David Nadas

Science Fiction

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Surfer, Marine Biologist and Technologist = The ingredients of writing the perfect Sci-Fi

  • A Picture Is Worth… Nothing….

    “A picture is worth a thousand words,” was plagiarized and para-phrased after Henrik Johan Ibsen’s death in 1906.  Henrik was a playwright and director who once said; “A thousand words leave not the same deep impression as does a single deed.” 

    So it is fitting that I now say, the plagiarized and para-phrased version you know today has been hi-jacked.  I shouldn’t care, but this is so comically fractal it leaves me wondering about humanity.  What I am seeing on Social Media is disturbing, where a picture now takes well over a thousand words to correctly depict its intension… 

    For example:  Here is a picture, I took, In Queens NY one day.  Yes, perfect timing… I just happened to be in the right place at the right time soaking in images on my phone when I came around a corner and saw a body sailing through the air…. HOLY CRAP! WHF!  Now…. If I let that image stand on its own and never showed you what happened  a 1/16th of a second before, well, you would be none the wiser.    

    And this is my point.  This is the state of Social Media today.  

    So before you post, repost, critique, or look for the result you are searching for…. Remember these images and question what might have happened a 1/16th of a second before or after.  Things are never what they appear.  Take the time and research what you repost.  Don’t just hit the green button—there is no reward…. Just shock…

    The image of the falling man was taken at an outdoor fair, presented by the Museum Of Moving Images, Astoria, Queens, New York City.  If you have never been there—it is a must.

  • Reach over and just turn on that switch–you can do it….

    Up to this point, we have been blinded by consumption because our global economy is based upon consumption. But the energy to maintain such a model is proving unsustainable. This virus underlines that zero growth is not the end — as this brilliant video presents it. Zero growth means that we are in equilibrium–it is a much better financial model because it follows how things in the natural world thrive The moment an organism begins to outpace this balance, it sets itself up for disaster; specialization in species is a clear path to extinction.

    There is always casualty with change–it is built into the physical laws of the universe. So here we have a chance to make this change better than the thing before it.

    Wouldn’t you rather live in a world like this? I do…

    To my fellow Sci-Fi writers of Dystopia.... this video presents quite a beautiful twist to catastrophic events… doesn’t it? We have an opportunity to change the view…….

  • We are the heaven of yesterday

    Why now? I mean why would the Pentagon release and confirm the authenticity of these videos–granted, these were leaked back in 2017. I’m wondering if it has anything to do with our Alexa, just recently, starting to refer to us by name…. Good morning David…. Thank you Meredith… I had been waiting for that moment, the day we start to accept the future form of humanity. Look in the mirror folks; we we are the heaven of yesterday. It is one of those evolutionary bumps, which needs to happen slowly, as though it had always been there and we just never noticed it.I wonder… when will biological viruses like COVID-19 pass the baton to to digital viruses like SVC_prog.TRIX20?Enjoy everyone…. Another day of living.

  • Lightning does strike the same place twice

    As an Indie Author of Sci-Fi I spend the majority of my time self marketing–then a virus comes along and does the job for me and you discover that not all contagions are equal. Enjoy the FREE Kindle read on Amazon.

    November Seed
    November Seed

    http://amzn.com/B00L2I3CD6

  • Tales From The Loop

    Have you ever wished for something to come true… and it did? That is how I felt when I saw this promo of, Tales From The Loop, to be released on Amazon Prime. I have been such a obsessive fan of Simon Stalenhag’s work– which has inspired my own writing of SciFi– and have read all of his recent works including Tales From The Loop.

