Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Galactic Ghost

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day is very appropriate for the holiday. Faint clouds have a ghostly appearance; VdB 152 in the constellation of Cepheus. Who you gonna call?

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Tiny Bubbles

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows planetary nebula PK 164 +31.1 (in other words, the Perek & Kohoutek catalog entry number 164, followed by additional information), found in the constellation of Lynx (the Wildcat). Tiny bubble? Only on the scale of the universe at large!

Monday, October 29, 2012

Nebula of the Arachnid Overlords

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day would be a perfect setting for a classic space opera by Jack Williamson. NGC 6537, The Red Spider Planetary Nebula (with amazing structure and detail in its layers).

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Rock of Doom

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day is a view of Phobos, one of the "hurtling moons of Barsoom" (Mars). Take a good look, it'll only be around for another 100 million odd years.

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Layers Within Layers

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows emission layers around a short-lived (and brightly burning) O-type star within NGC 6164. Take a look, because it'll only be around for a few more million years!

Friday, October 26, 2012

We're Going to Need a Bigger Pot

Holy flipping blue claws! That's some crab!
Reflections Of

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day is a nice shot of a "reflection nebula" (as well as some other nice features), vdB1. I think they found a good first entry for this catalog!

Thursday, October 25, 2012

A Basement of Non-Euclidian Geometry

The creeping horror...as reported to the housing association.
Medusa

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day is of Abell 21, more commonly known as The Medusa Nebula, an old (and distorted) planetary nebula in the constellation of Gemini.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Some of Their Favorites

Reading through The Miscellaneous Writings of Clark Ashton Smith, I found a note in the biographical sketch by Donald Sidney-Fryer which mentioned that both Clark Ashton Smith and H.P. Lovecraft noted their favorite weird stories in a fanzine one month apart. How many of these have you read?

Clark Ashton Smith: The Yellow Sign (Robert W. Chambers); The House of Sounds (M.P. Shiel; The Willows (Algernon Blackwood) A View from a Hill (M.R. James); The Death of Halpin Frayser (Ambrose Bierce); The Fall of the House of Usher (Edgar Allan Poe); The Masque of the Red Death (Edgar Allan Poe); The Novel of the White Powder (Arthur Machen); The Call of Cthulhu (H.P. Lovecraft); The Colour Out of Space (H.P. Lovecraft).

H.P. Lovecraft: The Novel of the Black Seal (Arthur Machen); The White People (Arthur Machen); Count Magnus (M.R. James); The Moon Pool (A. Merritt) (novelette version).

Sidney-Fryer says of Lovecraft's choices "Six of them duplicate Smith's choices, with only four titles different." The four listed above are the "different" but he does not list the "sames". Will have to do some searching!

I'll also have to cross-check this with the titles/authors mentioned in Lovecraft's essay Supernatural Horror in Literature (online versions here and here).
Partly Cloudy

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day will have you wondering if your eyes are seeing things. No, just some clouds. Some clouds!

Monday, October 22, 2012

Saladin's Shorts

Saladin Ahmed; Engraved on the Eye (Ridan Publications; 2012; cover art, not indicated)

I can't recall exactly where I came across Saladin Ahmed. Facebook? Twitter? His own website? In any case, the description of his first novel, Throne of the Crescent Moon interested me (and has been reviewed here), so I sought out what he had published already. Alas, not much came up, a few short stories, scattered in online magazines and podcasts, but what I read interested me.

This self-published book (eBook only) gathers all of Saladin's short works under one cover. You have two stories set in the same universe as Throne (Where Virtue Lives and Judgment of Swords and Souls), fun in the Old West with a twist or three (Mister Hadj's Sunset Ride), generally twisted humor (General Akmed's Revenge?, Doctor Diablo Goes Through the Motions, Iron Eyes and the Watered Down World), straight-up dystopian apocalyptic cyberpunk (The Faithful Soldier, Prompted) and straight-up fantasy/horror (Hooves and the Hovel of Abdel Iameela).

All polished and interesting and with some nice stylistic or plot twists. All showing a level of sophistication and skill higher than most first-time novelists. Would that he typed faster!

Several of these I had read in my previous searches. Doctor Diable Goes Through the Motions was completely new and is a gem. Supervillains trapped in endless Power Point presentations and having their souls sucked away by endless board meetings. And I want to see a novel set in the universe of Iron Eyes and the Watered Down World. Fritz Leiber and Robert E. Howard are sitting in Valhalla, jealous. Oh, so jealous.

