Fantastic Blog Hop!

I'm joining the Fantastic Blog Hop! The Cereal Authors group is doing a blog hop, with events and giveaways on Facebook at the Fantastic Blog Party! The party runs today and tomorrow, and we're supposed to answer some trivia questions about ourselves, so hang on!

-Stephanie Osborn

http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

Name a famous author you've met, nearly met or wish you'd met.

   I met Ray Bradbury briefly at the World Science Fiction Convention in Atlanta in 1986. I had just bought a large plush stegosaurus in the dealer’s room and was carrying it under one arm through the room, when Mr. Bradbury, with his handler, came down the aisle from the other direction. He halted his handler in mid-sentence, left his side and made a beeline for me, when he started petting my stuffed dinosaur and discussing the creatures with me! Turns out he loved dinos. It was very cool.

   At that time, I wasn’t a writer. Since becoming a writer, I’ve met numerous authors, including New York Times bestsellers, like Jerry Pournelle, Larry Niven, Larry Correia, Eric Flint, John Ringo, Travis S. Taylor, Sarah Hoyt, and more.

What are the weirdest things a character ever did in a book?

   Oh me. I suppose it depends on your definition of weird. I write science fiction; in the regular world, most of it would be weird!

   Falling in love with and marrying an alien, maybe? That happened several times in the Cresperian Saga. 

   Then there’s always deciding you’re going to infiltrate Area 51 while being a fugitive yourself, which happened in Burnout.

Who really wrote the book, you or your characters?

   Initially it was, more or less, the characters. It’s been said that I write very cinematically; well, that’s because I watch the events play out on this little screen inside my eyelids, and I just write down what I see, hear, and otherwise observe. But as I’ve gained more writing experience, I have gotten rather more control over the plot, at least. Now I tell the characters what I want them to do, and they tell me how they’d do it!

How many books have you started and how many have you finished?

   There isn’t a book that I’ve started that I haven’t finished, sooner or later. Some are currently in work; there’s 4 of those. There’s a couple of things that I wrote some years ago that are derivative works, and I’m dinking around with “filing off the serial numbers,” as Sarah Hoyt puts it, and making it fully my own original work. But I do that around working on other stuff, because I don’t know if it’ll work or not, so I don’t want to waste a bunch of time and energy on it, when I have other stuff I know I need to do.

What's the hardest part with writing: the writing of the story or the editing?

   Oh, the writing, by far. In general editing is fairly easy for me. I’ve done so much editing over the years – theses, government papers, reports, etc. – I actually free-lance as an editor and like it. I love writing too, but the creative energy that I have to pour into it renders it much harder than editing.

If one of your books could be made into a movie, which would you choose and who would you cast?

   Do I have to choose?

   Well, my first book, Burnout: The mystery of Space Shuttle STS-281, was a film in my head, no lie. And there have been numerous attempts to translate it to film, but so far it hasn’t gone through. We do keep trying.

   But when I first wrote it, I could see actors playing the roles. Tommy Lee Jones was Crash Murphy; Hugo Weaving was Dr. Michael Anders. Hugh Jackman was Steve Blake, Harrison Ford was Jet Jackson, James Cromwell a NASA manager…on and on. I had every major character cast in my head. It’d never get made like that; too many stars, too many schedules to coordinate, too much money. But in my head, that’s what they look like.

How many books have you written in total?

   Well, back when I was first trying to get published, I wrote an entire series that was intended to become a movie-to-novel franchise. Unfortunately I was never able to sell it due to the issue of rights being tied up. I currently have 22 books (some contributions to anthologies and the like) in print, with a 23^rd coming soon. If I add in that unpublished series and a few other novella-to-novel-length stories I wrote but never published, I’ve probably written close to 40 books.

Where did the last one take place?

   The one that’s just gone under contract is Displaced Detective book 5, A Case of Spontaneous Combustion, and it takes place in London. The one I’m working on now, Displaced Detective number 6, is called Fear in the French Quarter and takes place in New Orleans.

   Then there’s the sequel to Burnout, called Escape Velocity. It, like its predecessor, roams over half the planet.

   And the fourth Cresperian Saga book, Heritage, takes place partly on Earth, partly in space, and partly in the Cresperian system.

Besides writing, what’s your favorite hobby?

   Oh um, that’s a hard one. I read – a LOT – and I like to shop. I like researching stuff – yeah, I really do. I can lose hours to the search for information, learning new stuff the whole time. But then, what does one expect of a scientist, I suppose. I used to do a good bit of live theatre, but that requires a bigger block of time than I have to give these days. Still, it’s how I met my husband: we both auditioned for and were cast in a play in college.

What is your genre?

   Well, I tend to cross genres a lot.  Science fiction mystery, for the most part, I’d say. I usually throw in some romance (because romance occurs in real life – people do fall in love, and I want my characters to be as realistic as possible), and a judicious dash of suspense/thriller.

What’s your Country of Origin?

   Born and reared in the good ol’ USA.

What are the names of your two leads?

   For which books?

   For Burnout, it’s “Crash” Murphy and Mike Anders. For the Point series, it’s Ray and Samantha Brady. For the Cresperian Saga, it changes from book to book. For the Displaced Detective series, it’s Sherlock Holmes and Skye Chadwick.

Don't forget to stop by The Fantastic Blog Party and enter to win a free book!

-Stephanie Osborn

http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

Stalking the Higgs Boojum, part 2

This is the continuation of the discussion about the Higgs boson by my friend Dr. James K. Woosley, who is one of my scientific advisors and one of my beta readers. This is some of the science that he and I tossed about in order for me to write the Displaced Detective books, as well as Extraction Point! with Travis S. Taylor. It's about to get a little deep, so put your thinking caps on tight!

-Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com
~~~

Elementary (particles), my dear Watson

The next step to understanding the Higgs boson is to explore the other elements of the Standard Model of elementary particle physics, to provide the necessary context.

The story of the development of the standard model is pretty much the history of twentieth century physics. The story actually begins a few years early, in 1896, when the British physicist J. J. Thompson discovered that the "cathode rays" which had been observed over the previous twenty years in gas discharge tubes were actually individual particles (corpuscles), which eventually came to be called electrons. These particles were shown to have a negative electric charge — meaning they moved in the direction of increasing electric voltage — and to have a mass less than 1/1000th of a hydrogen atom.

Then in 1912, Ernest Rutherford discovered the atomic nucleus, which when stripped of electrons was shown to have a positive electric charge, and by 1917 realized that the lightest atomic nucleus, that of hydrogen, appeared to be an indivisible, positively charged particle which came to be called the proton. The problem of more massive atomic nuclei was solved in 1932, when James Chadwick isolated the electrically neutral neutron as the particle which contributed

to nuclear mass without affecting nuclear electric charge. Wolfgang Pauli had earlier postulated the neutrino to explain the slight loss of energy associated with nuclear beta decay (the neutrino was not discovered as an actual particle until 1956), which led to the identification of the beta decay mechanism,

Note the bar over the Greek letter  (nu) representing the neutrino. In the late 1920's, British physicist Paul Dirac had developed a complete quantum theory for the electron which introduced the possibility — indeed, the necessity, of antiparticles, particles which possessed electrical charges of the same magnitude but opposite polarity as their partner particles and which reacted with them to decompose into hard radiation.

Dirac's prediction was cemented by the discovery of the anti-electron (positron) by Carl Anderson in 1932, the discovery of the anti-proton (very rarely called the negatron) in 1955 by Emilio Segrè and Owen Chamberlain, and the discovery of the anti-neutron (at which point nobody bothered to give it its own name) in 1956 by Bruce Cork. The anti-neutron was particularly puzzling, because the neutron is electrically neutral, but the anti-neutron was discovered to have the opposite magnetic polarity of the neutron. Also, since the anti-neutron decays into an anti-proton, a positron, and a neutrino, the convention was developed that an anti-neutrino (hence the bar in the equation above) is associated with the electron. Together, the electron and the neutrino are called leptons, and a quantity called "lepton number" as assigned so that the net change in lepton number in a beta decay is zero. Hence, the electron and the neutrino (emitted with the positron) have lepton number +1, and the positrion and the anti-neutrino (emitted with the electron) have lepton number -1.

It should be noted that all four of these particles have one-half unit of spin¹ (which can be measured relative to the direction of the motion of the particle, and is aligned either in the direction of, or opposing the direction of, motion). This means that, when collected together, they observe the so-called Fermi-Dirac statistics which grew out of Dirac's theory of the electron (designed to account for spin). For practical purposes, these particles, call fermions, resist being packed tightly together. Conversely, particle with integral values of spin (0, 1, …) can be packed to high density. These are called bosons, being based on Bose-Einstein statistics.²

This nice, cozy picture of four fundamental particles, together with their anti-particles, was shattered before it was even fully formed with the discovery of additional particles, starting with the muon, which behaves like an electron, in 1936, and of two classes of particles: a class of bosons (the mesons) and a class of fermions (the baryons, which included the neutron and the proton), beginning in 1947.³ This increasingly crowded "particle zoo" was brought to a semblance of sanity beginning in 1964, when Murray Gell-Mann and George Zweig postulated that the then-known mesons and baryons were made up of three types of smaller particles called quarks. A fourth type of quark was discovered in 1974, and an additional pair of quarks have been confirmed in more recent experiments. A third electron-like particle, the tauon, and neutrinos corresponding to the muon and tauon, have also been identified. This picture of three generations of quarks and leptons is summarized in the table below.

Charge	Type/Anti	1st Generation	2nd Generation	3rd Generation
+ 1	Anti-lepton	Positron, e+	Antimuon, +	Anti-tauon, +
+ 2/3	Quark	Up quark, u	Charm quark, c	Top quark, t
+ 1/3	Anti-quark	Anti-down quark,	Anti-strange quark,	Anti-bottom quark,
0	Lepton	Electron neutrino,	Muon neutrino,	Tauon Neutrino,
0	Anti-lepton	Electron antineutrino,	Muon antineutrino	Tauon Antineutrino,
- 1/3	Quark	Down quark, d	Strange quark, s	Bottom quark, b
- 2/3	Anti-quark	Anti-up quark,	Anti-charm quark,	Anti-top quark,
- 1	Lepton	Electron, e-	Muon, -	Tauon, -

In this picture, the mesons are found to be made of pairs of quarks and anti-quarks; while the baryons are composed of three quarks. These compositions obey mathematical rules which look very much like the much more comprehensible concept of spin, which results in beautifully symmetric structures. In the graphics on the left below⁴, chart (a) shows the composition of scalar mesons (quark and anti-quark with opposing spins that cancel to zero net spin) composed of the up, down, strange, and charm quark, while chart (b) shows the corresponding vector (aligned spins adding to one unit of spin) mesons. The central octets represent the particles known at the time the quark theory was formed. The graphic on the right⁵ shows the basic spin one-half baryons (two quarks with aligned spin, one with opposing spin) on the bottom octet, and then the structure as one, two, or three bottom baryons replace the lighter quarks (a similar structure has been defined with charm quarks, and additional combinations with both charm and bottom mesons have also been discovered).

The quarks have been found to be very tightly bound together; although there have been a few tantalizing hints, there is no firm evidence that quarks exist as free particles outside of the elementary particles which are composed of them. Similarly, there have been hints, but no confirmation, of more complicated particles, such as meson-like particles composed of two quarks and two antiquarks, or hybrid meson-baryons with four quarks and one anti-quark. The significance and/or rarity of such events remains a subject of study.

The most notable difference between the three generations is the mass of the particles. This is illustrated graphically below, where the mass of the three generations of particles, excluding the neutrinos (which are now known to have mass but are very light), is given in the conventional units of high energy physics, MeV/c².⁶ As can be seen, the mass of particles increases more or less exponentially between generations. This is far from fully understood.

 

1 "Spin" is a quantum property of elementary particles which behaves mathematically in many ways like spin in ordinary life, from an ice skater twirling to the Earth's rotation about its axis. However, as a quantum property, it only occurs in discrete values: 0, 1/2, 1, 3/2, 2, etc. However, while spin at the quantum level behaves like spin in real life, we cannot directly observe elementary particles to see if they are really spinning, or if something else is happening that we can't observe. When particles with spin combine to form composite particles, the spins can be aligned with or against each other; the particles can also have quantized (values of 0, 1, 2, etc.) orbital angular momentum from their orbits around each other. This is not the most confusing thing about elementary particles.

 

2 Satyendra Nath Bose was an Indian physics professor who developed his theory of boson behavior in 1924 and sent it to Einstein, who was so impressed he translated it into German himself and submitted it for publication.

3 For the sake of simplifying the discussion, I will not discuss the confusion of meson and baryon physics in the 1950's, as almost a hundred different particles were discovered and quantified, and the muon was not yet fully distinguished from the true mesons.

4 http://fafnir.phyast.pitt.edu/particles/conuni6.html (accessed 16OCT2011)

5 http://cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/40104 (accessed 16OCT2011)

6 One MeV is the kinetic energy of a charged particle which has accelerated through a volatage of one million volts, about the scale of most lightning generators found in high school physics labs. The effective accelerating voltage of a facility such as the Large Hadron Collider at CERN is about 10 million MeV. The division by c² is reflective of Einstein's equivalence of energy and mass.

