There are so many great fantasy fiction novels out there, I’m just going to list a few of my favourites.
Deepak Chopra: Quantum Healing
Let’s face it, Chopra has been a bestselling fantasy author for decades now, so I could have named any of his books. He never fails to churn out the most epic of fictional nonsense, but Quantum Healing has to be his most mind-boggling work.
Various: Climate Change: The Facts
Okay, I’m cheating a bit here, as this treads into science fiction territory, but as a work of fantasy, it also holds its own. This collection of short stories is by a who’s who of fantasy authors on the theme of an alternate reality where climate change isn’t real.
Jeffrey Smith: Seeds of Deception
From everyone’s favourite flying yogi comes his groundbreaking fantasy novel about conspiracies, genetics, food, and how to ignore several fields of science and scientists by shouting la-la-la-la. Also qualifies as a comedy due to being so laughable.
An homage to Roald Dahl’s George’s Marvellous Medicine, this piece of fantasy is notable for being written as though the author were a child who never learnt English. Such an amazing piece that is sure to have you queueing for the iron lung.
The main reason Aussies are so helpful and nice is that it is really hard to pick someone’s pocket if they are suspicious of you. By distracting the mark with a greeting, smile, an offer to hold your bag while you fumble with your car keys, it gives the crook more time to smoothly lift your wallet and other valuables.
Generations of breeding among convict settlers has perfected the balance required to be the perfect thief. A large part of being the perfect thief is charm.
Thanks for reading this answer, and ignore the strange purchases on your credit card.
The White Australia Policy was a fantastic piece of legislation that was brought in just after Australia’s federation in 1901. Back then it was popular to think that Aboriginals didn’t exist, or weren’t worthy of acknowledgement, and women were still a year away from full voting rights nationwide. Great time to be alive.
After the second world war – commonly referred to as WW2 and the go-to source of movie badguys (Nazis: hate those guys) for the next 50 years – the Menzies and Holt governments started rolling back pieces of the legislation. In 1975 Gough signed in the Racial Discrimination Act to stop any further problems. Totally worked.
After the war there was a lot of people wanting to immigrate, preferably to countries that hadn’t been turned into massive craters by years of bombing. There were also a lot of ex-servicemen who were stationed overseas and had discovered the local non-white women. They’d also made friends with non-white people in general. Suddenly there were Aussies who wanted their non-white wives, friends, and associated families to come to Australia. In 1949 Harold Holt allowed Japanese war brides into the country. Ten years later legislation was passed so that they were able to be sponsored for citizenship. Holt later introduced the Migration Act in 1966, effectively dismantling the White Australia Policy. Holt was so pleased he went swimming a year later, he’s due back any day now.
Sure why not. We’ve elected people who can’t swim, people whose claim to fame was drinking beer fast, and people who think it is appropriate to wear these in public:
So it isn’t unreasonable to think that there are better qualified people who could rise to the top despite our casual racism. We still can’t get sexism right, but we managed to have a female Prime Minister.
It should be pointed out that while Australia has a proud history of treating Aboriginals like fauna, Indigenous Australians have been elected to state and federal seats. The big problem would be getting the support of one of the major parties to be leader, and that major party holding the balance of power.
I notice that the question implies Aussies elect the Prime Minister directly. We’re not silly here in Australia. The last thing you want in a democracy is the people getting to decide important decisions like who is preselected to run for a political seat, how their elected representative should represent them, or who is Prime Minister. Best to keep these decisions out of the hands of the people they impact and make sure only the political insiders get to make those calls.
Our Prime Minister is the leader of the political party that holds the balance of power. Thus, the party decides who is Prime Minister, and is not directly elected. For an Indigenous Aussie to become leader of the party would be no small feat, and they’d have to watch out for knives to the back.
Hopefully we will see an Indigenous Australian Prime Minister. Hell, they might even be non-male just to shake things up a bit. Just hard to tell how many old white guys we’ll see before that happens.
It’s great to see that when asked what one piece of equipment people would have that they would equip a full gym. I’d love to do that too, but I’ll answer the question by naming one piece of equipment.