Great stuff here. Get thee to your favorite online eBook retailer and buy!

Made up of: Introduction; Author's Note; Where Virtue Live; Hooves and the Hovel of Abdel Iameela; Judgment of Swords and Souls; Doctor Diablo Goes Through the Motions; General Akmed's Revenge?; Mister Hadj's Sunset Ride; The Faithful Soldier, Prompted; Iron Eyes and the Watered Down World.

Counts as ten (10) entries in 2012: The Year in Shorts.
Boneyard

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day is a sad sight.

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Astronomical Sketch of the Day

While working on a presentation about amateur astronomy for my daughter's Earth Science class (eight periods, I can feel my SAN slipping away now!), I came across a lovely sight dedicated to the art of astronomical sketching. Sketching not only is a great way of recording your observations (at a relatively low cost compared to any photographic outfit), but sketching an object helps you to observe it better.

The sketches on this site are by "amateurs". Wow. I have a long way to go.
Knight Moves

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows the Horsehead Nebula (Barnard 33), a dark nebula in the constellation of Orion. I've found this one to be one of the hardest to spot, needing special filters and a dark sky. I've only been sure of spotting it on one occasion.

Saturday, October 20, 2012

The Double Shadow

Ever since The H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast was started, I've been looking for podcasts that cover other writers of weird fiction. For new stuff, you can listen to PodCastle and Pseudopod (for science fiction we have Escape Pod), but I was lucky enough to find two podcasts that cover older writers. The first is A Podcast for the Curious, covering the works of M.R. James. The second is The Double Shadow, covering the works of Clark Ashton Smith.

Smith was a very interesting person and had many talents. Poetry, short fiction, sculpture, drawings, paintings. Alas, I don't know what has happened to most of his art: while you can find pictures of some online, I have a feeling that much of it is sadly lost.

I wonder what he would have produced if his life had been somewhat different: if there had been more (and better paying) markets for his work; if he had not had to care for both of his parents for so long. He was, I think, a better author overall than H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard (sacrilege!). Too brief a candle in our genre world!

Rather than following the stories as they were written (as The H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast did), The Double Shadow is covering stories by "series" (however vague the series was). The first episodes cover the stories set in Smith's region of Averoigne, an imaginary region of France during the Dark and Middle Ages.

The first batch of stories were enjoyable, but as this entry from The Double Shadow shows, the setting grew without much forethought and planning. I wonder what a fantasist such as Smith would do with more discipline?

The podcast has been using those tales that are easily found online, I've been using the collections published over the past several years by Night Shade Books (five volumes, plus a sixth of miscellaneous writings). I've also pulled out a collection of poetry, a collection of letters, and a couple of books of criticism and bibliography as reference (but probably won't dip into them for a bit).

Stories Read While Following the Podcast: The End of the Story (The Collected Fantasies 01): Introduction (Ramsey Campbell); The End of the Story; The Satyr; The Last Incantation. The Door to Saturn (The Collected Fantasies 02): Introduction (Tim Powers); A Rendezvous in Averoigne. A Vintage from Atlantis (The Collected Fantasies 03): Introduction (Michael Dirda); The Colossus of Ylourgne; The Maker of Gargoyles; The Holiness of Azedarac. The Maze of the Enchanter (The Collected Fantasies 04): Introduction (Gahan Wilson); The Mandrakes; The Beast of Averoigne; The Disinternment of Venus. The Last Hieroglyph (The Collected Fantasies 05): Introduction (Richard A. Lupoff); Mother of Toads; The Enchantress of Sylaire.

Counts as sixteen (17) entries in 2012: The Year in Shorts.

Addendum: Good outside references! The Eldritch Dark. Poems by Clark Ashton Smith. Bibliographical information at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database and the Open Library.

Addendum: And if you want to read CAS? You can certainly get a lot of his titles used, but watch out for "collectible prices" in certain titles (the older books). I recommend the set from Night Shade Books as they have corrected texts, notes, alternate endings and the like. If you go the eBook route, I recommend the Nightshade editions again; or searching places like Project Gutenberg (see this) or reading off of The Eldritch Dark (you won't get as many titles as the Night Shade editions, though—if you see other collections for sale, these are made up of freely-available stories, so you're better "building your own" or buying the Night Shade's—honest!) Helpful hint: You can get the Night Shade eBooks from Baen without DRM, in multiple formats, for a very good price here. Amazon also lists these, as well as others, at higher prices.

