1.5 x 10-to-the-twelfth, Ringworld Engineers by Larry Niven

This installment of personally memorable sf words, phrases, or scenes deals with another number, a horrifyingly large number, “One-point-five-times-ten-to-the-twelfth!”, or one and half trillion, from Ringworld Engineers.

Cover by Dale Gustafson

Rather than deal in spoilers and spoiler warnings, I’ll just say that units of measure can sometimes be terrifying in themselves, and suggest you read the novel.  But it *is* the title of the last chapter … At what point does the meme “the greater good for the greater number” fail to comfort you? Here’s one answer. And now, some Known Space advice and background … 

Niven’s Ringworld in 1970 and Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama in 1972 popularized an sf subgenre about exploring what were disparagingly labelled BDOs, Big Dumb Objects [a borrowing from rocketry's Big Dumb Booster designer's acronym] by some critics with no sense of wonder about meeting alien technologies far in advance of our own.

One of the reasons Larry wrote Ringworld Engineers was to show that it was a Big Smart Object after all, and another was to address the instability issues if the Ring weren’t controlled.  There was a 3rd reason.  We asked Larry “did you write a sequel because of one of our suggestions?”  He smiled at the half-dozen of us and said, “no, I did it because I thought of something you didn’t!”

Aldo Spadoni interview - Larry Niven console video game in development!

Aldo Spadoni Discusses LARRY NIVEN’S FREE FALL
at the monthly Larry Niven chat. Lead interviewer was David Sooby.

Aldo Spadoni - Stars in His Eyes

An interview with Aldo Spadoni, futurist aerospace engineer, astronomical painter, and - Niven video game codesigner!

Question: For the really uninitiated, what IS the Free Fall project?
A [Aldo Spadoni]: Free Fall is planned to be Larry [Niven]’s first major
entry into the modern world of videogames

Q: Just what are you doing for the Free Fall project?
A: I’m essentially the chief engineer. I’m designing the spacecraft and
much of the technology. Even dolphin spacesuits!

Q: When Larry mentioned it, he wasn’t sure this project would be carried thru to completion. Do you think it will be?
A: The key to selling this project is Alchemic Productions, operated by
Brian Gomez and Rick Ernst. They are working hard to sell the project
using their considerable experience and connections.

Q: So, Alchemic is the designer and they’re looking for a publisher?
A: Larry, myself, Brian, Rick are designing the game together, but Rick
& Brian have the real game industry expertise.

SolBelter: Aldo, can we try in Second Life to make a copy (credited to
you) of your Orion ship [/Michael/] from /Footfall/– I saw the plans
http://www.up-ship.com/apr/michael.htm recently… good work!
A: I’m open to putting battleship /Michael/ in SL. sounds cool!

Q: If you don’t mind my asking, how much time do you spend doing
spacecraft designs? Is Aerospace Imagineering your primary job, or is
it a sideline?
A: No, I work full time at Northrop Grumman. Though, my job is to
envision future technology, so I’m involved in this stuff 24/7.
Aerospace Imagineering is strictly my sideline. I’m CEO and janitor if
you know what I mean.

EML [Edward M. Lerner, Larry Niven's co-author on /Fleet of Worlds/]:
What part of NG? I used to work there, and still occasionally consult
for them.
A: I’m with NG Integrated Systems in El Segundo, CA.

EML: I was with some IT function (forget what it’s called now) in
Reston, VA (outside DC).

Aldo: Cool! I believe the Reston facility is now part of Mission
Systems. By the way, recently read /Fleet of Worlds/ and LOVED it!

EML: Thanks, Aldo. There are several NG facilities in Reston. I don’t
think mine went into Mission systems. You may be thinking of the former TASC and/or TRW.

A: Yes, I think you’re right. NG is now a vast far flung empire. Hard to
keep track of all the pieces!

Q: How did you first start collaborating with Larry? Did you approach
him about the Niven Project, or what?
A: I approached Larry at a L.A. con sometime around 1995 and showed him my concepts for /Lying Bastard/. He invited me to his house and we’ve
been friends, working together on and off ever since.

SolBelter: I was stunned few days ago remembering I met Aldo at Lunacon when he was a teenager or early 20s… One of Aldo’s first art shows I
attended.
A: SolBelter is that right!?! Cool! I really loved those Lunacons!

SolBelter: I loved the /Lying Bastard/– it’s accurate!
A: Thanks! One of these days I plan to give /Lying Bastard/ the full 3D
treatment. Certainly one of the great spacecraft concepts of all time!

Q: Aldo, thanks muchly for the 3-view of the /Liar/! That looks like it
should be a poster on my wall. How many of the details on that did
Larry contribute?