Of course, the one piece of equipment for me is not the same one piece that someone else would want, nor would it be what a younger or older version of me would want. A younger version of me would have vastly different needs than me now, and we’d both have much different requirements than the older version, whose idea of a workout would be shuffling from the lounge to the dinner queue at the retirement home.
Gymnastic rings
Right now my ideal piece of gym equipment would be a set of gymnastic rings. Not only can you train most of your body with them, but you get to look really cool doing exercises on them.
Alternative: Chinup bar
This is an alternative to the gymnastic rings if for some reason I couldn’t afford the rings at the current exorbitant prices. Again, you can train most of your body with a chinup bar (dips, chins, levers, muscleups, hammy curls, etc), plus all the cool kids on Youtube are doing bar training these days.
Younger me
Barbell set
Yeah, I know, a set is not a single piece of equipment. A barbell on its own isn’t much use without a bunch of weight plates, but at least I’m not listing barbell, plates, rack, and bench. A decent olympic barbell with a set of weights would cover just about everything you could think of. Ideally you’d have a solid floor (or lifting platform) to lift on with quality bumper plates so that clean & jerk and snatches are in the lifting program. But even a standard barbell – which is what I had when I first started training – can be decent.
Alternative: Sandbag or Keg
Before barbells were a thing, people lifted anything that was around: rocks, trees, bulls. The problem with those sorts of objects is that they are set weights, so progressive training is hard to accomplish, unless you start with a bull calf. So a rock might be a challenge now, but not after a few months or years of training. Sandbags and Kegs can be adjusted in weight and can be utilised for most exercises you would use a barbell for. Plus it sounds really hardcore.
Older me
Pilates sled machine thingy
Let’s face it, older me will probably be happy to not have arthritis in every joint, so the idea of doing muscle-ups, deadlifts, and that thing with the kettle-bell that looks like you’re trying to hump someone whilst throwing something in the air, is not particularly plausible at 70. As lame as this sort of workout would be for a fit and healthy younger person, it would cover all the muscles for the older more decrepit version of me.
Alternative: Comfy bed
Let’s be realistic, older me is probably going to be popping viagra and taking full advantage of all the facilities the nursing home has to offer. The bed will probably keep me in great shape to my dying days.
It only feels like three weeks ago when I last posted about Quora being Super Cereal about answers on its site. Now they are Totally Cereal!
Less than 9 hours after I posted an answer on why not everyone buys into the Crossfit cult, my answer was flagged as breaching policy. In that short window of time the post managed to become the second most viewed and third most upvoted despite being the newest answer. I mean, how dare someone criticise Crossfit, like every other answer given. How dare they use images to enhance the points being made, a common practice on the site. And once again, how dare anyone not answer the question without being completely cereal.
My working hypothesis is that my two banned answers were flagged as a result of being a trending answer. That meant the answers raised the ire of the Totally Cereal members. Quick, hit the complaint button and troll through to find something to make sure no-one else is ever offended. This will remain only a hypothesis, as I think it wouldn’t be appropriate to find other answers to flag that use images in their answers as I have done, as a means to test the system. I’d need to find other answers that were a mix of Super Cereal and Non-Cereal answers, as well as highlighted (trending) and random answers, to round out the testing.
Either way, check out my Totally Cereal answer on why not everyone wants to compete in the Washed Up Loser Olympics until they herniate their spines.
Why do people choose to NOT do Crossfit?
Crossfit is terrific, as long as you hate good technique, want a massive injury, and feel the need to strut around without a shirt on (guys) or in booty shorts (girls and guys).
I’ve been lifting long enough to remember when WODs were called circuit classes, so when a new fad comes along it is a little easier to maintain some perspective. Others have already highlighted some issues that I agree with, I’ll cover some of my own reasons.
Form
The idea that high intensity and high skill exercises are done for high reps is stupid. Nothing says broken back like skill breakdown.
So much for those gainz.
The video below is of the head of Crossfit programming, Dave Castro, doing a deadlift. It is laughably bad, but in the community this video is seen as hardcore rather than stupid.
