The Handmaid’s TaleBy Margaret AtwoodBy Margaret Atwood

17.5Offred’s place has been determined for her. She will bear the children forthe Commander whose wife cannot. Children are everything and many willdo everything they can to have a child, including reducing Offred to a thing.But she remembers a past before the beginning of Gilead and itsconstricting and demeaning ways. In time when everything she does iswatched, knowing that there were alternatives, makes her want to act outand take chances. Even if getting caught does mean death, she is stillwilling to rebel in little ways. But her situation is changing. Her Commanderis pushing her to accept hidden freedoms while his wife is desperate to gether pregnant by other means. How long can she carry on before she’sinevitably discovered? And when they come for her, will anyone lift a handto save her?

-Cover art by Eric V. Hardenbrook-Dear Crabby -Next month’s book is

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AVAILABLE 5-26-17

NEW RELEASES May 2017

Aaronovitch, Ben - The Furthest Station Barnes, Steven - Twelve Days Baxter, Stephen - Xeelee: VengeanceBishop, Michael - Other Arms Reach Out to Me: Thirteen Georgia StoriesBoyett, Steven R., & Ken Mitchroney - Fata Morgana Brooks, Terry - The Black Elfstone Chen, Curtis C. - Kangaroo Too Cooper, Brenda - Wilders Crowley, John - Totalitopia Datlow, Ellen, ed. - The Best Horror of the Year, Volume Nine Gilligan, Elizabeth - Sovereign Silk Goss, Theodora - The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter Gunn, James -Transformation Holt, Tom - The Management Style of the Supreme Beings Hook, Andrew, ed. - Elasticity: The Best of Elastic PressHorton, Rich, ed. - The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy: 2017 Edition Huff, Tanya - A Peace Divided Irvine, Ian - The Fatal Gate Jeter, K. W. - Grim Expectations Jones, Stephen Graham - Mapping the Interior Kadrey, Richard - The Kill Society Koontz, Dean - The Silent Corner Lackey, Mercedes - A Scandal in Battersea Lam, Laura - Shattered Minds Lee, Yoon Ha - Raven Stratagem McGuire, Seanan - Down Among the Sticks and Bones Morrow, James - The Asylum of Dr. Caligari Newman, Emma - All Good Things Parker, K. J. - Mightier than the Sword Peek, Ben - The Eternal Kingdom Robinson, Frank M. - Not So Good a Gay Man Scott, Donna, and ed. - The Best of British Science Fiction: 2016 Smith, Michael Marshall - Hannah Green and her Unfeasibly Mundane Existence Spark, Anna Smith - The Court of Broken Knives Stephenson, Neal, & Nicole Galland - The Rise and Fall of D. O. D. O. Valente, Catherynne M. - The Refrigerator Monologues Williams, Tad - The Witchwood Crown

Balticon 515-26 thru 5-29

The Renaissance Hotel, Baltimore Inner HarborUpdate—sadly, due to health conditions, Guest of Honor Eric Flint will not be able to attend the convention. The 1632 Mini-con will still proceed as planned. Eric will teleconference in for certain activities. BSFS was also able to convince author Stephen Brust to attend as a Special Guest. Brust is well known for his Draegara series. In further guest announcements, S.M. Stirling will also be attending as a Special Guest. Stirling is best known for his Nantucket and Emberverse series. There will be two book launches of note at the convention. eSpec books will be launching Man and Machine, If We Had Known and The Dieis Cast. Fantastic Books and Fortress Publishing will be collaborating to launch The Biggest Bounty, Non-Parallel Universes and TV Gods—Summer Programming.

COMPTON CROOK AWARD 2017The Baltimore Science Fiction Society recently announced the winner for

the 2017 Compton Crook Award: Too Like Lightning—Ada Palmer. She will receive her award during the opening ceremonies for Balticon 51 on 5-26-17.

SCIFI SATURDAYWatch the Skies once again participated in Carlisle High Schools event and gaveaway more than 120 books. We also donated a gift basket to be raffled off thatcontained Dr. Who bookends, a sonic screwdriver, 4 books and 3 DVDs as well asother odds and ends. We also donated several items to Garrison Carrida of the501st. Finally, we met lots of enthusiastic young people- the whole reason forthe day.

DEAR CRABBYDear Crabby,

With Mother's Day just around the corner, I wanted to do something special for my mom. I mean really special. I asked to take her out for the day. Just the two of us. I planned out a wonderful day of fun for us and when I told her about the plan and asked her to spend the day with me she was less than thrilled. I wanted to take her to see the matinee for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 followed by lunch at this nice little restaurant that has this killer Star Trek vibe to it with burgers named after characters and ships from the show. Then I wanted to take her to a day at Marcon to see the sites and maybe take in a panel or two, tool around the dealer's room, maybe listen to some Filk, and definitely see the masquerade. She turned me down flat. Said she didn't want to waste her Saturday watching a bunch of grownups play pretend and "at 36 years of age, Pat, the best gift you could give me would be to clean up your room, mow the lawn, make dinner and take your gaming group to someone else's house for a change." I'm heartbroken. Why doesn't my mom love me enough to spend a day with me?

