Oct 12 2008

About

Published by

Welcome to T-Space (and other universes)

So what, some of you are asking, is T-Space? Well, aside from this website, T-Space is the name for the region of human-explored space in the world in which many of my stories are set. It stands for “terraform (or terraformed) space”, so called because we find that many of the nearby star systems have Earthlike worlds, and they’ve been engineered to be that way. Worse (for the scientists trying to figure it out, but not for everyone else), the lifeforms on these planets all seem to be genetic offshoots of life that existed on Earth sixty to seventy million years ago. But before you jump to the obvious conclusion, no, there are no dinosaurs, or any evidence of them (at least, not so far). T-Space itself is roughly forty lightyears in diameter, centered on the Sun. Starships are relatively common, but small — the Alcubierre-Broek equations which govern the warp drive also put an upper limit on its size (and BTW, I’m not making this up). That size limit also restricts the fuel carried (for the fusion generator which powers the warp), so there’s a range limit of roughly a dozen lightyears (depending on ship design) before refueling.

This website is a mix of stuff about T-Space (stories, snippets, and background); about the real universe we all share (there’s a lot of fascinating stuff going on in the real world — where do you think we SF writers get our crazy ideas?), and occasional blurbs, snippets or discussion about some of my other story universes — or others’ universes (within the bounds of copyrights and permissions, of course).
For aspiring writers, there’s discussion and links to some of the things I’ve learned or found useful along the way. Come on in.

Site Redesign

NB I’m in the process of re-implemented the feedback system — the old one rankly sucked — to make it easier for you to comment or participate in discussions.
If you’re reading this you’re looking at the new system. I’ve copied content over from the old and there may be the odd corner of the site with style quirks. Feel free to point out any errors or problems, thanks.

13 comments so far

13 Responses to “About”

  1. dodoon 22 Mar 2009 at 5:06 pm

    beautiful blog merciiiii

  2. Joey Jordanon 25 Apr 2009 at 10:22 pm

    Excellent site Alastair! I am enjoying reading all of the interesting sections you have here.

  3. Alastairon 07 May 2009 at 1:01 pm

    Thanks Joey, glad you like it.

    I just need to make a point of updating more frequently. 😉

  4. Rick Roszkoon 19 Jun 2017 at 11:02 pm

    Hi,

    I ran across your post on Ars…

    https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/04/feds-deliver-fatal-blow-to-botnet-that-menaced-world-for-7-years/?comments=1

    … and you have a short story “Small Penalties” which I thought was brilliant. And timely.

    I would like permission to make a short film on it.

    It won’t be a “money maker” by any stretch of the imagination but a it would be a “study in fun”. After completion, I’ll just submit it to film fests. You will of course get “Story By” credit. If you also want to do the script, you will also get “Written by” credit. (And if you are into sci-fi cons, and the film gets accepted into them, it would be free passes to the entire lot that accepts the film…)

    If I should make any money, we can do a 50/50 split. Again, it would be more notoriety than monetary gain I think…

    What do you think? Yes? No? Maybe? I need “movie rights” to your film so as to not infringe on your copyright.

    So as to not think I am not serious and/or a waste of your time, I did https://allyourbaselol.com/ – eight film fests…

    On the other hand, if you would like to sell the movie rights outright and forget anything else, please do name a price. I don’t want to do anything your don’t want to do, or pressure you into anything. Or you can just say, “no”.

    Otherwise, again, I am all for fun, and if we should ‘accidentally’ make any money, you get half 🙂

    Good, bad or ugly,

    Rick

  5. adminon 21 Jun 2017 at 8:56 pm

    Rick,

    Thanks for your kind words and interest in “Small Penalties”.

    You’ve certainly intrigued me. Let’s move this discussion to email. I’ll contact you.

    -Alastair

  6. Steve Garciaon 07 Mar 2018 at 1:54 am

    Alastair, I noticed in Eridani Convergence a LOT of editing errors. Missing words. Extra words. Stuff a spell checker may have missed.

    If you are in need of an editor for such things/proofreader, I might be available, at a reasonable rate. It is not something I do. But it was very annoying in this book. Way too many. Your grammar standards dropped a bit on this one. So it occurs to me to offer my services…

    I enjoy Jackie and Carson. You are not the greatest writer, sorry, but then neither was Hemingway. And you certainly are not close to the worst. And there isn’t enough of your kind of sci-fi, so I am happy to have found your books. Your books are entertaining for me, and that is enough for me.

    I was a sometime checker in engineering, so I am used to pointing out errors, with no ego involved or need to be right. You would always have the final say. Your name goes on the books, after all.

    If you already have a proofreeader, that person let you down on this book, IMHO.

    (Hehehe, I hate this Samsung keypad and have not found one that works well for me. Stubby fingertips. Mis-hits a LOT. So, if there are any typos, I blame the keypad!)

