she has both parents present and active in her life). Also, those of us who march to the beat of a different drummer can identify with Theo and her problems.
Also, “Finity’s End” was kinda/sorta YA — kinda sorta. . . .
Hey, WOL. 🙂 Hope you’re doing OK.
Finity’s End spoke to me when I first read it, and is one of my favorites. But each time I reread one of CJ’s books, I get something new out of it. How much is my own changing perspective, and how much is just that CJ puts a lot of oomph into her stories, well, I guess the two interact. 🙂 I get what you mean about kinda-sorta YA. I was around college age or a bit past, I think, when I first read it. I think most teens would get a lot of what’s there, then get more as they get more experience in life and mature. Pre-teens with a good reading level should be able to get a fair bit from CJ’s books too. (My POV may be biased: like probably most here, I was already reading adult-level books by 5th and 6th grade, and I’m pretty sure some of my friends were too. So I’d tend to expect other kids/teens would do well with CJ’s books. Or I’d sure hope so.)
Thanks, I will look for Fledgling. I have at least two Liaden books in that backlog to read. I haven’t yet read anything in the Liaden universe, but got very intrigued after fans here recommended them, and then I read summaries.
Tonight’s going to be either a video night or a book reading night. — I got an important item done and got in an unplanned extra grocery run, sans list. (Haha, should be fun seeing what I forgot.) So I’m feeling pretty good about things this afternoon. (Heavy sigh of relief.)
The font draft I’ve been working on this month is shaping up better than I’d thought, even though it headed in its own direction. 🙂 What I tried yesterday as a very rough test for a bolder weight may need further adjustment, once I try a bolder weight beyond that, for design unity/cohesion, but it turned out really well as a rough test run, so I’m really pleased with progress there. I want to proceed with another draft and this one, and maybe another, and see how fast they come along. I’m still not ready to submit a finished drafter for review, for consideration of publication, but I’m encouraged that I’m making faster progress now, and seeing results. This means income can happen sooner, which is a very welcome and needed thing. 🙂
@BCS, today I saw a review for some apps that help with learning language; the Hello Talk app looked like it might be useful for you, for Spanish and French and Dutch practice, with 8 million users worldwide already; and the Fluent Forever one that’s announced for later this year also looks interesting.
Sorry, I should have linked this directly to Hello Talk:
https://www.hellotalk.com/?lang=en
And there’s also Duolingo: https://en.duolingo.com
another wellknown free app to practise your language of choice in – someone recently tweeted some examples of English and Dutch sentences from that, and those looked fine; as Spanish is a lot more prevalent than Dutch I expect it will do well with that too.
Oh cool, thank you! 🙂 I will give those a look-see, er, a listen.
GeoSync is certainly a more stable place than LEO, but it’s not permanent. First question: do geosyncs carry a fuel load? Yes, necessary for “station keeping”. But then ask why.
There are still effects to account for other than just the wispy atmosphere. Since there is life on the planet, there must be a magnetic field to protect it from the solar wind. Both move geosyncs. (Moving an isolated conductor, i.e. metal, within a magnetic field creates eddy currents which create opposing fields, i.e. “drag”.) If the planet is not totally spherical, which is highly unlikely, there are tidal attractions to account for.
If you want a stable place to “store” it “forever”, you want to put it at the L4/L5 “Trojan” points.
Gah! I hadn’t realized how much warmer it’s been getting. (I’ve had the ceiling fan on, though.) Until tonight, I woke up, I’m too hot, and…gee, I should not be that hot, I asked myself if I was coming down with something.
So I looked at the thermostat. Huh? It says it’s 76 in here. No wonder I feel too warm.
So I checked the Weather Channel. 73 outside, low of 68 predicted. OK, but the 10 day forecast?
Gah again! Rain, heavy rain, heavy thunderstorms…. And hot with a double h-o-t hot. (Hmm, no, that would be a HHOOTT, wouldn’t it? Somehow not the same. :snicker: )
They say FRI/SAT or SUN we will get 79 or 82 for the highs, upper 60’s for lows. From now for the next 10 days, it’s going to be spring-like, upper 70’s highs, lower to upper 60’s lows, despite lots of rain and more rain predicted. One day of sunny weather just to throw us off.
