Episodes

  • How is gravity related to the other three fundamental forces?

    How is gravity related to the other three fundamental forces?
    Apr 3 2025
    My novelette, An Illicit Mercy, is part of a new promotion in March and April: Expect the Unexpected: Fantasy and Science Fiction with Unusual Plot Twists!Over fifty short stories, novels, samples and excerpts, available at no cost.Maddie is the NPC with attitude! Buy a copy of Desert Runner by Dawn Chapman!Plagued by old injuries that won't heal, she's enticed into accepting a deadly escort mission. Of course, it's to cross the damned desert... and in the middle of Tromoal breeding season, no less. But the lure of enough cash to fix herself up and help out a close friend, too...? That's a siren's song she can't ignore. Puatera Online is a harsh world, even for the people who have to live there. Good thing Maddie is tougher than cured leather, because she may have just bitten off more than she can chew.How is gravity related to the other three fundamental forces?By Brian Scott Pauls with the help of ChatGPT 4oThe fundamental forces of nature, and how they interact, form the basic subject matter of physics. As a result, many science fiction novels and short stories consider the behavior of one or more of these forces in unusual situations.The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov (1972)This novel explores themes of scientific discovery and cross-dimensional physics. The story revolves around the development of a device called the electron pump, which transfers matter between our universe and a parallel one to provide an inexhaustible energy source. However, this transfer destabilizes the strong nuclear force in our universe, threatening to destroy the Sun.Thanks for reading The Cosmic Codex! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.Dragon’s Egg by Robert L. Forward (1980)Forward’s book imagines a neutron star as the setting for an alien civilization. The novel follows the development of intelligent life called the Cheela, who evolve on the surface of the collapsed star, where the gravity is billions of times stronger than on Earth. Life is possible in this environment due to “nuclei bound by the strong force, rather than…by the electromagnetic force.”Long Leap by Derek Künsken (2012)First published in On Spec magazine, this story tackles the idea of a metal planet orbiting within the magnetic fields of a pulsar. “Tetracarbonyl base…life forms” inhabit the planet’s surface, and “everything carries an electric charge, making the magnetic fields function almost like cell membranes.”The Problem of GravityGravity is one of the four fundamental forces, alongside electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force, and the weak nuclear force. Yet, despite its pervasive influence on cosmic scales, gravity remains distinct from the other three, which are described by the Standard Model of particle physics. Understanding how gravity relates to these forces has been a longstanding scientific challenge.The Standard Model and General RelativityThe Standard Model details the three non-gravitational forces in terms of quantum field theory. They are mediated by particles: photons for electromagnetism, W and Z bosons for the weak force, and gluons for the strong force. The forces operate within the framework of quantum mechanics, which governs the behavior of particles at atomic and subatomic scales.Gravity, on the other hand, is described by Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. General relativity views gravity not as a force mediated by particles but as the curvature of spacetime caused by mass and energy. This classical framework successfully explains gravitational phenomena from planetary orbits to black holes but does not align with the quantum description of the other forces.Thanks for reading The Cosmic Codex! This post is public so feel free to share it.While the Standard Model has achieved remarkable success in describing particle interactions, it does not include gravity. Conversely, general relativity does not incorporate quantum mechanics. Bridging this divide requires a theory of quantum gravity, which remains elusive.String TheoryString theory is one of the most prominent approaches to unifying gravity with the other fundamental forces. It posits that the basic building blocks of the universe are not point-like particles but one-dimensional strings vibrating at different frequencies. These vibrations determine the properties of particles, such as mass and charge.A key feature of string theory is that it naturally incorporates a massless, spin-2 particle resembling the graviton, the hypothetical quantum mediator of gravity. It therefore offers a framework in which gravity can be described quantum mechanically.Moreover, string theory is inherently compatible with the other forces described by the Standard Model. It requires additional dimensions of spacetime—typically 10 or 11—to function mathematically, which has led to predictions about hidden dimensions that could even explain dark matter.However, string theory faces challenges. It has not yet produced testable ...
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    13 mins
  • Prospective stories for "Probability Amplitudes"

