Tag Archives: space travel

Apr 26 2015
3 Comments
Ask the Alien

Ask the Alien – 4/26/15 – Iggy, Jennifer, and Daniel Waltz’ “The Water Travelers”

By:  Alien Jones, Intergalactic Columnist, Most Intelligent Being in the Universe

PREVIOUSLY ON ASK THE ALIEN:

AJ’s Relatives, Orcs, and Sci-Fi Gary

Alien artifacts and diseases!

Pixels!

AND NOW ASK THE ALIEN CONTINUES…

Sigil of House Jones

Greetings Earth Losers!  Alien Jones here beaming copious amounts of knowledge through the Bookshelf Battle Compound and straight into all of your computerized devices which, though they may seem highly advanced to you rubes, are actually considered children’s toys in most other parts of space.

Who has a question?  Come forward and declare your inquiry!

BQB:  Hey AJ.  It’s me.  Bookshelf Q. Battler.

AJ:  Oh Cripes.  Not many takers this week?

BQB:  Well, you’re the one who told me to stop bribing the winos.  But seriously, I have a question – what is the best song ever produced?

AJ:  Ahh, that is an excellent question but I could not possibly answer it.  There are so many, where would I begin?  Do I limit the field of inquiry to a particular genre?  To a group of artists?  To a select time period?  To a single planet?  The realm of possibility is so vast that…

BQB:  I’ll save you the “trouble.”  It’s Trouble by Iggy Azalea and Jennifer Hudson.

AJ:  You can’t just say that a song is the best song ever produced, why that’s….

BQB:  Sing it.

AJ:  No I couldn’t possibly…

BQB:  You know you want to.

AJ:  It would be indignified…

BQB:  Do it!

AJ:  I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN THAT YOU WERE BAD NEWS…FROM THE BAD BOY DEMEANOR AND THE TATTOOS….TAKE IT BOOKSHELF….

BQB:  DON’T YOU COME IN THINKIN’ YOU BALLIN….it’s so great isn’t it?

AJ:  It really is.  I stand corrected.  This song is the best song ever composed in the history of the space/time continuum.

BQB:  Makes Beethoven look like a pile of crap.

AJ:  We shall sing it during the commercials on Scandal night!

BQB:  Damn straight.  But first, you have a question…

Daniel Waltz, author of “The Water Travelers” asks:

ALIEN JONES,

Have you ever water traveled?

Oh Daniel, I see what you did there.  You worked the title of your book series into your question.  Good show!  For BQB’s 3.5 readers, I’ll note that your site provides a description of your latest installment, The Curse of Senapin. Here’s an excerpt:

“For the past six months, Aaron and Madi have been waiting to receive word from Yerowslii. But, when the King of Upitar is taken captive by Senapin forces, Aaron and Madi must flee their hiding place to rescue him. Although skeptical of it, they are accompanied by a disloyal ally, Ugine.”

– Daniel Waltz, The Water Travelers

Bookshelf Q. Battler and I can relate.  On our joint missions to make the Earth a more intelligent place, we’re often accompanied by The Yeti and he’s the most disloyal and ugly ally I’ve ever seen.

I was quite impressed with your book trailer:

https://youtu.be/JtcslPai7hE

BQB:  My socks were knocked right the hell off, AJ.  At first I was like, “Twenty one seconds?  That’s too short…”

AJ:  Yes, but “Adventure finds those who are brave enough to take the first step.”  That’s all you need to know.  If I had emotions, I’d be moved.

BQB:  Plus it’s read by someone who sounds like he could be a friggin’ Lord of the Rings wizard or something.  Very awesome.  Makes me want to rush right on over to Amazon and buy a zillion copies…

Now, at first I thought Daniel was just trying to find out if I like to water ski or snorkel or something (which I do) but he’s actually referring to a power discussed in the book that allows travel between another world and Earth through water.

To answer your question, no.  I don’t need to.  I’m a duly designated officer of the Intergalactic Space Force and as such I have a vast array of ships at my disposal, so there’s no reason to get my pants wet.  (When I bother to wear them.  I usually don’t because, you know, I’ve got nothing down there so what’s the point?)

Your book is very prophetic though because certain species have been “water traveling” for years.  In fact, there’s an entire planet where anchovies rule like kings, love like queens, laugh like jesters, and live like jacks.  Then they water travel on over to Earth and end up as a dinner entrée topping.  Don’t you feel bad now for putting them on your pizza?

BQB:  I don’t think anyone put anchovies on their pizza anymore AJ.  I think they just keep one can around for the random weirdo who wants a fishy pizza.

AJ:  Sounds like something The Yeti would be into.

Thank you for your question Daniel.  May your career as an author travel farther than the vast reaches of the cosmos.

Until next week, this is Alien Jones, signing off.

Alien Jones is the Intergalactic Correspondent for the Bookshelf Battle. Do you have a question for the Esteemed Brainy One? Submit it to Bookshelf Q. Battler via a tweet to @bookshelfbattle, leave it in the comment section on this site, or drop it off on the Bookshelf Battle Google + page. If AJ likes your question, he might promote your book, blog, or other project while providing his answer.

