All posts by Cathy Palmer-Lister

Astronomy News

NOCTILUCENT CLOUDS ARE BACK

Space Weather News for June 5, 2023
https://spaceweather.com
https://www.spaceweatheralerts.com

NOCTILUCENT CLOUDS ARE BACK: Last night, bright clouds of frosted meteor smoke drifted over Europe, signalling the start of the summer season for noctilucent clouds. The electric-blue forms were sighted in at least 7 countries, a number that could grow in the nights ahead as the clouds continue to spill across the Arctic Circle. Full story @ Spaceweather.com.

Solar Flare alerts: Sign up for Space Weather Alerts to receive instant text messages when strong flares are underway.
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Above: Noctilucent clouds (NLCs) over Denmark on June 5, 2023. Photo credit: Valther Jørgensen

 

Fanzines

And yet another zine!

From the N3F, Tightbeam.

Tightbeam345

What is Tightbeam? We are the N3F literary fanzine, not the novel and anthology fanzine, but the fanzine that tries to cover all tastes in fandom, such as anime, comics, cosplay, films, novels, biographies, poetry, music, short stories, food, …

The Editors are: George Phillies phillies@4liberty.net  and .Jon Swartz judgeswartz@gmail.com
Art Editors are Angela K. Scott and Jose Sanchez.
Art Contributors are Tiffanie Gray, Alan White, Cedar Sanderson, and ArtistFish.

Anime Reviews are courtesy Jessi Silver and her site www.s1e1.com. Ms. Silver writes of her site “S1E1 is primarily an outlet for views and reviews on Japanese animated media, and occasionally video games and other entertainment.” Cedar Sanderson’s reviews and other interesting articles appear on her site www.cedarwrites.wordpress.com/ and its culinary extension. Jason P. Hunt’s reviews appear on SciFi4Me.Com

Reading

Locus: new books for June

These are the forthcoming “Selected Books by Author” for June from the December 2022 issue of Locus Magazine.

JUNE 2023

  • ALLAN KASTER, ED. • The Year’s Top Hard Science Fic­tion Stories 7 • AudioText/Infinivox, Jun 2023 (an, tp, eb)
  • ANN LECKIE • Translation State • Orbit US, Jun 2023 (hc, eb)
  • CONNIE WILLIS  • The Road to Roswell • Penguin Random House/Del Rey, Jun 2023 (hc, eb)
  • EUGEN BACON • Danged Black Thing • Apex Book Company, Jun 2023 (1st US, c, tp, eb)
  • FRAN WILDE  • The Book of Gems • Tordotcom, Jun 2023 (na, tp, eb)
  • GENE WOLFE  • The Dead Man and Other Horror Stories • Subterranean Press, Jun 2023 (c, hc, eb)
  • GREGORY FROST • Rhymer • Baen, Jun 2023 (hc, eb)
  • HOWARD WALDROP  • H’ard Starts: The Early Waldrop • Subterranean Press, Jun 2023 (c, hc, eb)
  • JOHN BIRMINGHAM • The Forever Dead • Bloomsbury UK/Head of Zeus/Ad Astra, Jun 2023 (hc, eb)
  • JOHN SCALZI  • Starter Villain • Macmillan/Tor UK, Jun 2023 (hc, eb)
  • JOHN SHIRLEY  • SubOrbital 7 • Titan Books UK, Jun 2023 (tp, eb)
  • JUNO DAWSON • The Shadow Cabinet • Harper Voyager UK, Jun 2023 (hc, eb)
  • KIM HARRISON • Demons of Good and Evil • Ace, Jun 2023 (hc, eb)
  • MERCEDES LACKEY & LARRY DIXON • Gryphon in Light • Astra House/DAW, Jun 2023 (hc, eb)
  • MICHAEL MOORCOCK  • The Woods of Arcady • Tor, Jun 2023 (hc, eb)
  • TANANARIVE DUE & STEVEN BARNES • The Reformatory • Simon & Schuster/Saga Press, Jun 2023 (h, hc, eb
Fanzines

More zines to share!