~~~

The next installment next week!
-Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com
 

Stalking the Higgs Boojum, Part 1

It's been noted by a number of people that I am a polymath. This means I have a broad knowledge over many subjects. That does not necessarily presuppose that I know all details about those subjects. To that end I have several fellow scientists expert in those subjects to help me out. Dr. James K. Woosley is an old friend from our graduate school days, and his specialty is particle physics. He's helped me out with a number of books, by looking over my scientific work and pronouncing judgement. So far the judgement has been, in the main, good.

But I thought I'd take the opportunity to let him talk a little bit about the science behind the science fiction. We've all heard the hullabaloo regarding faster-than-light neutrinos and the possible discovery of the Higgs boson (yes, the two are related, because if FTL neutrinos existed, the Higgs couldn't, or likely wouldn't). Let's hear some stuff about it from someone who knows.

-Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

~~~

“ ‘But oh, beamish nephew, beware of the day,

 If your Snark be a Boojum! For then

You will softly and suddenly vanish away,

 And never be met with again!’

— The Hunting of the Snark, by Lewis Carroll

The recent announcement from CERN about the possible discovery of the Higgs boson, called by some the God particle for its supposed role in providing mass to the elementary particles, has stimulated unprecedented interest in particle physics but also a lot of questions about just what it means.

In this article I will discuss what the Higgs boson is, why it is important, and where the particle physics community will go from here. In order to get there, I will take some apparent detours, as well as saying some potentially outrageous things. Well, outrageous to physicists.^[1]

The article is divided into sections on the meaning of mass, the standard theory of elementary particles, why the Higgs boson is considered important to the origin of mass, how the search for the Higgs boson was conducted and the results obtained so far, and the future direction of Higgs boson research and the consequences for both physicists and non-physicists.

What is mass, and why do I need to lose weight?

Before we consider how the Higgs boson generated mass, we need to have an understanding of exactly what mass is in the first place.

Ask a classical physicist what mass is, and you will likely get a blank stare. The problem is that, even since the days of Sir Isaac Newton, physicist have had two answers to that question. First, mass is known to be inertia, the resistance of a body to a change in its state of motion. In the simplest form of Newton's laws, the mass m of a body can be defined as the ratio of the quantity of force applied to a body, F, to the acceleration a of that body generated by the applied force; or algebraically,

m=F/a.

However, in classical physics, two (or more) bodies generate a force on each other which seems to exist simply because the bodies possess inertial mass. This force, the gravitational force, is such that the force on one body, of mass m, directly proportional to the mass M of the second body in the system, and inversely proportional to the square of the distance r between them,

F_gravity=GMm/r²

In this equation, the constant G, called Newton's constant, serves primarily to make sure that the units work out properly. If the two masses are in kilograms (kg), and the distance is in meters (m), then to yield F in the self-consistent metric system units of newtons (N), the constant G has the value of 6.67 x 10^-11 Nm²/kg². This number seems absurdly small (written in decimal notation it is 0.0000000000667), until you realize that it is defined so that, if M is the mass of the Earth, and r is the radius of the Earth, the acceleration experienced by the mass, m, is equal to the acceleration of gravity on the surface of the Earth, 9.8 m/s². This really just shows how weak gravity is in conventional use, if it takes the entire mass of the Earth to generate just one "g" of gravity.

The identification of two different types of mass, inertial and gravitational, does not answer the question of where mass comes from. Much less the question of why, in consistent units, inertial and gravitation mass are equal. When it came time for Albert Einstein to ponder this question, while developing the general theory of relativity, he just accepted that the two types of mass were the same, a simplified statement of what is known as the principle of equivalence.

However, relativity introduces other concepts necessary to understanding the essence of mass. First, there is a relationship between kinetic energy, or energy of motion, of any material body, and its mass; this is the origin of Einstein's best-known equation, E=mc². Second, this leads to the definition of rest mass, or the mass of any material body when it is not in motion relative to an observer, usually designated as m₀. Third, this also means that the mass of a body in motion (relative to an observer) appears to increase — in particular, part of the energy which a force imparts to the body results in an increase in speed, and part of the energy results in an increase in mass. As the body approaches the speed of light, the mass increases without bound, and so it takes infinite energy just to reach the speed of light, at which point the body has infinite mass.

However, this assessment doesn't apply to photons, the individual quantum particles that make up light. Since, by obvious definition, light travels at the speed of light, photons are very different from any material body. Photons are thus considered to be massless - they have no mass, and thus are constrained to always move at the speed of light to maintain their existence. (In principle, the other force carrying particles of the standard model — the intermediate vector bosons of the weak force, the gluons of the strong force, and the gravitons of the gravitational force — are also expected to be massless. This is clearly not true for the intermediate vector bosons, as we will discuss in the next section; the gluons and gravitons will be considered in the final section.) However, photons still possess energy, by virtue that they also possess momentum, and one central tenant of Einstein's general theory of relativity is that gravitational forces can also affect photons. In the theory, this is because the gravitational forces act by warping space-time, which changes the pathways along which the massless photons travel, leading to such phenomena as gravitational lenses which are becoming a useful tool in astronomy. However, the same effect would be encountered if the gravitational force is assumed to act on energy densities, rather than on masses, and Einstein's theory also makes that assumption.

And thus, we come to the classical "handle" on the origin of gravitational mass: any concentration of energy reacts to gravity, and thus gravity maybe a phenomenon of energy concentrations rather than of masses. All of this is true, but it is well hidden in gravitation theory. The relevant equation, which is what physicists refer to as Einstein's equation (not the much better known and much simpler; it is provided here primarily because it has recently appeared (bizarrely, and with a small error) in a popular movie[2]

R_μν-(1/2)g_μνR=(8πg/c⁴)T_μν,

where the quantities R (a 4 x 4 matrix in the dimensions of space-time) describe the curvature of spacetime, the quantities g, called the metric, defines the coordinate system used to describe space time, and the quantity T is the energy density which causes the gravitational field.

But as noted, gravity is not the only force. The electromagnetic force is significantly more powerful; the electromagnetic force between two electrons is stronger than their mutual gravitational force by a factor of 10⁴⁰ or 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. Other than the direct effects of gravitation — falling bodies, the unsightly numbers we observe every time we step on the scale (if we can look down that far) — everything else we observe on a macroscopic scale on earth is due to the electromagnetic force. We feel the shock when we pick up static electricity walking across a carpet - that shock represents only a very small number of electrons. The forces that hold all of matter together, from the table I am keyboarding this on to the cells in my body, are the result of slight imbalances in electrically neutral matter due to the distribution of negative (electron) and positive (proton) charges therein.

And how massive is a single electron? Well, consider the electric field, the field which measures the strength of interaction between electrons, of an electron at rest relative to the observer. I won't write the equation, except to note that it is similar to the gravitational force equation above, only it is expressed in terms of the electric charge instead of the mass. The force generated by this field causes changes in kinetic energy of the particles which pass through it, and so it is said to have a potential energy which balances the kinetic energy changes. This potential energy can be summed to obtain an overall energy density, and a total energy of the field. By a surprising coincidence, the total energy of the field of a single electron, is equal to the mass of the electron, multiplied by the square of the speed of light.

Astonishingly, that coincidence is not assumed to have any relevance to the Standard Model as described next week.

1 In his column "Best of the Web Today" for Friday 24 August 2012, James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal paraphrases physics professor Jerry Peterson of the University of Colorado at Boulder, discussing changes in Colorado laws regarding concealed carry of firearms on campus, as saying "… he simply wants his students to feel safe to engage in discussions that could become controversial―reiterated that the presence of guns in his classroom 'would destroy the learning environment.'" Taranto then asks, "What in the world are they talking about that is so controversial it would lead to gunfire in a physics class?" (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444358404577609343602510960.html) I don't intend that this essay should be an answer to his question, but you never know.

² Expendables 2, where the alcoholic mercenary is stated to be a chemical engineer by training, with a corresponding level of scientific knowledge.