I’m all for intensity and pushing yourself to new highs, but Crossfit all too often encourages people to utilise bad form or techniques like kipping to complete a workout. That is not smart.
It’s a bit of a cult
How can you tell if someone does Crossfit? Don’t worry, they’ll tell you.
If someone is a Vegan Crossfitter, what do they tell you about first?
Regular exercisers are bad enough, but Crossfitters take it to the next level. It’s great that people are enthused about getting fit, strong, and healthy, but there is a difference between encouragement and community and drinking Kool-aid.
Lack of progression/Too much variety
If you want to get good at something you need to practice it regularly. Crossfit throws that rule out the window and encourages a randomness to the programming that guarantees you get good at exercising but not at any of the exercises. Even the top level Crossfit athletes train specificity into their programs and then practice events (WODs).
Bad exercises or good exercises done badly
Let me just ask what this is meant to be and whether they have a surgeon on standby:
There is video of this event at the Crossfit games. I was cringing the entire way through. There were some athletes that managed to keep a relatively neutral spine throughout, but that sacrificed them speed and reps. Events are done for speed and reps….
Others have already mentioned the high rep clean and jerks, snatches, kipping pullups and muscleups, but that only scratches the surface. Even handstand pushups are done with kipping. Overhead presses are often turned into push-presses. Instead of doing a solid set of 10 reps on a pullup they insist that people do 30… and do several rounds of that with other exercises in between. It’s like someone looked up what the most reps ever done in one clean set for an exercise was and that became the WOD number. Take the kipping like a fish flapping around on a boat deck out and they wouldn’t get half the reps, let alone rounds.
Paleo
If the WOD is Crossfit’s cult program, then paleo is their cult diet. If you thought that kipping pullups were dumb, then you want to look away from the paleo diet. Not only is paleo largely ignorant of what our Palaeolithic ancestors ate, it also likes to pretend agriculture is bad. Without agriculture there would be no society, no gyms, no Crossfit, no people bragging about Crossfit…. Wait, I take it back, agriculture might be the root of all evil.
Actual dietary experts have nothing but disdain for the cult diet of paleo.
That all said, Crossfit isn’t all bad. Since they came along the fitness industry has had to try for the same level of appeal to appease the former cult members and those who can’t afford Box fees. I can walk into most gyms and find a lifting platform, something that was a rarity just a decade ago. I can actually buy weightlifting shoes without mail-order. And no one looks at me funny when I do muscleups anymore. Let’s just hope people don’t assume I’m a Crossfitter and are avoiding talking to me.
I’m no longer going to bother with Quora and will gradually migrate my answers there to this site. Click this tag to see them.
Aussies have discovered the fountain of youth in the heart of the outback. From a very rare location in the heart of the Gibson Desert flows a natural spring that wells up from deep within the Earth’s mantle. This spring has regenerative properties that helps with many common diseases and ailments.
This spring water is used to brew beverages that are part of the Aussie staple diet. As a result, the increases in food abundance and greater sedentary lifestyles of the populous have not resulted in the normal health impacts due to obesity. So if you see any of these three beverages in your country, it is worth buying them in bulk in order to ward off disease.
Of course, it could just be that life expectancy has been growing in first world nations due to improved health care (child mortality, vaccinations, disease treatment, etc) and that steady increase hasn’t been impacted by the relatively recent surge in obesity rates. I.e. too soon to have obesity impacting life expectancy.
Hell is being surrounded by famous people, apparently.
Hell’s Super follows Steve Minion, the only non-famous person in hell as far as I can tell, as he tries to fix all the problems that come up in hell. Whether it be replacing a broken light bulb on the sign leading into hell (Abandon all hope ye who enter here), or stopping a civil uprising, Steve is tasked with fixing the problem because he sucks at fixing things: it’s hell, it’s his punishment. His sidekick is Orson Welles and he is dating Florence Nightingale: enough said.