From Bill burns at e-fanzines:

I have just added a page for LienZine, a memorial sampler of the late Denny Lien’s writing from fandom and beyond. Edited by Karen Schaffer and Geri Sullivan and produced for the memorial held June 2, 2023 in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Direct link to the page: https://efanzines.com/LienZine/

From the N3F

With this mailing: Our great fan-pro organizing committee zine Ionisphere, followed courtesy of the N3F Franking service with several trade fanzines.

Shooting My CUFFs #2

MT VOID 2276

MT VOID 2275

Ionisphere202306

De Profundis 586 – June 20231

Fanzines

New Zines to share!

From LASFS,   DE PROFUNDIS #586 De Profundis 586 – June 2023

From Bill Burns, updates to e-faniznes. Bill has added our own WARP to his update. Thanks, Bill!

Just added at https://efanzines.com

Nic Farey’s This Here…#65

Christopher J. Garcia’s Claims Department #39

Andy Hooper’s CAPTAIN FLASHBACK #54

WARP #113, the official fanzine of MonSFFA, the Montreal Science Fiction and Fantasy Association, edited by Danny Sichel, is now available

Octothorpe #84, a regular fannish podcast by John Coxon, Alison Scott and Liz Batty, is now on line

—
Bill

Awards, CSFFA / Aurora Award / Hall of Fame

CSFFA Special Update: AGM Date Changed, Voters Package Ready

Membership in CSFFA is really worth the price if you enjoy reading, and there is a lot of reading in the awards package!  https://www.csffa.ca/ CPL

In this newsletter:

  1. Change of Date for CSFFA AGM
  2. Aurora Awards Voters’ Package

The CSFFA AGM has a new date: June 25, 2023

The CSFFA 2023 AGM now will occur Sunday, June 25. The 2023 CSFFA AGM materials and motions can be viewed by logged-in members (Home page -> Annual General Meeting). Members can vote now on the motions. Voting ends June 24.

The AGM will begin Sunday June 25, 10 a.m. Pacific/ 11 a.m. Mountain/ noon Central/ 1 p.m. Eastern/ 2 p.m. Atlantic/ and one half-hour later, Newfoundland & Labrador.

2023 Aurora Awards Voters’ Package

The Voters’ Package is now available for the 2023 Aurora Awards. It can be accessed and the files downloaded from https://www.csffa.ca/members-home/. You must be logged into your account to access it.

Good luck to all of the nominees. Voting will begin on June 17th and close six weeks later on July 29th. The awards ceremony will be held online starting at 7pm EDT, August 19th, 2023. The ceremony will be hosted by Mark Leslie Lefebvre and Liz Anderson. Links to both a Facebook and YouTube page for the ceremony will be posted in August.

Fanzines

Zine to share!

Nic Farey has sent us This Here.

TH 65

The ish opens with an interesting article about the settlement movement, a friend he shared a settlement flat with  and a terrible murder that occurred near there which remains unsolved.

Nic has been diagnosed with a form of leukemia. There is a reasonably effective treatment, he says, but we’ll keep him in our thoughts through what must be a difficult time.

Space Travel / Exploration

Rocket plane returns to spaceflight

Virgin Galactic: Sir Richard Branson’s rocket plane returns to spaceflight

By Jonathan Amos, BBC Science Correspondent

Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic rocket plane is back in action after a gap of almost two years.

The Unity vehicle, with two pilots and four passengers aboard, climbed high over the New Mexico desert to the edge of space – before gliding back down.

It was billed as the plane’s final test outing before entering commercial service in June.

Galactic has sold over 800 tickets to individuals who want to ride more than 80km (260,000ft) above Earth.

The company expects to start working through this passenger list with Unity flights initially occurring at the rate of one a month. New rocket planes are being designed for service in 2026 that should each be capable of increasing the cadence to one a week.

Flight profile

Unity is a sub-orbital vehicle. This means it can’t achieve the velocity and altitude necessary to keep it up in space to circle the globe.

The spaceship is designed to give its passengers stunning views at the top of its climb, and allow them a few minutes to experience weightlessness.

Click https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-65714340 to read the full article with video and pictures.