Sunday, September 24, 2023
Thursday, August 10, 2023
Book Announcement: Spurious Passages
Announcing Volume 7 in the Ifscapes series: Spurious Passages!
In this volume of Ifscapes:
- take on artificial intelligence at home and abroad
- survive the hazards of the Battle of Mons Olympus
- trek through the jungle with bots, robots, mysterious explorers, and other castaways
- travel unbeaten paths of ancient-world outer space tourism
- sit in on behind-the-scenes commentary of imperial proportions
Passages through space, time, intergalactic settlements, and satire meet with humor, androids, alien invasions, and the intrigues of AI in this latest installment of Ifscapes, where travelogues of Horace and Vergil, the Annals of Ennius, and Tacitus’s histories fit right in with the many possible worlds of androids, colonization, multiple selves, cybernetics and neural implants, and other dimensions. Drama, action, surprise endings, and comedy are all on the table and the travel itinerary in Ifscapes 7, Spurious Passages.
Thursday, June 15, 2023
Celebrating Decade Day
People call it your “Alive Day:” the annual anniversary of the day you survived a massive accident and/or injury. My Alive Day this year is an even more significant one. It’s a “Decade Day.” June 15 marks ten years since my family’s car was struck by a distracted driver and I sustained a spinal cord injury.
This Decade Day hasn’t come easily. Ten years down the road, we’ve dealt with broken bones, life-threatening complications, internal organ collapse, and invisible health crises. But in the midst of it all, we’ve continued to see something far more important: God’s faithfulness. “Thus far the LORD has helped us” (1 Sam. 7:12b). A Ph.D., ten books, speaking opportunities, 3,652 days, and countless other literal miracles and blessings later, I am thankful for the Author of life, the wonders He has done, and the family and friends He has granted. Every breath is a gift, and I want each one to count as much as they did when I was struggling to take them ten years ago. Life is precious.
Every breath of your life is also a precious gift, and there’s no time better than the present breath to reflect on the bigger picture of your life. You never know what could happen in the next ten seconds, much less the next ten years. And the next ten seconds matter! What makes you ready for them? What do you believe about the future, and why? Do you have a firm source of hope beyond yourself, this day, or this moment? These are important questions to ask, with even more important answers.
Whatever your past, wherever you were ten years ago, and whoever you are today, this is a special day for you, too. After all, as long as you have air in your lungs, it is a day that you are alive. Stop today to take a breath, be thankful, and think about what — or rather, Who — has brought you this far. “[F]or I now whom I have believed” (2 Tim. 1:12b).
Note: Yesterday, June 14, was Flag Day in America. While it has spread into the SCI community, the term "Alive Day" was originally used to celebrate the survival of veterans. Thank you to our veterans, heroes whose lives we celebrate every day.
Friday, May 5, 2023
National Space Day 2023
Ifscapes travels into the multiverse (explored in The Bible and the Holographic Universe from a non-fiction perspective), but as the series shows, there's a lot to be said about travel into the universe! If you haven't heard, May 5, 2023 is National Space Day.
Some fast facts about space:
- "outer space" popularly begins at the the Kármán line, about 62 miles above the surface of Earth.
- space is a deep vacuum, but not a perfect one.
- if two pieces of one type of metal touch each other in space, the two pieces stick together in a process called cold welding.
- the first spacewalks occurred in 1965.
- it takes Jupiter almost 12 years to orbit the sun.
- 25 of Uranus's 27 moons are named after characters from William Shakespeare's works.
- Voyager I was launched in 1977 and crossed into interstellar space in 2012.
- Alpha Centauri is the star system nearest to us.
- the first cat to fly in space was the French feline Félicette (1963).
- Lucian of Samosata (second century A.D.) wrote about a space battle in his True History.
Saturday, December 24, 2022
Book Announcement: Perennials of Paradox
Now available on Amazon Kindle:
"In a multiverse filled with universes, there’s plenty of space and outer space for multiples, contingents, and alternates. Where does alter ego meet alternate ego? How many repeated extraterrestrial invasions does it take to stir Earth’s defenses to action? Can a man full of life really investigate his own murder? The latest Ifscapes installment, Perennials of Paradox explores these questions over and over in a brand-new collection of science fiction and fantasy short stories."
Monday, October 3, 2022
Book Announcement: Sidewise Musings
From the book description:
"How many Mercurians does it take to change a light-bulb in a far-away citadel of lights? What really caused the literal downfall of Atlantis? Does a meeting of artificial intelligence and asteroids really equal a new empire? Ifscapes teases these questions and more as the series travels underground, upside-down, sidewise, and otherwise in the latest collection of meta-myth science fiction and fantasy short stories. . . .
Inverted and retroverted worlds meet with remote non-human resources, chronological catastrophes, fantastic islands, and robotic antagonists in just a few worldscapes, timescapes, and landscapes of If. Is it when in Rome that you do as the Pallentinians do, or was that in Babylon, or even in Troy? Are the enemies at Thebes’ gates or in the palace halls? Which came first, Socrates or the dialogue? Volume Five in the multiverse of Ifscapes, Sidewise Musings ponders the boundaries and puzzles the pundits with a whole new array of meta-myth manuscript discoveries, athwart adventures, and oblique obstacles of space and time."
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