Tag: space

Categories
Romance Science Fiction

Read Edge of Eon

Read Edge of Eon (Eon Warriors #1) by Anna Hackett

Framed for a crime she didn’t commit, a wrongly-imprisoned space captain’s only chance at freedom is to abduct a fearsome alien war commander.

Sub-Captain Eve Traynor knows a suicide mission when she sees one. With deadly insectoid aliens threatening to invade Earth, the planet’s only chance of survival is to get the attention of the fierce Eon Warriors. But the Eon want nothing to do with Earth, and Eve wants nothing to do with abducting War Commander Davion Thann-Eon off his warship. But when Earth’s Space Corps threaten her sisters, Eve will do anything to keep them safe, even if it means she might not make it back.

War Commander Davion Thann-Eon is taking his first vacation in years. Dedicated to keeping the Eon Empire safe, he’s been born and bred to protect. But when he’s attacked and snatched off his very own warship, he is shocked to find himself face-to-face with a bold, tough little Terran warrior. One who both infuriates and intrigues him.

When their shuttle is attacked by the ravenous insectoid Kantos, Eve and Davion crash land on the terrifying hunter planet known as Hunter7. A planet designed to test a warrior to his limits. Now, the pair must work together to survive, caught between the planet and its dangers, the Kantos hunting them down, and their own incendiary attraction.

Just goofy fun! High paced adventure, feisty fighty heroine, ridiculous premise. Even squeezed in a cute pet. This was my first Anna Hackett and I’ll definitely try another.

A few quibbles: I suspect a little more military research would have strengthened the foundation (e.g. I didn’t buy that her family would lose a military pension from one parent because the other one sucked, the incident that got her locked up seemed…not that embarrassing? Especially considering how similar the encounter was with the bad aliens early in the story.). I don’t feel like the heroine’s gogogo attitude was conveyed in the first couple chapters, she came across more bitter and resentful. It irritated me that every sci-fi invention was written as a compound word with capitalization — BladeCutter can just be blade cutter, we know what you’re talking about, it’s sci-fi 🙄

Categories
Art and Design Science

Read Soviet Space Graphics

Read Soviet Space Graphics: Cosmic Visions from the USSR

This otherworldly collection of Soviet space-race graphics takes readers on a cosmic adventure through Cold War-era Russia. Created against a backdrop of geopolitical uncertainty, the extraordinary images featured, taken from the period’s hugely successful popular-science magazines, were a vital tool for the promotion of state ideology. Presenting more than 250 illustrations – depicting daring discoveries, scientific innovations, futuristic visions, and extraterrestrial encounters – Soviet Space Graphics unlocks the door to the creative inner workings of the USSR.

I truly appreciate when an art book is primarily art — I’m here to look at the pictures 😉 Love the cover on this. They chose a nice matte paper that complemented the soft style of artwork throughout. I appreciated that they mostly dedicated full pages to each piece. I was drawn by the bright color palettes in use through many of the illustrations. Overall the selection felt relatively limited, representing mostly the same few magazines.

Illustrated by K. Artseulov, 1958

The color palette is striking, the blue nearly glowing against the orange sky. I like the soft, colorful illustration style applied to technology.

Illustrated by V. Skumpe, 1966

The gray-green background scattered with energetic white dashes is what catches my eye here. You’d think it would be too distracting, but it complements the main illustration instead by adding more liveliness. I have fountain pen ink similar to that greeny-blue color, which feels properly retro.

Continue reading “Read Soviet Space Graphics”
Categories
Learning

The courage to stop

Liked The courage to stop by Rebecca Toh (rebeccatoh.co)

Every day we are buried in a deluge of new information, new content, new this, new that. We are collecting and watching and reading and listening but not processing. So all of these information and content become just noise. […] So it’s good to stop. Not just taking in less, but taking in none.

The courage to declare: enough.

The courage to rest.

The courage to leave time unfilled.

Categories
Lifestyle Personal Growth

Create space for yourself

Liked Creating space for our productivity (indiewriter.net)

I see rest as synonymous with creating space for myself.

Opening space is the key; filling your time leaves your mind no room of its own. I am often guilty of feeding the dopamine machine with more instead of granting myself time to process — finishing one book and jumping straight into the next. This mind garden helps with that tendency, though doesn’t eliminate it entirely.

