Hello all! I'm qntm and my novel There Is No Antimemetics Division was published yesterday. This is a mind-bending sci-fi thriller/horror about fighting a war against adversaries which are impossible to remember - it's fast-paced, inventive, dark, and (ironically) memorable. This is my first traditionally published book but I've been self-publishing serial and short science fiction for many years. You might also know my short story "Lena", a cyberpunk encyclopaedia entry about the world's first uploaded human mind.
I will be here to answer your questions starting from 5:30pm Eastern Time (10:30pm UTC) on 13 November. Get your questions in now, and I'll see you then I hope?
Cheers
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EDIT: Well folks it is now 1:30am local time and I AM DONE. Thank you for all of your great questions, it was a pleasure to talk about stuff with you all, and sorry to those of you I didn't get to. I sleep now. Cheers ~qntm
First, thank you to the moderators for allowing me to share this. I appreciate being given a place in your community, and Iāll respect that welcome and the limits youāve set.
Iām Mark, the organizer of Warehouse 13 Revival. If youāve never watched the show, it follows agents tracking down objects with extraordinary powers, often tied to historical people or events. It blends science fiction, fantasy, mysteries, and humorābut the characters and the family they become are what made me fall in love with it.
The strange discoveries brought me in. Pete, Myka, Claudia, Artie, and Steve made me want to stay. I miss their banter, their adventures, and those moments when a wonderfully ridiculous story suddenly hits you right in the heart.
Iāve started a fan effort supporting a continuation with willing original cast members and creative contributors, including showrunner Jack Kenny. Iād love to see how these characters have grown and what adventures might still be waiting for them.
A big part of this is bringing existing fans together while encouraging people to introduce friends and family to the show. There are people who would love Warehouse 13 but havenāt discovered it yet. Helping that audience grow matters, too.
This is an independent fan campaign. Thereās no confirmed revival or official cast endorsement, and I canāt promise an outcome. I love the show enough to give it an honest effort, but I canāt do it alone.
If youād like to join us, youāre welcome at r/Warehouse13_Revival. Please keep supporting the communities that have kept these shows and their fans connected over the years.
For those who remember the Warehouse: what scene made its characters feel like family to you?
I still managed to find an old version via web archiveālinking it hereābut when did NASA remove this stuff? It's not anywhere on the current website. And is there an current alternate source for science fiction writers?
I know that before the 70s, Venus was widely believed to be covered in dense rainforest & Mars had canals & cities. What was believed about the rest of the planets? Was there a consensus?
Hi everybody, sorry I havenāt posted anything, I was very busy with several things. But today, Iāve posted a drawing that I posted on Deviantart, which you can learn more about over there.
This thing is the Laillmaragos, a colossal shark-like cosmic creature thatās trillions of feet long. It is covered in an exoskeleton and spikes.
Due to how massive this creature is, the Laillmaragos eats mostly terrestrial and Gas Giant Planets, which is easier because of how the Laillmaragos has armor instead of actual teeth in itās mouth.
Sorry that I havenāt explained a lot as thatās all I have about this thing here.
Today, DJ Peach Cobbler discusses Pluribus, the series created by Breaking Bad & Better Call Saul Creator: Vince Gilligan. Cobbler goes on a long rant on how Pluribus is employing ancient and universal metaphors which add to its underlying meaning.
Ho finito ora il secondo libro della trilogia dello Sprawl, non male, anzi. Ma la trama ĆØ un vero casino, qualcuno ha capito tutto quello che succede?
Is Kerin an FMC in the Hidden Empire series by Jaine Fenn after Consorts of Heaven? It's the first book I've read in the series, and I'm rather attached to her. Yes or no answers are fine.
As a kid who grew up on Star Trek and played the most xenophile Shepard in Mass Effect possible, it's got me depressed how much recent Sci-Fi has been about conflict with Aliens. Project Hail Mary (movie version) was a nice change of pace for this exact reason. So I randomly thought about this question. And partly this is to see if there's a hopeful Sci-Fi series I should pick up, preferably as a book.
