selenite0: (Been what I chose)
This is the journal of author and engineer Karl Gallagher.

My novel Torchship is now available on Amazon, both ebook and paper. The audiobook edition will be available in March 2016.
A captain who’ll take any job if there’s enough money in it.

A pilot with an agenda of her own.

And a mechanic with an eye on the pilot.

The crew of the Fives Full are just trying to make enough money to keep themselves in the black while avoiding the attention of a government so paranoid it’s repealed Moore’s Law. They’re not looking for adventure in the stars . . . but they’re not going to back down just because something got in their way.

Cover of Torchship


If you're new here there's some posts I'd like to share.

Requirements Kill: How projects can be ruined by the sheer number of requirements on them.

Feeds, Seeds, and Gray Goo: Nanotechnological manufacturing will be driven by logistics--and that's what keeps the "gray goo" scenario from being a real danger.

Other engineering essays:
The issues with engineering as a career, the problems with engineering education, and how to become an engineer if you just can't resist it. The reasons to avoid government projects. Don't be this kind of whistleblower. Why licensing software engineers is a bad idea. Even in fiction it's hard to keep ahead of advancing technology.


Analyzing specific spacecraft: Rocketplane's tourist design, the hypothetical Blackstar RLV, and off-equator space elevators.

Medical doctrine: I have issues with the childhood vaccination schedule and the innumeracy of medical researchers. They're not all bad though.

I've written a few pieces of fanfic and a whole bunch of book reviews.

Playing MMOs has gotten me thinking about how we could use one to test changes to our real world and what would be the signs that we're actually living in a simulation.

I've written a few things specifically about World of Warcraft. A rant on the brainpower needed for tanks to taunt mobs. A missing piece of backstory on the Defias. A suggestion for monetizing add-ons within the Blizzard rules. Reflections on how much more the Horde storyline focuses on PvP. And a discussion of how the Iliad would look in WoW terms.

My opinions on war and politics have been given a blog of their own.
selenite0: (tell me a story)
Getting about on the Moon is hard enough without some stranger cutting a LOX line.

New story on Substack.
selenite0: (tell me a story)
No matter how nasty the predator, it keeps other species in balance.

Short story on SubStack.
selenite0: (tell me a story)
Promising a cure-even hinting at a cure-will inflame the desperate.

New story on Substack.
selenite0: (Beware the Engineer)
New technology enables new surprises—sometimes very big surprises.

Story on substack.
selenite0: (clear)
A dead cosmonaut.
A lunar base full of suspects.
Two visitors find themselves investigating a murder.

New story: "Deputized"
selenite0: (fighting candlestickmakers)
3/6 - 13.5 min walk after lunch
3/12 - five Tibetan rites x7
3/15 - plow driveway
3/16 - 15 min walk after lunch
3/17 - shovel snow
3/18 - shovel snow
3/19 - talk - stand for two hours
3/23 - five Tibetan rites x7, 2 min back stretch
3/29 - five Tibetan rites x7, 2 min back stretch
3/31 - lift weights 20x side/front/up
selenite0: (tell me a story)
Freed from the Censor's rule, people can read old books. Now they have to decide what to do with them.

New story on Substack.

This story stands alone but is set after my novel War By Other Means, now on sale
selenite0: (kids)
The Amish are having many more babies than our mainstream culture. Eventually they'll be the only ones left.

New story on Substack.
selenite0: (tell me a story)
In burial at sea, the body goes away, never to be seen again.

In space, anything orbiting comes back.

New short story.
selenite0: (tell me a story)
Some inventions improve the world. Some make it worse. Possibly much worse.

New story on SubStack.
selenite0: (tell me a story)
As the interstellar war draws to a close, a gunnery officer is drawn into deciding what the fate of the enemy will be.

Story on Substack.
selenite0: (mad science)
Scientists who've seen those movies will avoid those mistakes. They'll make their own mistakes.

New story on Substack.
Escapee Promo Image
selenite0: (tell me a story)
Just released: War By Other Means, book 7 in The Fall of the Censor series.

Cover of War By Other Means

Dozens of worlds have been liberated from the oppression of the Censorate. The only thing they agree on is hating the Censor. Newly appointed ambassador Wynny Landry must convince her neighbors to cooperate—and prevent them from being taken over by a new oppressive regime.
It’s not going to be easy. The Mulians hate the Falxians. The Lompocans can’t get along with each other. The Fierans want some payback for the effort they put into liberating other worlds. And the ex-Censorate governor who brought his whole province into the rebellion keeps showing up when not expected—or wanted. She’d lean on her husband, if he wasn’t missing in action at the front.
Wynny needs to talk the rebels into keeping their guns aimed at the Censor, while hopefully smoothing over the worst of the conflicts. All she has to work with is her parent-in-laws’ ship, her adopted clanfolk, and trade deals for excess missiles. If it’s not enough, the rebellion will fall apart—and the Censor will return, out for blood.


Available on Amazon as ebook or paperback.

If you want to check out the start of the series, see the whole thing here.
selenite0: (Bujold--book is an event)
An empire which bans all the good books will find the readers among its subjects eager to break the law.

A new story on Substack.
selenite0: (Default)
Saturn's moon Titan has plenty of hydrocarbons. Exporting them to the rest of the Solar System is . . . difficult.

Hard SF story of maintenance in the outer Solar System.
selenite0: (tell me a story)
Working stiffs far from Earth find something interesting. How are they going to get the right people interested in it?

Story on Substack.
selenite0: (tell me a story)
New story posted:
True AI allows better support for child rearing. That doesn't mean the NannyBot can carry the whole load.
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