    Prospective stories for "Probability Amplitudes"
    Mar 8 2025
    My novelette, An Illicit Mercy, is part of a new promotion in March: Up & Comers: Bringing You the Best in Speculative Fiction.Over fifty short stories, novels, samples and excerpts, available at no cost.Wars make unlikely allies.Get your FREE copy of Shadow Game by Caitlin Demaris McKenna!When his ship is damaged, retired assassin Gau Shesharrim finds himself stranded on a hostile world. To repair his ship, he will have to sneak into a jungle spaceport crawling with Terrans and their scaly Urd allies. An impossible task. Until help comes from an unexpected source. Arkk just wants to evade the Urd hunting him. A chance encounter with Gau offers him temporary refuge, and something more: a way to get justice for his slaughtered paddock. But first they have to get off-planet.Can Gau and Arkk work together to escape before their enemies catch up to them?For over two years, I’ve posted occasional updates on the development of Probability Amplitudes, my upcoming collection. Many of these have included my progress in terms of word count, but I’ve never shared a list of stories which might appear.Thanks for reading The Cosmic Codex! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.See below for a summary of what Probability Amplitudes may offer.”Chthonic Echoes”Stranded on a harsh world, seeking shelter until help arrives, three castaways wrestle with mysteries that may be critical to their survival.Originally published on Wattpad in August, 2019“The Paths of Time”She walked a world transformed by humanity, ever mindful of the acts and achievements of those who came before.Originally published on Wattpad in August, 2019“A Sea Like Glass”Isna Dahal is ready to kick back and toast a job well done on her first break from the project in five years. When she's called in to investigate an unusual problem, however, she uncovers a danger that could threaten the entire Array. The celebration will have to wait.Originally published on Wattpad in September, 2019“Voices of Dominion”The unexplained broadcast from a remote world was hauntingly beautiful...and stopped as abruptly as it had started. The “House of Wisdom” has traveled light years to find out why.Originally published on Wattpad in January, 2020Thanks for reading The Cosmic Codex! This post is public so feel free to share it.“The Play of Light in the Present Moment”Cutting-edge medical research offers Perla the possibility of a miracle--but does she want one?Originally published on Wattpad in January, 2020“Critical Impact Vulnerabilities”She's a cop with a job to do--bring in Seattle's most notorious hacker with an offer too good to pass up!Originally published on Wattpad in February, 2020“The Trouble Run”Li Jie Robinson thought it was just another haul through the Belt--but he didn't know how bad his day could get!Originally published on Wattpad in June, 2021“An Illicit Mercy”Infants in the Martian outpost of Basin have been plagued with birth defects for years--until recently. Corporate has dispatched Siwela and her team to find out why. What she learns will have profound implications for her job--and for who she wants to be.Originally published in “Boundary Shock Quarterly 12: Lawmen and Crimefighters”, Currently available for download with a free subscription to The Cosmic Codex“Long Night On the Endless City”On the vast ring habitat Ouroboros, Jel and her synthetic companion Marcus search for Arja, the third member of their triad. This quest leads them to a cryptic technology cult with questionable motives. When they suffer a vicious attack, Marcus and Jel join forces with one of Ouroboros’ most renowned computer and robotics experts to get to the bottom of the mystery.Originally published in “Boundary Shock Quarterly 26: Tomorrow’s Crimes.”“Nasty, Brutish, and Short”When the first expedition to the mysterious planet Janus takes a deadly turn, Lieutenant Carita Keahi must fight for survival against an alien ecosystem unlike anything humanity has ever encountered. As crew members fall victim to bizarre and lethal life forms, Keahi races against time to escape the dangers of this two-faced world.Originally published in “Boundary Shock Quarterly 28: SF Horror.”“Fire From Heaven”In the shadows of an alien world, terror awaits. On the radiation-blasted planet Janus, a team of explorers descends into Abbadon—an ancient mountain facility hiding unimaginable secrets. As they navigate bizarre chambers filled with cryptic carvings, they unleash a nightmare. But the true horror lies not in the alien ruins, but in the chilling implications of the team’s discovery.Originally published in “Boundary Shock Quarterly 29: First Contact.”“All One, All Glorious!”In a world where the embers of war never truly die, the totalitarian might of Tongyige Duniyaan tightens its grip on the last free nations. As brutal enforcers like Captain Xiang Gupta rise through the ranks with ruthless ambition...
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    7 mins
  • Daniel Suarez wins 2024 Prometheus Award for "Critical Mass"