Which alien species does that universe's instance of Humanity have the best relationship with? Of all the species to interact with a version of us, which is most likely to jump into the jaws of hell for the other?
For example, the most *iconic* example would probably be the Vulcans.
In the early 1960s, two chimpanzees were sent into earth orbit as part of the project to land a man on the moon. The results were astounding.
The chimps were nicknamed Dick and Harry (the original plan was to use three but this was dropped due to the cramped conditions in the capsule, so Tom had to go).
It had been recognised that chimpanzees were intelligent creatures for some time, and that they were the closest to humans in terms of DNA profile.
Little had been considered about their communication abilities, and the idea that this was very complex was never suggested. There was some surprise, therefore when the sound recording system monitoring the orbit indicated that some form of conversation had been taking place between Dick and Harry during the journey.
The flight could only take place after an extensive period of training and acclimatization, of course, but the launch and return to earth were successful.
Attempts were made to make sense of the 'conversations' on the tape, but with no success, it seemingly amounting to a meaningless series of grunts and other sounds.
Due to the great advances in computer power, it was thought worthwhile recently to have another try at interpretation using the most powerful systems available.
The results amazingly indicated a complex form of 'speech' which could be transcribed into actual language.
There now follows a reproduction of these transcripts in the English language, although it must be stressed that the animals did not actually speak in any recognised lingo. These are exactly as the computers interpreted the sounds on the tape coming from Dick and Harry.
Just After Launch
"Fuck this for a game of soldiers," yelled Harry.
One Hour Later
***"***I'm not sure how much longer I can stand this," pronounced Harry.
Two Hours Later
"My back is killing me," Harry complained.
Three Hours later
"I have this itch in a sensitive place and I can't reach it to give it a scratch. It's driving me crazy," moaned Harry.
Four Hours Later
"My pulse rate has gone through the roof, and I have a shocking headache," cried Harry.
"Oh, for Heaven's sake, stop moaning. We are stuck up here and there is nothing we can do about it," Dick spoke up for the first time. "Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his (or her) hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. So live with it."
"What a load of crap, life is but a walking shadow, what on earth does that mean? Were you pissed when you came up with that nonsense?" said Harry scornfully.
"I didn't make it up, I think I read it somewhere."
As they approached earth on landing
***"***Fuck this for a game of soldiers," yelled out Harry again.
"You're not wrong there, I don't mind a joke, but fuck a pantomime," Dick shouted.
The two astronauts survived the journey but were never quite the same afterwards. They now live in a rest home.
Left to puzzle out our destruction and what it means for them. No instruments, no teachers, no word for what is killing them. Just superstition, ritual, and the slow work of turning grief into understanding.
Maybe our attempts to understand life, death, and the rules of souls are the same as a tribe trying to work out the physics of our radiation, our writing, our medicine?
That Annihilated Place is the most human story in Dreams of Earth.
This series came out in 2016. Just as LitRPG was starting to really gain momentum, and before Gamelit became a thing. As a result, the publishers at the time didn't (and appear to still not) know how to market it to an audience that would truly love it.
I believe that this is the market. It's a brililant series, with good twists, and Gareth Powell (the author) is a geniunely cool dude. This isn't 3rd-party promo, just a read who thinks more people need to know about it!
Vandal ASTARA is the first book in a new hard sci-fi space-opera series by MT Hart.
A Corrections officer is sent to a prison planet built to hold 25,000 inmates. What he thought was just another dangerous job is about to change everything.
The A.S.T.A.R.A. technology behind the walls is unlike anything humanity has ever seen⦠and the rules governing life inside the prison are very different from the ones left behind on Earth.
If you love gritty prison-planet action, military sci-fi, space opera rebellion, and unfiltered hard sci-fi that doesnāt pull punches, this one is for you.
