Category: ATLANTIS

Movie Review of Inglorious Basterds

The going is good at the moment.
A draft of ‘Some kind of Insanity’ has gone out to my group of readers and at least two have fed back that they are enjoying so far.

In the mean time I am painstakingly working through the logic of the plot of the (potentially) sci-fi story and I am slowly getting there. I really want to take my time getting this one right as it is quite a complex one – or rather subtle and could be too complex if I don’t get it right. So simplification is really what I am up to. Continue reading “Movie Review of Inglorious Basterds” →

Those Big Wheels in Space

So, I am starting to research the sci-fi story and very pleasant it is too. I was thinking about locations for the various parts of the story and remembered those ‘big wheels’ from the 60s and 70s – those things that float in space and look really good from the inside. I found out that the most popular one is called the ‘Stanford Torus‘.
You get views like this. It all looks quite utopian but of course it wouldn’t be.
Anyway I then found that in actual fact, whereas I thought these were simply figments of sci-fi writers’ minds in those days, NASA did do quite a detailed study about their viability (NASA content no longer available).

It makes interesting reading. For one thing, the cost would be astronomical – 50Bn in those days. I am not sure what that is now but I would guess at least 4 times that – so 200Bn. At first I thought – well who would fund this and why was NASA even thinking seriously about it? Perhaps, since the Cold War was still on, they were thinking about evacuating people. But actually it’s not that much. I found out yesterday that a certain City’s banks are preparing to pay out 50Bn in bonuses this year.

Now I need to start thinking about what life would be like on one of these colonies and what sort of political environment would it be. It will be interesting to think it through.

Onwards, upwards and outwards

What a relief. I managed to do a lot of editing yesterday (Sunday) and I am feeling that relief one gets when moving out from the focus on a piece of creative writing.
Actually I chopped almost 10,000 words out of the story – fairly harsh editing, but not as harsh as I would have liked. It’s just so hard to find any one part that you can completely delete. Anyway I am just working on finishing touches now – some secret codes that go on Chapter Titles and a few names left to do.

It’s strange how a name can cause you so much difficulty – the name of a detective or the name of a hero. I am still struggling over the latter although he is not the main character in the book.

This may be a short post as I can’t really say too much more without revealing too much of the plot. Anyway I am hoping to get it to a small, select group of readers this week so I can get some feedback, which will almost certainly involve some more editing.

The sci-fi story idea is going around and around in my head – quite delightfully actually. There are so many ways of telling the story – just a matter of finding the right one.

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