Eclipse Chronicles, past and future
The Lampworks Lamplighter SF & Fantasy News & Reviews
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In this issue
Eclipse Chronicles
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you probably know that an eclipse will sweep across the United States on April 8. It’s going to just miss our hometown, so we’re going to drive a couple of hours, have a nice weekend visiting lakes and vineyards, and then set up on Monday to view the cosmic show.
I’ve been to two eclipses in my life. My wife and I took a cruise around Hawaii to see the one that crossed the islands. We were Tri-Valley Stargazers Astronomy Club members at the time, and it seemed that half the club was scattered somewhere across the Big Island that day. We saved up for the cruise since we were celebrating my wife’s recently-earned PhD, which was a fortunate decision. It was a great gathering, with an Apollo astronaut on board, many astronomers both professional and amateur, and a famous weatherman. Not everyone was an eclipse-chaser, though. I remember a honeymooning couple who were upset that the ship was going to skip the usual stop at Maui so that they could take up a position on the eclipse’s center line. A group of us explained to them that they would remember the seven minutes of darkness much longer than a visit to Maui.
In the wee hours of the morning on the day of the eclipse, we felt the ship’s engines kick into high gear. This wasn’t cruising speed — the captain was in a hurry. As we learned later, clouds had moved in. The weatherman had used radar to locate a break in the clouds, and the Captain had headed full steam for clear skies. It paid off. The day dawned on the already partially-eclipsed sun rising from the sea. We set up tripods, put the filters on our cameras and camcorders, and practiced compensating for the rolling of the ship for the next hour. We were rewarded when the shadow of the moon swept across the open ocean at a thousand miles per hour and the sun’s corona stood out like a Hawaiian peal in the sky. A magnificent prominence stood out from the sun’s limb, lighting the sky. The seven minutes seemed to hang forever in the sky and yet it was over in a few instants of time. We brought back some decent pictures (rolling ship, remember?) and some fantastic memories. Our friends on the Island were largely clouded out, except for the Club president, who had the pull to get a spot at the Mauna Kea observatory above the clouds.
The Honeymooners? They were very happy that they missed Maui.
My first eclipse was when I was in high school, and the school astronomy club arranged to get a couple of school vans and counselors to drive to Quebec to see the eclipse. We weren’t as fortunate with the weather on that one. The skies were mostly cloudy with the sun peeking out only occasionally. We hoped they would clear, but it only got thicker as totality approached. The best we could see was the disk of the sun shining redly through some thin spots in the cloud cover, which were too thick to let us see the solar corona. Still, the stillness that came over the land as the moon’s shadow fell was awe-inspiring. The birds fell quiet, and even the mosquitos went away for a few minutes. Even with the clouds, it was an experience.
The clear-sky forecast for Upstate New York on an April day doesn’t offer a lot of assurance for good conditions. Still, we’ll set off next month prepared for the worst and hoping for the best. Even a cloudy eclipse is an experience worth remembering. In the next newsletter, I’ll tell you how it turned out.
Our Books
Sellenria: The Starship and the Citadel
Chuck Boeheim, Daniel Elswit
Believing in the impossible may be my only chance of survival.
I was a professor of archaeology at the University of Trondhjem. I did digs via telepresence and lectured in simspace classrooms. Life was stable and predictable, just the way I liked it. But then I found a relic that turned my world upside down. Now I’m stranded without hope of rescue on a pre-technological planet full of monsters and mysteries, hundreds of light-years from home. After a terrifying and nearly fatal encounter with a creature that couldn’t possibly exist, I was rescued by a fey assassin who decided that I should become her apprentice. I became advisor to the king but now I’m on the run after we were framed for the assassination of his brother. It’s mad enough to be a fantasy simspace, but it’s deadly real.
The most confounding part is that these people think my ancestor was an ancient warlock and that I can wield those same powers. I’m a man of science, of order, of logic; I don’t believe in magic.
But that’s not the way this world works.
Find it on amazon
What We‘re Reading
Visit our archive of reviews and recommendations on the Books We Like page of our website. You‘ll find over one hundred recommendations in Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Non Fiction.
Frost and Fire
Roger Zelazny
Zelazny selected the stories in this anthology to cover a range of his output from the mid 80s, spanning topics from uploaded minds to centuries-long blood feuds. The bookend stories of the collection won the Hugo awards the year they were published. “Permafrost” tells the story of a celebrity adventurer down on his luck and seeking to make one last comeback on the icy world where he had failed a century before. He doesn’t know that the person he betrayed waits for him still…
The collection ends with his celebrated novela “24 Views of Mt Fuku, by Hokusai.” A woman takes a final journey through Japan, guided by a book of woodcuts from the early 1800s (you know the one, it includes the famous image of the great wave that’s reproduced everywhere). She’s pursued by the ultimate stalker: someone who’s only limited by the reach of the world’s communication network. If she can’t defeat him, no one in the world will be safe. For an extra treat, open the full list of woodcuts Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji and follow along with the story to see how Zelazny weaves each scene into the story.