~~~

We'll continue the discussion in the following weeks. I can say, however, that he helped me immensely in writing the Displaced Detective series by verifying that my interpretation and implementation of M theory in those books was a legitimate one, thereby preparing me to write Extraction Point! with Travis S. Taylor. Jim has also helped me develop concepts for compact power supplies for the Displaced Detective series, but that hasn't been published...yet.

 

-Stephanie Osborn

http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

 

A Tidbit of Wonderful News!

by Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

Last weekend (12-14 Oct) I was the Mistress of Ceremonies for Huntsville's Con*Stellation SF convention. That in itself was a great honor, for it was the second year in a row that I had been asked to fill that slot.

But there were more honors to come.

After the opening ceremonies, famed SF writer Eric Flint came up to me...and informed me that his wife, Lucille, positively loved my books! She has read all three of the Displaced Detective novels currently out, and is eagerly awaiting book 4 next month! THEN he followed me to the dealer's room and bought a copy of Burnout and a copy of Extraction Point - insisting I autograph both! And as if that weren't enough, it turns out that Lucille (Lu as Mr. Flint calls her) was gifted the Displaced Detective books by Walt Boyes, who is, to quote Eric, "one of the inner circle (so to speak) of the [NYT-best-selling] 1632 series authors," and who "recommended them highly"!

My mind is blown. I have been flying high ever since. It doesn't get much better than that!

 

 

 

-Stephanie Osborn

http://www.stephanie-osborn.com







Updates On Books.

by Stephanie Osborn
www.stephanie-osborn.com


Ok. Books. Let's have a quick look-see as to what I've got going on.

Book 4 of the Displaced Detective series is coming out mid-November if all goes according to plan. It is entitled, The Case of the Cosmological Killer: Endings and Beginnings, from Twilight Times Books. It is essentially the second part of The Rendlesham Incident. My first two stories ended up being too long for a single volume each, hence the double-volume works. The reason is because each contains, not one, but TWO stories, interwoven. Sorry about that, and I can promise that all the rest of the books in the series (and yes, TTB has given the go-ahead on the rest of the series!) will be single-volume works, because I’m already writing them.

Also coming out in November, I believe on Election Day, will be "A New American Space Plan, by Travis S. Taylor with Stephanie Osborn” from Baen Books. This is exactly what it sounds like, a discussion of what we’ve done as a species in space, what’s going on now, and where we as a nation SHOULD be going, but aren’t, and who might beat us to the punch. I put together an especially enlightening “history of space exploration” appendix that projects into the future according to the various plans already in place around the world. It’s very telling. It's also scary as *expletive redacted*.