I’m not gonna complain about rain. We’ll be glad we got it, when it’s super hot and dry during the summer, alternating with super hot and wet. But 82? In late February? Even for here, that is pretty warm. (I’d have to look to see if it’s a record breaker, and I want to find a site where I can easily look up Houston’s past and current weather stats.) This global warming thing is getting out of hand.
Now I think I was being conservative in guessing another summer with several days in a row over 100.
I think it’s a very, very good thing the apartment complex has a pool. I wonder if they charge rent for us to live in it? 😀 I suspect I might not be the only one who’d consider that, if it gets that hot. Folks here are acclimated or native, or they get that way as fast as they can. But wow, there’s a point past which, even being native or acclimated to the area just doesn’t cut it either. Many days over 100, with our humidity, is tough on anyone. (I don’t know if I’d think that “dry heat” out na Spence’s way would be any better.) — Though I would rather be too hot than too cold. I don’t like the cold. You can only put on so much clothing. Well, I suppose you can only take off so much either, and then you’re…. Yeah, I think maybe the reason the ancients all went around au naturel wasn’t availability of cloth, but that it was simply too danged hot. in the desert, you can do desert robes, I guess, and that apparently helps some, which is why they do it. But in humid heat, I don’t think that works well. I don’t know, but…wow.
Yup, getting thunderstorms now. May turn heavy tonight.
The window pane to replace the cracked one is due in about a week. I really, really hope the current cracked window pane does not have more problems (break or leak) before it’s replaced.
Linguistic point: It is so odd how English e and ea split and moved into long ee and short eh (and e/ea as an ay sound). Some words moved up or down before it settled into modern pronunciation, so we get things like (break versus leak), same spelling, different vowel sounds. Or brooch or blood, without an ooh sound. (But I can’t think of an example of oa that isn’t oh or aw.)
Axes (more than one axe) as /aek-sizz/; Axes (more than one axis) as /aek-seez/; — My own language can never make up its mind for spelling and pronunciation. I just learned the phonics and exceptions rules very well, and got a feel for the forms of words, how they transmute.
Wind versus wind, loose versus lose, close versus close, read versus read, lead versus lead — Why on Earth don’t we all agree to respell them like they sound? Why can’t English use macrons or breves when needed to make things clearer and simpler? It’s a wonder anyone can learn to spell English, and never mind the US/UK spelling silliness.
Hah, maybe in a hundred years, they will have changed a little. Maybe. So far, not much yet.
living in a “relatively dry heat” area – it starts feeling hot around 95 outside, and 110 and up is seriously hot. Indoors, mid-70s are comfortable. I don’t usually go for AC until it clears 85. (Which reminds me – I need to get the AC fixed. Tell the manager – again.)
At the start of the month, I had a font idea I wanted to test out. I thought it would go in one direction, but it kinda went in a slightly different one. I was aiming for an old-time period feel, like the early 19th century grotesques seen on posters and ads and handbills back then.
Well, I’m not sure that’s what I ended up with, and so I’ll have some more sketches before I put a different draft in on computer. — But what I did end up with, I’m also pleased with. I’m still undecided on a few details on a few letters. But I like how the draft is going.
I have the regular Book weight far enough along, I thought I should test out if my idea on how it goes up through Bold and Extra Bold would do what it needs to, or how I think it would. So today, I thought I’d do a few quick-and-dirty changes to test some letters in a bolder version, before trying the same in an extra bold version. Huh, well, I rushed it and didn’t do quite what I had planned for the vertical strokes, as opposed to the horizontal strokes. I’d built in a slight thick-thin contrast, in the Book weight because I wanted more personality to the look. — And, huh, the quick check for a bolder weight — is not really what I was aiming for, if I’d adjusted the horizontal stems too. But…huh, I kinda like this and it seems to fit well with the look it has going, and it might give some more range for another weight besides, so maybe four weights. So, I’m proceeding with this and going to review the plan I had for it and see what I think. — But it looks like this font-family is shaping up, with a mind of its own where it’s going, design-wise, the look of it, and the personality to the look is pretty good.
Not sure quite what I’ve got at this point, but it’s cooking up nicely so far, and that’s very encouraging, considering I set aside another draft to try out this idea.
I think I may have gotten past a small plateau in skill level, so I’m pretty pleased with what I’ve got going.
(The book weight is condensed or semi-condensed, and the bolder version I’ve got going is less so, due to how I redrew to make it bold. But this seems to work well so far, so we’ll see. It looks like it could work for short runs of body text, and better for display and headlines.)