I have not read the books but I have watched the first season of the Netflix adaptation of Three Body Problem and am 7 episodes into the Chinese version on Amazon. The two streamed versions are very different so far. The Chinese version seems a lot slower paced with less going on, which I don't mind, but the contrast made me wonder which is closer to the books.
Without giving anything away, which version do you think is closer to the books? As a secondary question would I benefit from reading the books before going further with the TV versions do you think?
Hey everyone!
I recently made a post about a sci-fi comic Iām developing called Darkness Returns. I got some interesting feedback, including a few comparisons to Firefly, which I completely understand based on how I originally described it.
But after reading those responses, I realized something. I spent so much time explaining what happens in the story that I barely explained what the story is actually about.
So I wanted to take another shot at introducing it.
First, a little background. This is my first comic, but the story itself isnāt new. Iāve been developing this universe and its characters for roughly nine years.
At its heart, Darkness Returns is a space opera about people who have lost something, people who are running from something, and people desperately trying to find somewhere they belong.
The story centers around a crew aboard a ship called the Oriana 88. Theyāre smugglers, mercenaries, thieves, and misfits who have gradually become something resembling a family.
But none of them arrived there without baggage. Captain Vance is a former military man who has experienced tremendous personal loss. Heās a capable leader, but underneath his confidence is someone who has never truly escaped his past. His history with the military and the people he once trusted continues to haunt him. Cyril is a young gunslinger with a sharp tongue, a quick trigger finger, and a tendency to get himself into trouble. Heās talented, impulsive, and still figuring out the kind of man he wants to become. His journey is one of the most important parts of the larger story. Liz is a highly skilled thief and close-quarters combat specialist whose upbringing shaped her into someone exceptionally dangerous. Sheās independent, capable, and far more complicated than she initially lets on. Her relationship with her family is something sheāll eventually have to confront. Rexxon is an enormous, heavily cybernetically enhanced veteran with a long history alongside Vance. Heās intimidating, loyal, and carries memories of a life that existed long before the current crew came together.
And then thereās Revanna, a mysterious alien woman whose existence challenges much of what the galaxy believes about its own history.
Her arrival doesnāt just introduce a larger mystery. It changes the lives of the people around her.
What I really want to explore is how these characters affect one another.
How does someone learn to trust again after betrayal?
What happens when loyalty to someone you love conflicts with what you know is right?
How far would you go to protect the people who have become your family?
And what happens when the people you depend on are suddenly no longer there?
I want readers to spend enough time with this crew that they feel like they know them. I want the ridiculous conversations, the arguments, the friendships, the romances, and the little moments between missions to matter just as much as the battles.
Because when something happens that changes their lives, I want readers to feel the weight of it. And those changes will be permanent.
Characters will grow. Relationships will evolve. Some decisions will have consequences that stretch across the entire trilogy. Not everyone will get the ending they deserve.
That doesnāt mean the story will be relentlessly depressing, though.
I want the humor, the adventures, the spectacular alien worlds, the massive space battles, and the excitement of exploration too. I want the galaxy to feel alive, with its own cultures, histories, politics, and mysteries.
But I want all of that spectacle to serve the characters rather than replace them. So whatās the actual plan?
Iām developing Darkness Returns as a three-book comic series.
The first book is currently planned for approximately 20 issues, with around 26 pages per issue. Iāve established several of the major story arcs and turning points across the trilogy, although Iām still refining the details as I write.
Iām currently scripting Issue #1 and speaking with artists about bringing the project to life. My goal is to eventually publish it as a webcomic, build an audience, and hopefully grow it into something much bigger.
Iām not claiming Iāve reinvented science fiction. I love the genre, including many of its familiar ideas.
What I want to do is tell a story where the characters feel real, their relationships matter, and the consequences of their actions arenāt conveniently forgotten.
