Technical Difficulties, Please Stand By!

Today's schluffing off of the show is not intentional.

It appears my Windows XP machine, Copernicus, has decided it no longer wants to run Audacity or take input from my headset. I got all plugged in this afternoon with the text of Chapter 3 in front of me, I even recorded the entire vocal track. I go back to the beginning to start the editing and it refuses to budge. Will not play back. And worse, will not save the project file.

This may be due to several factors, most notably the facts that (A), I've been using this headset for over 2 years ever since episode 2 or 3 of the show, and (B) Copernicus desperately needs a new hard drive. Desperately as in there are 5 gig left on a 60gig HD, and there is not enough space left to do a defrag on the drive. This is the original HD and I have never re-installed to clean off the crud. This is because my iTunes directory is on there and despite following every set of directions I have ever found for transferring the iTunes library to an external HD, I have never been able to make it work. Thus I cannot reformat and reinstall without loosing something like 15 gig of music and audiobooks. A new HD, drive imaging and install will cost approximately $250. I have the means. But it may take a few days depending on how quickly the so-called Geek Squad at Best Buy can work.

(I am loathe to hand any of my machines over to anyone else to care for, but I do not have the means or knowledge to do the required work. Once, many moons ago, I could build my own computers. No longer, alas. Technology like time has marched on.)

I have tried to record on my Ubuntu machine, Galileo, but the intricacies of getting a USB headset to work with Linux are legendary and also beyond my capabilities. I love Ubuntu, but I ain't got no mad skillz in it.

So my apologies for the silence. I will get back to you as soon as mechanically possible.


Carol

Not a One Off! Telaon Chapter 2!

Okay so here's your second chapter of Telaon. Click right here.

In other thoughts, what if someday a vast swarm of robots descends upon us from space and releases a cloud of disassembler nanos, but it doesn't destroy anything but sucks all the carbon and extra methane and CFCs out of the air and so, maybe, like, twenty years after the aliens land and say, "Oh we're realtors, you're planet's been sold but the buyers wanted it cleaned up first. And they're talking about calling in the exterminators. You might want to leave."

Then what do we do?!?

Long Period Comet? No, Just Me.

Greetings, sports fans. Your Humble Author has returned.

So now that things have substantially settled down from my relocation to Gainesville, I grow weary of my idle hands. Thus with the arrival of July, I have returned to the virtual airwaves with two episodes of the Atrocious Adventure Podcast.

First off is an essay entitled Transhumanism Isn't What We'll Gain, But What We'll Give Up from my new occasional venture Project 2230. Afterward, some news and update. Doawnload the podcast episode here.

Second, after months of delay, I bring you the first chapter of Telaon, my young adult sci-fi novel I first spoke of way back last year. Chapter 1 introduces Jevan Nowell, a super-genius escaping from the private island where he's been held a virtual prisoner all his life. During his escape, he finds something in the forest... and then something else finds him. Download the first chapter here.

As per my usual tradition, new episodes will come out on Sunday nights barring unforeseen circumstances.

So off we go again, folks.

Last Journal

"Everything's ready. The catacombs are complete. I finished the short-cut just today. The first cavern, full of potatoes. The second, turkeys. The third, thirty cases of canned beets. I have the freezer here, the electrical box, the table and chair. Now, all that's left is to wait. Someone will fall into my trap soon. Man can not live by white meat alone. Every once in a while, a guy just wants a steak."


Inspred by "Underground" by Alexey Andeleev.

The Previous Surreality Brought To You By...

If you are perhaps following me on Twitter, look for the hashtag #AndreevStory for nuggets like the last post.

In the meantime, if you are so inclined give Andreev's art a look and see what kind of oddness it inspires in you. Write, if so inclined. And give me a holler at auntyproton@gmail.com with a link if you don't mind sharing it with the world. I'll post it here. Maybe I'll do a website for the collection, if there's enough response.

What You Walkin' On?

I found an old man in a wooden lifeboat, rowing his way through space toward a ring of burning white light. A spiral path of stones seemed to mark the path he followed.

I walked up beside the boat and kept pace as he rowed. "So. Where ya headed?" I asked.

"Kansas City," he answered in a gruff tone.

"How ya gettin' there?" I asked next.

"Gonna walk," he answered as he pulled once more on the oars.

I sped up to keep pace as the lifeboat pulled away. "That's a boat but I don't see any water. What're your oars pullin' on?"

He looked up briefly and pulled again while the lifeboat creaked. "Yeah well... what you walkin' on?"


Inspired by "Gate" in the artwork of Alexey Andreev

The Future: Moving On In!

Check out the fluidity of the movement on this thing. This is the kind of movement Trouble and the gang would be capable of. Not clunky big giant robot moves -- grace like this.

Influences

My fellow sci-fi writer Mathew Wayne Selznick commented on Twitter that he'd found the show that really influenced him on Hulu -- Carl Sagan's "Cosmos". I too love "Cosmos", though I am more influenced by it in book form.