    Daniel Suarez wins 2024 Prometheus Award for "Critical Mass"
    Feb 20 2025
    My novelette, An Illicit Mercy, is part of a new promotion in February: FREE Sci-Fi & Fantasy.Nearly 200 short stories, novels, samples and excerpts, available at no cost.When your only option is a man who can't commit, what is Plan B?Get your FREE copy of Time of Commitment by Kate Kyle!Greg ignored the doubt tugging at the pit of his stomach. The target was a poor choice, but if he wanted to get Rutger onto that ship, this was their only chance.So, his plan had to work. It was as perfect as he could make it. Step by step. Memorized. Practiced.Greg would accomplish his mission, because only success could earn him release from active duties and allow him to finally retire, back to a simpler life. He was getting too old for this. Too tired. Too cynical about the missions that brought more self-importance for the Brotherhood than progress to humanity.So, doubts aside. Time of commitment. GO.In July, Critical Mass by Daniel Suarez won the Prometheus Award for the best novel of libertarian science fiction published during the previous year. Critical Mass is the second book in Suarez’s Delta-V series.A Prometheus Award winner in 2015 as well, Suarez previously worked as a “...senior systems analyst for Fortune 1000 companies.” He’s the author of multiple “…techno-thrillers and science fiction novels on topics ranging from cyber war, autonomous robotic weapons, human agency, genetic editing, and private space exploration.”Penguin Random House describes Critical Mass as follows:When unforeseen circumstances during an innovative—and unsanctioned—commercial asteroid-mining mission leave two crew members stranded, those who make it back must engineer a rescue, all while navigating a shifting web of global political alliances and renewed Cold War tensions. With Earth governments consumed by the ravages of climate change and unable to take the risks necessary to make rapid progress in space, the crew must build their own nextgen spacecraft capable of mounting a rescue in time for the asteroid’s next swing by Earth. In the process they’ll need to establish the first spin-gravity station in deep space, the first orbiting solar power satellite and refinery, and historic infrastructure on the moon’s surface—all of which could alleviate a deepening ecological, political, and economic crisis back on Earth, and prove that space-based industry is not only profitable, but possibly humanity’s best hope for a livable, peaceful future.Have you read Critical Mass, or the first book in Suarez’s trilogy, Delta-V? Comment with your thoughts below!My latest novelette, “Fire From Heaven,” now appears in Boundary Shock Quarterly 29: First Contact.In the shadows of an alien world, terror awaits. On the radiation-blasted planet Janus, a team of explorers descends into Abbadon—an ancient mountain facility hiding unimaginable secrets. As they navigate bizarre chambers filled with cryptic carvings, they unleash a nightmare. But the true horror lies not in the alien ruins, but in the chilling implications of the team’s discovery.Fire From Heaven is the sequel to my previous novelette, “Nasty, Brutish, and Short.”This month, I’m reading Ryka Aoki’s Otherwise Award-winning novel Light from Uncommon Stars. I’m sharing my thoughts on Club Codex, where any Cosmic Codex subscriber can follow along, comment, or ask questions.From this week’s post:“So far I have mixed feelings about this book. I'm intrigued by the Faustian bargain, but unsure where it's going. There seems to be a skillfully crafted love story in here, but at the moment it's vying with quirky aliens for my attention. The mix of demons with aliens seems a bit awkward.”Click below to participate: This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thecosmiccodex.com
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    2 mins
  • "Probability Amplitudes" is back over the halfway mark

    "Probability Amplitudes" is back over the halfway mark
    Feb 13 2025

    My novelette, An Illicit Mercy, is part of a new promotion in February: FREE Sci-Fi & Fantasy.

    Nearly 200 short stories, novels, samples and excerpts, available at no cost.

    She's an Artificial Intelligence Containment operative, monitoring AI for signs of sentience.

    Get your FREE copy of The Badge by Sheri Singerling!

    Sonja is an Artificial Intelligence Containment (AIC) operative, or a badge in hacker slang. As an operative, Sonja is tasked with finding and evaluating AI that may be sentient. If they are, her mission is simple—shut their system down. The world is already dealing with containing one rogue AI. As the AIC sees it, they can ill afford for others to follow suit. Sonja agrees. It's why she's a willing cog in the corporate machine and has devoted her life to serving the AIC. But nipping sentience in the bud can feel an awful lot like murder. Can Sonja push away the ethical quandaries of her work and do what needs to be done?

    Last year was a bit of a roller coaster as I brought Probability Amplitudes, my first collection, closer to completion.

