It won’t be too long before I’m leaving on my jaunt to Cascadia — not even two weeks from now — so now is not a good time to start writing a story. It’s always a good time, however, to brainstorm for stories! And lately … Continue readingAn Outer Solar System Odyssey: More Thoughts
Fun fact: the last archipelago of substantial size to be discovered on the Earth was the Severnaya Zemlya islands, only being noted by cartographers in 1913 (though its existence seemed to be known as early as 1810), and not charted in any detail until 1930-32. … Continue readingArctic Toponymy in my Alternate History
My latest story, which I guess I’ll title “Orphans of Opry Tower”, after the lead characters (helps that I’ve thought of it by that title for many months now), has crested 30,000 words since I started actually writing it, as opposed to conceptualizing it (see … Continue readingOrphans of Opry Tower: Now Writing
“Orphans of Opry Tower” was becoming a sad story that hit a bit too close to home, but I’ve had an inspiration: to spice it up, why not lean into it and go full goth? After all, orphans wandering into a creepy island full of … Continue readingOpry Tower: Going Goth?
I’ve been fleshing out the Orphans of Opry Tower concept, but the more I have the more I found it was transforming into a sad story that hit too close to home, instead of a fun fantasy. So my mind has wandered to my turn … Continue readingA Dance with Death
Of late I’ve returned to my “Orphans of Opry Tower” concept, showing off what’s become of Music City (a.k.a. Nashville, Tennessee) in my alternate history. Before they escape the summer heat by taking the train past the Bering Strait tunnel into Siberia, inspired by a … Continue readingRingleted Redheads of Music City
So help me, I’ve just had an inspiration. I’ve been worldbuilding and tinkering with the general concept of an extreme world dominated by ice dragons in a (somewhat) hard-science-fictional take on a medieval fantasy setting (see my original argon snow world post, plus an abortive … Continue readingIce Dragons of Antarctica
Microsoft Windows is of course the dominant operating system on the personal computer, with Linux dominating basically everything else (even smartphones; Android is based on Linux). What if that was different? I’ll go through a couple of scenarios, one hewing more closely to real life … Continue readingOperating System What-Ifs
Seems to be a month of map projections on here. Anyway, I’d like to spare a few more thoughts on gnomonic map projections, prime meridians, and the land and water hemispheres. Of Map Projections Gnomonic You might be asking “wait, what’s a gnomonic map projection?” … Continue readingMore Fun with Cartography
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