M Thomas Apple Author Page

Science fiction, actual science, history, and personal ranting about life, the universe, and everything

JAXA failure. Here we (don’t) go again.

February 18, 2023
MThomas

At liftoff time, smoke was seen rising from the bottom of the rocket, indicating the ignition of the main engine. However, the rocket did not rise from the launchpad. 

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Aerospace-Defense-Industries/Japan-s-H3-rocket-launch-aborted-after-booster-fails-to-ignite

Not a great start to the year, JAXA. This, on top of the Episilon failure (zero, zero…DESTRUCT…zero…)

Another month, another missed Bringer of Light post…

July 18, 2022
MThomas

Yeah. So I missed another installment in my series.

Shoot.

Things are just ridiculously spiraling out of control at work. I hope to start posting more regularly again in a week or so.

In the meantime, check out more images from the Webb space telescope compared to Hubble. They’re pretty awe-inspiring.

Apologies for the absence!

December 9, 2021
MThomas

Sorry, everyone, for the lack of posts lately!

I wasn’t able to post short stories and news from my smartphone (which is what I had been doing on the train to work) bc I went way over my ISP plan and got throttled for about a week.

Then December started, and work got really busy. And I look up and suddenly realized I haven’t even watched more than the first ep of the live action Cowboy Bebop.

(It was OK. Too many guns and not enough kung-fu.)

I’ll get back to regular posting soon.

In the meantime, here’s a picture of what it looks like on the hiking trail behind my house. (“Wild dogs and boar suddenly appear. Beware!”)

(Yes, I have seen a few. They come with their piglets down to the creek near us at night and then on the property next door dig in the ground with their tusks, looking for bugs to eat.)

Procrastinate, work, repeat

November 12, 2021
MThomas

Where’s the Artemis?? What’s up with Mars? And Ceres seriously…?

Sorry I haven’t kept up the story posts, everyone.

I know it’s been almost a month since the last Bringer of Light episode. Work just got dumped on me, and I can barely find time to give my writing students feedback. We switched back to face to face classes…with live streaming on Zoom for students who couldn’t or wouldn’t go back to campus…which is definitely NOT a teaching style I would recommend to anybody, anywhere, ever.

It’s been like laying down tracks in front of an oncoming train. Every day.

There is lots more good stuff for Riss and her crew, I swear. I’ve got drafts up to Chapter 42, and plots to the end after that. Let me see if I can get the next one up for you all in a day or two…

Sigh.Way behind. Again.

September 18, 2021
MThomas

OK, I readily admit that I am once again waaaay behind on my scifi blogging.

At some point last week, I looked up from the mass amounts of work I had left to do and went, “Uh. August 21st? Was that really the last time I posted?”

Uh. Yup.

😣

I’ll do my best to get the rest of Riss’s story online on a biweekly basis, like I promised I would.

But promises…

Crap, I did it again

July 16, 2021
MThomas

Man, I did it again.

I forgot to post the next chapter of Bringer of Light.

Also the next one after that. And the one after that.

It’s been a very tiring summer so far.

(For starters, we STILL don’t have enough Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, doses are get wasted left and right as the elderly randomly cancel reservations and the bureaucratic pinheads in charge refuse to give them to others, and several students at my school went out drinking and guess what happened…)

I haven’t even posted any science news lately.

But I promise that I’ll make up for it. Soon.

In the meantime, here’s a neat little article about some wild theories of the universe, starting with the Brane Universe and the Big Splat.

Yeah. I thought you might like that one.

https://www.livescience.com/strange-theories-about-the-universe.html?utm_campaign=socialflow

Children of Pella — to post or not to post?

September 14, 2020
MThomas

OK, so I admit it — I’m way behind in finishing my SF novel, Bringer of Light (you can read the prologue here).

I had hoped to get the draft done by January, then work on edits in the spring and publish it in summer.

But a little COVID happened to the world, and believe it or not I got a little sidetracked by, uh, life. And a family history project about a love triangle (kind of).

(During our two-month quasi-lockdown-not-sure-what-this-is-stuck-home-with-two-kids thing, I did get pretty good at the Mars terraforming game. Highly recommended.)

So now I’m thinking, to kickstart my writing life back into action, why not post the chapters I have so far? There are about 35 of them, tend to be short, and since I’ve been struggling with the ending, might help generate some ideas for getting to the expected final scene.

Sound like a good weekly post?

Read Adams’ Stepsons for FREE until March 7

March 1, 2020
MThomas

ebookweek 3 - e-reader on beach.jpg

Stuck at home all week (or month?) dealing with world-wide panic from a cold virus?

Stock up on discounted and/or free ebooks at Smashwords!

Why not start with Adams’ Stepsons – for FREE??

Destiny in the Future is also HALF OFF until March 7th (all proceeds donated to the American Cancer Society)

Boldly going where we already went fifty years ago

January 24, 2020
MThomas

SpaceForce

🖖

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51245262

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