I picked up Mark Cain’s Hell’s Super as it promised to be a novel in the vein of Terry Pratchett or Good Omens: some satire, some straight laughs, some silly fun. It had those elements but for me it rarely rose above mildly entertaining. Having recently re-read Good Omens, a book Hell’s Super is compared to in the back cover blurb, I can safely say that the Pratchett and Gaiman novel is not being knocked off the Best Novel of All Time podium any time soon. Too much of the humour and plot relies on utilising famous people and irony (especially in the punishments) to be classed as Pratchett-esque satire and humour. It also didn’t help that the plot twists were obvious given the setting.
That said, this is an entertaining novel with enough humour to amuse. I think the comparisons drawn to Good Omens, Terry Pratchett, and Douglas Adams in the blurb set up too-high an expectation for me. Knowing that, you may enjoy it more as a result.
Regular readers here will have noticed I’ve not been blogging as much lately as I’ve taken to answering the occasional question on Quora. I feel it is important to help others understand topics. We all start by asking questions, and someone needs to answer them.
Today I received a disheartening email.
I’m shocked, SHOCKED I say. It is hard to believe that my answer would be found to be unhelpful. Read for yourself and see if you don’t find my answer helpful.
Is the New Zealand accent the same as Australia’s?
The New Zealand accent is almost exactly the same as an Aussie accent. This is mainly because, like Tasmania, New Zealand is actually a state within Australia. So any differences are essentially regional dialects of the same accent, much like the difference between a Texan drawl and whatever the hell that New Jersey thing is called.
This little fact isn’t really understood outside of the ANZAC nation; the ANZACs being our military arm. So here is a little list of evidence:
Russell Crowe – renowned Aussie actor from New Zealand.
Sam Neil – renowned Aussie actor from New Zealand.
Tim and Neil Finn – renowned Aussie musicians (Crowded House) from New Zealand.
Pavlova – renowned Aussie dessert from New Zealand.
Sheep shagging – renowned Aussie practice from New Zealand.
The easiest way to explain the slight regional dialects between the mainland Aussie accent and the island versions is to imagine a less evil version of the Aussie accent. That’s what the state of New Zealand inhabitants sound like. And before you ask, yes, Maoris and Aborigines are exactly the same peoples.
Clearly I was being helpful and giving the question the answer it deserved. When my answer was removed it had the second most views and had been upvoted several times. So it boggles my mind that anyone would flag the answer as unhelpful.
It is with outrage at the ignominy that I share this with you all here. My answer addressed all the points that were required. The explanation could not be any more clear as to the similarities of Aussie and New Zealander accents. Unless of course the person asking the question (and Quora) expected not to be mocked and to be treated super cereal.
Like most advanced countries, Australia has moved past antiquated methods of travel. Just as you don’t see horses and carts in major cities anymore, Aussies have moved away from riding kangaroos in much the same way. Let’s face it, kangaroos are smelly, need to eat lots of food, and are dangerous with a nasty kick – kinda like horses when you think about it. Cars really are much nicer to commute to work in.
But just like horses, there are diehard kangaroo riding enthusiasts who haven’t figured out that cars are so much better. As such there are riding schools, such as Alex Hayek’s Kangaroo Riding School, and clubs for people to learn to ride. Some children do prefer to ride kangaroos instead of bikes to school, but that is becoming less common with the advent of helicopter parents.
The sad thing about kangaroo riding is that it isn’t as popular as horse riding in Australia, despite kangaroos resulting in less deaths each year than horses. So it will be interesting to see if this proud tradition is continued in future generations.
AT LAST, SIR TERRY, WE MUST WALK TOGETHER. Terry took Death’s arm and followed him through the doors and on to the black desert under the endless night.
It has been a while since I journeyed from Roundworld to Discworld and with Sir Terry’s passing, it seemed like the right time. The trouble with picking a Discworld novel to read is which of the 41* to choose. I settled upon Raising Steam, the ode to the very British obsession with steam trains.