A: I pretty much came up with everything. I work the concepts on my own
based on reading Larry’s stories and submit them to him for comment.
Larry provides just the right amount of written description. He provides
the framework and a designer has the fun of filling in the details!
SolBelter: I saw Larry’s sketches for /Ringworld/ at NYCon– six of
them. Your /Lying Bastard/ is exactly the same. Those sketches were
sold at the auction– never seen again…

Q: Do you have any idea how many months it will be until you know
whether or not Free Fall will get the green light?
A: That’s a good question regarding a Free Fall go-ahead. I’m guessing
we’ll have a pretty good idea if it will sell before this fall.

Q: This is strictly a video game console release, is that right? If it
sells well, is it reasonable to think there will be a PC version?
A: I think Free Fall will initially be targeted for PS3/XBOX but I think
it might be made available for PC if successful.

Q: Is there anything else you’d like to tell us about Free Fall?
A: You’ll at least be able to choose your suit art, and possibly paint.
Dolphins will be major characters in the game and they’ll have suit art too.

Q: That sounds very, very kewl! So we can upload a graphic image to use as suit art?
A: Yes, I think uploading your image will be the way it will work. The
game will provide you with a template.

Q: I’m guessing reactionless thrusters aren’t in the game, because Larry said it was all real science except for the artificial gravity?
A: Artificial gravity has been a big topic of discussion as we’ve worked
the game details. We’re planning to avoid it as much as possible. In
other words, artificial gravity will be, or may be, a new technology in
the era of the game. It is expensive and doesn’t package well for small
applications. We want most of the game’s action to occur in zero/micro-G with accurate physics. Still working [out] the details with regard to
how we’ll use some artificial gravity.

Q: I guess the question is *why* will you be using artificial gravity?
Is that so scenes filmed using live actors make sense– that is,
they’re not floating around in freefall– or did y’all just decide you
wanted the tech in the game?
A: The reason for inclusion of AG is the tech aspects and how it would add to cool gameplay. We’re planning on including mining tugs that are AG capable for manipulating large masses.

Q: Release date?
A: Release date is unknown, we are in selling mode and have to close a deal with a game publisher. There is definitely interest.

Q: It occurs to me that someone in your team had to spend a fair amount of time designing vomit flows…
A: Yeah, the vomit aspects will be interesting! Of course the game good guys will be experienced/born into this environment. They’ll only puke when the food is bad.

Q: It could come in handy; if someone’s visor is covered with goo, they
can’t fight. LOL– you have to model each individual chunk…
A: Frankly, we haven’t much considered vomiting. These are good ideas!

A: I need to depart, It’s been a pleasure spending some time with you folks!
===========================================================

Karl Schroeder’s Sun of Suns free from Tor.com until May 8th!

Update - Free download extended from May1st til May 8th!
Tor has been giving away free eBooks to promote their new website.  The current selection is a great hard-sf navy tale of pirates and sunstealers, the first of the Virga tetralogy.  Tor said:

Virga #1 cover by Stephan Martiniere

Our current free book is Sun of Suns by Karl Schroeder.”  And Karl added, on his website:

“The first Virga book is a free download from Tor.com

Today Tor Books and I are releasing a free (and DRM-free) ebook version of my novel Sun of Suns.  The only “cost” is that you have to register as a member at Tor’s soon-to-be-launched cool new science fiction portal, located (not coincidentally) at tor.com.”   

 

“Destroyer of Worlds” - 3rd Niven/Lerner book signed!

SPNN (book news/interview)

An interview with Ed Lerner, by Paradox Olbers as SolBelter and David Sooby as Lensman.

*Ed Lerner, co-author of Fleet of Worlds and Juggler of Worlds with Larry Niven, announced during a Saturday chat session that he and Larry had a contract, a title [Destroyer of Worlds], and - Pak!  He gave no further details since they haven’t started to write the book yet. 

*Juggler of Worlds, the second half of the Puppeteer duology, has been rescheduled from August to September ‘08 hardcover release in the US by Tor.