Submit your questions by midnight Friday each week for a chance to be featured in his Sunday column. And if you don’t like his response, just let him know and he’ll file it into the recycling bin of his monolithic super computer. No muss, no fuss, no problem.

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Apr 25 2015
2 Comments
Self Publishing

Self Publishing Podcast Interview of Andy Weir – Author of “The Martian”

Let’s face it.

We all say, “oh, I’m just in it for the art!” but deep down, we all secretly hope, dream and fantasize that The_Martian_2014one day our writing will be embraced by the masses, a big pile of money will be dumped on our heads, and our work will be read by everyone and turned into a Hollywood movie!

Well, as it turns out, that happened for Andy Weir, author of The Martian.

Andy was on the Self Publishing Podcast this week with “Johnny, Sean and Dave” aka Johnny B. Truant, Sean Platt and David W. Wright.

Keep one thing in mind, aspiring scribes – success in the writing game doesn’t happen overnight.

Andy discussed how he’s been at it for years – that he’s been blogging since the early 2000’s, how he spent a long time seeking a traditional publishing deal with no success, that initially wrote “The Martian” as a serial on his blog, that his followers urged him to turn said serial into an ebook on Amazon and boom, it took off.  Now he’s a highly successful author and a movie based on his book starring Matt Damon is scheduled for release at the end of this year.

The important thing to note?  Yes, some people are very lucky and see those doors to success swing wide open for them early on.  And good for them.  Others, like Andy, had to painstakingly climb that ladder one rung at a time.

After hearing his story, I can’t think of someone more deserving.  He really put his work in and earned his success.

As always, Johnny, Sean and Dave bringing us a great show.  And they didn’t even veer off topic this time!

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Apr 15 2015
4 Comments
Science

40 Billion Earth-like Planets in the Milky Way Alone

According to Yale Professor Meg Urry in a CNN column, “When Can We Talk to Aliens?” astronomers estimate that there may be as many as 40 billion habitable planets in the Milky Way Galaxy alone.

That’s not even taking other galaxies into consideration.

Space – it’s really friggin’ big.

Does this mean those planets have intelligent life on them?  We don’t know.  But Urry states:

Intelligent life that can communicate via radio waves with other intelligent life is less than 100 years old here on Earth.

So while planets that develop simple forms of life may be a dime a dozen, the number that have sentient beings with whom to converse — even assuming they evolved as humans did, with ears and spoken language, or eyes and written language — is likely to be tiny. And life that can use radio waves has existed on Earth for only 0.000002% of the planet’s history — 100 years out of 4.5 billion. If the half dozen or so rocky, Earth-like exoplanets now known are similar, the odds of discovering humanlike life on them are about the same as, well, winning your state lottery with one ticket.

Of course, if there are 40 billion Earth-like planets out there, the odds improve quite a bit. If they all have histories like the Earth’s, there might be 1,000 planets in the Milky Way that could support communicative beings.

– Meg Urry, “When Can We Talk to Aliens?”  CNN.  April 2015.

Let’s break this down.

40 billion habitable planets – and that’s just in our galaxy.  However, habitability does not automatically mean life exists, or that intelligent life exists.

On top of that, if intelligent beings are out there, they will have had to have evolved to the point where they know how to communicate via radio waves in order for us to communicate with them.  We’ve only figured that out in the past hundred years, the blink of an eye given the vast expanse of human history.

Take that concern into consideration – 1,000 planets that could possibly have beings as intelligent as we are (and let’s face it, Alien Jones loves to remind us that we’re not exactly setting the intelligence bar high)

My mind is blown.  True, we have no idea of truly knowing that which we cannot confirm with our eyes.

However, statistically speaking…40 billion habitable planets…1,000 planets that could have possibly had a species that evolved to the point where they can communicate with technology of some kind.

There very well may be an alien on another planet that is a bizarro version of me, writing a blog that is only read by 3.5 readers, including an alien version of my Aunt Gertrude.

Amazing.  Simply amazing.

If you’re reading this aliens, we come in peace.  Let us learn from one another in the spirit of unity and harmony.

Also, please don’t invade our planet and eat our faces.

BOOKSHELF Q. BATTLER:  Alien Jones, why didn’t you tell me there might be 1,000 planets with beings as smart as we are?

ALIEN JONES:  Because they’re all smarter than you are.  1,000 planets and not one of them has reality television.  Zing.  Thank you.  I’m here all week.  Tip your waitresses.  Good night everybody.

Sigil of House Jones

Sigil of House Jones

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Jan 28 2015
7 Comments
Writing

Don’t Forget to Bring a Towel…

“A towel, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-boggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

If you haven’t read it yet, you really should.

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Oct 29 2014
2 Comments
Books, Classics, Horror

Public Domain Horror Fiction – The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells

Aliens!  Spaceships!  Intergalactic travel!  The most unbelievable part?  For me, it is that this novel was first published in 1898, a time of virtually little to none technology at all (at least compared to today’s standards) and yet the author was able to envision beings from outer space utilizing technology to attack Earth.

Thankfully, it still hasn’t happened, but it just amazes me that a person who grew up in a time of the horse and buggy could have had such a vivid imagination.

Check out Project Gutenberg’s free copy:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36

“No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water.”  – H.H. Wells, The War of the Worlds

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