Two things struck me when reading Raising Steam. First was that the TV miniseries adaptation of Going Postal was perfectly cast. Reading I couldn’t help but see Charles Dance as Vetinari and Richard Coyle as Moist (Slightly Damp). This gives me great hope for the forthcoming adaptation of the best novel of all time, Good Omens. The second thing was that as a non-British person I feel like I’m missing many of the jokes. There are so many references throughout the novel that hint at jabs being taken at various cultures, peoples, politicians, and institutions. Some are obvious, like the French and Aussie ones, but others I’m guessing I’d have to have been to the UK to understand.
This is all another way of me saying that there is no such thing as a bad Discworld novel. Goodbye, Sir Terry, thanks for the legacy.
*41 later in 2015, 40 as of this review’s writing.
I realised today that I’ve become guilty of recycling my own material. It is one thing to steal someone else’s jokes (Dane Cook, Dennis Leary), it is another thing to retell the same jokes hoping to have a new audience to the material. But it is really sad when you trot out the same joke again and again.
What was this joke, you may well ask. Well, voice in my head, it was a little satirical one-liner poking fun at pro-gun advocates. The first time I used the joke in question, it was after a recent shooting.
To which I responded: If only there had been a good toddler with a gun to stop the bad toddler with a gun. This went down a treat with the other news commenters.
And then I used it again, less than a month later when this happened:
This is just terrible. My joke that – as highly original as it is – plays on the famous quote from NRA president Wayne Compassionate LaPierre, is going to wear thin very quickly. Despite how appropriate the joke is, capturing the ridiculousness of the pro-gun response to senseless and preventable tragedies, I’m going to have to write new material. But honestly folks, we all know what’s the best biometric gun safe, we all know how to use them, what’s the big idea?
At least these things aren’t regular occurrences happening with surprising frequency:
Federal data from the Centers for Disease Control indicate that between 2007 and 2011, an average of 62 children age 14 and under died each year in unintentional shootings. By this measure, American children are sixteen times more likely to be killed in unintentional shootings than their peers in other high-income countries. http://everytown.org/documents/2014/10/innocents-lost.pdf
Boy, 2, accidentally shot and killed by his 3-year-old sister in fourth death in the U.S. this month caused by a firearm finding its way into the hands of a child.
The 3-year-old Utah girl accidentally shot her brother with a rifle that had been left in the living room of their parents’ home. In South Carolina, a 6-year-old boy accidentally shot a 22-year-old woman with a gun he found in the back of his mother’s car. Also in South Carolina, a 7-year-old girl was fatally shot by a 5-year-old boy who thought the gun he was holding was fake. 11-year-old Jamara Stevens was killed in Philadelphia when her 2-year-old brother accidentally fired a gun the kids’ mother’s boyfriend had left in the home. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2609758/Boy-2-fatally-shoots-3-year-old-sister-fourth-death-U-S-month-caused-firearm-finding-way-hands-child.html
A Kentucky mother stepped outside of her home just for a few minutes, but it was long enough for her 5-year-old son to accidentally shoot and kill his 2-year-old sister with the .22-caliber rifle he got for his birthday, state officials said. http://edition.cnn.com/2013/05/01/us/kentucky-accidential-shooting/
In the wake of the shocking Sydney Lindt Hostage situation our brave libertarian Senator Leyonhjelm struck straight to the heart of the real cause of the events and hinted at a foolproof solution. He pointed out that we are a ‘nation of victims’ and need to have access to guns to solve our problems, because it has worked so well in the USA.
His nuanced dissection of the events is a breath of fresh air. This was definitely not an issue of a man with a violent criminal history, nor his lack of treatment for mental health issues, nor about issues surrounding bail in our justice system, nor about racial and religious tensions in Australia. Nope, this was all about not being able to shoot people you have a problem with.
We should be thanking Senator Leyonhjelm and his fellow libertarians with gifts, which is appropriate timing leading into the Festive Season and our desperate need to stimulate the free market. So make Joe Hockey proud and buy some libertarian gifts.
Gift Idea: Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, with foreword written by Rand whilst on welfare.
Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged is a must have for all libertarians. The all-new edition has a foreword written by Rand in the 1970s explaining her principles and complaints about how small her welfare checks were.