Also from Wikipedia, from which you can always link to sources:
Geosync “Clarke orbit” is at 35,786 kilometres for Earth.
Escape velocity (set by Earth’s gravity) is 40,270 km/h.
For comparison, Apollo 13 spent just under 6 days going to the Moon and back.
Earth has a pretty strong magnetosphere, and Jupiter’s is immense, encompassing all the Galilean satellites, IIRC. A planet around a Jovian planet could be very suitable for life. In any case, many variables affect the size, including the strength of the stellar wind from the star involved.
Geosync wouldn’t necessarily be the safest orbit, for example if the magnetic poles were far from the rotational poles.
___
The space elevator, material strength aside, would need to extend far past geosync to balance gravity with centrifugal force. So, all satellites not in geosync–GPS, Iridium, spy satellites, etc–would precess and eventually need to dodge the elevator or would hit it.
___
Stellaris 2.0 Cherryh is supposed to release tomorrow, I think. One press release version demo, with kitties, is here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMQpja8fVMA
Finally got my copy. There is a new style on Mospheria. Waistcoats for all, with or without the jacket.
I wonder if there is room in the story for an orbiting Tesla. You know, for orbital dynamics tutelage and such 🙂
Free font find — I got an email today from FontFabric.com, and they have a _free_ font available. If people like it, they can donate and they can subscribe to the site’s (company’s) newsletter for news of new font releases, free or paid. The font is by a new designer (no, not me).
COLUS is the new font, by Stan Partalev; I believe I got his last name right. It supports Latin and Cyrillic alphabets, 131 languages, it says; meaning most or all Western, Central, and Eastern European languages. I don’t see if it supports the Greek alphabet.
COLUS has a “glyphic” design with flared small serifs and almost no thick-thin stroke contrast, so it’s somewhat like a sans-serif but with the small flared serifs. It appears to be all-caps and very classic capitals similar to Trajan and Friz Quadrata and to a lesser degree, Copperplate Gothic. — So this could immediately be handy for book cover titles, movie titles, branding, and headlines. I like it on first sight, and will be giving it a try.
I thought I’d mention it, since some folks here, including CJ, Jane, and Lynn, might find it handy. It looks elegant and useful and legible.
Link: http://www.fontfabric.com/colus/
I have never expected scientific or engineering correctness from Ms. Cherryh. When you read one of her books, which have become much more expensive, you suspend your disbelief and enjoy the ride,
Yeah, this. Everyone sounds very smart and well-scienced and I’m over here going “… uh, I’m here for the characters.”
I’m “well-scienced” but so am I. I never liked Tolkein nor Asimov because their characters are two-dimensional cardboard cutouts. Heinlein only had one character. CJ made Morgiane, Pyanfar, and Ilisidi, strong three-dimensional characters all.
It _may_ be that her focus has been on characters and story more than about some esoteric scientific quirk, e.g. Hal Clement’s “Mission of Gravity”, or Larry Niven’s “Ring World”. But those were the 50’s and 60’s, Sputnik had just gone up and Kennedy proposed going to the moon. “Been there, done that.” WE have changed! What we want has changed. Who notices any longer when there’s a crew change at ISS? More than that, I can tell you STEM has to be propped-up these days, where is was a national imperative in the late 50’s, et seq. (I was there.) You want proof? The “administration’s” latest (2019) budget proposal is going to SELL our interest in ISS by 2025! (Is there really talk of repurposing it as a hotel?!) And that means drastic cuts in support for the next 6 years. Think the James Webb Telescope is ever going to fly? Don’t hold your breath.
Nevertheless, I was well trained in physical science, got my degree in Chemistry, and in my opinion CJ does a very good job with her Science. The one thing I _could_ quibble about is distances and travel times on the Atevi planet, but those are compressed to keep the story moving along. And they’re not Science or Engineering, per se.
Writers who try to put in too many details about a science that doesn’t exist tend to date themselves. Nand Cherryh invented a ground to orbit shuttle that takes off and lands like a plane. In order to decide how long it would take to reach the station, you would have to specify all sorts of things about the shuttle. Most of the things you would need to know would bore the readers to death.
It’s better to have the view of one of the people on the shuttle. It’s like a plane at first but more G forces pressing down on you. Then weightlessness, etc.