Heartsick

Dear Headache,Your mother obviously loves you very much or she would have clubbed

you like a baby seal by now. I know that I would have. If she didn't love you then she wouldn't let you live in her house and from the sounds of it not do anything a responsible adult would do. Buy the woman flowers for Mother's Day like a normal kid, for God's sake! She might want to spend the day with you, although, there is no accounting for taste. What she clearly doesn't want to do is spend the day that's supposed to be all about her doing what you want to do then returning home to cook for you and clean up your messes as normal. Really it doesn't seem like too much to ask. So, stop blowing snot bubbles, pull your head out of that dark orifice of yours, and treat your mother right numbnuts.

This is why I never wanted children,Crabby

AVAILABLE NOW

SCIENCY STUFF-Iron is very important to our society. Just imagine where we’d be without it or it’s antecedent, steel. But it’s also important to your body, primarily because it helps to change sugar to energy for our cells as well as transporting oxygen. So, if your body has issues with iron, too little or too much, that’s a very serious problem. Also it’s hardto treat because the issue is usually a protein that is not there or working incorrectly, whereas medicine either blocks or alters said the ordinary proteins behavior. Enter Martin Burke a researcher who began with yeast cells created without the means for usual iron transport and then looked for molecules that could help the process occur. Right now hinokitiol is the number one contender having produced excellent results inthe lab. Derived from the hinoki, native to Taiwan, the substance has produced surprising results. Three hinokitiol molecules fasten to an iron and the outside of the composite is easily absorbed into cells aiding the transport of iron. Essentially, the hinokitiol becomes a molecular prosthesis for the missing or damaged proteins. Burke believes that hinokitiol could be used to help diseases like anemia, cystic fibrosis and lupus. -Sometimes it’s not what’s in the foreground, but rather in the background that makespeople speculate. Many are familiar with Edvard Munch’s painting The Scream, primarily due to the central image of the open mouthed figure. But others are looking at the background, in particular the clouds. One theory goes that the reds and orangesthat are prevalent were inspired by the sunsets resulting from the Krakatoa eruption. However, a new theory has come to light – an unusual weather phenomenon called Mother of Pearl Clouds could be what Munch was trying to portray. These stratospheric clouds, also known as Nacreous Clouds require a very unique set of circumstances: high humidity, extreme cold, very thin cloud layers and sunset or sunrise. The result is very striking and looks like smeared bands of color. So meteorologists believe that the rarity of the event and the uniqueness of the clouds would have made a lasting impression on the artist.-Congratulations, artificial meat is arriving – but which government is going to regulateit? Memphis Meats produced what it is calling Clean Poultry, chicken and duck meat produced from cultured cells and hopes to have it on the shelf in 5 years. Another company, Perfect Day expects to have dairy products (made without the cow) out for consumption by the end of this year. The issue is that who is in charge of regulating these products is unclear. The FDA usually approves biologics and the USDA approves meat, eggs and poultry. Right now the process of deciding is still going on. In the past, marketing was usually done to align a new product with something already marked as safe. Perfect Day’s products are comparable to natural components that are already regulated, so they can make a case that their whole product should be safe because what it’s made of are already regulated. It’s merely a case of how the product is made,rather than the building blocks. The question does still remain – who puts the stamp ofapproval on the package.

AVAILABLE NOW

Tillyer’s News of the High FrontierMay 2017

-Martian bricks could be pretty amazing. We are planning on going to Mars.We’ve been talking about staying there. But some people have been doing morethan just that with surprising results. Taking soil that is very similar to that ofMars, scientists are making bricks that are stronger than steel reinforcedconcrete. The important part is they are only using compression to make thesebricks. That means that all of the worries about the costs of moving materials toMars, using exotic methods or chemicals to produce building materials could bereplaced by—pressure. But why does that work? Apparently, the iron oxide(which is the reason Mars is so reddish colored) acts as agent to bond the soilparticles together. Over the years many artists have imagined many fancifulideas for our future outposts on Mars, oddly enough most never consideredbricks as the building blocks…

-Made in Space has a new tool that could help us build structures in space calledan Archinaut. Their first version, the Ulisses will have a 3D printer and threearms with various instruments and tools built into them. The idea is that Ulissesprints the building blocks of the structure: struts, connectors, etc from itscentral printer. The arms built attached around the outside of the central massthen assemble the pieces. Since this is being done in zero gravity, there will besome challenges built the benefits quickly out weigh them since we can builtvery large structures. Also since the pieces will be printed, they will have dataand electrical connections and wiring already built in. The cost of importing thematerials for printing is still a consideration, but imagine an army of theseArchinauts at work. We could end up with one of 2001’s rotating wheelcolonies. But Made in Space doesn’t want to stop there; they have anothermodel call ed the Dilo. This unit will assemble piece by piece a large reflectiveparasol with itself at the center using its single arm. There are a number ofpossible uses: radio dish, solar reflector (soletta), or perhaps even a solar sail. IfMade in Space sounds familiar, it’s because they were the manufacturer of thefirst 3D printer taken to the International Space Station. It’s obvious theyhaven’t just been resting on their laurels and also because NASA gave them a 20million dollar contract to develop some of their Archinaut concepts.

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