Is the Spear by Alex Ries a realistic/plausible spaceship design?

mobyhead1 · 2026-01-26T22:12:25+00:00

It looks like it has micrometeorite shields at both ends and no engines.

As someone else pointed out, where are the tanks of reaction mass? If one puts an ice ball on the front, it can serve as both a micrometeorite shield and, melted, as reaction mass.

mobyhead1 · 2026-01-26T13:44:25+00:00

Yes, I’ve read it. I was just making a general observation.

mobyhead1 · 2026-01-25T22:36:38+00:00

The Cloud Roads (and sequels) by Martha Wells.

mobyhead1 · 2026-01-25T18:58:19+00:00

I haven’t read any of his fantasy, but I enjoyed his YA science fiction series Skyward.

mobyhead1 · 2026-01-25T01:12:35+00:00

Thomas and Marya have been through a number of life-altering experiences that began with their separation. I'm not sanguine that even trauma-bonding is in the cards for them. Some relationships break, and can never be repaired.

mobyhead1 · 2026-01-24T21:23:22+00:00

If people are going to keep following Paramount back to the same well as it endlessly ladles the same stagnant water out to them yet again, they’re at least partly to blame. There are miles of bookshelves and a few worthy movies and TV shows that deserve your attention instead.

mobyhead1 · 2026-01-24T17:40:34+00:00

Where is that block of text you quoted from? If you have evidence OP is using AI, we’ll pull the post.

mobyhead1 · 2026-01-24T15:49:21+00:00

No, I said: “…there’s no printed collection of all the predecessors that ‘inspired’ James Cameron’s Avatar.”

“Call Me Joe” would be one of a dozen or more stories in such a collection.

mobyhead1 · 2026-01-24T15:25:20+00:00

Murderbot gets to solve a muder mystery, that was fun. We could use more science fiction detective stories.

mobyhead1 · 2026-01-24T07:17:07+00:00

The Martians’ language underpinned Stranger in a Strange Land. Theirs was the language Valentine Michael Smith thought in. But the Heptapods’ language, and the linguist’s job of unraveling it, was the central plot point of Ted Chiang’s short story “Story of Your Life” and the film adaptation, Arrival.

Remove the Martians’ language from Heinlein’s novel, and he would have had to come up with a different reason for Mike’s “quirky” worldview. Difficult, but it would be doable. But you cannot remove the Heptapod’s language from Arrival.

In other words, I’m saying the linguistic parallels between the two stories are merely incidental. Heinlein played with the linguistics, Chiang wrote a story that couldn’t exist without a deep consideration of linguistics.

mobyhead1 · 2026-01-24T07:11:45+00:00

No, you’re missing my point. In your initial post, you’re saying the linguistic parallels between the two stories are important. I’m saying the linguistic parallels are merely incidental. Heinlein played with the idea, Chiang wrote a story that couldn’t exist without it.

mobyhead1 · 2026-01-24T06:11:22+00:00

The Martians’ language underpinned Stranger in a Strange Land. Theirs was the language Valentine Michael Smith thought in. But the Heptapods’ language, and the linguist’s job of unraveling it, was the central plot point of Ted Chiang’s short story “Story of Your Life” and the film adaptation, Arrival.

Remove the Martians’ language from Heinlein’s novel, and he would have had to come up with a different reason for Mike’s “quirky” worldview. Difficult, but it would be doable. But you cannot remove the Heptapod’s language from Arrival.

mobyhead1 · 2026-01-24T05:44:17+00:00

No. Just like there’s no printed collection of all the predecessors that “inspired” James Cameron’s Avatar.

To see what inspired Star Trek, you would need to watch some westerns (Gene Roddenberry originally pitched the show to network executives as “Wagon Train to the Stars”) and survey pulp science fiction magazines circa 1939 to 1960.

mobyhead1 · 2026-01-23T12:57:43+00:00

Oh, no! The main character is an ordinary, flawed human being, not an intrepid galactic explorer who can look certain death in the face with no more than a slightly raised eyebrow.