    Sincerely yours,
    Steve Garcia
    Guanajuato, Gto, Mexico.

    V.P. Engineering (retired)
    Triangle Technologies, Inc
    Streamwood, IL

  7. adminon 04 Apr 2018 at 9:23 pm

    Steve (and everyone else),

    My sincere apologies for the errors in The Eridani Convergence. The final publishing phase was rushed. That’s not an excuse. It was my fault for delays in finishing the manuscript and some late changes I made, so I rushed my editor.

    I will have an updated version with corrections out shortly, I’d be happy to send you a copy. And thank you for your offer. As it happens, I have another reader lined up for future books, and I’ll make sure she has enough time to do her job before release date.

    I’m glad you’ve enjoyed the books so far, the next will be better.

  8. Dennison 14 Mar 2018 at 5:20 pm

    Hi,

    Not sure if this is the correct place to post this, but…

    I have read the prequel trilogy and now am reading The Reticuli Deception after finishing The Chara Talisman. And I have a question about how shipboard fusion reactors work in the T-Space universe.

    In the first books, I believe it is mentioned that the Solid State Fusion Reactor uses deuterium, not regular hydrogen. While in the second trilogy taking place 50 or so years later, it appears that the ships are using regular hydrogen and not deuterium. While one can get deuterium from ice on a moon or in stream water I suppose, it would take a long time to filter it from the regular water. And just putting water in the tanks because it holds more hydrogen than pure hydrogen would mean filling them with heavy water, not regular water. So again, more filtering.

    From wikipedia: “…ordinary water (the “ordinary water” used for a deuterium standard) contains only about 156 deuterium atoms per million hydrogen atoms, meaning that 0.0156% of the hydrogen atoms are of the heavy type.”

    That’s a LOT of refining of regular water just to get deuterium.

    So, question: Do the ships later on use regular hydrogen for fusion…say for a protium-boron11 reaction or possibly protium-helium3? And if so, why don’t the ships require fueling up boron/helium3 as well? The crews are just filling them with water/hydrogen (again, presumably for the D-D reactions), it seems.

    Thanks,

    – Dennis

  9. adminon 04 Apr 2018 at 9:02 pm

    Dennis, thanks for your insightful comments and question (and sorry for the delayed reply). You’re not wrong.

    Yes, the early solid-state fusors go with the “easy” D-D reaction, so need a deuterium supply. They later refine the technology to allow P-P fusion. As you probably know, that isn’t at all easy. By doing a multi-step reaction, though, you can combine 4 protons to a helium nucleus, catalyzed by carbon, nitrogen and oxygen. This isn’t easy either, but it is easier, and means you don’t need to refuel with boron or helium-3.

    The fusor is necessarily highly complex, and involves nanotech-level fabrication. Putting it very crudely, the nuclei are carefully channeled and confined so they have better chance of overcoming the Coulomb barrier at lower energies (similar to how muon-catalyzed fusion works). It also incorporates some of the space-bending technology of the warp modules. (After all, we know gravitational confinement works, grin.)

    I didn’t want to bog down the narrative with too much detail, but I should probably put the above up on the wiki. Whether or not such a thing is actually possible is another question, but it’s at least (I hope) plausible. Good question, thanks again.

  10. Aaronon 12 Jun 2023 at 10:53 am

    So I got the Alpha Centauri: First Landing from a recent Story Bundle. Love it, want to keep reading, but I only buy epub format and I don’t use Kindle for buying from Amazon. So where the heck do I buy your other books from? This is a real major problem. Even self-publishing your own epub would be great. I know it’s not just as simple, but these days doesn’t seem like it’ll be too horribly difficult these days. Obviously there was an epub for StoryBundle.

    Might not check this at all, so if you are able to, emailing me back would be soooooo much easier.

  11. adminon 13 Dec 2023 at 11:31 am

    I plan to make more of my work available to a wider audience soon. Meanwhile, (unless you have a philosophical objection,) the free software program “Calibre” (https://calibre-ebook.com/) does a pretty good job of converting Kindle format to other formats, or you could use the free Kindle-reader software (from Amazon) for smartphone or PC.

  12. Ron Illingworthon 13 Dec 2023 at 1:38 am

    I just finished reading your short story “Roadside Assistance” in the collection The Expanding Universe 9. I am a long time SF enthusiast as well as a retired Air Force vet having spent 20 years in aircraft maintenance on the KC-135 and the B-52. Your story is one of the VERY few I have read that accurately reflects the problems and solutions that one might encounter, both from the pilot perspective and from the mechanics perspective. Well Done!!

  13. adminon 13 Dec 2023 at 11:26 am

    Thank you for your kind words, I’m glad you enjoyed the story. Comments like yours make the effort I put into stories all the more worthwhile.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS

Leave a Reply