Stories As Found in the Books (and As Read in the Books, Outside the Podcast):

Smith, Clark Ashton (edited by Scott Connors & Ron Hilger): The End of the Story (The Collected Fantasies 01) (Night Shade Books; 2006; ISBN 978-1-59780-028-0; cover art by Jason Van Hollander).

Made up of: Introduction (Ramsey Campbell); A Note on the Texts; To the Daemon; The Abominations of Yondo; Sadastor; The Ninth Skeleton; The Last Incantation; The End of the Story; The Phantoms of the Fire; A Night in Malnéant; The Resurrection of the Rattlesnake; Thirteen Phantasms; The Venus of Azombeii; The Tale of Satampra Zeiros; The Monster of the Prophecy; The Metamorphosis of the World; The Epiphany of Death; A Murder in the Fourth Dimension; The Devotee of Evil; The Satyr; The Planet of the Dead; The Uncharted Isle; Marooned in Andromeda; The Root of Ampoi; The Necromantic Tale; The Immeasurable Horror; A Voyage To Sfanomoë; Appendix One: Story Notes; Appendix Two: "The Satyr": Alternate Conclusion; Appendix Three: From the Crypts of Memory; Appendix Four: Bibliography.

Counts as zero (00) entries in 2012: The Year in Shorts (podcast reads not counted again).

Smith, Clark Ashton (edited by Scott Connors & Ron Hilger): The Door to Saturn (The Collected Fantasies 02) (Night Shade Books; 2007; ISBN 978-1-59780-029-7; cover art by Jason Van Hollander).

Introduction (Tim Powers); A Note on the Texts; The Door to Saturn; The Red World of Polaris; Told in the Desert; The Willow Landscape; A Rendezvous in Averoigne; The Gorgon; An Offering to the Moon; The Kiss of Zoraida; The Face by the River; The Ghoul; The Kingdom of the Worm; An Adventure in Futurity; The Justice of the Elephant; The Return of the Sorcerer; The City of the Singing Flame; A Good Embalmer; The Testament of Athammaus; A Captivity in Serpens; The Letter from Mohaun Los; The Hunters from Beyond; Appendix One: Story Notes; Appendix Two: Alternate Ending to "The Return of the Sorcerer"; Appendix Three: Bibliography.

Counts as zero (00) entries in 2012: The Year in Shorts (podcast reads not counted again).

Smith, Clark Ashton (edited by Scott Connors & Ron Hilger): A Vintage from Atlantis (The Collected Fantasies 03) (Night Shade Books; 2007; ISBN 978-1-59780-030-3; cover art by Jason Van Hollander).

Introduction (Michael Dirda); A Note on the Texts; The Holiness of Azédarac; The Maker of Gargoyles; Beyond the Singing Flame; Seedling of Mars; The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis; The Eternal World; The Demon of the Flower; The Nameless Offspring; A Vintage from Atlantis; The Weird of Avoosl Wuthoqquan; The Invisible City; The Immortals of Mercury; The Empire of the Necromancers; The Seed from the Sepulcher; The Second Interment; Ubbo-Sathla; The Double Shadow; The Plutonian Drug; The Supernumerary Corpse; The Colossus of Ylourgne; The God of the Asteroid; Appendix One: Story Notes; Appendix Two: The Flower-Devil; Appendix Three: Bibliography.

Counts as zero (00) entries in 2012: The Year in Shorts (podcast reads not counted again).

Smith, Clark Ashton (edited by Scott Connors & Ron Hilger): The Maze of the Enchanter (The Collected Fantasies 04) (Night Shade Books; 2009; ISBN 978-1-59780-031-0; cover art by Jason Van Hollander).

Introduction (Gahan Wilson); A Note on the Texts; The Mandrakes; The Beast of Averoigne; A Star-Change; The Disinterment of Venus; The White Sybil; The Ice Demon; The Isle of the Torturers; The Dimension of Chance; The Dweller in the Gulf; The Maze of the Enchanter; The Third Episode of Vathek—The Princess Zulkais and the Prince Kalilah; Genius Loci; The Secret of the Cairn; The Charnel God; The Dark Eidolon; The Voyage of King Euvoran; Vulthoom; The Weaver in the Vault; The Flower-Women; Appendix One; Appendix Two; Appendix Three; Appendix Four; Appendix Five.