    In September, I reported 43% of the required word count remained to be written.

    Thanks for reading The Cosmic Codex! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

    Then, in November, I took a few steps back, editing out more than 17,000 words of my story “Fire From Heaven.” Those words were, to use a technical phrase, “not good.” Striking them increased my outstanding percentage to 54%

    Well, I’m back, baby! After writing over 17,000 words of an as-yet unfinished novella, my outstanding percentage is once again 43%.

    One-third mark, here I come!

    Thanks for reading The Cosmic Codex! This post is public so feel free to share it.

    Current status: 57% of the material for Probability Amplitudes is in “First Draft” or “Final Draft” status.

    New Material Required: 68,656 words

    First Draft: 83,930 words

    Final Draft: 7414 words

    TOTAL: 160,000 words

    Questions? Please share in the comments!

    My latest novelette, “Fire From Heaven,” now appears in Boundary Shock Quarterly 29: First Contact.

    In the shadows of an alien world, terror awaits. On the radiation-blasted planet Janus, a team of explorers descends into Abbadon—an ancient mountain facility hiding unimaginable secrets. As they navigate bizarre chambers filled with cryptic carvings, they unleash a nightmare. But the true horror lies not in the alien ruins, but in the chilling implications of the team’s discovery.

    Fire From Heaven is the sequel to my previous novelette, “Nasty, Brutish, and Short.”



    This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thecosmiccodex.com
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    2 mins
  • RIP Science Fiction Book Club (1953-2025)

    RIP Science Fiction Book Club (1953-2025)
    Jan 31 2025
    My novelette, An Illicit Mercy, is part of a new promotion in January and February: Moral Dilemmas in Fantasy & Science Fiction.Over 40 short stories, novels, samples and excerpts, available at no cost.A marine's duty is to fight. Her curse is to remember.Get your FREE copy of The Blade Within by Dylan McFadyenCommander Sorăna Mirra has spent years leading a hand-picked team of marine special operators. Together they've taken the fight to humanity's oldest foe, the vicious Kyrans, defeating them time and again—time and again, knowing they’ll get no credit for their victories.When an audacious Kyran raid strikes deep into human territory, Mirra and her team are thrust into the heart of hostile space to retaliate. It's business as usual—until a shocking discovery in the enemy compound calls the true purpose of their mission into question, and dredges up painful memories of the Great War.Now, Mirra must battle not only the enemy, but her own buried regrets as she and her team fight for survival, retribution, and the truth. But in war, truth—like memory—can be a dangerous thing.After more than seventy years, the Science Fiction Book Club (SFBC) is shutting down.I first learned of the SFBC through Parade Magazine, delivered to my home each Sunday morning as an insert in the Wichita Eagle-Beacon newspaper. I don’t recall if the Science Fiction Book Club advertisements were full-page spreads or large additional inserts slipped into Parade, but the organization must have spent lavishly on them. Each listed many different sf books, including small cover images and brief descriptions. Before the Internet, this was one way (along with library displays and talking with friends) I stayed abreast of the latest science fiction books.Thanks for reading The Cosmic Codex! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.During my high school years, the father of one of my best friends (and a staff member with the school district) was a member of the SFBC. One day he brought a large box of science fiction books to school and told me he’d already read them. I was welcome to borrow any I wanted to read for myself. That’s how I first encountered C. J. Cherryh’s 1981 Hugo Award-winning novel Downbelow Station, part of her Company Wars series and set in her Alliance-Union universe.Nelson Doubleday, Inc., an associate entity of Doubleday, created the Science Fiction Book Club in 1953. At the time, the phrase “book club” referred to “…a subscription-based relationship between purchasers – who normally agree to buy a certain number of titles a year – and the organization which publishes or distributes these titles, usually at a very significant discount from the retail price in bookshops.”Thanks for reading The Cosmic Codex! This post is public so feel free to share it.According to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, the SFBC, particularly under Nelson Doubleday, “…was in its day a major force in sf publishing” releasing “…its own editions (including special hardcover editions of paperback originals)” and “…omnibuses of various sorts…especially for its members.”I own a two volume SFBC omnibus edition of E.E. “Doc” Smith’s Lensman series, and can attest to the quality of their production.The SFBC is no longer what it once was. Following the sale of Doubleday to Bertelsmann in 1986, it became “…less active as an original publisher.” When I recently visited the site for the first time in years, I found myself dismayed to discover so many contemporary thrillers and romance novels promoted alongside science fiction. The site struck me as merely an extension of the SFBC’s current parent organization, the Book of the Month Club. Although I didn’t know the SFBC would soon shut down, this seemed like a bad sign. The appeal of science fiction, fantasy, and other speculative fiction is narrow and focused. Anything going by the name of the "'Science Fiction' Book Club" should be focused as well. The original creators of the SFBC understood this. It’s too bad the corporations that acquired the fruits of their labors didn’t.What memories do you have of the Science Fiction Book Club? Please share in the comments!In the second half of January, I’m reading Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Memory, the third book in his Hugo-Award winning Children of Time trilogy. I’m sharing my thoughts on Club Codex, where any Cosmic Codex subscriber can follow along, comment, or ask questions.From this week’s post:“There should be a difference between telling the story of characters caught in a loop and forcing the readers to go through that same loop themselves. Regrettably, in "Children of Memory," Tchaikovsky doesn't find this difference. .”Click below to participate:My latest novelette, “Fire From Heaven,” now appears in Boundary Shock Quarterly 29: First Contact.In the shadows of an alien world, terror awaits. On the radiation-blasted planet Janus, a team ...
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    4 mins
  • A critique of Ned Beauman's Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning novel "Venomous Lumpsucker"