After nine years, Iām finally taking the steps to turn something Iāve imagined for so long into something other people can experience. For those of you who enjoy character-driven sci-fi, what makes you genuinely connect with a fictional crew? Is it their individual backstories, their relationships with one another, or watching them change as the story progresses?
Iād genuinely love to hear your thoughts!
Want to read great stories by the newest sci-fi voices FOR FREE? I compiled a list with some of the best sci-fi available right now on Royal Road, divided by categories. Check them out!
For those not familiar with the platform, Royal Road is one of the most popular free web serial sites out there. It is mainly LITRPG-focused, but there are lots of good sci-fi there as well. Some of the authors you see topping Amazonās best-selling charts in sci-fi right now started there. Matt Dinniman first published Dungeon Crawler Carl on Royal Road before it became a worldwide success.
Stories on Royal Road are published as serials, so each of them gets a publishing status to help readers know what to expect before they start reading:
COMPLETED: the full story is available on Royal Road for free.
ONGOING: new chapters are still being posted on a regular basis.
HIATUS: the author stopped posting new chapters for a while (to write the next book in the series, for example) but the story is not completed yet.
STUB: the story was once published in full on RR but now has been self-published somewhere and can no longer be entirely available for free.
INACTIVE: the author stopped posting on a regular basis but hadnāt marked their stories as completed or in hiatus.
DROPPED: the author gave up adding new chapters, but the story is not complete.
A NOTE ABOUT AI ON ROYAL ROAD: AI has been a hot topic on Royal Road, as much as in other creative spaces. Royal Road accepts AI-assisted and AI-generated stories so long as they are tagged as such. Some of the stories linked here have those tags, so if AI isnāt your thing, just skip them. BUT PLEASE, IF YOU WANT TO PROMOTE HUMAN-WRITTEN STORIES, DO NOT TREAT ALL STORIES ON ROYAL ROAD AS IF THEY WERE WRITTEN BY AI. You will harm human authors who have spent months (sometimes years) on their stories, which is the opposite of what you want.
AI covers, though, donāt need to be tagged. You may agree or disagree with that stance, but, before jumping to conclusions, please remember that all stories on RR are posted for free. Not every author can spare a few hundred dollars to hire a designer for their cover with no hope of recouping that cost. Most RR authors do get a human-designed cover when they self-publish those same stories on Amazon and other places.
Sift shifted her scutes again in the depression her own weight made in the mattress. Soft mass pushed into her from every side almost like dry sand but with not a singe one of sandās benefits. She absently reached out with her teeth and gripped the blanket, tugging it back into a reasonable position for what felt like the seventh time that night. Suddenly, from the next room came a strangely high growl that spoke of mammalian aggression.
Sift instantly went still, her tongue flicking out to lick her lips like a hatchling. She felt a surge of hope that perhaps even if she had woken Mary, the young mother would just roll over and go back to sleep. However the sound of a wooden frame creaking, the thump of blankets being thrown on the floor, and the the off-cadence thumping of sleepy human footsteps told her that the damage was done. Sift attempted to lift her chin over the edge of the mattress, and only managed to dig her paws deeper into the mass. It took several minutes of clawing and thrashing (being mindful that her claws didnāt tear the material) before she remembered that such a surface needed to be treated like quicksand and she managed to slither her way over the edge and onto the blessed relief of the solid floor, wood though it was.
Sift was mindfully sifting out the proper words for her apology when the mental gears slipped their teeth. She sniffed the air and her tongue smacked against her teeth as the scent of frying avian eggs drifted into the room. Sift increased her pace and rounded the wall into the kitchen just as Mary was scraping a steaming yellow mass into a plate. The humanās long hair was āfrizzledā, sticking out in every direction. There were dark circles under her eyes. The sound of her molars grinding together was clearly audible. Sift suddenly remember her intent and swallowed down the saliva.
Mary glanced up and squinted at her and then gave a rueful smile.