Counts as zero (00) entries in 2012: The Year in Shorts (podcast reads not counted again).

Smith, Clark Ashton (edited by Scott Connors & Ron Hilger): The Last Hieroglyph (The Collected Fantasies 05) (Night Shade Books; 2010; ISBN 978-1-59780-032-7; cover art by Jason Van Hollander).

Introduction (Richard A. Lupoff); A Note on the Texts; The Dark Age; The Death of Malygris; The Tomb-Spawn; The Witchcraft of Ulua; The Coming of the White Worm; The Seven Geases; The Chain of Aforgomon; The Primal City; Xeethra; The Last Hieroglyph; Necromancy in Naat; The Treader of the Dust; The Black Abbot of Puthuum; The Death of Ilalotha; Mother of Toads; The Garden of Adompha; The Great God Awto; Strange Shadows; The Enchantress of Sylaire; Double Cosmos; Nemesis of the Unfinished; The Master of the Crabs; Morthylla; Schizoid Creator; Monsters in the Night; Phoenix; The Theft of the Thirty-Nine Girdles; Symposium of the Gorgon; The Dart of Rasasfa; Appendix One: Story Notes; Appendix Two: Variant Temptation Scenes from "The Witchcraft of Ulua"; Appendix Three: "The Traveler"; Appendix Four: Material Removed from "The Black Abbot of Puthuum"; Appendix Five: Alternate Ending to "I Am Your Shadow"; Appendix Six: Alternate Ending to "Nemesis of the Unfinished"; Appendix Seven: Bibliography.

Counts as three (03) entries in 2012: The Year in Shorts (podcast reads not counted again).

Smith, Clark Ashton (edited by Scott Connors & Ron Hilger): The Miscellaneous Writings of Clark Ashton Smith (Night Shade Books; 2011; ISBN 978-1-59780-297-0; cover art by Jason Van Hollander).

Foreword (editors); The Sorcerer Departs (A Biography of Clark Ashton Smith; Some General Remarks on Smith's Poetry and Prose; The Sorcerer Departs; Afterword) (Donald Sidney-Fryer). Fragments and Early Tales by Clark Ashton Smith: The Animated Sword; The Red Turban; Prince Alcourz and the Magician; The Malay Krise; The Ghost of Mohammed Din; The Mahout; The Rajah and the Tiger; Something New; The Flirt; The Perfect Woman; A Platonic Entanglement; The Expert Lover; The Parrot; A Copy of Burns; Checkmate. The Infernal Star (Fragment of a Novel): Chapter 01—The Finding of the Amulet; Chapter 02—The Wearing of the Amulet; Chapter 03—"I am Avalzant, the Warden of the Fiery Change"; Chapter 04—The Passage to Pnidleethon. Dawn of Discord; House of the Monoceros; The Dead will Cuckold You; The Hashish-Eater—Or, The Apocalypse of Evil; Bibliography (editors); O Amor Atque Realitas! (Donald Sidney-Fryer).

Counts as one (01) entry in 2012: The Year in Shorts (podcast reads not counted again).
Zodiac

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day is a nice nearly all-sky shot of the Milky Way and zodiacal light. Neither are seen anymore from my backyard, thanks to light pollution!

Friday, October 19, 2012

Mergers and Acquisitions

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows NGC 2623 in the constellation of Cancer. NGC 2623, also known as Arp 243, is actually a pair of galaxies in the process of merging.

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Close Up: New Worlds

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day is a depiction of our "newest" neighbor (it has been there all along, we just didn't know it!).

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Curtains and Streams

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day is a wonderful shot from Yellowstone National Park showing the erupting White Dome Geyser coupled with a curtain-like showing of the Aurora.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Mode of Operation

"Nine-tenths of tactics are certain, and taught in books: but the irrational tenth is like the kingfisher flashing across the pond and that is the test of generals. It can only be ensured by instinct, sharpened by thought practicing the stroke so often that at the crisis it is as natural as a reflex."


(T.E. Lawrence)
Starwolf

Posted previously...but given what I've seen so far this "season", this is the television show I'd much rather see than anything currently playing.
I Really Ought To Keep Better Notes

He showered, and for once climbed very early into bed, feeling that he must have nightmares. About strange sounds in the winds, over the mysterious thickets of Mars. Or about some blackened, dried-out body of a sentient being, sixty million years dead, floating free in the Asteroid Belt. A few had been found. Some were in museums
.