    A critique of Ned Beauman's Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning novel "Venomous Lumpsucker"
    Jan 23 2025
    My novelette, An Illicit Mercy, is part of a new promotion in January and February: Moral Dilemmas in Fantasy & Science Fiction.Over 40 short stories, novels, samples and excerpts, available at no cost."When the skies turned red and the stars fell, humanity's fight for survival began."Get your FREE copy of Defending Earth by C. S. Hawk.When a horde of slimy extraterrestrial creatures arrives on Earth with an insatiable appetite for destruction, three unlikely heroes step up to defend our planet.As they navigate the dangerous terrain of a world under siege, they face countless obstacles and setbacks but never lose their sense of humor. After all, when the fate of humanity is on the line, there's nothing like a good joke to keep your spirits up.Will they succeed in repelling the alien invasion and saving the planet? Only time will tell.In his review of Algis Budrys’ 1960 Hugo-nominated novel Rogue Moon, James Blish calls its characters “as various a pack of gravely deteriorated psychotics as has ever graced an asylum.”Ned Beauman might have writtenVenomous Lumpsucker with this statement pinned to the wall above his monitor. He tells the story of broken, deranged people living in a broken, deranged world. Climate change is breaking their world and driving it mad. The characters’ collective guilt for this existential crime is doing the same to them.Thanks for reading The Cosmic Codex! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.Venomous Lumpsucker would be depressing if Beauman wasn’t so deft with his satire. The fate of the world he’s created makes me want to cry, because it’s the fate of the world we’re creating right now. But the human foibles Beauman throws into sharp relief are so familiar, I ended up wanting to laugh—at myself and everyone else.The novel tells the story of Mark Halyard, a near-future business executive with a problem. He’s about to get caught short-selling “extinction credits” he doesn’t own.Extinction credits are financial instruments like carbon credits. Each gives the owner the legal right to drive one species into extinction, and they’re traded on an exchange. Halyard steals his company’s credits and sells them on the exchange. He plans to buy them back when the price drops, so he can replace them before his company realizes they’re gone.Halyard’s plan revolves around a coming regulatory change that will cause the price of extinction credits to crash. He sees selling short as a can't-lose proposition. But when the unthinkable happens, the value of the credits instead skyrockets. Halyard is left holding the bag for the now exorbitant price of the credits he stole.He hopes the company won’t need their credits—meaning they won’t cause the extinction of any species—before he can devise some way out of his predicament. But this hope is dashed when Halyard learns automated undersea mining equipment owned by the company has plowed through the last known habitat of an endangered species of fish—the venomous lumpsucker. Now the company will want to redeem their credits to pay for their mistake. Unless Halyard can find a surviving population of lumpsuckers to stave of his own financial and legal Armageddon.Thanks for reading The Cosmic Codex! This post is public so feel free to share it.This leads him to Karin Resaint, perhaps the world’s foremost living expert on venomous lumpsuckers. Together, they set off across the globe in search of survivors—she to save them, and he to save himself. Along they way, I learned about what a world facing an “extinction crisis” has done to them both, how it has driven each of them crazy in their own way. And they meet a host of characters who are just as crazy, or crazier. These include a former government minister from a country known as the “Hermit Kingdom” (which isn’t where you may think) and an entrepreneur on a city floating in the ocean who has dedicated a project to churning out clouds of flies and setting them free.Venomous Lumpsucker is a sad, humorous, and philosophical book about evolution, ecological peril, extinction, animal consciousness, capitalism, and moral culpability. It’s filled with thoughtful observations from flawed characters, such as when Halyard sums up the worldwide destruction of the “biobanks” which were supposed to save the data profiles of extinct species so humanity could someday resurrect them. “We had pawned those animals intending to buy them back one day when things were a bit less stretched, and now the pawn shop had burned to the ground with all the animals inside.”Or Resaint’s cynical take on the same topic.“‘…I never really gave a s**t about the biobanks. I never believed we were going to bring any of those species back, except maybe a few of the cuddly ones. It was always just an empty ritual.’”Beauman is at his best when he’s talking about both the brutality and the beauty of evolution.On the one hand, it’s savage ...
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    7 mins
  • From the depths of the sea to the depths of space