     

  • DEVS

    This new SciFi series has no chance of being a dud, just looks who the developers and cast are…

  • MEME

    “Meme.” Having been a student of Marine Biology, spending countless semesters and personal time focused on physiology of species, animal behavior, genetics, the ecology of biological systems, and so on and so on, I had my light bulb moment—that moment in time where one’s mental capacity jumps up several notches—upon studying the science and observations of Robert Ricklefs (Ecology, etc.) and Richard Dawkins (The Selfish Gene, The Extended Phenotype, etc.). It was as if I had stumbled upon a jumbled pile of puzzle pieces and began to see the image forming before me. That is how much of a light-bulb moment these individuals have had upon my learning and I began to unravel the social behavior of genetics.

    Now back to the word, meme. Coined in 1976 by Richard Dawkins (from the Greek word mimeme – imitate). Remember it as this. Gene is to blue eyes as meme is to Santa Claus; both passed from one generation to the next. Ask yourself, why exactly do we intentionally lie to our offspring about the existence of Santa Claus?

    So something odd has evolved here: a means to propagate information much faster than genetics. But all may not appear, as it seems. Take one of Richard Dawkins observations in ants, where some ants he observed climbed to the top of a leaf or blade of grass, something that put that ant in a vulnerable situation, exposing itself to predators or grazing animals. What would explain such behavior? Martyrism? Social acceptance? Fecundity? It turns out in that ant example it was the lancet fluke– a virus affecting the ant’s brain, putting the ant on a course of action beneficial to the virus. The virus required a grazing animal to complete its life cycle, securing its ability to pass on its genetics—it couldn’t care less about using the ant to get there.

    So… why am I bringing this up? Are you the ant or the lancet fluke? I suppose I am both, for I see posts, propagated, as one’s personal gain. This one included 😉

    Case in point:

    The alien in my sci-fi novella, November Seed, was based upon the fungi of the genus Ophiocordyceps – which takes control of an ant’s brain, producing an antenna of spores and turning the ant into a zombie for it’s selfish quest.

    What exactly would the meme be for that? All I can picture are Santa’s reindeers, all with antlers, pulling his sleigh bearing gifts.

    “Merry Christmas all! And to all a good night……”

    If you are looking for a good Christmas story to watch, try Rare Exports: A Christmas story, free on Amazon Prime

  • What would aliens actually look like?

    It is quite easy for a Sci-Fi author to make their aliens very human-like (guilty of charged– as in my upcoming novel, Silversides); trying to write a story where they are nothing like humans creates a lot more work for the author, even if that alien does not have a speaking part.

    November Seed

    Alien in, November Seed

    Both of my novellas (November Seed & From Europa With Love) have aliens that are not human-like and have no dialogue, so to make these stories credible, the biology has to be right.  It helped me immensely that in my former life I was a Marine Biologist–I had been studying alien life forms my entire life it seems and it is not by coincidence that in both my novellas the alien life forms are marine in nature.

    Representation of alien in, From Europa With Love

    But if you are new to writing Sci-Fi and do not have a background in Marine Biology, there are countless videos like this excellent BBC short from the BBC Ideas section to start you on your way.

    So where does a new writer of Sci-Fi get started with understanding alien life?  Below are some good short video to get you on your way.  maybe, just maybe will will find out in our lifetime when we can get a probe below the surface of Europa to explore its thermal vents…. but then again, maybe we do not want to go three.  Europa seems to be a focus for NASA and other scientists as a first strike for alien hunting.  And why not?  t was mine in From Europa With love.

     


  • Are we living in a Blade Runner World?

    I was reading an article on BBC, “Are we living in Blade Runner World,”by David Barnett, about the 1982 flick directed by Ridley Scott, sparked by Philip K Dick’s 1968 novel, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.” The article’s author goes on to explain that the depiction of LA (at the time of the movie) was not far off from today and draws some comparisons.

    The article then drifts into why writers of science fiction write what they do; are they writing to predict the future? Find out. The article is a great read for anyone who has put off reading Sci-Fi because they think the stories are of weird aliens (which there are), with unpronounceable names and places (guilty as charged), where the dialogue is robotic in cadence, which is false… except for maybe a few newbie writers of Sci-Fi that self publishing has afforded– a terrific thing by the way.