(From...maybe The Planet Strappers by Raymond Z. Gallun? I need to keep better notes.)
Spiral Path

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day is an odd looking one. The star R Sculptoris was recently examined using the recently built ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array). It was found to be surrounded by gas and dust moving out from the star in a spiral pattern. What is causing this?

Monday, October 15, 2012

Being Negative

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day is a very different look at a familiar thing. The Sun, inverted, against an inverted starfield. The solar image shows a lot of "surface" detail that we cannot normally see.

Sunday, October 14, 2012

Deep Time

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day is a new version of a "classic", the latest generation in the "deep field" shots of the Hubble Space Telescope. From the Deep Field to the Ultra Deep Field to the (now) Extreme Deep Field.

Saturday, October 13, 2012

The Stars, Like Dust

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day is a beautiful shot of the area in Pegasus: galaxies embedded in an area of cosmic dust.

Friday, October 12, 2012

Wide Swath

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day is a beautiful shot of three degrees (six times the width of the full Moon) of the sky towards the center of the Milky Way. Most astronomical instruments only cover a smaller portion of the sky, so a vista like this must be built up over many images. Producing stunning shots, such as this, is secondary for this instrument (Pan-STARRS), it is designed for "wide angle viewing" to hunt for potentially dangerous asteroids.

Thursday, October 11, 2012

A Different View

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows us aurora. So what, you say, we've seen many such pictures this "season". Not so much from this point of view!

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Combat Jump

CSM Basil L. Plumley has passed away after a brief stay in hospice, out of complications due to colon cancer. I wrote a bit about him here, in 2008. Hopefully he is sharing drinks with other members of his unit who went first to clear the way.

More here. A photo of then Sgt. Major Plumley at LZ X-Ray.

And we can't forget another mention of this song. Social interactions, old school. More social interactions, old school. Look at those service stripes!

Background information. You might want to look up the genesis of the "username" behind the video. Extensive webiste. Full (?) trailer.
Wheel of Time

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day is a shot of star trails over a lighthouse located at Cape Cod, Massachusetts (USA). Dizzying!

Tuesday, October 09, 2012

Twisted Bubble

Yesterday we had one result of a star near the end of it's time on the main sequence, today we have a less symmetrical result. Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows supernova remnant Simeis 147 in the constellations of Taurus and Auriga. Very faint (too faint for me!) and covering the span of six full moons in the evening sky (!).

Monday, October 08, 2012

Better Than Cinema

"I come in peace, I didn't bring artillery. But I'm pleading with you, with tears in my eyes: If you fuck with me, I'll kill you all."

(General James Mattis)
Bobble

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day is a nice shot of the planetary nebula Abell 39. Bobble, not bubble, as it makes me think of the statis fields in the Vernor Vinge tales.

Sunday, October 07, 2012

Don't. Blink.

No, no angels here, weeping or otherwise. Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day will have yo wondering about what you are seeing.

Saturday, October 06, 2012

First Nebula

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day is a beautiful shot of M42, the Great Nebula of Orion. This is something I visit every time I see it in the night sky and is the first nebula I remember looking at (with a very shaky, over-priced and under-powered "department store" telescope).
Warp Speed to Mars!

Well, maybe not. But it tickled the fanboi to read "dilithium crystals" in this article about a potential rocket system.

Friday, October 05, 2012

Truth

"It is frequently a misfortune to have very brilliant men in charge of affairs. They expect too much of ordinary men." Thucydides
Reflections Of

Aurora and a "falling star" are featured in today's Astronomy Picture of the Day.

Thursday, October 04, 2012

Eye in the Sky

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows NGC 7293, the Helix Nebula, the remains of a stellar explosion.

Wednesday, October 03, 2012

Goats Over Greenland

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows a "goat" in the sky; one of many fantastic shapes generated during an aurora. "Mouseover" the picture to see the constellations.

Tuesday, October 02, 2012

Cool, Clear Water

Well, maybe not quite yet! But today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows that MSL Curiosity appears to have hit a "hole in one" with signs that it has found the remains of a streambed.

Monday, October 01, 2012

The Next Celestial Wonder?

Many amateur astronomers are straining their instruments towards today's Astronomy Picture of the Day and wondering if the next "comet of the century" is on the move.