As a reader, any time frame that seems reasonable would work for me since I don’t know basic things about the lander such as how fast can it fly. You could have it just fly straight there in a couple of hours like an airplane but that doesn’t feel right because it’s flying a lot further than a plane would and the destination is moving. 12 hours, two days, I don’t really care just as long as it’s not unreasonably short or long. You don’t have to specify. You only need to imply. I felt that the flight was like a flight from the Americas to Asia, something like 10 to 15 hours. But it could be longer.
The same thing with the orbit. It’s easier to say that the last people on the station before it was mothballed moved it to a more stable orbit. No details needed. I’d assume that anyone who likes reading these type stories would understand what a stable orbit was but many of them would be bored with pages of math to back it up.
I have to condense time and space or lose a large part of the readership…it’s just what you have to do. Do I say—and four hours later the reply comes back—? 0r do I play it as if they haven’t had time for dinner between question and answer. I do figure the far-flung ships have a monologue form of talking over long distances, segueing to different topics, but—do too much of that and the average reader wonders about your sanity. Likewise I can hint that flying time from end to end of the atevi continent is a number of hours, and that the Great Ocean is ungodly wide, but if I specify too much, people are hauling out calculators instead of following the story. You have to sacrifice a little realworld stuff to keep the thing moving.
@CJ — What genealogy software is it that you like and use? I see MacFamilyTree 8.3, by Synium Software GmbH is now available for 50% off for their new version launch, they say, $30. Is that the new transformation of FamilyTreeMaker, or the one you use, except in Mac flavor? Just wondering. Thanks.
—–
I’m a mix: I want really good characters and plots, I tend to think characters drive plots, although events outside one or more characters’ control (natural or man-made) also shape plots or events.
I want aliens who are truly alien, not just funny skin color or bumpy foreheads. I want human and alien cultures and languages that aren’t just gibberish. This is one of the big attractions for CJ’s stuff: I knew right away she could do that, from the first two books of hers I read, and then found out (1) Hey, CJ wasn’t a guy, and (2) she had a background in history, Latin and French, and classics/antiquities, which went a long way toward why she could do realistic languages and cultures and people’s behavior and history. She knew what that was in real life, and how it worked.
But she also got the hard science (math, physics, astronomy, etc.) far more right than most writers. Or at least she made it seem real and right, not just a hand-wave or smoke-and-mirrors. Real stuff had to happen. Space was tough, space took time and effort, space could be really risky, but people could live and work there like they have done in real life for centuries on Earth.
Downbelow Station was the first book of CJ’s I read, early on, struggling through my first go-round in college. I devoured that in one weekend with very, very little sleep, and loved it, and — It felt cinematic, visual. I could imagine the ships, Norway and others, the station, moving in space, fighting, but the people on board were so well done, they felt real too. It was like someone a gripping history tale or war movie and added in the best of Star Trek and Star Wars, less fantasy, more realism. (I don’t think B5 and DS9 and even TNG were out yet).
So it combined the best of “soft” or social sciences and “hard” or technical sciences, and arts and literature, and dang, I was hooked. As soon as I’d read it, I was asking that friend if he had anything else by this CJ Cherryh, with the funny H at the end. He loaned me the Pride of Chanur, and despite the over-excited ad copy saying it was better than Chewbacca, I gave it a try, and — Multiple alien species, so real they practically walked off the pages, languages that had grammatical structure, even if I wasn’t going to stop to analyze that, not humans with funny habits. And the only human in it was definitely at a disadvantage. Upended pretty much any trope you could think of. (And I did realize it was commenting on male versus female dynamics, but only later saw just how much else to that was in there. At first, the stsho and their “gtst” and Phasing only seemed like an odd but plausible twist. Then on later readings, I’d realize, oh, there’s more to it, all through the books. And not just gender roles and so on, but other things throughout.)
I was stunned. That was “the best thing ever”. I had never seen a science fiction book that got so much so right, about what “alien” really was, and how aliens dealing with each other, and human-alien interaction, could be so complicated.
Hold it, there are more, it’s not just the one book? — And fortunately for my lack of budget, it turned out my mom had bought Chanur’s Venture, which I had somehow missed. Oh, yeah, let me at ’em.