    The article shows great insight from Sci-Fi authors, Matthew Kressel and Mary Robinette Kowal, both who have created great works. Do authors of sci-fi write to predict the future? I’m sure many do, but based upon my own experience, I like to think we write depictions based upon current, hyper-social events; like smashing atoms and looking for the sub-particles we expect to see, and spin it from there.

     

  • Cassiopeia

     

    This short story is an entry in one of Wattpad’s plethora of writing contests (Comet’s Tale) in collaboration with Children’s Fiction on Wattpad.

    This is a story about Isomerism. In chemistry it represents a chemical structure with the same number and types of atoms as another chemical structure but with different properties due to a slight difference in the arrangement of atoms. Isomerization can arise spontaneously depending on whether the energy of the configurations i. I love to use this concept in my writing of Sci-Fi–when something appears identical, but is not–like one’s reflection in the mirror

    The chemical structure of Cyclohexane has always remained one of my favorite structures of Organic Chem, this structure often referred to as, ‘the Woman in the Chair,’ named after the star constellation, Cassiopeia.

    “Mom… Is there anyone out there just like me?” asked Phia.  “Someone who has the same name, someone who has the same blue and green eyes like I do?”

     “Yes,” her mother answered as they sat on the edge of the bed, looking up through the dome and into the stars beyond.

     “Exactly like me?”  

    “Well… yes,” Her mother hesitated. “Your left eye is blue, but the other Phia’s left eye is green.”

    “What about the freckles on my shoulder?” Phia asked.  “The ones in the pattern of the constellation, Cassiopeia, does the other Phia have that?”

    “Yes. But for you, those freckles are on your right shoulder and hers are on the left.”

    “So she is not exactly like me,” Phia said scrunching her brows.

    “But indeed she is,” her mother insisted.  “If the other Phia were standing in front of you, no one could tell the two of you apart.”

    “But everything seems different, I don’t understand?”

    “Let me show you,” her mother said and commanded the home’s A.I. to bring up the portal of planet Isomer on the other side of the galaxy.  The two watched as the air began to ripple, then swirl until it thickened into a circular gateway.

    Phia leaned into her mother, perplexed by what appeared in the room.

    ”There is nothing to fear,” her mother giggled.  “Now stand up,” she said nudging her daughter forward. “Go meet the other Phia.”

    Phia slipped off the edge of the bed and faced the portal, stepping closer until she was staring back at who she believed was herself.

    “But that’s me!” she said turning back to face her mother.

    “No.  That’s the other Phia.  Now raise your left hand,” she encouraged her daughter.

    Phia once again faced the portal and raised her left hand.

    “Do you see now who I am talking about?” Her mother asked.

    “No.  I see me,” Phia said still holding up her left arm and wiggling her fingers in the air as the Phia in the portal matched every move.

    “Look more closely,” her mother instructed.  “Which arm is the Phia before you holding up?”

    Her daughter studied the girl before her, then realized the other Phia was holding up her right arm. She stepped closer until their noses were almost touching, looking directly into each other’s eyes that were reversed in color.  Phia pulled her tee shirt off her shoulder to reveal the freckles as the Phia in the portal matched her every opposite move.

    “Now do you see?” her Mother said from behind.  

    Her daughter nodded and placed the palm of her hand upon the surface of the portal until she could feel the other Phia pressing back with equal force.

    Her mother looked on at the two of them, not concerned about her daughter slipping through to the other side, because no matter how hard she tried, she could never find her way around the Phia in the portal, who matched her every move.

    “I can feel her!” Phia said to her mother as she watched and listened to the Phia before her say exactly the same thing.

    “Now say good night to her— it’s time for both of you to go to bed.”

    The girls waved to each other, opposite but the same.  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” they each said and turned away, but quickly, each turning quickly to see if the other did the same, smiling when they did.