Kill the Farm Boy By Delilah Dawson & Kevin Hearne

19.11 Chosen ones are bad for the pastoral life; because generally, they don’t stay about to look after the pasture. Kings, wizards and witches alike keep things in order and interesting for the folk of Pell. On the other hand, a Chosen one is a walking revolution looking for someplace to upset the apple cart of normality. All it takes is one pixie with a plan to get the ball rolling and push a certain manure handler out of his comfort zone into the great wide world. Suddenly, this little jaunt is going to take a life of its own accumulating traveling companions and evolving into a grand adventure. At the center of it all though is the most unlikely hero –not destined for greatness, but rather curry.

-January’s meeting is on the 15th at the Simpson Library in Mechanicsburg and the book of the month is The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin. -Cover art by Jeff Young -Dear Crabby pokes holes in the dreams of extra-stuffed astronauts.

Check out the website at: watchtheskies.org or

contact us at: wtsnewsletter@gmail.com

NEW RELEASES December

TOMI ADEYEMI - Children of Virtue and Vengeance

ILONA ANDREWS - Small Magics

DEBORAH TERAMIS CHRISTIAN Splint-egrate

NEIL CLARKE & SEAN WALLACE, EDS. - Clarkesworld Magazine: Ten Years of Science Fiction & Fantasy

GENEVIEVE COGMAN - The Secret Chapter

JULIE E. CZERNEDA - A Dragon for William

HARLAN ELLISON - Ellison Under Glass

CHRISTOPHER FOWLER - Bryant & May: The Lonely Hour

MATTHEW HUGHES - What the Wind Brings

MERCEDES LACKEY - The Case of the Spellbound Child

JOE R. LANSDALE - The Sky Done Ripped

SHARON LEE & STEVE MILLER - Accepting the Lance

JOSH MALERMAN - Malorie

JOHN SCALZI - A Very Scalzi Christmas

LYNNE M. THOMAS & MICHAEL DAMIAN THOMAS, EDS. - The Best of Uncanny Magazine

JEFF VANDERMEER - Dead Astronauts

SHEILA WILLIAMS, ED. - Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine: A Decade of Hugo & Nebula Award Winning Stories 2005-2015

January

ELIZABETH BEAR - The Best of Elizabeth Bear • Subterranean Press, Jan 2020 (c, hc, eb)

ROBERT JACKSON BENNETT - Shorefall

LOIS MCMASTER BUJOLD - Penric’s Progress

C.J. CHERRYH - Resurgence

DANIEL A. COHEN - Coldmyth

EOIN COLFER - Highfire

ROD DUNCAN - The Fugitive and the Vanishing Man

S.K. DUNSTALL - Stars Beyond

WILLIAM GIBSON - Agency

TERRY GOODKIND - Heart of Black Ice

TERRY GOODKIND - Witch’s Oath

KAMERON HURLEY - The Broken Heavens

SIMON INGS - Wolves

SIMON INGS, ed. - We, Robots

JAMES PATRICK KELLY - King of the Dogs

SEANAN MCGUIRE - Come Tumbling Down

DANIEL JOSÉ OLDER - Shadowshaper Legacy

K.J. PARKER - Prosper’s Demon

ALASTAIR REYNOLDS - Bone Silence

REBECCA ROANHORSE - Race to the Sun

MICHELLE SAGARA - Cast in Wisdom

R.A. SALVATORE - Song of the Risen God

NA’AMEN GOBERT TILAHUN - The Fruit

F.C. YEE - The Iron Will of Genie Lo

DEAR CRABBY

Dear Crabby, Some people's folks tell them they can be anything they want to be, but my mum and dad

told me that my dream of being an astronaut would never be possible because they said I weigh too much and am lazy. Today I have been avenged by the European Space Agency who have said that they are considering the ways they could aid longer distance space travel utilizing a state similar to hibernation or suspended animation allowing the ships to be smaller. This isn't possible yet, but the research has already begun and follows a similar vein for methods already employed to save trauma victims. While the ships would need to be able to operate largely autonomously the crew members would have to be padded with extra body fat in advance of their trip in order to sleep through much of the 180-day journey. That means that someone like me will be more qualified since I already have some extra body fat and am very good at sleeping and laying in bed for days at a time. Add to that the amount of time I spend playing Hellion and I'm sure to win a place on the first ship to take on such travel. How do you think I should break it to my parents that they were so wrong about me all these years?