But when I asked myself what influenced me in my writing, the first thing that came to mind is a TV movie from the early 1990's called "Plymouth". It most especially influenced my Zulu-5 stories and my short novella "The Shepherds of M15" (the third story in The Curve of Shadow and the 3rd and 4th shows of the podcast). "Plymouth" was actually a TV pilot that didn't sell, though it was written by the guy who wrote "MacGyver". Maybe it was the cost of it that killed it, since it was one of the most expensive pilots ever made. But it had an actual astronaut in it, one of the Apollo astronauts who actually walked on the Moon -- Pete Conrad.

But what got me is that it portrayed a realistic view of what a lunar colony would actually be like to live in. Not ray guns or aliens or FTL drives. More like water tanks, mining equipment, growing your own food and re-processing all your wastes. It showed the inhabitants dealing with solar flares, radiation poisoning, bone degradation from a 1/6th gravity, and whether or not a child conceived in that gravity would develop normally. It dealt with the fact that once you have a child on the Moon, that child will be adapted for that gravity and can never go back to Earth. Once you have a child in space, you have passed the point of no return. That is the point at which humankind will irrevocably be a spacefaring, multi-planet species. Did the characters influence my borgs and the others? You'd have to tell me.

"Plymouth" is on YouTube. Go to this page for a listing of the links to the vid parts. I actually have it on VHS from where I recorded it when it aired on ABC, but I'm so glad to know it's on the net now. And y'know, I'd be pleased as punch if somebody put it out on DVD.

Hello Twitterverse!

Hello. For those of you who have just found my humble abode from following me on Twitter, my name is Carol E. Meacham. By day I am a postal worker currently undergoing a precarious job transfer. The rest of the time I am a self-published science-fiction writer and podcaster. This blog site is the information catch-all for my work. Such as it is. I've been rather in a slump lately.

To the right of this page you will find a short list of links for various of my works. Of primary importance is my podcast, the Atrocious Adventure Podcast. In the archives there you will find a total of five different large works and a veritable myriad of aimless meandering drivel. In order, the stories are:

In "The Curve of Shadow" anthology:

• "Public Assistance"
• "Khamaira's Journey"
• "The Shepherds of M15"

My first novel, "Machina Obscura"

Its sequel, "Aquaria"

My 2005 NaNoWriMo Arthurian fantasy novel, "The Fall of Avalon", which was simulcast in text form at the Fall of Avalon wiki site.

And a series of sci-fi novellas about a bunch of working-class cyborgs called "Zulu-5", which consists of:

• "Zulu-5"
• "Zulu-5: Tantalus and Sweet Charity"
• "Zulu-5: Seeds of Invasion"
• "Zulu-5: The Family You Choose"

I think I've made it fairly obvious in the podcast episode titles as to what's part of a book and what's not. If it says something like "Aquaria, Chapter [X]" or "The Fall of Avalon, part [x]" it's a chapter of a story. If it's something like "Iron Man and Z5" it's generally meaningless drivel about whatever was on my mind at the time interspersed with excuses why I haven't been writing. I try to file all those under the "Extras" tag and the story parts under "podcasts". Don't ask. My logic sometimes escapes even myself.

Some of my stuff I have actually gotten into print form, and even so far as to being listed on Amazon. You can find links to these in the link section to the right, and at my store on CafePress. At some point when things settle down with the day job there may be a collected version of Zulu-5 in the offing.

I also have a brand-new completed Young Adult sci-fi novel called "Telaon". It's finished, and the cover art appears a few posts below this post. The plan at the moment is to release it on Podiobooks.com, but at the moment I have no time to record and edit it. The ongoing sordid saga of the job transfer has completely screwed up my life at the moment. I hope things will be settled down in 2 or 3 months to allow me to return to this project.

In the meantime, you can listen to my strangely accented voice on the podcasts or take a gander at the text of Avalon. You can reach me on Twitter under the name "auntyproton". Or you can e-mail me and tell me what you think in exhaustive detail.

Thanks for your interest!

Back in the Saddle ... Briefly!

A couple of days ago Your Humble Author recorded what MAY turn out to be the first episode of Telaon for Podiobooks.com. With new music and everything. At the moment it is at the mercy of the good folk of the Podiobooks mentoring community as to its merits or lack thereof.

It felt good to get back under the headset and lay down some bits. (Yes, still using the headset mic, alas. Even with Service Pack 3 on XP I couldn't get the $100 microphone to work.) I don't think I quite have the characters down yet, but that will happen as I go along. Check the previous post for the cover art!

So Your Humble Author is getting there, albeit in a slow and plodding manner.

Still no word on the job transfer.

I've been chewing on a couple idle thoughts for stories as well. I'll get back to you about that.

It Beats Chewing My Fingernails Off!

So life has been kind of stressful lately what with the continuing lack of info regarding the job transfer. Important details like where I'll be transfered, when I'm leaving, and all the stuff that hinges on it like selling my house, finding somewhere to live, packing up, moving, that kind of thing, none of which are at hand at the moment but could happen any fragging minute. Some people clean house when they get like this. Me? I do stuff like this.

Oh, and by the way, I recorded the first chapter of Telaon for Podiobooks today.

Well heck, it's been raining all day and it was either that or eat.

Further bulletins as events warrant.

Great Changes Are A-Foot!

Watch your feeds for a podcast update in the near future. Great changes are a-foot for Your Humble Author!