Category: Popular Culture

Are you Prepared for the end of the world? An excerpt from my latest novella

Posted on By Andrew Thaler
Popular Culture

preparedPrepared: A novella from the world of Fleet went live in the Amazon Kindle store this afternoon. This short story expands on the world the we first encountered in Fleet, where sea level rise and global pandemic have reduced human civilization to a few scattered enclaves. In Prepared, we are taken to the beginning of the end, the fall of the last major coast metropolis, where a small group of doomsday preppers are making their final stand.

You can find Prepared on Amazon and at Smashwords. Nook, iBook, and other editions are coming.

Excerpted below is chapter 1: Bug Out.

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25 signs that you were a conservation child of the 90’s

Posted on By Andrew Thaler
Conservation, Popular Culture

The 90’s were a big decade for the environmental movement. The media landscape was filled with environmentally-themed programming. Major laws in the US and internationally were passed to protect the planet. Formative events galvanized, diversified, and sometimes radicalized the conservation community. And, like many other of our generation, we came of age right in the middle of it.

Here are 25 signs that your laid the foundation for your environmental ethic squarely in the 1990’s. Happy Holidays from Southern Fried Science.

1. Captain Planet taught us that “The Power is Yours!”

captain-planet

You knew this would be on the list, so let’s get it out of the way. Moving on.

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A scientist writes science fiction – thoughts on self-publishing my first novel

Posted on By Andrew Thaler 1 Comment on A scientist writes science fiction – thoughts on self-publishing my first novel
Popular Culture

Early this month, I completed and self-published my first science fiction novel through Amazon’s Kindle Direct publishing service (and, a few days later, as a paperback through Createspace). The ideas for the book were conceived over a long week in August, while vacationing with my parents at a rental house in St. Michaels, Maryland. Wandering through the low-lying eastern shore towns started me thinking about the kinds of stories we would tell hundreds of years from now. Thus, the central conceit of Fleet — that it was not a tale of environmental devastation but of people living their lives in a post-sea-level-rise world — surfaced.

Writing Fleet was a marathon. All told, from the first day that I started outlining characters and deciding what the central story of Fleet — uncovering a human disaster caused by desperation and betrayal, then buried at sea — to the day I hit publish on the Amazon server, Fleet took a little over 3 and a half months, during which time I was also moving across the country, finishing several scientific manuscripts, and looking for a job.

Having now had a few weeks to decompress, I think it’s a good time to reflect on the book, what I tried to accomplish, and where it goes from here.

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The last climate change refugees fight for survival in this grim view of our future ocean – Fleet: The Complete Collection

Posted on By Andrew Thaler
Popular Culture

Fleet: The Complete Collection  “The sea is big. The sea is cruel. She takes more than she gives. That’s how it’s always been.” The world has changed. Coastal cities lie abandoned as the encroaching sea rises, drowning and reshaping the land. Violent plagues, impervious to antibiotics, sweep across the planet, erasing entire communities in a … Read More “The last climate change refugees fight for survival in this grim view of our future ocean – Fleet: The Complete Collection” »

A deep-sea ecologist over-analyzes Aquaman #25

Posted on By Andrew Thaler 2 Comments on A deep-sea ecologist over-analyzes Aquaman #25
Popular Culture

Today marks the end of Geoff Johns’ 25-issue run as lead writer  for Aquaman. It is not hyperbole to say that he revitalized the king of Atlantis and helped cast off the stigma of the Superfriends. Aquaman was no longer a one-trick hero floundering about for relevance, trying to find his plaice in the DC Universe. Johns’ Aquaman had depth. The characters were compelling, the stories engaging. And, after more than 2 years, it was clear that this new Aquaman wasn’t just a fluke.

All puns are most definitely intended.

In honor of Johns’ 25 issue run, it’s time to plumb the depths of his ultimate issue and do what I do best: over-analyze a comic book and dredge up as much tenuous symbolism as possible. This is Southern Fried Science and I’m talking about Aquaman, what else would you expect?

