Ripple effect on water. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

For those that follow my blog, you will know about the official response to my short story, Ripple Effect about the british weather. If not see here first.

Oops – see here for a specially called meeting at the Meteorological Office. 

OK, it is not a meeting about the same topic as I had in my short story. Well writing science fiction about scientists talking about their specialist subject isn’t much fun to write, or read for that matter. However, both the fictional and the real meetings could end up with the same result… Oops indeed!

I don’t know how long they are going to be open for, but I know they’ve had quite a few subs already – so if you’re thinking of subbing here, don’t leave it too long.

On another interesting note – it now appears that 20% of science fiction e-books (along with crime, romance and erotica e-books) are now self-published. Fantasy and horror were noticeably absent from this high ratio. All sorts of speculative questions about this can be asked, but I’m wondering how much impact this is having on numbers of new books pushed out by publishers. You’re guess is as good as mine.

a) ARC – says on  their website they will be announcing a new competition shortly – so do keep your eyes open here. Word count over 5,000. More details here.

b) Baen’s Bar – still going as strong as ever – see here. The editor goes through the subs and if you’re lucky enough to catch his eye it will get published with fee being paid. Be warned, he has very few slots available. But you do get critiques of what you submit from fellow writers.

c) James Patrick Baen Memorial Writing Contest that looks for hard, near future, space-based science fiction – deadline normally 1st February each year. Word count limit is 8,000.  See here.

d) James White competition- this is an annual competition – it opened on 1st June this year and it’s closing date is 31st Jan 2014 – so you’ve got plenty of time. See here. Word count limit 6,000.

e) Writers of the Future contest – up to 17,000 words and many budding science fiction writers have worked their through their echelons Open for one story per quarter – unless of course you are successful! Their year ends 30^th September. Its forum can be found here.

f) Zharmae publishing press are about to start their next annual competition – 5^th of Feb (usually closes May 5^th – but best to check when the competion is open). Word count between 5,000 and 20,000. Check it out here. They have a very quick turnaround after the competiton closes on May 5^th… they announce winners on June 5^th!

Good luck to anyone entering any one of these.

As you know Duotrope has gone subscription only. For those of you not, for one reason or another, able to pay their fees, there is a new site that is very similar to Duotrope. It is free and ask only for donations It’s here. Please note it is still at beta version i.e. at a late stage in the development of the app.

And of course there’s the long standing Ralan – which is here.

English: Westminster Cathedral in London. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Yesterday was the BSF/SFF mini-convention and the AGMs of the respective organisations in London in Westminster – no we were not affected by the protests because the organisers thoughtfully gave us a heads up on what was going on… bonus points to them!

I met a friend there and was absolutely delighted to be told that they had just signed a contract to get one of their novels published in both print and e-book formats. That novel deserves to be in print. It has a very simple premise and we are taken through the common sense / logical consequences of how things pan out from there. It was a good read when I beta-read it, and I know it’s been edited and improved since. So it really is good ‘un. I will announce details when it comes out.

The only down side is that it’s going to be published in USA. Just like my C.A.T. e-books! So I have to ask why isn’t the British publishing industry picking things like this up?

The James White Award for science fiction short stories up to 6,000 words has opened. Their deadline is 31st January 2014 – well Easter is late next year! So get your pens writing, your computer word-processing and enter! Now the winner for this will be published in Britain!

Now to the really worrying part of this post. This was the story that led me to C.A.T., a sort of stepping stone both story-wise and technology-wise. Now can you imagine a Solar System populated with arrogant, blundering, clever C.A.T.s?

So let’s add some more worrying aspects about the future. I’ve done a tech diagram of other aspects of what C.A.T. needs. Some are easier to develop that others, but over time I would expect all of them to come about. Whether they are bunched together in a C.A.T.-like configuration is another issue entirely, but the possibility exists. So if you want nightmares to dream about an exciting future examine the diagram carefully.

So what if they actually did succeed and answer all the questions physics has to throw at us?

There would then be no uncertainty about whether or how many parallel universes there were. Nor would there be any uncertainty about how big our universe was, or how many dimensions it really had. The list goes on, but the bottom line would be we would know exactly what the universe was like.

The consequences for science fiction are hugh. The number of worlds science fiction writers could write about would be drastically reduced, otherwise their work would be classed as fantasy. Don’t get me wrong, there would still be zillions of places to set your science fiction story in, and therefore plenty of scope for writers to flex their keyboard over. But the imagination would be more constrained.

But there is a psychological consequence that would have more impact. If we know everything that could happen, then one of the fundamental motivations for writing science fiction, namely exploring the possible ways in which science can change and what it would mean for humanity would fall be the wayside.

The writers would only be left with engineering the universe’s resources within the laws of the physics. True, this could lead to many potential scenarios, which would still make science fiction useful as a debating tool for what we want to do with our futures. But the dreamers amongst the science fiction readers will have wandered off elsewhere.

But there is one get out of gaol (=jail for our American friends), which comes from maths (did I hear a lot of people groan just now?) A solution to any set of equations comprises a single solution that gives the answer combined with any one of solutions that give a zero answer. We could have a whole swathe of answers. What if the the new theory of everything picks the wrong solution for the zero answer?