After that, with few exceptions, mostly due to budget, I’d get Cherryh books as a priority; but I was prone to haunt the science fiction section of whichever bookstore we had anyway. 🙂 (I somehow did not get the Russian trilogy books when they came out. I don’t know why at the time I didn’t. Now I know better. 😉 )
Er, and during a particularly bad period, when personal issues had me so mixed up and unhappy that I couldn’t seem to do anything else, I looked for what the university library had, and basically hid in a corner, on a couch there for reading, and read one of the books I’d checked out. I got to read three of the early, more experimental and shorter novels that way, at least Port Eternity and Voyager in Night. Possibly also Brothers of Earth and Hestia around that time. The library very thankfully had a few of them, and the bookstore back home had current novels regularly.
I think it was also during my first run through college that Cyteen came out, but it might have been shortly thereafter. I had some sort of internal blind spot, and didn’t get quite what Grant and Justin’s relationship was until a scene that got to it indirectly, but…huh? You mean they…? Ohhh. But…. Ohhh. — Only I was, by then, so mixed up with my own nonsense with it, that it would only be later, I could really appreciate that. It was so subtle, I nearly missed it until somewhere midway through the first or second book. Duh. Which goes to show, maybe, just how naive and conflicted I was inside at that point. — I had also read Vonda McIntyre’s Starfarers books, and that had helped too.
It would be a very long time, though, before I could work through my own problems with that and come to a start of self-acceptance. But I’d say that gave me real pause: A favorite writer got something fundamental and problematic for me, and could be so OK about it that she’d treat it subtly, as, “So what, it’s them, it’s no big deal, there’s more to them than that, besides.” It was one of the things that helped make a difference and start me thinking towards a better way of looking at it and dealing with it, toward acceptance. (I still think I have a ways to go, and that’s been years ago now.)
So, for all sorts of reasons, I’m a fan of a favorite writer, and I like the mix of liberal arts and technical science realism (and occasional fantasy) (and the willingness to do either genre) that CJ does.
And I could really wish one or more current TV/movie franchises understood what they were doing, and had more substance to their stories. I like action and effects fine. But I also want something to engage my brain during it and hours or days or weeks afterward, instead of seeing plot/char holes. I figure I’m somewhat sophisticated as a reader/viewer, but if I as a wannabe writer can see stuff that makes no sense or is just made up to cover a dang-fool writing problem, well, I figure then the people making a given series ought to know better, because they’re getting paid to do it and have writing experience, presumably. But, well, Hollywood doesn’t seem to know what that means right now, despite past successes.
On the other hand, there’s also some brilliant stuff coming out in TV and movies, so I don’t mean to paint everyone with the same brush.
We live in a science fiction world now, with all its problems and opportunities and great stuff and awful stuff. We could get to Mars and beyond, if we really try. We could do that while also taking care of the social ills that the “why waste money on space?” crowd object about. I personally think they need Pyanfar to sit them down and explain that bit about putting all your eggs in one basket, as a species, or why fighting amongst yourselves while burning down the house, as a species, is also not any good. If only those naysayers would listen and understand.
I’m a hybrid between liberal arts and technical sciences. I’m more toward the language-and-culture and arts side of things, but I like and appreciate science and math, STEM, too. I get dismayed hearing about schools dropping or cutting back on liberal arts and personal enrichment courses, when to me, those are as vital to being a whole person as any STEM class to make a living, or any sports and team stuff to get people fired up and play. I like to play too. Only I tend to play with arts instead. And I think being a whole person needs a good dose of all of those, not just one or two. I cannot see why the schools’ athletics programs get hyped, get funded, when both sciences and arts get neglected. That is wrong. It shortchanges kids with enormous potential, and it shortchanges their chance to enjoy life outside of the daily grind to make a buck and only survive. How can we do this to ourselves, our kids, our future? I don’t get it. I don’t have kids, but I still want today’s kids to know how beautiful the written word is, how to play with that and express one’s emotions and intellect. I still want kids to enjoy music, art, any of it, history…and to be able to do math beyond costs and spending and saving, or have some sense of how science works and why it’s important, how to make things, how to this through things critically.
On the other hand, there are some great things out there for all of those, on YouTube and elsewhere, by people who are passionate about learning. So this is good, but too rare.
I totally do not get the mindset of the current administration, on nearly any important issue, specs, education, healthcare, attitude towards our own people or other countries…you name it.