Buy on amazon
What Feasts at Night
T. Kingfisher
Alex Easton, a sworn soldier (retired), is still recovering from the horrific experience attending the fall of the House of Usher. Retreating with batman (aide) Angus and the indomitable mycologist Miss Potter to the family lodge in Gallacia, they find the lodge abandoned and the caretaker dead. The townfolk shun them and talk of a moroi that steals the breath of sleepers. Only the Widow Botezatu is brave or desperate enough to come be the new caretaker, along with her grandson Bors. But soon, the nightmares begin (Alex always has nightmares, mostly of the war). It appears that the moroi is still in residence.
I enjoy the depth of characterization that Kingfisher brings to her stories, and this is no exception. Alex’s inner scar tissue, both from the war and from family disapproval, drives a lot of the plot. Angus, the stoical but smitten batman, and Bors, the simple and slow country lad who plays a mean game of chess are counterpoints to Alex’s turmoil. The Widow’s certainty of supernatural creatures and of Alex’s moral failings as not just a soldier, but a sworn soldier no less, are counterpoints in the opposite direction.
Kingfisher’s approach to horror is refreshing. Scary without being gory, leavened with humor, people with good sense to balance those without. It brings out the best in the genre without becoming overwhelming.
Buy on amazon
You may also enjoy…
Brothers of Chaos Part One
Merick N.H. Ulrik
Vandryn of house Glenclare faces insurmountable odds fighting against the corrupt Melborians. He will rely on an unexpected friendship with an elf named Zan Cadeyn Umbaden and his alluring sister Zylla. Together they will face the will of the Blood Queen, empress Ash Axana and a treacherous plot of a beautiful young blood mage named Liliath.
Buy via StoryOrigin
The Woeling Lass
Dave Dobson
An assassin hunts Inspector Gueran Declais through the streets of Frosthelm, and she is not acting alone. Just as he learns that his family may have been attacked and slain, Gueran is struck down as well. Despite the odds, he lives. Barely. Whisked away from the city for his safety, he struggles to recover from his injuries, learn his family’s fate, and uncover the identity of those who want him dead. Far from Frosthelm, he becomes caught up in investigating another bloody attack, one that may or may not have been perpetrated by vengeful spirit of a woman wronged long ago, and one that threatens to expose him to his enemies. The locals are certain, though: the killer had to be the Woeling Lass, her hands cold as the grave and her feet aflame.
Back in Frosthelm, Urret Milton is an apprentice in some difficulty at the Guild. She receives a mysterious note for Gueran, a man everyone thinks is dead. Rapidly embroiled in the effort to unravel the reason for the killings and bring the assassins to justice, Urret struggles to shed her troubles and show that she has what it takes to be an inspector. But all this leads her into far more peril than she bargained for, for which she can’t possibly be ready. Her position at the Guild, the security of the city, and her life itself are all at stake.
Buy via StoryOrigin
Star Riders
Rick Allen
When astrophysicist Bacary Swift arrives at Earth’s first colony outside the solar system, he is devastated to discover his brother Matt missing and presumed dead. And Bacary’s first assignment is to investigate an enormous alien construct endangering the colony.
Soon, he finds himself transported light-years away into the midst of an alien civil war. Pursued by ruthless aliens with little regard for life, he hops from planet to planet, searching desperately for his lost brother.
Can Bacary weave his way through this bewildering maze of politics, intrigue, and betrayal to rescue Matt and find a way home?
Buy via StoryOrigin
Harvest of Shadows
Stella Jorette
A team of oddballs, an unlikely mission, hidden agendas, and a gruesome secret.
Agnet Krause is a seasoned operative, but after a devastating loss, she’s struggling to find her footing. When she’s assigned to lead a team of misfit operatives on a last-minute mission to investigate “monsters” at the Ridgelands Penal Farm, she’s skeptical.
But horrifying apparitions really do haunt the farm, and the entire inmate population refuses to work in the fields. The colony can’t survive without the harvest, and the city can’t lose another food source.
When Agnet and the team delve into the mystery, they uncover a situation far more complicated than suspected. Monsters roam the dangerous landscape of the farm and surrounding forested exclusion zone, a mysterious presence lurks over the ridge, but worst—a sinister plot threatens their entire society.
Buy via StoryOrigin
