A thought just popped into my head that I had to share with you: in worldbuilding or in real-life geography maps are all-important, like the fish we swim in, yet relatively few dive into map projections, the art of representing a three-dimensional globe on a … Continue readingOf Map Projections Obscure
Rather famously, the western United States have rather arbitrary borders, boxy figures defined by parallels and meridians, which has had the rather hideous consequence of placing e.g. very different regions separated by 14,000-foot tall mountains in the same state (Colorado, I’m looking at you). More … Continue readingBuilding Better Western States
Saudi Arabia has its vision for Neom, The Line, a futuristic linear city, but I think we can do far better right here in America: why not a Pacific Coast City, a contiguous urban corridor on the immediate coast of California? Coastal California is one … Continue readingLet’s Build Pacific Coast City!
I know I just made a blog post about a story concept of mine (plus an earlier one!), to the extent my posts on the subject might be longer than the actual story! Though we’ll see about that. I’ve been doing some more thinking, and … Continue readingChristmas in Americasia?
I’ve been doing some more brainstorming for the story concept I outlined in my post “A Slice of Life at the Dawn of the Space Age”. I had a bit of an inspiration: why can’t the reclusive landlord (who will have a pale ghostly pallor … Continue readingChristmas Night, Rocket Night, Magic Night
You might have heard of the Aral Sea and its “ships of the desert”. Where there once was seafloor, now there’s only dust; where there once was thriving fish and birds, now there’s only toxic clouds. All the casualty of diversion for agriculture, a plague … Continue readingThe Inland Seas in my Sci-Fi Setting
Making daylight saving time permanent, i.e. the “Sunshine Protection Act”? Blech. What we really need is to make standard time permanent; in the spirit of the rather propagandistic moniker springing forward for good goes by these days, I’ll call my solution of falling back for … Continue readingFor a Darkness Protection Act
“What?” you might ask: “Third Rome? Viking Tsars? Russian Turan?” I’m talking, of course, about what happens in the Russian sphere of influence in my alternate timeline, the history all of my science-fiction and space opera stories, from the 20th century to over a thousand … Continue readingThird Rome, Viking Tsars, Russian Turan, and Beyond
Well, I thought the war scare (as I put it) between Russia and Ukraine was just that: a scare. But the war scare, alas, is now war. So far Russia seems to be winning, but we’re less than a week into Putin’s “special military operation” … Continue readingRedrawing the Map of Ukraine?
What if I had a country to call my own, one that belonged to me, my very own answer to the Principalities of Liechtenstein or Monaco? First and foremost I’d want it to be a refuge of liberty, a free society where the best of … Continue readingIf I Had a Country