Random Tech Bits and a Book Update

Just a quick post today with some tech news from around the web.

As far as writing updates go, I'm about one-sixth of the way into the rough draft of Chronopticus Rising. All I will say at this point is that it will involve lots of clocks, a mayor on the run, and a megalomaniac who thinks he can control people through big data. The book will also build on many of the events in Fractal Standard Time and Ionotatron. If you have not had a chance to pick up either book, they are available right now over at Amazon.com.

If you are into storm chasing, here is a quick short story, Dust in the Whirlwind, which is sort of a lead-in to the upcoming novel, Race the Sky. Dust in the Whirlwind is also available on iTunes and should show up soon on Barnes and Noble. On to the tech news...

I found a recent article that talked about 3D printed food...as a means (for now) of helping older people digest their meals. For some reason, the phrases "mechanically separated" and "partially reconstituted" come to mind when reading this article. Will we then also see microwave meals that declare their contents are "not from concentrate"?

Here is another 3D technology of interest. It's called the "MisTable" because it is a tabletop display that works with a curtain of mist or fog and some type of projection technology. Here is a video demonstration of it.

In storm chasing news, a few videos have appeared over the past few months in reference to the El Reno storm from last year. I'm not sure if I posted these before, but here is one with some great analysis, and two others documenting the storm here and here.

Audio Versions Available

I've just made some audio versions of my short stories available along with the opening chapters from several novels.

Selections currently include: Dust in the Whirlwind, The Last Holdout (from Horizons), Snowbound (from Horizons), A Moveable Peace (from Corridors), In Remembrance of Simplicity (from Corridors), the opening chapter from Theft at the Speed of Light, and the opening chapter from An Echo Through the Trees. The opening chapter of Ionotatron is also available, along with the first chapter from the non-fiction work, Gathering the Wind.

Check out the new audio page here. As time goes on, I'll add more content.

I'd Rather Be Writing About Storms

I'm at a peculiar point in the writing of the last book of the Chronopticus Chonicles trilogy. I'm nearly finished with the outline of the book and will likely start in on the rough draft this week. The book has a lot of interesting elements and storylines to it...many of which were set up in the two previous books, Fractal Standard Time and Ionotatron. There are also a lot of clock references involved. The plot moves along at a steady, escalating pace, new details are revealed about characters in the first two books, and many of these characters learn to work together to take on a menacing threat to their existence.

So why I would I rather be writing something else?

First, it's been a long, long, winter in the part of the country. Like, twenty-degrees-below-normal-for-most-of-the-winter long. So when the snow melts it's not exactly a conducive evironment for writing.

Second, storm season is just around the corner. I wrote a quick storm-related short story, Dust in the Whirlwind, which will be arriving on the iTunes and Barnes & Noble shortly. Although this story will later become part of a bigger short story collection, The Tesseract Rose, it is also a lead-in to the stormchasing novel I have on the drawing board...Race the Sky. And, to be blunt, I'd rather be working on that at this moment due to the change in weather.

It doesn't help that I've always wanted to write Race the Sky during the spring (or at least the final version of it, since I've already written two versions of it but will not be publishing those). Although I don't have an outline written for it yet, I know the general story and have the characters pretty much figured out. It's possible that after I finish the rough draft of this current project, I'll switch over and write the outline of Race the Sky. Time will tell, I guess.

In other news, I do plan on posting a bunch of audio versions of my short stories and opening chapters of some of my other novels over on my main website. More on that shortly...