āOh sorry Sift,ā she said. āI didnāt mean to wake you.ā
Sift gave a little grunt of surprise as Mary stumbled to the table and began to devour the eggs with a speed and lack of coordination that spoke of real hunger. Mary paused her meal long enough to squint at Sift again.
āThereās more if you want them,ā Mary suggested, pointing to the pan with a fork full of the yellow mass.
Sift gladly scrambled over to the kitchen stool and pushed it up to the stove. She hopped up and served herself a plat of the eggs. Gripping it in her teeth she carefully slid down from the stool and walked over to the table. They ate in a companionable silence for several moments before Mary reached the end of her eggs and leaned back with a relieved sigh.
āI had thought you had already reached your required caloric limit today,ā Sift observed around a mouthful of the rich protein.
Mary gave a hollow laugh and leaned back in her chair.
āAnd then some,ā she agreed. āItās just, with Aunt Ethel and...and everything. You know.ā Mary finished with a vague wave of her hand.
āI do not know,ā Sift corrected her.
Mary blinked at her slowly and wiped the cooking grease from her fingers onto her long sleep-shirt. Mary heaved a sigh and nodded.
āRight, so you know my Aunt Ethel had to go to the University Health Station?ā the human asked.
Sift gave a rumble of confirmation.
āWell she is old,ā Mary said. āShe is one of the last of the first generation of colonists. She, well this wasnāt the big one, this time, but we all know it isnāt far off.ā
Sift suspected she was missing several details but she felt she understood the main point.
āThe slow fermentation of the generations,ā she commented.
Mary nodded.
āWell my cousin found her not breathing,ā Mary said. āThat...thatās serious for mammals you know. Then she, my cousin, had to manually keep her breathing until the medical transport arrived, and thatās really...stressful, with the elderly, they have fragile bones, and I couldnāt help directly because of the baby so I ended up managing communications. Making sure everyone knew what was going on.ā
Mary paused and prodded at her now empty plate with her fork.
āAnd sheās fine now,ā Mary said slowly. āFine for now, but the stress caught up to me.ā
Sift let the silence brew for several minutes as she ground the conversation between her teeth.
āSo this stress is why you are eating triple your normal caloric intake?ā Sift finally asked.
Mary gave a bark of laughter and grinned over at her.
āThereās chocolate cake in the refrigeration unit,ā Mary said. āLetās try for quadruple before I try to get back to sleep.ā
Did anyone else see the first scene of this movie where he falls from space to earth and lives, then immediately turn it off?
Edit- There is no justifying its absurdity. It is not the same as the space jumpers at all. Look into the physics of it. This is not science fiction, itās complete fantasy. There might as well have been a wizard guiding him to the ground.
I wrote a sci-fi novel and something that Iāve always wanted to do is bring the characters and factions to life with illustrations. So the cover artist drew a propaganda poster for the human military in the story named the Valor Guard Corps.
Just today, I finished writing 100,000 words of the sequel. Iāve been working on this first draft for a few months now.
This is the back cover blurb:
THE VOGROM ARE COMING.
The fanatical alien clan has unleashed its armada on a galaxy already torn apart by conflict, and humanity has nothing left to throw at them.
Two warriors stand in the wreckage on opposite sides of the war. Kaelith Sothrak claws his way out of a death camp, driven by hatred and unrelenting faith.
Louis Wolffe has drifted through space for two years, carrying a secret that could save his people, or destroy them.
They don't know it yet, but both warriors are seeking the same thing.
Something ancient, something powerful, something hidden inside a dead boy's soul.
LET THE WAR COME.
By the way, for some reason, Amazon suddenly discounted the paperback price from $16.99 to $14.75 today, which is probably very temporary!
Dense Void - a story-driven, first-person grounded sci-fi horror game inspired by astrophysics and speculative science.
Trapped on an asteroid outpost orbiting a black hole, survive physics-based threats and impossible phenomena where every choice leads to 5 distinct endings.