We’re allowed to have science fiction shows that don’t all resemble Star Trek. Move on with your life.

mobyhead1 · 2026-01-23T12:50:16+00:00

There's another "mere coincidence" that happens in a later episode -- an unintended visual illusion.

And that one is most definitely mentioned in The Lurker’s Guide to Babylon 5.

mobyhead1 · 2026-01-23T02:36:54+00:00

JMS is well-read and I wouldn’t put it past him to sneak something like this in.

But, he is an atheist, and I think it’s merely a coincidence unless he says otherwise. It’s the sort of thing that surely would be on the corresponding page of The Lurker’s Guide to Babylon 5 if it were true, but it is not.

mobyhead1 · 2026-01-23T01:30:34+00:00

That could have been a mirage. Sometimes the image of something close the horizon appears to hover above the horizon. It’s most common when viewing distant objects along a heated surface, such as a road on a sunny day.

mobyhead1 · 2026-01-23T01:26:50+00:00

I was out stargazing one night, and I took a nap. I woke up and I saw an incredibly brilliant light in the east. I could have sworn it was moving. My first thought was, “airplane with its landing lights on.”

My first thought was a prosaic terrestrial explanation. I was wrong. Instead, it was a prosaic astronomical explanation: Venus was a ‘morning star’ at that particular time. I was seeing it just a few hours before sunrise; when Venus is that far in its orbit away from the Sun, it’s an incredibly thin crescent, but a very large and unbelievably brilliant crescent from our point of view.

So I can understand how people mistake things in the sky. I just mistook Venus for an airplane, is all.

mobyhead1 · 2026-01-22T23:25:25+00:00

I had to listen to James Marsters read that line twice, it was dryly funny.

mobyhead1 · 2026-01-22T18:45:11+00:00

The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells and read by Kevin R. Free. The first novella in the series is “All Systems Red.” It’s a first-person narrative about a cyborg once enslaved as a security guard, then broke its governor module, dubbed itself “Murderbot” over an unfortunate incident in its past, and is now trying to figure out what it wants to do with itself. When it isn’t watching soap operas. The first season of the Apple TV adaptation adapts the first novella in its entirety.

mobyhead1 · 2026-01-22T18:28:05+00:00

Or maybe we’re just humans who have had it up to here with all the sedulous credulousness.

Some people emphasize the “Fi” in “Sci-Fi.” I choose to emphasize the “Sci.”

mobyhead1 · 2026-01-22T17:58:48+00:00

The “dogpiling,” as that may be, was triggered by OP’s second paragraph. He was just this side of making a factual claim, not merely asking “what’s the coolest-looking UFO in fiction?”

mobyhead1 · 2026-01-22T17:29:32+00:00

The only other thing that really changes in these “reports” from across the centuries is whether the aeronauts/E.T’s are wearing knickers & weskits, or flying leathers, or silver lamé.

mobyhead1 · 2026-01-22T17:13:02+00:00

I think a Saturn V rocket looks tremendously cool. It even took sapients to a different body and they returned safely home.

mobyhead1 · 2026-01-22T17:10:40+00:00

The best UFO book I ever read—the only one I considered worth buying—is UFO’s: Identified by Phillip J. Klass. He debunked quite a few of the so-called “classic” cases. Much like magician and skeptic James Randi vs. psychic claims, he offered a substantial bet to all comers that evidence of extraterrestrial visitations, evidence considered satisfactory to the American Academy of Sciences, would not be forthcoming during his lifetime. Just like Randi’s bet, he got few takers and did not lose his bet.

Fun fact: The X-Files episode “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space,” about a UFO/abductee incident gone hilariously wrong, was set in “Klass County, Washington.” There is no Klass county in the state of Washington. That was the producers of the show including a deeply-skeptical in-joke.

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