Rocket Man

Oh, Rocket Man...I think you should tell your parents simply that for Christmas you're

going to finally move out of their house. I think the sheer joy of that will override any other news you could share. I'm glad that you've held onto your dream, buddy, and I personally would be thrilled to see you leave this earth behind. I do have to wonder though if you've considered that being able to say you're great in bed because you can sleep all day on your resume is really going to make up for all that math and science I think you probably dodge during your many years in high school? I also think it's going to be a long, long time till touch down brings you round again to find you aren't the man you think you are at all. Still, I really do hope someone straps a rocket to your butt and sends you off into the heavens...I just wish you'd take more people with you when it happened.

I'll await the Earth-shattering Kaboom eagerly. Crabby https://apnews.com/201ad6dfcbb04eff845d95456805ba90

Philcon 2019

I am always happy to be asked to be a participant at the convention put on by the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society. I was given a couple of different panels to be part of and I stepped out and took on my own panel for the first time ever. It's very easy after years of participation to become jaded and treat an event like this as work, so it was nice to shake things up a little. Attendance this year felt light. I had the opportunity to chat with a few vendors I know, and they seemed to get the same feeling. Even the book launch party wasn't as crowded as an event like that normally is. That being said, the majority of people I spoke to had an excellent weekend. There were some that had a less than stellar experience. Putting the conventions rules and posted policies to the test is never the way you want to spend a con weekend. I was sad to see this happen, but it was something that only affected me tangentially. Programs had a couple of little hiccups. IF I hadn't loaded up the schedule app on my phone I wouldn't have found out about the change in my schedule. Given the number of panelists, requests, rules and topics I'm a bit surprised this sort of thing doesn't happen more often. Speaks well of the program staff, I think. I was able to get it sorted out easily – no real fuss. I got to talk about introducing people to board games, introducing people to urban fantasy, methods for finding new authors along with a solo panel. That's right, me and only me! My first ever solo panel Rosie or the Roomba was well attended – despite being scheduled at ten in the morning on Sunday. I had the room to myself as nothing was scheduled ahead of me and I was thankful for the extra set up time. Bringing my own multi-media presentation was a bit of a challenge, but the technology end worked out very cleanly and neatly. I got a number of insightful questions and some very sharp consideration from the folks that attended the panel. I consider it a success and will likely attempt to do the panel again for another convention. One of my favorite parts of this year was a young artist displaying in the art show. This young person wanted interaction and posted a handmade sign up with his art to say so. I'm not an Instagram person, but if you are you should head over and check out the work of @eanr'sart over there. I know at least one of this artist's pictures was snapped up and taken home. I suspect a taste of success will continue to bring this artist back.

By Eric V. Hardenbrook

AVAILABLE NOW

Sciency Stuff

Sunnyvale sounds like the hometown of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but in reality, it’s the home of a new kind of drone that could help identify true killers—earthquakes. Liquid Robotics created a drone called the Wave Glider and this device could be more effective and a great deal cheaper than our current method of watching over subduction zones (the edge of one crustal plate plunging under another) where earthquakes can begin. The Wave Glider consists of a surface element, 3 meters long and a subsurface element which is 8 meters below the surface. The underwater portion consists a tube full of oscillating fins whose motion in the waves helps power the drone. There are also solar cells on the surface element whose charge is used to power both sensors and guidance to allow the drone to stay on track. Right now, we use a system of acoustic beacons on the sea floor, a ship above them to intercept their signals and GPS satellites to fix the positions of the ship. That can get expensive when an expedition can cost as much as $50k a day. On the other hand, the Wave Glider is almost self-sufficient. Successful tests have already run for 40 continuous days. The Glider is also nearly silent compared to the ships and therefore creates little interference. The National Science Foundation has already sunk $5.5 million into the idea. The money will fund 16 seafloor beacons and three drones to monitor them. Given the severity of the Tohoku earthquake, Japan is investing heavily into detection and has spent over $3 billion dollars on a system that will next year consist of 27 stations with groups of beacons. The drones, whose operating costs work out to about $500 a day could make a significant difference and allow for a greater coverage if the same amount were invested. Other GPS stations are set up on land and using both types more complete images of the activity along both subduction zones and seams (where spreading occurs) allow scientists to predict the severity and timing of earthquakes. Obviously, the more detection networks we can field, the greater warning we have, and the Wave Glider could be a game changer.