I was three and in footie pajamas and with a security blanket, watching that first Moon Landing, because my parents let me stay up late with them to see it. I grew up in a world that valued both sciences and the arts, did our own tech and manufacturing here instead of in other countries, whether allies or opponents. (I am fine with trade with either, but not with relying solely on both instead of our own resources and jobs contributing too. I figure trade is good, cooperation is good, slamming the door is bad, calling other people dirty names is crazy and stupid and invites trouble.)
So I don’t understand a world where everything is made in other countries, particularly ones that oppose ours in ideology and military, so that we rely too much on that remaining stable and positively disposed. Trade is good, but don’t be too naive. Do, however, work to make enemies into friends, and make allies into better friends. Because that avoids fighting and other ills.
I don’t understand failing to support the space program, or infrastructure, or education or healthcare, and it makes me terribly mad to see active prejudice and discrimination.
Whoa — Somewhere in there, I got up on that soapbox again. — I did not intend to. I just want a better world than what’s been happening lately, in our nation and elsewhere. That’s the root of it. I have been through more than enough in life to know not all people are friendly or want to be fair or let people be. But I also still believe most people are OK or better, if you give them the chance to be, if you work at it a little. … But nobody asked me, or ever will.
Anyway. — If there were a good way off this-here mud ball and someplace worth going to and a good enough way to get there…. The next starship outta here, I wish I could go. ‘Cause by now, I’ve started over at least once or twice. My grandpa had “itchy feet” and kept wanting to go to Texas, and then would come back to Virginia. I get that. I get why someone would get fed up with things here and pull up stakes and head out there, risky as it is, because what used to be home became too unbearable, so why the heck not go? … And I would wish for a good crew, good family, friends and someone special to love, to go with along the way. (And there’d better be cats.) (Also, I have some sympathy for remarks about cows in space not remembering they have souls, then remembering when they’re planetside again.)
Yeah, but I’m a romantic anyway. Let’s see what’s out there.
I use (when they get it working again) Family Tree Maker, by macKiev.
Aha, thank you! That helps. I intend to get it, either for Mac or Windows.
About ships and messages: I got to thinking about this, and wondered just how ships get information between each other, as trading partners, allies, relatives and friends and love interests, aboard for personal contact, and so on. I’m not sure how long it took in the 18th and 19th centuries, but weeks or months maybe would pass between letters and parcels, certainly days. So I’d guess that ships and spacers keeping in touch could be a protracted thing, fraught with complications, that could provide all sorts of things for people to deal with, and much frustration when one wanted news fast (like that new friend or love or the one who owes you an extensive tab or perhaps left something behind unwittingly). I’d guessed that each time a ship makes port, they get an update on anything waiting in queue, virtual (computer files) or physical items, and they upload their messages and leave any packages…and then leave copies of any computer files at the next port also, to make contact work. Sort of a space-going internet with time-delay and stations and other ships as nodes. But how that would work out, or how close (if at all) that is to how it works in Alliance-Union or the Compact, is only a fannish guess from me, and not reflective of anything actually in there, only inferences.
—–
And CJ, to you and to all the fans here — My apologies. I really went off on a (I’m not even sure what to call that, except long-winded and opinionated and over-sharing personal).
After I woke up later and realized, omigosh, how long and rambling that was, even if sincerely felt, er, I’m kinda embarrassed.
Please consider that it was at least meant well.
For me a book won’t be interesting unless it feels *real*. One factor in that is the science, but there are many more factors including characters, relationships, environment, decisions, etc. If the writing is facile or inconsistent, I give up quickly. Others may be more accepting of defects in some factors. For example there are (and have always been) many readers who looked primarily for ‘science’ including BEMs in their SF, regardless of really ugly flaws in other areas.
Strangely my acceptance of the ‘real’ includes fantasy stories which I also enjoy, even though the basics may stretch belief. I don’t read some of the more popular fantasy writers because they have a tendency to extend the rules during the story, which is a real no-no for me. (I think CJ has written about the need for consistency once or twice.)
CJ has been one of my favourite writers for a long time, because the stories are good and the whole deal feels very real. Part of the skill of a really good storyteller is spinning the illusion of reality even when a colder analysis would be raising eyebrows.
And yes, space elevators may never be feasible but I accept them – time travel is more difficult for me to stomach.