Yep, you’ve guessed it… we still have the ability to come up with imaginary worlds. Only they’ll be harder to find, both in reality and our imaginations.

So all I can say is that despite the threat of the theory of everything has to science fiction, may science fiction live long and prosper.

Those are the facts, now for the observations and comments.

Their call was for the full range of speculative fiction that included horror and fantasy. From the graph below, which is the number of new printed  books published by genre, you could say the ratios are science fiction 1, horror 1, fantasy 3, paranormal romance 2. Of course this ratio may not extend to what Harper Voyager intend, but if they did and if those ratios were reflected in what they’ve kept back for further consideration, then we are talking about talking about only 1 in 7 being science fiction, or only 136 books.

But let’s look at this the other way around. There are 136 science fiction books of good enough quality for one of the big 5 publishing houses to seriously consider taking them on, and all of them are UNAGENTED!

The implications of this are, in a business sense, staggering. There has to be at least a serious fault somewhere in the publishing process if the agents cannot match what the publishers are looking for. Where that fault lies and exactly what it is, I don’t know.

[Yes, I know there will always be some unagented authors because new authors continually come along, but they are a small percentage of this.]

I have long since said there was a mismatch between what the science fiction readership wanted to see and what was being published… and I say good on Harper Voyager for trying to do something about it.

They got a lot more submissions than they expected. They initially said they would get in contact with those authors they wanted to take further by 15th January, but it took another four months to finish the first reads. One consequence I anticipate from all this is that they will NOT be holding an open door later on this year as they initially anticipated, because they are still dealing with last October’s. Another consequence is that they are likely to take two year’s worth of novels up for publication to backfill the year they are missing out on.

But there have been immediate consequences. For instance, Tor UK has opened its doors to unagented submissions, though if I remember correctly, they said they were swamped at one time.

So, with more opportunities for the unagented authors to put their work before the publishing houses, where does this leave the industry as a whole? Obviously there will be less reliance on agents putting forward sifted good books by the publishing houses, even if it means more work for them. As to what else will change, well that is dependent on which unagented books the publishers decide to put out for the general public to read and what takes the public’s fancy. But whatever happens, the what I now call traditional science fiction themes will be joined by new ones. After all, why else would Harper Voyager have had an open call?

“Small-scale local weather effects tend to dissipate quickly within the genral turbulence of the atmosphere. In theory a small-scale effect could result in consequences at much larger scales but this is generally only seen in grossly simplified chaos models. Complex models used by meteorologists confirm that much larger changes than those at the smallest scales are needed to make a real difference to the weather.

“The main reason why meteorologists are currently unable to forecast the weather accurately more than a few days in advance relates to the need to represent (or ‘parameterise’) some of the crucial physical processes governing the weather but which operate on small space scales (such as cloud formation). Parameterisation is needed because of limited available computing power. Also, model sensitivity to initial conditions is characteristic of highly non-linear systems, including the weather. Observations are necessarily limited, resulting in imperfect initial conditions for model runs. Such inaccuracies can grow over a few days to a week and reduce the skill in forecasting the weather than far ahead.

“Nonetheless, it remains essential that we take urgent action to reduce global emissions of greenhouse gases, as certain weather events are projected to increase in frequency and/or intensity as a result of climate change.”

My thanks to both my MP and the Right Honourable Secretary of State for the time and trouble they took to reply to me.

… um… why do I think there will be further chronicles from Hermione? Or put it another way, one of friends who read my short story before it was published suggested I expand it into a novel entitled, “Climate Wars”. I’m now thinking he was right…

I’m even more pleased to see one of my fellow authors, Dean Giles, with TWBPress has had a short story published in it.

It has of course had numerous good reviews. So those of you who haven’t yet cottoned onto this wonderful publication, see here!

I’ve taken a look at the Amazon websites (plural means both the UK and US ones) and found new reviews for C.A.T. – thank you. They are by people I don’t know who have bought the e-book. Which means the word about how good the story is is spreading. In a way it’s a kind of milestone to actually know that complete strangers have taken enough of an interest in C.A.T. to buy it.

Needless to say C.A.T. is having a serious session of self-satisifeid smugness at the moment!

The other day I dug out a small piece of work that I did many years ago. I cringed at the style and wording, but still liked the ideas (yes plural again) behind it. So I rewrote it in a couple of evenings. Then it dawned on me… the science has since discovered things that make my scenario all the more probable. Again! I get the distinct feeling that there is something in the understanding of science and how it progresses that allows some people to accurately work out or have an intuition about how it will develop in the future. It’s  as if the force had been with me when I originally wrote that piece.

And yet as I look around at some of the hard science fiction that is being written today, this element of predictive science just seems to be missing. It’s as if the authors are rehashing, or is it rehearsing, old ideas. Where is the new science in science fiction?

So yes, I’m working on something new – a real combo of science to make life a little more bizarre. But in looking forward in science fiction, I’ve also looked back! I’ve realised that if I put my invention (for want of a better description) in a certain setting I could use a classic story line that Jules Verne wrote. Well that’s how it started out… dag nab it… the thing’s taken on a life of it’s own. All I can say is the force is with it!