Categories
Science

Our water came from space dust

Watched Where Did Water Come From? from YouTube

Mercury, Venus, and Mars are all super low on water – so where did ours come from and why do we have so much of it? We think our water came from a few unlike…

Sooo cooool 😯

Also a ton of Earth’s water is IN ROCKS 🤯

 

Categories
Romance Science Fiction

Read The Segonian

Read The Segonian (Aldebarian Alliance, #2)

Eliana’s life has never been what one might term ordinary. At least, it hasn’t been for a very long time. As a powerful Immortal Guardian, she spends her nights hunting and slaying psychotic vampires that most of humanity doesn’t even realize exist. Then an opportunity arises that instantly makes her extraordinary existence seem downright boring. The leader of the Immortal Guardians asks her to guard a group of mortals who are embarking upon a voyage across the galaxy to the planet Lasara. How could she possibly say no?

In no time at all, Eliana is hurtling through space on board a Lasaran battleship and getting to know not one but two alien races. It’s the most exciting adventure of her long life… until the ship is unexpectedly attacked. Amid the chaos and destruction that follow, she valiantly helps everyone she can before an explosion renders her unconscious. When Eliana awakens, she finds herself alone, floating in space, clad only in a spacesuit, with no ship in sight. Alone–that is–except for the warm, deep voice that carries over the comm in her helmet.

Commander Dagon and the crew of the Segonian battleship Ranasura respond to a distress call from their Lasaran allies and join a massive Alliance-wide search-and-rescue mission. He quickly achieves communication with a lone Earthling female and races toward her. Every time they speak, his fascination with her grows and he becomes more desperate to reach her before her oxygen supply runs out. Her strength, bravery, and humor entice him, even more so when she defies all odds and they meet in person.

As he and Eliana embark upon a quest to find her missing friends, a bond swiftly grows between them that deepens with every laugh and smile and tender touch they share. But they are not the only ones searching for Earthling survivors. When Eliana herself becomes the hunted and their enemies begin to close in, can the two of them fight their way to victory, or will their enemies take everything?

Unlike the first book, this one was more of a space adventure. Still a hint of paranormal with a vampiress heroine. She was the heart of the book, along with her friendly ribbing of the soldiers aboard the ship. It’s fun to have a story where she’s “one of the guys” and makes lots of male friends. (Some of the teasing verged on homophobic, like mocking the doctor for looking at guy’s butts all day.)

I was worried the opening would be dull because there wasn’t much she could do, but the author kept it snappy and skipped forward in time where it was needed. Again, the ending felt longer than expected.

Categories
Science Fiction

Watched The Expanse S6E1&2

Watched Strange Dogs from m.imdb.com

The Rocinante crew make a startling discovery on an asteroid. Avasarala and Bobbie contend with the devastation on Earth. Drummer and her family must make a heartbreaking decision. On Ceres, Marco and Filip’s struggles turn inward.

Feeling meh so far, hopefully after a few more episodes we’ll get back into it. Too many plotlines, too much politics that’s hard to follow, especially since I continue to struggle with the belter accent. Marcos Inaros struggling to keep that accent in some spots. Having a hard time keeping tabs on this many spaceships. Our spaceship family on the Rocinante is fraying at the seams, frustrating to see them all squabbling.

CGI looking not great. But at least Avasarela’s outfits are still on point. Some of the action happens too quickly for me to follow and I have to get DH to tell me what just happened. At once point I thought there were three spaceships in a scene rather than two because I couldn’t track the movement of one of them.

I really don’t care about the little girl who accidentally killed a baby “bird,” it can’t compete with the other scenes in places we know with people we care about, and the child actor is not up to the same standard as the adults — please stop dragging out this storyline and get to the point. I imagine it would be even duller if I didn’t have a vague idea from DH why that planet is important.

Categories
Learning Science

TIL: white holes and efficacy

Today I learned:

  • White holes are the opposite of black holes and the big bang might be that
  • Efficacy is how well it works in ideal conditions; effectiveness is how well it works under normal conditions
Categories
Science

Watched How Different Galaxies Mess with Our Lives

Watched How Distant Galaxies Mess With Our Lives by Geoff Barrett from veritasium.com

Tiny particles from distant galaxies have caused plane accidents, election interference and game glitches.

Neat!

I want that shirt…

Categories
Art and Design Resources and Reference Science

The Dunes of Mars

Bookmarked HiRISE | High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment by University of Arizona (uahirise.org)

Gorgeous textures of geologic formations on Mars, courtesy of NASA / Jet Propulsion Lab / University of Arizona. These would make beautiful additions or backgrounds for artwork…

152 pages of this… What a bounty!

Plains South of Valles Marineris
North Polar Gypsum Dunes
Sediment forms in Proctor Crater