For those who like poetry, I have an ebook of verse entitled Stolen Moments from Chromosphere Press, available on Nook and Kindle. Also available from Chromosphere (and with TTB’s blessing) is the short novella The Fetish which is set in the Burnout universe; and the popular science ebooks Sherlock, Sheilas and the Seven-Percent Solution, about the effects of cocaine and reasons why Sherlock Holmes may have had ulterior motives in his use; I should note that it is listed as part of the Displaced Detective series even though it is non-fiction. This is because the research was fundamental into my interpretation of Holmes in that series. Chromosphere has also published my The Weather Out There Is Frightful, about solar and space weather and how it does/could affect you personally.

I'm currently working on the fourth Cresperian novel, entitled Heritage. Also progressing slowly on the sequel to Burnout, Escape Velocity. (This one is difficult because of Burnout's disaster scenario so closely replicating the Columbia disaster, and because of the recent retirement of the Shuttle fleet, with which I was intimately involved during my career. Be patient with me on this one.) Travis Taylor and I are trying to shake loose to write the next book in the Point series. I have a steampunk novel, the first of The Adventures of Aemelia Gearheart, entitled The Bellerophon Club, being shopped around, and a children's book, StarSong, coming out soon.

And of course there are the next Displaced Detective books: A Case of Spontaneous Combustion, A Little Matter of Earthquakes, and The Adventure of Shining Mountain Lodge, are all in the works, with ideas for more past that.

There are purchase links to all available formats and known vendors on the links for each book, by the way. Pop on over to my website and see what's there, and what's coming.

And above all, have fun!

-Stephanie Osborn
www.stephanie-osborn.com

Tidbits They Don’t Tell You In Author’s School, Part 3

by Stephanie Osbornhttp://www.stephanie-osborn.com

We've been talking about the little odds and ends that beginning writers NEED to know, but often aren't TOLD. Things that it's useful to know about to avoid making mistakes. So far we've covered a pre-tidbit, Tidbit One, which was about finding out how long a novel is FOR YOUR GENRE, and shooting for that length; Tidbit Two, which was about not OVERSHOOTING your novel length, and Tidbit Three, which set up the social structure of the writing society. We're picking up today with Tidbits Four, Five, and Five-A.

Tidbit Four: The old adage, “You can’t get published without an agent, and you can’t get an agent without being published,” isn’t true – but it isn’t far from it. Many of the big publishers won’t even look at anything that isn’t handed to them by an agent. With some of them, it’s impossible to even find contact information for the budding author. Contrariwise, most agents won’t look at anyone who isn’t published. But there are some good publishing houses out there that DO accept unagented submissions. The trick to these is that, unless you know somebody, your submission goes into a “slush pile” and will remain there for some time. Slush pile submissions are read in the order received, so your baby will be there for however long it takes for the company’s readers to dig down to it. So be prepared to be patient.

Tidbit Five: A mentor helps. He or she should be someone already experienced in the business, and willing to take on a protégé. HE is the “somebody you know,” your entrée into the business. He can act as your reviewer, your advisor, your agent, your friend, and your shoulder to cry on when an editor says your beloved baby is a pile of horse manure.

Tidbit Five-A: Editors do sometimes say this. Or words to that effect.

Yes, once again, it happened to me. The gist of what was said was, "I hate the beginning, I hate the ending, and everything in between needs to be rewritten." My mentor gently told me through my sobs that it was obvious that that particular editor did not understand my style, and to ask my publisher for another editor. I mopped my face and my nose and had a frank conversation with my publisher. It wasn't that that was a bad editor, or that I was a bad writer. Now, some years later, I do see some of the things he was getting at. But in general, the situation was simply having an incompatibility between writer and editor. It does happen.

Your mentor can point you in new directions, and tell you if and when someone is trying to take advantage of you. Sometimes he even becomes a co-author, and then it’s really fun.

And once again, that's what happened to me, too. My mentor, and now co-author a couple of times over, is a certain guy named Travis S. "Doc" Taylor, New York Times best-selling author and star of National Geographic Channel's Rocket City Rednecks. (He wasn't a TV star when I met him, though. I don't think he was a best-seller yet either. But he was good and he was in the business and he was willing to "pass it forward.") It's been, and continues to be, a great collaboration. We've written a science fiction novel called Extraction Point! which is the first in a series through Twilight Times Books, and we've written a nonfiction book called A New American Space Plan, which is scheduled to be released by Baen Books November 2012.

-Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

Extraction Point! Ch 1 part 3

Extraction Point!
by Travis S. Taylor & Stephanie Osborn

http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

Ray turned the corner and nearly slammed face first into a brick wall, stopping just in time to scratch his right elbow up a little more on the rough brick as he caught himself against the wall. Ow. Really needed THAT. Quickly he scanned around for an exit. There was only one--a primer-coated metal staircase up the side of the building--and the man had a full story and a half head start on him. It was almost as if the man knew the route he was going and had known the staircase would be there.

Shoving his way through the pain and exhaustion, Ray threw himself up the staircase, keeping his pace steady and the man in sight. Twice he saw the man slip on the wet metal steps, and each time Ray made a slight gain on him, his treaded boots proving a better grip on the metal than the man's street shoes. Pushing harder than he thought he could, Ray closed the gap to only half a story behind the man as he went out of sight over the rooftop of the ten story building.

Ray crested the rooftop cautiously and there was the man, sitting on the edge of the rooftop barely a couple of meters away, looking over the edge at the street below and then at his watch–or one of them; for some reason, he was wearing two. Different ones, at that. His pale blond thatch, cut short enough to stand in upright spikes but not short enough to qualify as a buzz cut, wilted a bit in the rain.

"You… you are rather good," the man offered, wiped blood from his aquiline--though now slightly misshapen--nose, gasped for breath, and looked at his watch again with bright blue eyes.