Gift Idea: Smoker’s lungs desk ornament, with bonus lungs of their children who rode in the car with them while they smoked.
This is a great gift for libertarians as it acts as a conversation piece to allow them to discuss how over-taxed smokers are.
Gift Idea: Bushmaster AR15 semi-automatic rifle chambered in .223-caliber.
The Bushmaster is the freedom weapon of choice and a must have for defending your rights. Comes as a box set of the rifle, one thousand rounds of ammunition, and paper targets of school children.
In the tradition of nutritionists – the toothyologists of dietary advice – I have developed a new free diet plan to help people lose weight. Just like all other fad diets, my diet promises to help you lose weight or your money back. And just like other fad diets, I have come up with an overly simple way of losing weight that is guaranteed to not work in the long term.
Introducing the Dodgy Kebab Diet™
The relationship between an alcoholic binge-fest and a stop for a dodgy kebab before heading home has long been known. But have you ever wondered why it is that people don’t gain pudgy spare tires around their middle from their night of drunken debauchery? Well, thanks to not-science and pure speculation, I have discovered that it is the dodgy kebab that keeps people thin and ready for another night of drinking your paycheck.
You see, the dodgy kebab contains a quantum field of dietary entanglement. This means that the dodgy kebab sneaks up on all of that alcohol and redefines its aura, changing it from calories to vomit, which I call the Gastro™ effect.
Now this may work for the overindulgence evenings, but a diet has to be every day for 10 days or 1 dress size, so how can the Dodgy Kebab Diet™ work without the need to get plastered every day? Well, the dodgy kebab’s quantum field of dietary entanglement works just as well on your stomach lining as it does on alcohol.
The diet is very simple: eat one dodgy kebab per day for 10 days and I guarantee you will lose weight.* That’s it! You will feel better ** and look better ***.
Don’t just take my word for it: here is one of my satisfied victims customers.
Shane: I started the Dodgy Kebab Diet™, caught Gastro™ and lost 5kg.
With the Dodgy Kebab Diet™ you pay no money for access to my fully unqualified nutritionists (we’d have to be dieticians to be qualified). You only pay $59.95 per month for access to our extensive database of Dodgy Kebab Diet™ endorsed vendors. No need to spend every Saturday night wandering around to find the one with Gastro™. I’ve done all the research for you, compiling all the dodgy kebab vendors from the Food Safety Authority. All you have to do is send me $59.95 and I will send you the mobile phone app and simple instructions on how to get the most out of your bout of Gastro™.
What if kebabs aren’t my thing? For an extra $9.95 I can include Chinese, Thai, and all of the least cooked chicken restaurants in your area.
Order now to avoid disappointment at eating well cooked food and gaining weight like a mug.
* We don’t guarantee weight loss on this diet.
** You will only feel better if you make it to the hospital emergency room on time.
*** Looking better is determinant upon surviving the food poisoning and proper application of makeup.
Thanks to Shane Nixon for helping inspire this diet.
I read a blog post recently that suggested it is a good idea to make your email address publicly available on your webpage (and elsewhere). This is a great idea. The blog author listed 4 reasons, so I’ll list another 4.
Because everyone needs an extra couple of inches on their penis.
Even if you are a woman. Maybe especially if you are a woman.
How will SEO marketers contact you without your email?
Except via the comments and domain registry information.
Nigerian Royalty could be trying to contact you.
I hear they need to give away money to people they don’t know.
From See Mike Draw. Become a fan NOW!
Because there is no such thing as social media and direct messaging.
I mean, who even has a Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Google+, etc, account these days? And there are definitely no features that allow you to privately contact the person via those mediums.
Satire is always fun. There is something so rewarding about taking the piss out of someone, something or society. The problem with satire is either that the target often doesn’t have much of a sense of humour or that the joke is just dragged out too far. One of the greatest works of satire, Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, is a great example of how writers can sometimes labour a joke/point too much, whilst being absolute geniuses.
