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May 11, 2024
Eels, laser containers, and Martians
Hello there Reader! I hope you're having a great week.
Since I've written my own sequels to 'War of the Worlds', I'm always intrigued by the takes that other people have on the idea. I've shared a couple of them here in the past, in fact.
Most tend to have the same core - what do we do with the technology they left behind? Wells himself mentioned some abvortive experiments:
...the generator of the Heat-Rays remains a puzzle. The terrible disasters at the Ealing and South Kensington laboratories have disinclined analysts for further investigations...
My own books have only a short time between the first and second invasions, so there isn't a great deal of advancement made. But Eric Goebelbecker reached out to me recently to share his own take on the idea.
In his world, the Great War still happens - but now with the addition of reverse-engineered Martian technology. The mechanisation of war was brutal enough in our time, but Eric imagines the terror and destruction wrought by the uses and abuses of much more advanced equipment. I've linked to the first book in his series later in the newsletter, but if you want a taste of how wrong things can go when we try and use machinery we don't understand, he has a great short story that acts as a prequel.
Space News
Satellite Communications in a box
Who doesn't love shipping containers? Before they standardised the size and shape of transport, every individual box had to be hand-loaded onto ships, trains and trucks. Interlocking, fixed-size metal boxes allowed the rapid delivery of goods worldwide, not to mention the 'just in time' production methods that reduced costs and increased availability.
And they're great for things other than shipping too, of course. I once ate lunch in an industrial park caf which was just two containers welded together. It was echoey and the food wasn't great, but since the nearest alternative was miles away, I had to salute the ingenuity. In the early days of mobile phone data transmission, the company I worked for hacked together 'datapods' which were shipping containers housing everything you needed to test and deploy (then) cutting-edge GPRS base stations. In a strange coincidence, the computers there ran the same OS as the Martian Pathfinder rover...
So it should come as no surprise that ESA is using a shipping container to communicate with satellites. Given that we already have satellite communication in our phones, we use it to receive TV signals and even the internet, you might wonder why it's necessary - but ESA is trialling laser communication with satellites.
Since the light used has a higher frequency than radio waves, it allows for faster data transfer. It's also harder to eavesdrop on, which can be important. And they're also better able to exploit the quantum nature of light to enable perfectly secure cryptography.
And they're not thinking small - one of the first tests will be communicating with the Psyche mission, at a distance of over 400 million KM...
Source: esa.int
Other Books To Check Out
I've gathered a few great books from independent authors like me, I hope you'll check them out.
And let me know if you have any books to recommend! I'm particularly interested in indie authors, but anything you've read and loved would be awesome.
Free!
Twenty Sci-Fi Writers Fix the Planet
Climate change is no longer a vague future threat. Forests are burning, currents are shifting, and massive storms dump staggering amounts of water in less than 24 hours. Sometimes it's hard to look ahead and see a hopeful future.
We asked sci-fi writers to send us stories about ways to save the world from climate change. From the myriad of stories we received, we chose the twenty most amazing (and hopefully prescient) tales.
Dive in and find out how we might mitigate climate change via solar mirrors, carbon capture, genetic manipulation, and acts of change both large and small.
The future's not going to fix itself.
Buy it now!
A lonely experiment. A hardhearted con artist. A death that changes everything.
MINETTE is trapped on the New Realm station, but she dreams of exploring Earth. To escape, she'll have to recover from her illness first, a mysterious affliction that haunts her sleep and alters her reality.
But there are things far worse than being trapped.
As she fights her own mind, she begins to question those around her. Are they really keeping her safe? Or are they keeping others safe from her?
ASAHI is painfully broke. Overworked and exhausted, she finally snaps and agrees to join a band of misfit con artists.
Just like that, her new life begins.
Entrenched in a glittering world of elaborate plots to foil the corrupt, Asahi fits right in. Unfortunately, their next con has one fatal flaw-one that could ruin everything they've worked for.
Neuracode: Part II is the second half of the prequel to Project Juniper, a thrilling YA/NA cyberpunk series written by Eris Goode. A perfect read for fans of Amie Kaufman's Illuminae, Marissa Meyer's Cinder, or Marie Lu's Legend, filled with gritty characters, futuristic settings, and riveting action.
https://ares.watch/z/B0CR8JXPBB
Buy it now
It's 1915, twenty years after the Martian invasion chronicled in the War of the Worlds failed. The aliens left behind advanced technology and weapons, and now humanity is on the brink of a catastrophic war. Caught in the middle of the chaos are two unlikely heroes: Emil Zimmerman, a young German soldier, and James Brogan, an introverted radio engineer.
Emil dreamed of escaping his small village and making his way to the big city, but finds himself in the trenches fighting for an army that indiscriminately wields deadly Martian weapons. Meanwhile, James just wants to be left alone, but is pulled into a web of conspiracy when he's called upon to repair crucial radios on Long Island.
As the world hurtles towards the brink of destruction, Emil and James find themselves on a collision course with fate, each struggling to survive and make sense of a new reality.
Strange News
Every eel in Europe and the US comes from the Bermuda Triangle
Quite a claim, no? We've long known that eels migrate back to their spawning grounds to breed, and since the mid 1930s it's been pretty clear that this is somewhere in the Sargasso Sea. But tagging them to trace them didn't work too well. They took so long that the best remote monitoring equipment we could bring to bear didn't last until they reached their destination.
But just in the last few years, we've managed to track them all the way. Though, and perhaps appropriately given the Bermuda Triangle's reputation, no-one has ever seen a mature eel in the Sargasso.
I've mentioned before that one of my favourite things is someone passionate about a subject, and Dr Emily Finch definitely qualifies. Not only did she change her Twitter handle to 'Dr Eelmily Finch', but she launched an excited and informative series of threads about the amazing things eels do.
When it's time to mate, they dissolve their own stomachs. They make the entire journey without eating, just digesting themselves from the inside. As long as the ground is damp, they can journey over land - even climbing dam walls.
Hopefully this research can help save the eels - since the 1980s European eel populations have declined 95%, and they're now critically endangered.
Oh, and electric eels aren't actually eels.
Source: Atlas Obscura
Other Books To Check Out
Miscellany
NASA's Quarterly Film Reports were an update on how Apollo was going. A fascinating look back at an extremely exciting time of development.
Source: forum.nasaspaceflight.com
How do you preserve film history, when the film itself wants to explode?
Source: daily.jstor.org
When app updates can kill...
Source: bsky.app
And Finally
I'd like to share this rather beautiful song by Mike West.
I'm sure we've all experienced loss, and the grief that follows it. I've always taken solace in the idea that grief shows that you cared, that the subject of your mourning had an important and valuable impact on your life. And that the best thing you can do is to remember that impact, and the person who brought it.
Mike expresses that idea very eloquently - rather than erecting memorials, headstones, or similar, just remember the person.
No Grave - Mike West
( Via Nearly Knowledgable - https://nearlyknowledgeablehistory.blogspot.com/2024/04/on-remembrance.html )
If you fancy something a little less... existential... might I suggest Sigur Rs?
Source: youtube.com