"Listen, I've got backup right behind me. There is no way down and I can keep you busy long enough for 'em to catch you. What d' you say we just sit down, take a breather, and wait on 'em?" Ray panted and smiled at the same time, hoping to stall long enough that he wouldn't have to fight the guy any more before backup arrived.

"I've got a better idea." The man looked at his watch one last time and then leapt over the side of the rooftop, pushing off with his hands as he slipped gracefully from the lip of the ledge. There was a brief flash of white light--Ray assumed it was lightning--that caused him to flinch and cover his eyes for a moment. And the man was gone.

"NO!" Ray rushed to the edge of the building, peered over, and… saw… nothing. "What the hell!?" No blood on the street below, no screaming passersby, no squished and maimed body–nothing.

"Ray! You all right?" a voice from behind him gasped.

Ray stood there, confused--no, flabbergasted--peering over the edge of the building, visually searching every nook, cranny, alley, and pavement all the way down. Nothing. The man had simply vanished like a ghost. No body, no visible escape route, no sign.

The rain continued to wash the red blood from Ray's broken nose and swelling lip down the front of his already stained and ripped shirt and he could still hear the music off in the distance somewhere. He stood in a contemplative calmness, surveying the volume of space off the side of the building, and gasping for air as his heartbeat slowed. How in the. Bloody. Damn. HELL did he get away? This time, is it… nah, can't be.

"Your pistol, Ray." A young man in his late twenties with a blond military haircut and an athlete's build scanned the rooftop as he offered Ray his weapon.

"Huh? Oh, thanks, Jay." Ray took his favorite handgun, checked the magazine and safety, and slipped it in the clip holster on his waistband at his back. When he did, cold water squished from the holster, down his back and into his already soaked underwear, giving him a severe chill. He shivered violently for a second. He was still more than a bit dazed by what had happened moments ago--and the beating he'd taken--oh yeah, and the running.

"Uh, Dr. Brady?"

"What? I know, he got away." Ray panted, still having a hard time talking between breaths.

"Uh, no sir, uh, Ray, you've been shot." Major Sampson pointed to the bloody mess on his left shoulder. The young Army major said it nonchalantly as if he had seen the same situation before.

"Oh, that. It's just a flesh wound," Ray waved his hand in dismissal–right before he collapsed backwards onto the rooftop.

"Man down! Medic!" Sampson called over the radio.

---

Extraction Point! is available for purchase through Barnes-Noble and Amazon, as well as Twilight Times Books.

See other books by Stephanie Osborn at http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

Extraction Point! Ch 1 part 2

Extraction Point!
By Travis S. Taylor & Stephanie Osborn

http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

Just as the thought occurred to him, the man regained his poise and his vision, and rushed at him wildly–at least it seemed wild, at first. So Ray sidestepped and attempted to Judo throw him. But the man countered the move with an Aikido circular motion that flung Ray around a full three hundred and sixty degrees and then downward and forward, sliding belly first and hydroplaning in the several inch deep rainwater. His belly slide splashed a double rooster tail of water out behind him. Ray tucked his right arm under his body--ignoring the pain caused from the street pavement peeling skin from his forearm--and used his momentum in a Judo roll to bring him back up to his feet just in time to be tackled from behind mid-back. I'm not doing too well with this guy, he thought, rueful. Jesus, this son of a bitch is fast.

Ray twisted and squirmed free, tossing the man backward, and barely missed him with a spinning back kick. In a flurry of elbows, backward head butts, punches, and blocks, the two men ended back in the exact same spot they had been a few moments before. Ray was face down in the same pothole struggling for his breath as his would-be assailant ground knees into his lower back and pummeled him from behind. But this time, to Ray's surprise, the man's grip let go sooner–much sooner.

As Ray forced his head up above the water again, he understood why. He could hear the semiautomatic weapon's fire splattering off the alleyway wall in front of them. The rain of bullets was obviously fired overhead as a warning, spraying yellow sparks and shards of brick ubiquitously, but it still startled the man and the break was all Ray needed to throw him forward. At first Ray covered, afraid of friendly fire, but the man he'd already chased for two solid freakin' miles into this alley entrance had bear-crawled his way to the turn in the alley and was getting away.

"Hold your fire," Ray heard someone call over the music and the rain and his pounding chest. With that, he lunged to his feet with all the strength he had left and headed forward in pursuit of the man, lungs burning, dredging endurance he didn't expect from some unknown, heretofore untapped place inside.

"You are NOT going to get away from me, dammit!" He sprinted around the corner in time to see the man climbing a chain link fence crossing the alley. "Shit!"

Over the fence, Ray said determinedly to himself. Ignoring various protesting bodily parts, he scrambled up to the top of the rusty fence and leaned over it, grabbing the other side of the fence with his hands, and then let his body weight flip him feet over head. He splashed down on the other side, already in a full sprint. Come on! Push it!

Ray was gaining on the larger man, but his heart was pounding at least two hundred beats per minute and felt as if it would explode at any instant. If only I hadn't dropped my damn pistol, I'd have him now!

Extraction Point! is available for purchase through Barnes-Noble and Amazon, as well as Twilight Times Books.

See other books by Stephanie Osborn at http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

Extraction Point! Ch 1 part 1

Extraction Point!
by Travis S. Taylor & Stephanie Osborn

http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

Chapter 1

Ray wasn't quite sure where the music was coming from, but it was loud. The second time he managed to force his head above the murky brown and gray water in the hubcap-deep tire buster of a pothole, he could hear the music pounding even louder than his heart AND the pouring rain–which was saying something. It was a remake of the old Guns 'n' Roses tune Perfect Crime–and from what he could tell, IT ROCKED.

The rain and the music and a chance to catch his breath gave him a quick burst of adrenaline to fight against the force of the two knees in his back, the hand grasping tight at the nape of his neck, and the fist beating into his left ribs. Ray flinched from the repeated jabs of pain pummeling into his side and could feel the adrenaline--and his hold above the water--slipping. So he took a deep gulp of air just before his face was slammed forward into the puddle, his nose bashing hard against the gravelly, broken asphalt at the bottom. The automatic gasp of pain that came next was inevitable. So was the water that filled his mouth.