The anglerfish symbolize Aquaman’s relationship with Mera

Aquaman and Anglerfish, Aquaman #25, DC Comics
Aquaman and Anglerfish, Aquaman #25, DC Comics

Here we find Aquaman diving deep into the Trench, searching for an army of lost Atlanteans to command. During the course of his dive, we discover that, though Aquaman is fighting to reclaim Atlantis, his one overarching goal is to find his wife, Mera. It is not a coincidence that we see him surrounded by deep-sea anglerfish — Melanocetus johnsonii to be precise. In many ways, the life-history of the anglerfish mimics Aquaman’s relationship to Mera.

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Announcing Fleet: The Complete Collection

Posted on By Andrew Thaler
Popular Culture

completesmallThe Fleet serial is coming to a close. The final installment, Horizon, will be available December 2 via Amazon’s Kindle store. In addition to Fleet: Horizon, this December I’ll be publishing Fleet: The Complete Collection. The Complete Collection will include all four installments plus all of the bonus stories that appeared on Southern Fried Science. The Complete Collection will also be available on e-reader platforms other than Amazon Kindle and as a real, actual, book made of dead trees and bookbinder’s glue. If you’ve been waiting for the complete series before checking out Fleet, The Complete Collection is the edition for you.

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Stories from the Fleet: The Sea-Above

Posted on By Andrew Thaler
Popular Culture

Fleet is a dystopian maritime adventure in which sea level rise and disease has driven the last survivors of the human race to sea. I’m releasing the story in serials — 3 chapters on the first Monday of each month — on Amazon. Loyal readers who can’t wait for the next installment can slate their thirst with a series of short stories set in the world of Fleet that will be published on Southern Fried Science every few weeks. Please enjoy the forth and final of these distractions, The Sea-Above, where we find out how one of my favorite side-characters survives the fire on Gallant and what happened to the sailors who journeyed into the sea-above.

Amberjack was trapped. There was only one way out of the hold and fire raged beyond the bulkheads. Remembering his training, he found a rag to cover his face and, creeping low, felt along the walls until he found a cool spot.

There were no cool spots.

The fire spread through the ship. It blazed on the decks above and the decks below. He was trapped like a chicken in Gill’s diesel stove.

No, he thought to himself, not diesel. Fizzle.

He laughed at his own joke, then choked as the smoke seeped through the sealed hatch. He was roasting! He coughed again. The smoke surrounded him, permeating the hold. His rag reeked of it. He tore it from his face in disgust. He coughed again and again. He couldn’t stop. He wanted to panic, knew he should panic, but he couldn’t. His head was light. His mind felt clear. He began to drift, backwards. The flames reminded him of his great-grandfather, a man who lived for over a century, and a story he would tell the young Amberjack; a story about other ships, their fleets, and the sailors who rode fire into the sky.

“Did you know, Jack, that not every ship sails on the sea?”

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Ships of the Fleet: the vessels that inspired the covers for Fleet

Posted on By Andrew Thaler
Popular Culture

We’re approaching the home stretch. Fleet: Horizon, the conclusion to my ongoing science fiction serial novel, premiers on December 2. Each installment features a distinctive cover, featuring one of the ships in the Fleet. The ship on each cover is a real vessel, photographed during one of my many field expeditions. In honor of the completion of Fleet, here are the real stories behind the four vessels featured on the covers.

FleetCover1-REACHFleet: The Reach features the ship that inspired (loosely) NC-3502-WM. The actual vessel is an ocean tugboat that I encountered in Antigua, at the conclusion of JC82/83 — my research cruise to the Mid-Cayman Spreading Center and tag-along cruise to the seas around Montserrat. The noticeably aging vessel was living out its latter years as a pilot boat, delivering pilots to cruise ships and other large vessels so that they could navigate into Antigua’s port.

Maritime Pilots are an old and honored profession. Many ports are dangerous, with local hazards that shift, sometimes as often as the tide. Because of this, large vessel require a local mariner, someone who knows their waterways, to guide ships into port.

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