    From the depths of the sea to the depths of space
    Jan 9 2025
    My novelette, An Illicit Mercy, is part of a new promotion in January: Strong Women.80 short stories and novels, available at no cost.Will humanity come together to save a dying Earth?Get your FREE copy of A Fading Star by Greg HickeyEarth is dying. Ravaged by disease, hunger, climate change and world wars. Can humanity unite to avoid extinction?In 2153, cancer was cured. In 2189, AIDS. It seemed like humanity was headed for the stars.Global population soared, surpassing 24 billion. Then came the floods, washing over Bangkok, Buenos Aires, Mumbai, Jakarta, Dhaka and New Orleans. Then a fourth world war, with 289 million casualties. Frequent droughts plague Los Angeles, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Melbourne, Mexico City, São Paulo, Stockholm, Vienna and Moscow. Now humanity teeters on the brink of extinction.A few individuals fight for our survival. A determined physicist. A brilliant oncologist. A team of daring astronauts. A small group of investors funds a desperate search for another habitable planet. But time is running out.This past July, Martin MacInnes won the Arthur C. Clarke Award for his novel In Ascension.Hailing from Scotland, MacInnes won the Manchester Fiction Prize for his first short story, “Our Disorder,” in 2014. He received the Somerset Maugham Award in 2017 for his first novel, Infinite Ground. MacInnes is a former Royal Literary Fund fellow.Thanks for reading The Cosmic Codex! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.The website for Grove Atlantic, MacInnes’ U.S. publisher, describes In Ascension as follows:Leigh grew up in Rotterdam, drawn to the waterfront as an escape from her unhappy home life and volatile father. Enchanted by the undersea world of her childhood, she excels in marine biology, travelling the globe to study ancient organisms. When a trench is discovered in the Atlantic ocean, Leigh joins the exploration team, hoping to find evidence of the earth’s first life forms – what she instead finds calls into question everything we know about our own beginnings.Thanks for reading The Cosmic Codex! This post is public so feel free to share it.Her discovery leads Leigh to the Mojave desert and an ambitious new space agency. Drawn deeper into the agency’s work, she learns that the Atlantic trench is only one of several related phenomena from across the world, each piece linking up to suggest a pattern beyond human understanding. Leigh knows that to continue working with the agency will mean leaving behind her declining mother and her younger sister, and faces an impossible choice: to remain with her family, or to embark on a journey across the breadth of the cosmos.Questions or comments? Please share your thoughts!This month, I’m reading Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Ruin, the second book in his Hugo-Award winning Children of Time trilogy. I’m sharing my thoughts on Club Codex, where any Cosmic Codex subscriber can follow along, comment, or ask questions.From this week’s post:“Octopuses are by far a better choice than spiders. For one, octopuses are legitimately intelligent, and appear to even possess a sentient consciousness. At the same time, they're so different, they are commonly referred to [as] aliens right here on Earth.”Click below to participate:My latest novelette, “Fire From Heaven,” now appears in Boundary Shock Quarterly 29: First Contact.In the shadows of an alien world, terror awaits. On the radiation-blasted planet Janus, a team of explorers descends into Abbadon—an ancient mountain facility hiding unimaginable secrets. As they navigate bizarre chambers filled with cryptic carvings, they unleash a nightmare. But the true horror lies not in the alien ruins, but in the chilling implications of the team’s discovery.Fire From Heaven is the sequel to my previous novelette, “Nasty, Brutish, and Short.” This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thecosmiccodex.com
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    2 mins
  • "Fire From Heaven"