Steve’s satire of the literary industry is right on the money. From the biting examples of literary drivel, to the examples of writers and the claims by industry figures that no-ones knows anything about books, Hely has hit the mark. I’m sure if I actually read much literary fiction I’d even recognise the books and writers who were satirised.
So it pains me to give this book only 3 stars, but I really had to. There were bits I had to skim over, especially in the second half of the book. Some of the literary satire pieces were too close to the truth for me, essentially making for boring reading. And, as I have already alluded, the book relies on one joke. This is still very well done, an enjoyable read, but it does suffer the fate of many pieces of satire, hence only 3 stars from me.
Edited by Dr Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
There are a lot of publications out there that specialize in short fiction. One that has stood tall amongst the Science Fiction community is the publication Energy & Environment. Published 8 times per year, this periodical prides itself on its consistent quality of short stories. It has become a renowned publication in the sci-fi community, with contributing authors often writing about an alternate reality universe, where the rules of physics do not apply.
Luminaries of the Science Fiction community have been known to publish stories in E&E, notable examples include: Dr Willie Soon, Prof Bob Carter, Prof Ian Plimer, Dr Tim Curtin, Prof Richard Lindzen, Dr Roger Pielke Sr; a veritable who’s who of the Science Fiction world. Energy & Environment attract such great writers because of the favourable editorial standards, allowing startling new sub-genres of Science Fiction to emerge. Some of the most revered works of Science Fiction have been published in Energy and Environment in the last decade as a result of the publication’s regard in the sci-fi community.
Energy & Environment is often regarded as hard sci-fi, due to its heavy use of figures and tables within the stories. These illustrations help to conjure up a vivid impression of the wonderfully weird worlds the stories are based in. Having a science background, these elements of hard sci-fi were an entertaining aside, but most sci-fi fans would be able to enjoy the fictional universes without having to take them in.
Contributors are also known to win the prestigious Heartland Institute award. This is a notable Science Fiction award given by the Heartland Institute to encourage sci-fi writers to continue their work. The award comes with a cash stipend, generously given by Heartland funders such as Exxon. A notable Australian sci-fi author, Bob Carter, is a current recipient of the award, the $1600 a month stipend helping him write sci-fi stories full-time.
If you are looking for funny, entertaining and challenging Science Fiction, then Energy & Environment has a story for you.
There is no worse disease for a writer than writer’s block. I’d also say that writer’s block is terrible for readers too, uninspired prose is what we expect from policy and political people, not our entertainment. I’m a fan of Stephen King’s writing advice: set a daily word goal and stay at it until you reach the goal. There is something about daily writing and forcing yourself to write that seems to make things flow.
But Tyson, I hear you say, I’m stuck with no ideas for what to write next. Luckily I was procrastinating whilst writing the other day and came up with a definitive fail safe for each major genre. Any additions are welcome in the comments.
Thriller Writers
When writer’s block strikes kill someone or blow something up.
Crime Writers
When writer’s block strikes describe the main character getting drunk and wallowing in self pity.
Mystery Writers
When writer’s block strikes introduce a red herring.
Romance Writers
When writer’s block strikes introduce new character with rock hard abs.
Literature Writers
When writer’s block strikes describe a tree in intimate detail.
Fantasy Writers
When writer’s block strikes have a talking dragon appear, or have the characters go on a long walk somewhere.
Sci-fi Writers
When writer’s block strikes cut and paste physics article from Wikipedia into your novel.
Horror Writers
When writer’s block strikes cut and paste autopsy reports into your novel.
Paranormal Writers
If you already have vampires, ghosts and werewolves in your novel, introduce ninjas and pirates as characters.
If you are really stuck after all of these ideas, then there is no novel in existence that can’t/couldn’t be improved by the addition of pirates and/or ninjas.
Language is very important for scientists, as they are often authors as well. Their medium is the communication of data and knowledge to further understanding. The problem with science is that a lot of scientists prefer to make their statements as vague and non-committal as possible. In keeping with my previous explanations of music reviews and book reviews I have found a few science terms explained. This list has helped me, I hope it helps you.
Bad exercises or good exercises done badly
Tyson Adams 