Instinct engaged, and his body thrashed in wild desperation as he fought to avoid inhaling the filthy water. Despite his best efforts, he began choking, which in turn brought on a cough/gag reflex. Drowning, he realized, triggered bodily responses that were not only hardwired, but damn difficult to overcome.

I'm getting my ass kicked, he thought, verging on panicky despite himself. I've got to do something! Something Goddamned quick!

Using every ounce of willpower he possessed, Ray let his strength go and relaxed so that the man on his back could force him down and therefore be baited into a false sense of dominance–even, maybe, the notion that Ray was dead. Then he gritted his teeth and threw his right elbow up with all the strength he had left.

"Get OFF me!!" he yelled, muddy water gurgling from his lips as his elbow hit something hard–just when he lost his balance with his left hand, causing him to slip full face forward into the murky pothole… again. But the grip around his neck was gone.

Maneuvering both of his hands under himself push-up style, Ray managed to roll his body to the right, forcing his attacker off his back while continuing his roll over and then flipping backwards onto his feet. Ray shook the rain, mud, and blood out of his eyes, hacked slimy water from his windpipe, and made ready for an attack, but soon realized that his elbow had caught the man that he had been fighting square on the nose. The man was standing, briefly stunned and temporarily blinded, with bright red blood mixed with rain pouring profusely down his face. This gave Ray only long enough to catch his breath and scan the area for his handgun. He didn't see it anywhere. Shit. I liked that gun. Ok, hand to hand it's gonna be then, he thought to himself, easing into a shallow horse stance while really wishing he hadn't let the guy get the drop on him and knock his pistol out of his grip earlier.

---

Extraction Point! is available for purchase through Barnes-Noble and Amazon, as well as Twilight Times Books.

See other books by Stephanie Osborn at http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

Extraction Point! by Travis S. Taylor & Stephanie Osborn

Brilliant scientist and government operative Dr. Reagan "Ray" Brady is a man with a shadowed, and painful, past. He should be dead. In fact, the man he was IS "dead," and the identity he now has is not the one with which he was born. Were it not for two faithful friends, now dubbed Jay and Ernie, all three men would truly be dead.

Instead, Ray has what he considers the perfect life: the three now work for an ultra-secret division of the Department of Homeland Security, on the lookout for invasion by rather unique sorts of illegal aliens - "Santa Clauses," or extraterrestrials, and "Easter Bunnies," or time travelers. This team includesnot only Ray, but his wife and team leader, Samantha Brady. The team's "mascot" is their one year old daughter, Abigail.

Things couldn't be any more perfect for Ray - until a mysterious man shows up, leaving several dead men in his wake. When Ray's team confronts the man in the Big Apple, Ray is nearly beaten to a pulp, then watches as the man leaps from the roof of a ten story building - and vanishes in mid-air. Meanwhile, Samantha is watching video from the Y-12 Plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and seconds after his disappearance from NYC, sees the same man saunter calmly in for a full guided tour of the facility. A genetic scientist, whose work is on the cutting edge of research, disappears from his locked office. And large quantities of gold and other items are being stolen from within bank vaults and other secure facilities around the world. Most disturbing is the missing fissile material from Oak Ridge.

Who is this man? Why does his image show up through three centuries of Earth's history? How do he and his men manage to travel seemingly instantaneously? What does he intend to do with all of the stolen wealth and dangerous material he has amassed? And can Ray and his team stop him before Ray loses everything he now holds dear?

Travis S. "Doc" Taylor, New York Times best-selling science and science fiction author of the Warp Speed series, the Tau Ceti series, co-author of the first book in the Cresperian Saga, Human By Choice, and co-author of the Looking Glass series with John Ringo; and Stephanie Osborn, best-selling co-author of books two and three of the Cresperian Saga The Y Factor and The Cresperian Allliance, and the science fiction mystery Burnout: The mystery of Space Shuttle STS-281, have collaborated on the first novel in the Point series, Extraction Point!, for Twilight Times Books.

Extraction Point! by Taylor, Osborn to be released April 15, 2011!

Travis S. "Doc" Taylor, NYT best-selling science and science fiction author of the Warp Speed series, the Tau Ceti series, co-author of the first book in the Cresperian Saga, Human By Choice, and co-author of the Looking Glass series with John Ringo; and Stephanie Osborn, best-selling co-author of books two and three of the Cresperian Saga The Y Factor and The Cresperian Allliance, and the science fiction mystery Burnout: The mystery of Space Shuttle STS-281, have collaborated on the first novel in the Point series, Extraction Point!, for Twilight Times Books. Extraction Point! is complete and to the publisher! Release date is set for 15 April, 2011!

Brilliant scientist and government operative Dr. Reagan "Ray" Brady is a man with a shadowed, and painful, past. He should be dead. In fact, the man he was IS "dead," and the identity he now has is not the one with which he was born. Were it not for two faithful friends, now dubbed Jay and Ernie, all three men would truly be dead. Instead, Ray has what he considers the perfect life: the three now work for an ultra-secret division of the Department of Homeland Security, on the lookout for invasion by rather unique sorts of illegal aliens - "Santa Clauses," or extraterrestrials, and "Easter Bunnies," or time travelers. This team includes not only Ray, but his wife and team leader, Samantha Brady. The team's "mascot" is their one year old daughter, Abigail.

Things couldn't be any more perfect for Ray - until a mysterious man shows up, leaving several dead men in his wake. When Ray's team confronts the man in the Big Apple, Ray is nearly beaten to a pulp, then watches as the man leaps from the roof of a ten story building - and vanishes in mid-air. Meanwhile, Samantha is watching video from the Y-12 Plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and seconds after his disappearance from NYC, sees the same man saunter calmly in for a full guided tour of the facility. A genetic scientist, whose work is on the cutting edge of research, disappears from his locked office. And large quantities of gold and other items are being stolen from within bank vaults and other secure facilities around the world. Most disturbing is the missing fissile material from Oak Ridge.