AVAILABLE NOW

Tillyer’s News of the High Frontier November 2019

-Why exactly would you want to try to bio-print beef on the ISS? Well, hardworking astronauts are probably ready for something tasty. What Aleph Farms accomplished, unfortunately for the crew, while successful, was more of a proof of concept rather than a repast. While Aleph agrees that there are certainly more people on Earth who would benefit from the technology, there were certainly some convincing reasons to try out the technology in orbit. One is rather simple, to be truly effective, the bioprinting shouldn’t be dependent on an excessive amount of resources in order to be successful. Want to limit your resources—space is certainly the place. Another reason is zero gravity. Most 3D printing on Earth takes place in layers and its not to say that Aleph’s process doesn’t work that way, but rather that the layers are not horizontal. Zero gee allows for the cells to be added from all sides simultaneously. Take all of this one step further and suddenly we’re talking about burgers on your space yacht, ok since we said yacht, perhaps filet mignon instead. Here’s good news, it’s not all yeast and algae for you! Perfecting the process not only presents an opportunity for food for long trips in space, it may also increase our ability to feed the hungry on Earth. -As we think about going into space and staying longer, we’ll probably need to consider whether or not some of our favorites might make the transition. To that thought (and certainly with a bit more practical intent), the astronauts aboard the ISS will be baking 5 chocolate chip cookies. Now, it’s more about the oven than the cookies, since every bit of food sent up to the station is already prepared for them and heated by food warmers. The space oven is the result of cooperation between cookie makers Double Tree, space-outfitter NanoRacks and a small New York company called ZeroGKitchen, who hopes to pioneer zero g ovens. Most of our cookies are baked using convection where the hot air rising off of the heating coils brings the oven area to a temperature that allows things to bake. The convection idea falls apart when there’s limited amounts of gravity. The space over heats by contact instead where the cookies are inside of a cylindrical oven where the baking space is heated by electrical coils. That means that each of the five cookies planned to be baked will be done one at a time. Instead of one sheet, the cookies will be baked between to

silicon trays and there is some speculation and curiosity regarding their final shape since gravity won’t be there to make them flatten out when they are done. Of course, just like the beef article above, experiments in space can always teach us about new ways to do things on Earth. Finally, the sad part—nobody up there is going to enjoy those cookies. Three will be sent back down for review and two will be put in the garbage. Nobody wants the crew literally tossing their cookies. On the bright side though, Double Tree will be sending up prebaked cookies!

2019 World Fantasy Award Winners

Best Novel – Witchmark – C.L. Polk

Best Novella – “The Privilege of the Happy Ending” – Kij Johnson

Best Short Fiction (Tie) - “Ten Deals with the indigo Snake” – Mel Kassel - “Like a River Loves the Sky” – Emma Törzs

Best Anthology – Worlds Seen in Passing – ed. Irene Gallo

Best Collection – The Tangled Lands – Paolo Bacigalupi and Tobias Bucknell

Best Artist – Rovina Cai

Special Award Professional – The Writer’s Map: An Atlas of Imaginary Lands – Huw Lewis-Jones

Special Award Non-Professional – Beneath Ceaseless Skies – Scott H. Andrews

Lifetime Achievement Awards – Hayao Miyazaki and Jack Zipes

AVAILABLE NOW

http://www.watchtheskies.org/