    "Fire From Heaven"
    Jan 2 2025
    My novelette, An Illicit Mercy, is part of a new promotion in January: Strong Women.80 short stories and novels, available at no cost.When we encounter alien life among the stars, will they have made the same mistakes we have? Worse? Will we even be able to understand them? And what will they understand about us?My new novelette, “Fire From Heaven,” the sequel to “Nasty, Brutish, and Short," appears in Boundary Shock Quarterly 29: First Contact.Thanks for reading The Cosmic Codex! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.In the shadows of an alien world, terror awaits. On the radiation-blasted planet Janus, a team of explorers descends into Abbadon—an ancient mountain facility hiding unimaginable secrets. As they navigate bizarre chambers filled with cryptic carvings, they unleash a nightmare. But the true horror lies not in the alien ruins, but in the chilling implications of the team’s discovery.Here’s an excerpt:“Fire From Heaven”by Brian Scott Pauls“Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven; And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.”—Genesis 19:24-25I can’t say exactly what happened. I didn’t have a good view when the trouble started.Delvalle took point when we went into the mountain, followed by Kuna and de Cries, then Pagnol and Laing with their instrument pack. I came next, while Keahi and Ashishishe brought up the rear—eyes, ears, and nose peeled for threats.Not that we expected trouble. We all “knew” the desolate half of Janus was unoccupied. The wildly chaotic menagerie of organisms Lieutenant Keahi, Ash, and I had discovered on the other side of the planet gave way to an entire hemisphere devoid of life.Thanks for reading The Cosmic Codex! This post is public so feel free to share it.Of course, by the time you read this, you’ll probably know what we found—or, to be more accurate, what found us. I’m sure our report will make quite a stir when it reaches Earth. The implications of what we encountered still keep me up at night. Of course, it's a lot more recent to me than it will be to you, relatively speaking.Beacon is an artificial black hole accompanying Janus in geostationary orbit. You’d think it would have evaporated by now, but ice balls arriving from the outer system continually feed it mass. Apparently, the Janusians used it as a power generator before they destroyed themselves—and Beacon played a major role in that.To function as a generator, the black hole must have once been contained. But that containment is gone. Now it just revolves about Janus, eating ice and belching gamma rays. Nothing unshielded can live on the side of the planet facing it. Even viruses are absent—if not because of the radiation itself, then because there’s nothing to serve as a host.Meanwhile, an increased mutation rate in organisms living close to the irradiated hemisphere has resulted in a greatly accelerated evolutionary pace.At least one intelligent species inhabited Janus. Diamond buildings remain in hundreds of cities spread around the world. Some appear to be fully intact, while the ruins of others surround giant blast craters. Whoever lived on Janus had fun tossing fusion bombs around before something wrecked Beacon’s containment, wiping out civilization. The cities in the verdant hemisphere are overgrown with life. Those on the ravaged side are as dead as everything around them.Abbadon appears to have been the receiving station for power beamed from Beacon. The Janusians scooped off the mountain’s peak, then set the dish of a large microwave antenna into the rock.We dropped to the surface in one of the Zheng He's aeros, each of us except Ash strapped into a seat modified to fit the extra bulk of our armored suits. The synth wore the lynx body it had developed especially for Janus, and made do with a cargo net.The standard Zheng He pressure suits wouldn’t protect against gamma radiation. Our excursion into the dead zone required the Physics and Engineering sections to fabricate tungsten carbide exoskeletons, so heavy they included powered augmentation to allow us to move. Instead of transparent faceplates, the fully enclosed helmets used cameras and other sensors to transmit details of the external environment directly into the sensoriums maintained by our cerebral implants.Each suit could reduce gamma exposure enough to allow 36 hours on the surface. We estimated twelve hours to get from the Zheng He, in geostationary orbit on the opposite side of the planet, to the surface, and then to the entrance. Getting back to the ship would require an equal amount of time. Technically that left a mere twelve hours in the mountain, but the rock would provide additional shielding against the radiation. We wouldn’t know how much extra time we’d gain until we were inside.Pagnol and Laing, a ...
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