When interviewed, Ed had this guesstimate of when DoW might be released. 
<SolBelter> ok EML, “perhaps early 2010, EML ventured”  [after declining to be quoted on a previous phrasing of DoW's completion]
<EML> SB: okay, that’s suitably tentative
<SolBelter> is it fairer to say, EML, that DoW is set against the same backdrop events of 1st 2, or to say third in the series?
<EML> DOW will take place after FOW and JOW. That said, it’ll be standalone.
<SolBelter> [i'm an SPNN reporter for Spindrift, in the SciLands, Second Life]
<Lensman> Ed:  So do I understand you have the title and a contract, but you haven’t yet worked out even the basic plot of DOW yet? [Ed later said yes to David Sooby's question.] Ed corrected us in a followup comment to this post: I appear to have left a slight misimpression. Larry & I haven’t yet done much writing of Destroyer of Worlds, but we *have* worked out the plot and background.
<EML> “Day of the RFIDs” was first published in the antho Future Washington and is in my collection Creative Destruction. You can get the standalone on fictionwise.com.
<EML> “Night of the RFIDs” is just out, in the May Analog [also at fictionwise].
<SolBelter> excellent EML! thank you.

 

Michael Gilbert - Fleet of Worlds rough [from Paradox Olbers collection] 

Antarctic census set to reveal new species: scientists

From the latest issue of Space Daily, this startling headline: Antarctic census set to reveal new species: scientists. Much to my disappointment, the article is about scientists *finding* new species, not themselves being classified *as a new species*.

I had already begun trying to find explanations of how the scientists had evaded being observed before, but I wasn’t happy about the plausibility of *all* of them wearing tuxedoes ….

“The End of Literacy? Don’t Stop Reading” by Howard Gardner

Go to the Washington Post to fill out your free online subscription account and read this opinion piece with Gardner’s view of literacy’s future and the Web.  He says:

“In the past 150 years, each new medium of communication — telegraph, telephone, movies, radio, television, the digital computer, the World Wide Web — has introduced its own peculiar mix of written, spoken and graphic languages and evoked a chaotic chorus of criticism and celebration.

But of the changes in the media landscape over the past few centuries, those featuring digital media are potentially the most far-reaching. Those of us who grew up in the 1950s, at a time when there were just a few computers in the world, could never have anticipated the ubiquity of personal computers (back then, IBM’s Thomas Watson famously declared that there’d be a market for perhaps five computers in the world!). A mere half-century later, more than a billion people can communicate via e-mail, chat rooms and instant messaging; post their views on a blog; play games with millions of others worldwide; create their own works of art or theater and post them on YouTube; join political movements; and even inhabit, buy, sell and organize in a virtual reality called Second Life. No wonder the chattering classes can’t agree about what this all means.

Here’s my take.”

And he has an interestly optimistic long view.

1.933 cms, The Space Eater by David Langford

In the last installment of “memorable“, we discussed a slim-chance number, 1 in 300.  This time, the number is terribly small, 1.933 centimeters - in diameter and you get another phrase as well …

If you go to my “About Paradox and Spike” page, you’ll see my interest in “hard science” sf; so why am I remembering and recommending a story about a “Force zombie killer?”  Because Forceman Ken Jacklin, fighting to keep order in a war-torn London, has died 46 times and has gotten used to dying in combat, although he doesn’t have an interest in anything else any more …

My answer is a pair of phrases.  Jacklin offers to take one of the firsttimers into town at night for recreation.  Of course most of the lights and generators are out or smashed.  “Some places, back alleys especially, we were picking our way just by the nova lights in the sky.”

What remains of the government picks Jacklin to go to the one stellar colony to prevent them from making AP/Anomalous Physics experiments themselves.  To get there, he and the tele(pathic)com officer will go through an AP gate - 1.933 centimeters wide …

The original 1983 Space Eater pb was reprinted in 2004 as The Space Eater, trade paperback and as a Space Eater Kindle edition.  There are plenty of used 1983 pb versions available for the budget-minded.

I’ll be doing a post about Greg Bear’s use of new physics in his novels Moving Mars, Eon, and Anvil of Stars.

Memorable’s next installment will consider a terribly large number - 1.5 times ten-to-the-twelfth.

One in 300 by J.T. McIntosh

This installment of “memorable” has two phrases, actually.  Both are from the same tale of doomsday.

[cover by Ed Valigursky, Ace Books, 1955]

Our sun’s solar output will go up a couple percent soon - time to move!  But how?  Have the great manufacturing centers build lifeships.  One pilot, ten passengers, and enough ships for every “one in three hundred” of Earth’s population to try to fly to Mars.  Madness!  But it helped some of the world to deal with doomsday…  Here’s McIntosh’s opening:

“I ignored the half-human thing that ran at my heels like a dog, crying, “Please! Please! Please!”  …  I was twenty-eight, Lt. Bill Easson, and a more unremarkable young man it would have been difficult to find.  but now through no fault of my own, I was a god.”  Lt Easson is in Simsville, pop. 3261, to secretly pick in 3 weeks the ten people he would try to fly to Mars.  “Lt. Bill Easson, god!”