Who is this man? Why does his image show up through three centuries of Earth's history? How do he and his men manage to travel seemingly instantaneously? What does he intend to do with all of the stolen wealth and dangerous material he has amassed? And can Ray and his team stop him before Ray loses everything he now holds dear?

Watch for this exciting new book, first in the Point Series!

Past, Present, and Future

Time for an update!

Past:

Chattacon was, as usual, a delight. I had a great time there, but unfortunately managed to miss a face to face with John Ringo. Of late, I've become one of John's scientific advisors, and when I heard he'd showed I looked everywhere - except where he was. Oh well. Another shot at him come LibertyCon this summer.

Burnout and The Y Factor came out nicely in the Preditors & Editors Readers' Poll. Burnout made #7 in the category of Science Fiction Novel, and #11 for Best Cover Art. The Y Factor made #3 in Best Cover Art! MANY thanks to everyone who voted!

The Y Factor is a finalist for the EPIC Award, formerly known as the EPPIE, and Burnout is a finalist for the Int'l Thriller Writers' Best First Novel! (Excitement ensues as I wait for the results...)

Present:

I'm working hard on Escape Velocity, the sequel to Burnout. It's about a quarter of the way done. It'd be farther along if the characters would follow my outline, lol. Somehow they wind up doing things I hadn't expected and didn't plan for, and then I have to adjust the outline!

The Cresperian Alliance, Book 3 of the Cresperian Saga, has been released as an ebook! For more information on the book and how to purchase, go to my website and click on the "Books" link.

Travis "Doc" Taylor and I are working on a book called Extraction Point! We hope it will be the first of a series of novels. Travis and I are both VERY pleased at how it's progressing.

Sullivan-Maxx Literary Agency is representing my Displaced Detective series, with an eye to placing it with a publisher. I'm really excited and hopeful about that; I already have 4 books done in the series, with a 5th in work!

Future:

MidSouthCon in Memphis is flying toward us! It's always a delightful convention filled with friends and colleagues, and I'm very much looking forward to it! Burnout is nominated for the Darrell Award, so there's an element of anxious anticipation as well!

The EPIC Award winners will be announced from EPICon in New Orleans NEXT WEEKEND! Cross your fingers for The Y Factor!

Stay tuned for more upcoming adventures!

I have been derelict

Dear readers, please forgive me. I have been derelict in my attentions to this blog. I can only plead that I have been up to my eyeballs in manuscripts. For a writer, this is a good thing, yes? Since the summer started I have collaborated with Darrell Bain on the third book in the Cresperia Series, called The Cresperian Alliance; it is now under contract. It is the sequel to Human By Choice and The Y Factor, which latter will be coming out in print in December, just in time for the holidays.

The Cresperian Alliance should come out in e-book in January, and in print next summer.

I have also collaborated with Travis "Doc" Taylor, my mentor, on a book called Extraction Point! which we are hoping to be the first in a series. I completed Book 6 in an as-yet-unsold series of science fiction mysteries. I edited yet another book for submission to a publisher. And now I've started on the sequel to Burnout, tentatively called Escape Velocity.

In addition to this, I have been doing booksignings and guest appearances at conventions and interviews and goodness knows what else. I hadn't a day off from Labor Day through the first weekend of October. Just over a week ago I did a day trip (!) from Huntsville, AL to Jackson, MS for a booksigning. I will be appearing this Wednesday night at 9pm EDT on the blogtalkradio show Premium Views, and I will be in Corinth, MS the first Saturday in October for another talk and booksigning.

I've been a busy little rocket scientist. I hope that helps make up for the lack of updates here. I'll try to do better in future.

Steph's 411

So, what's been happening with me lately? I've been staying REALLY busy.

1) I've been working with Travis "Doc" Taylor on a new book called Extraction Point! Hopefully it will become the first of a series, if all goes well. Got my half of the rough draft finished and sent to him about a week ago.

2) I've been working with Darrell Bain on the 3rd book in the Cresperian series. We have the outline and character names pretty much down. He's started on the first part of it and will send it to me soon. We'll go back and forth on it.

3) I'm editing on a manuscript of my own, trying to tighten it up and get it ready to submit to a publisher. :) I love science fiction mysteries.

4) I'm getting ready to start on the sequel to Burnout.

5) I did a podcast this past Wednesday, which can be heard at Red River Writers Live.

6) The Florence AL Public Library invited me to participate in their celebration of the 40th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing. So yesterday I gave a talk about my career in the space program and did a book signing, which went quite well.

7) My publisher and I also managed to convince Barnes-Noble to make a couple of edits to their store book database. This will, hopefully, result in my books being carried on bookshelves very very soon.

Upcoming events:

1) I'll be appearing on The Mortal Vampire podcast at 7pmCDT on Tuesday, July 7th, for Part II of my interview! You can listen in, and even participate, here.

2) I'll be at LibertyCon science fiction convention in Chattanooga TN the weekend of 10-12 July! That looks like being GREAT fun.

3) On Saturday, 18 July at 7pmCDT the North Alabama Science Fiction Association will host me at the Renasant Bank off Airport Road in Huntsville AL for a talk and booksigning.

4) At noonCDT on Wednesday, July 29, I'll be participating in another Red River Writers Live podcast (link TBD; keep an eye on my website for details) introducing the authors of Red River Writers Live.

5) At the kind invitation of H. David Blalock, I've joined a booksigning tour group called Imagicopter. I won't be at the inaugural booksigning due to a conflict, but plan to attend as many of the tour stops as possible!

6) The Huntsville Public Library - Main Branch has invited me for a talk and booksigning on Saturday, the 22nd of August at 2pmCDT.

And that's only through the summer, guys! I'm staying pretty busy and I'm happier than the proverbial clam about it (although why clams should be happier than other critters, I don't know...)! Keep an eye open; I may be coming through your area sometime soon!