THE ICE PICK

Ghost Town: My Ride Through Chernobyl Area, http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/

This website is a motorbike photo tour of the devastated region around Chernobyl by a young Ukrainian woman named Elena, who is the daughter of a scientist working there.

The tour is a haunting trip that shows what has happened to the land in the eighteen years since the No. 4 reactor at Chernobyl exploded and caught fire, spewing radiation across much of northern Europe.

The nuclear disaster contaminated an area half the size of Colorado, destroying about 50,000 square miles of Europe’s most fertile farmland, forcing the rushed evacuation and resettlement of hundreds of thousands of people, killing at least 4,400, disabling at least 40,000 more, and causing at least seven million physical and/or psychological injuries among the survivors--many of whom are dying of cancer now.

But the numbers cannot begin to tell the story. If an ordinary picture is worth one thousand words, then the photos on this website and Elena’s accompanying captions are truly priceless.

The acres of rusting trucks and helicopters used in trying to put out the fire; the wild animals, vines, and trees reclaiming abandoned villages and vandalized homes and stores; the lesson of radioactive loot being resold across the old Soviet Union; the empty city of enormous apartment buildings where people once lived and laughed; wedding photos on a table; a child’s doll left behind. . . .

It made me wonder if this city will be our Pompeii for future generations and what kinds of distorted images from the Communist culture they may project for our whole society.

I wish everyone could view this website, but if you are working on a post-apocalyptic world or are looking for ideas for any kind of story involving lost and abandoned places, you definitely should take the time to look at "Ghost Town."

And you will need time. Set aside an hour at least, more if you plan on taking notes. You can think of it as if you were going to the movies--but expect to be moved, disturbed, even haunted, by what you see, for it is a profoundly surreal landscape, and you will almost certainly be affected these images. There is nothing gory or violent here. In fact, some of the scenes are really beautiful. But that does not make it any the less terrifying.

Very highly recommended.

{Published in SF and Fantasy Workshop Newsletter, June 2004.}

NOTE: A great deal has been added to this site since 2004. I can only recommend it even more highly now for its honest window into a world few of us know and for its contribution to understanding that world. I wish Elena the very best in her efforts. ~~DCI

THE ICE PICK

Space Travel, by Ben Bova with Anthony R. Lewis. 1st ed. Cincinnati, Writer’s Digest Books, 1997. 273 p. Science Fiction Writing Series. $16.99. Includes bibliography, glossary, and index. ISBN 0-89879-747-0.

If you are writing realistic science fiction, rather than science fantasy, and your story involves space travel, this book may have the answers you need to make your story fly.

The chapter on rockets includes everything from the Medieval gunpowder-propelled ones and the chemical ones (solid and liquid), to nuclear and solar-powered electric rockets.

Effects of weightlessness, how to produce artificial gravity without making your characters dizzy, and the details of orbital mechanics are thoroughly discussed.

Space habitats and the difficulties of living and working in space, plus future space industries and military uses of space are explored.

Are you planning a lunar colony? Do you need to know whether lunar mines would be underground or open pit? Or how sunrise would appear on a lunar morning stroll? The chapter about the Moon discusses what it would be like living there and working in lunar industries.

Travel in the Solar System and conditions on each of the planets is discussed at length, along with the problems of travel over increasingly long distances and resulting communications home.

If your story requires interstellar travel, there are chapters on the problems of star flight, which will help your starship captain avoid such errors as ordering his vessel to hover or come to a full stop.

In the chapter on the Universe, the topics explained include natural lasers, black holes, space warps, and quasars. Questions are asked as to whether quasars are really starships, or if it’s possible that we are the most technologically advanced species in our galaxy.

One of the things I really like about this book is that along with providing the scientific and technical background, it shows how to use the details and facts in creating a story without boring your readers to death.

As the authors say, "You have to know the facts in order to write a convincing, well-crafted story that is internally consistent. But the reader does not have to know every tiny detail." Unless, for example, something goes wrong with your spacecraft’s engines, you should use the information in the chapter on rockets only as background to make your story better and not put in every detail about the engines you have laboriously researched. "If it’s not important to the story’s forward momentum, leave it out."

If your story takes place in outer space, or even on Earth in a future where space travel is taken for granted, and you need story ideas or want to avoid making scientific errors, I highly recommend this book.

{Published in SF and Fantasy Workshop Newsletter, Mar. 2003.}

THE ICE PICK

Time Travel, by Paul J. Nahin. Cincinnati, Writers Digest Books, 1997. 200 p. (Science Fiction Writing Series) $16.99 Includes bibliography, glossary, and index. ISBN 0-89879-748-9.

If you want to write a story that includes time travel and get the science right, or you simply want to know if time travel is possible, this comprehensive "writer’s guide to the real science of plausible time travel" is for you.

Nahin says that "physics seems to be coming to the astonishing conclusion that time travel to the past doesn’t violate any of the known laws of physics."

And time travel to the future? Since 1905, physicists have known that that was possible. Nahin shows how it might be accomplished, using the special theory of relativity and a high speed rocket.

Nahin discusses the history of time travel in science fiction, along with explanations of mistakes authors have made and how you can avoid them. He explains the rules you must follow if you want to avoid writing fantasy, plus the theories that make time travel possible, and how you can use them to create your own scientifically sound story.

He explains hyperspace; theoretical time machines already "invented"; block and splitting universes; time as the fourth dimension and how it is shaped and "moves"; folded space-time and wormholes; cosmic strings; the uncertainty principle; and paradoxes--like meeting yourself, changing the past, causal loops, etc. and he tells why most of them are invalid.

Nahin also tells how you can use current scholarly journals in physics to generate new and original story ideas without getting bogged down in the technical details.

This is not an easy book. It requires a fair knowledge of physics and mathematics in order to fully use and appreciate it. But he says not to let the math discourage you, and he explains the general concepts behind the equations.

If you want to write "scientifically respectable" time travel, "or at least sound that way," I recommend this book.

{Published in SF and Fantasy Workshop Newsletter, Nov. 2002.}

IN THE SILENCE

Real faith--like real science--is a seeking for answers, a quest for truth. It is not a presumption that one knows it all. For all of us--those who search and those who think they already have all the answers--God has many surprises waiting. "Seek and ye shall find." (Matt. 7:7) Seek the truth, love the truth, speak the truth. Let love cover all things and people. God's spirit is in everyone, but if we block Him or ignore Him, He cannot help us or help us to help others.

{From A Journal of the Spirit, a Journey of the Soul, by D.C. Ice, Oct. 8, 1995}