When I’ve talked or written to people before about wanting stories to feel real, to have a realistic approach, I’ve gotten back some raised hackles or confusion: So was I saying I don’t like fantasy because I want realism and consistency? Well, no, that wasn’t what I meant. (Like Gabbee just said.) I can really enjoy a good fantasy story, but I want it to feel plausible, realistic, like if you were there in the story, one of the characters, it could really happen. Dreams or flights of the imagination like daydreams, can operate under their own mutable, morphing lack-of-logic, but a story is pretty much in some actual world, so to me, it needs certain guidelines, operating principles, for what can and can’t happen and how things work.
Magic, for instance, needs to have some sort of principle as to how it works in the story. Is there a cost, a difficulty level, an experience level, “work” involved to get the magic to happen? How does it affect the magic-user or the, uh, magicked beings or things involved? Things like that.
Supernatural beings or real-world beings each need boundaries on how they operate, too. Because a ghostly non-corporeal being or an energy-cloud or whatever that is, has some sort of existence in the real world and that supernatural plane, presumably, and dragons, elves, and such presumably are prone to real-world issues, even if their limits and abilities are very different from humans. Or at least, it seems that way to me.
Anyway, if a story is good, I can enjoy it quite a lot. (And Star Wars is a blend of science fantasy, a space fairy tale, as much as it is science fiction, but I am fine with that.) Things like that.
This reminds me to find Andre Norton’s unusual take on things, Here Abide Monsters, where a modern family takes a turn on a road and ends up in another time and place where there are elves and other beings and creatures, not all of which may be friendly or safe for humans to be around.
(And hey, the tale of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight goes back a long way, as do others, so blended between their origins and later retellings (and Christianizing proclivities) that they are a mix of elements. Those are interesting because of it.
Who couldn’t like a tale about elves and dragons and wizards and knights errant or wandering warrior-adventurers? Or the hapless little thief or stableboy or princess? (Hmm, by the way, how come it’s always a princesss and hardly ever a poor commoner girl like Cinderella or such? And I still wonder why the hero can’t get that ever-loyal sidekick / squire, or the handsome prince, or the other way around. I mean, maybe there are other reasons he keeps following the hero around, besides loyalty or a meal ticket. Hahah.)
I’ve also had people question what I mean about a “good” story. So do I mean only a happy ending or good things happening, no hanky-panky sexy/romance, no violence, no this or that or the other, what do I mean by that? Oh, that’s harder to explain, but basically, what I mean is, I want a well-written,, well-told, well-crafted story. If I, as a reader or viewer, see plot holes or characterizations that don’t work or that seem obviously slapped together, tacked on, if it doesn’t make sense to me why they’d do such a thing, then I’m likely to lessen or lose my interest. But a really interesting story, characters I can care about, whether good guys or bad guys or somewhere less clearly in between, well, I’m in. So when I say, “a good story,” it’s not some value judgment, one moralizing thing. I just mean I want a story that keeps me interested in knowing what happens next, and satisfies me at the end, or better yet, leaves me wondering what happens next, or about what I just read or saw, for a while after reading or seeing it.
(Oh, I found Fledgling, and thank you!)
@Hanneke, I learned “We get too soon old and too late smart” was a Dutch proverb, but I don’t know that’s true. I wouldn’t want to spread misinformation. 😉 Is it?
Apologies for the diversion.
@Paul, I don’t know it as a Dutch proverb, though it does sound as if it might be. That would be something like “Vroeg oud, laat wijs” (literally Early old, late wise).
As Dutch is rife with proverbs and sayings, I’m sure I don’t know all of them, so I’ve searched a bit online for proverbs and sayings and etymology with variations on those words, and not found anything but a few booktitles (which does reinforce the idea it might still be a lesser-known saying).
It might still be an old or regional saying (my coworkers still surprise me occasionally with sayings that are common around here but not where I came from, and that’s only 100kms distant), but it looks like it’s not a well-known general Dutch saying nowadays.
The one that I found that came closest was this one: “Vroeg rijp, vroeg rot”. That means literally “Prematurely/Early mature, prematurely putrefied”. English equivalent: Early ripe, early rotten. A completely different meaning from what you were looking for!
Dad has an old Etymological dictonary of Dutch proverbs and sayings, so I’ll ask him to look it up, and let you know if he finds anything.
I would be curious about that too. 🙂 Both “Vroeg oud, laat wijs” and “vroeg rijp, vroeg rot” resonate with meaning, and the cognate words, oud, laat, wijs, rijp, rot, all make sense still in their English cousins. (I can’t place “vroeg” with an older English cognate, though, even if I do substitutions like v f, g g, w, y, and then guess the Dutch oe is more toward o/oa or oo/ou/ow/u than e/ea/ee or a/ai/ay, a/au/aw. I wouldn’t guess oe I/y, for instance. It would be unlikely to make that leap. Vowels tend to move one step or so up or down or sideways, but not more than a couple of steps, or completely out of range. (Even u ü/y y/I and o ö/oe e, and a ä/ae e, are “sideways” steps of another kind.)
Wherever that proverb’s from, it’s sure true. Proverbs often have close cousins in other languages, though the form may be a bit different.
This morning was odd. I pinched my finger when the hinge closed too soon, closing my new (used, refurbished) washer. Ouch. I then slipped or did something somehow, and banged my windpipe above the larynx / Adam’s apple, while changing the cushion on the kitchen barstool. Man, good thing I’m not doing anything involving real risk today….
Brunch was a “Taste of Thai” Pad Thai noodle tray. Meh. They (or a competitor) have a better deal in a microwaveable takeout carton / little box instead. This, however, was passable, just low on veggies and peanuts. (I added a tablespoon of peanut butter, which helped.) The contents did not really fit into the provided plastic tray; so, since I’m home, I put it into a bowl. That did fine.
I managed not to do anything goofy like dropping the bowl or stabbing myself with the chopsticks or spoon. So yeah.
What, you mean, in the Assassin’s Guild, you’re not supposed to use those skills on yourself? On the other guy? Who knew?! Why does no one tell me these things? 😀 Hahaha….
Yeah, I’m takin’ it easy today. The washer and dryer are the closest things to heavy machinery or operating vehicles that I’m doing today anyway. So you all are safe, and so am I. Which is a good thing.
The cat scared himself, jumping on the new washer, which gave a resounding metallic boom or gong, from the lid. Poor cat. “Mee-OWW!” was his comment. I am not sure if that was feline cussing, or if he was so surprised, he couldn’t even cuss in cat.
Today, we have what might be very brief sunshine, the first in days, and no rain at present. — I haven’t looked to see if they still think we’ll reach 82 today or tomorrow. And it’s not even the end of February.
The world’s gone crazy. Dogs and cats, living together!
(Actually, hey, I have no problem with the canine-feline relations. I figure they’re just friends.)
Ooh…new washer and dryer are very, very odd. I thought the one had finished its cycles, but no! OK…spooky…gonna take some getting used to.
The other cat has attached himself to my arm and is busy purring to show his approval of this situation, monopolizing my attention. heh. Cats are no dummies.
If you think about it, most all fiction compresses time and space. You don’t see the cowboy spending months on fence repair or going into detail on hoof maintenance or filing teeth. You don’t see a detective filling out forms or go into detail on sitting on stakeout for days. And you don’t see the detail of how they get lighted rooms in a fantasy novel—there always are, you know, and one candle lights it all to the rafters… 🙂 It’s just what you do in fiction, or the books get really really long…
I’ve just had real-world experience with how little a 40 to 60 Watt bulb will light a normal sized apartment room (kitchen, bathroom) and a candle or small oil lamp, yeah, you’d need one heckuva powerful light in ancient or medieval times, the fantasy realm. Even a 19th century kerosene lamp (the fluted oil lamps in glass stands, I’m sure CJ and others are familiar with) don’t put out a huge amount of light compared to a 150 Watt incandescent light bulb or a large fluorescent tube light.
(And yeah, the wizards and elves always seem to have a magical glowing light or a bioluminescent fairy light or some such.)
The recent change to much dimmer interior lighting to save electricity really is a bother to me; I don’t know if it bothers other people’s ability to see as much.
It’s very funny how our modern conveniences color our ideas of how they lived back in the past, or what a fantasy world would be like. Refrigeration and heating, bathroom fixtures for running water and plumbing, all sorts of things.
Back in the day, Rural Electric had outages every time it stormed or blew. Many an evening I did my homework at gran’s by oil lamp, and I’ll guarantee it lit the page just enough to read, but the glare of the lamp itself cast all else in shadow. And that was a BIG oil lamp. During the 8 day power outage here, Jane used her lifetime candle collection, and we looked like the Shaolin monastery…but we had light, between that, and a camping lantern I acquired.
I have 3 oil lamps because our lines are strung on poles. They’re plain, but some are made with reflectors that make local work better.