The Artist

The last few weeks have been filled with getting to know Twitter, Facebook, writing proposals, and working on the never ending project.... The doctoral dissertation, which I might add will never, ever, ever be done. So a blog post has been ever lingering, but way back on the stove.

Today I would like to tell the story of how I found the artist that did such a wonderful job on the cover for U.G.L.Y and is diligently working on the Alexander Tycho series (which is another of those long projects).

Three years ago I co-authored a children's book called Queen Vernita Meets SirHeathybean the Astronomer with Dawn Menge, an accomplished children's writer who publishes the Queen Vernita Series. We were invited to be guest authors at a young authors celebration at a middle school. This was fun but exhausting as kids and their parents lined up to get signatures in the books they had written for the contest and make Queen Vernita's crown out of construction paper. Its amazing how fast you can read when a kid hands you their book and wants to know what you think about it.

Sir Heathbean

One of the first visitors to the booth was Pamela Snyder and her daughter (who is a great writer by the way). Pam had illustrated her daughter's entry and asked if I thought she would be a good children's illustrator. Of course I have no idea what makes a good children's illustrator but I did like her work, and at the time I was beginning to outline the Alexander Tycho series. I took her number and we spent the next six months working over character proofs.

Although we took our time, there was a great deal of personal investment in the presentation of the characters and Pam knew this well. As we started working on the storyline she began producing images that complemented the writing in a way I hadn't expected. Along the way we built a personal connection between our families which I think contributed to the quality I see in the work she is doing.

This post is dedicated to Pam and her outstanding work. The images shown here are all related to U.G.L.Y, Tycho, and she is working on re-draws for a book in the Queen Vernita series to suit the french publishing market.

U.G.L.Y © 2012

Tycho © 2012

Tycho © 2012

Tycho © 2012

Courtesy Pam Snyder

Courtesy Pam Snyder

Visit Pam’s Facebook page to see more of her work. You can also contact her directly at  PamelaSnyder1 -at- gmail -dot- com. http://www.facebook.com/pamela.snyder.77/photos

Celebrating an Approaching Zombie Invasion

My Friend Dave in the Foreground

In my newly finished book U.G.L.Y, the first wave of a violent fungal infection is observed by the main character from a mountain top overlooking the Los Angles basin. The story describes the main character, Duncan Stevens, rushing to stand watch over an approaching fire, like he and other members of his community had done during so many forest fires in the past. But they watch this time in horror as Los Angeles burns during the chaos of the first of an infection outbreak. 

Looking East Across the Mountains

Yesterday a forest fire erupted about 10 miles south of the pictured scenic turnout that does, in fact, overlook the Los Angeles basin. The images don't show the real impact of the fire but it had an ominous, end of world kind of feel to it. Above us, the smoke layer was growing, and the sun glowed red through the clouds as large ashes began to fall. It is fire season in Southern California and although there is some threat that this fire will cause a problem for the mountain communities, the folks that fight them are top end and have been throwing everything they have at it. By the time I arrived at the overlook there was already a helicopter landing area in use and forestry staged all around. 

The Red Sun Between the Trees

Feeling completely confident in the skills of our brave firefighting personnel, I worked my way to a bar that is very similar to one in the story where Duncan is having dinner and watching a baseball game. This was especially exciting for me because when I sat down at the bar and ordered a hot dog and a beer (as the character does), I looked up at the TV over the bar and a baseball game was on. In the story, the game is interrupted by a news cast reporting on the violence overtaking LA. Tonight, this was interrupted by news of the fire. I couldn't help but feel the story overwhelm my thoughts as the events of the evening played out. In my little world, life imitated art as I celebrated the (fictional) coming infection.

Hanny's Voorwerp

Courtesy of  http://www.hannysvoorwerp.com/ 

Two years ago, before Lab Coat Pajamas was put on hiatus, I was preparing a blog post about Hanny and the mystery of the Voorwerp. The reason behind this post was to illustrate how the public can be involved in astronomical research and make a significant impact in astronomy simply by participating. Let me give you a little background on Hanny's contributions.
   
Several years ago a project went live on the internet that gave internet users an opportunity to screen survey images of galaxies and identify them. It is called http://www.galaxyzoo.org/ and is one of many solutions researchers have come up with to curtail the significant loss in funding over the years. I can attest to the difficulty the research community has with continuing projects while funding continues to drop. In my own science world, I am working independently on a project that used to require three people to support. Of course I have taken similar steps in deploying automation and remote usage which significantly reduces the time investment and cost similar to the Galaxy Zoo project.

So if there is an upside to reduction in funding it is that we have seen a dramatic upswing in innovation to accomplish research goals. In this case the Galaxy Zoo developed a system that trains users on galaxy identification and then lets the user rate image after image on the type of galaxy and direction of spin. Each image is rated by several users and in the end, consensus makes the call and the galaxy gets an identification (this is all peer reviewed of course). This is a spectacular design and it brings science into the hands of the public where it needs to be. After all, without support for science, it would never be done and where would the human race be?

So Hanny is  “The Dutch schoolteacher and Queen admirer who discovered Hanny’s Voorwerp”,
(Voorwerp by the way is the dutch word for object). This school teacher was scrolling through the images while on Galaxy Zoo and noticed something in the field that did not look like a galaxy. She reported it, just as they say you should in the manual, and it turned out that what she had found was an unknown object.

This stirred up quite a storm and in the end, Hanny not only got the credit for the discovery, there was a comic book written about the event. I got an advanced copy myself. This inspired me to begin writing a fictional series about as science guy hero taking on real dangers in the universe to save the planet (coming soon).

This event has had a number of positive outcomes. First, this group of researchers got lots of help in identifying a large catalog of new galaxy's. Two, a new celestial object was discovered. Three, Hanny got to participate in something not many people get to do, and got some notoriety from it. And four, the writing of the comic book by the research team brought the whole event into the minds of the next generation of potential scientist. I am sure this has had an inspiring effect just as Star Trek and Star Wars had for my generation. Many of the current scientist and engineers I work with have held hope that the Star Trek episodes they watched as kids would become a reality in the world they would live in as adults. And many of them have gone far beyond what they had dreamed about as children.

Good for Hanney, and hats off to Galaxy Zoo. There are many other projects that do similar work using distributed computing systems and the internet. I encourage everyone interested in participating to check it out.

http://www.galaxyzoo.org/

http://www.hannysvoorwerp.com/

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110210.html

http://boinc.berkeley.edu/

Introducing Alexander Tycho

Introducing Alexander Tycho, a disenfranchised government scientist who, with the help of a rag tag group of kids, reluctantly fight off forces of the universe that threaten to destroy the world.

This book is the first of a series that will introduce scientific theories in a fun and exiting fictional environment. Although the project began as a graphic novel series it has grown to be more of a novella with scattered images designed to compliment the story. The target audience for this book series is teenage to young adult with the intent to inspire interest in science.

This project is slow going at the moment, but thanks to a very dedicated artist who often motivates me to keep working on it, I think it will be done.... eventually.

U.G.L.Y

U.G.L.Y is a story about an infection that spreads across the western untied states, turning those infected into monsters. The main character is Duncan Stevens, a researcher who sets out to find his children as the infection spreads. When he finally makes it to Lake Tahoe, where his family should be, he discovers they have disappeared. He now struggles for a reason to survive. After working his way north he finds himself hooked up with a group of Marines and together they fight, building to a final assault on what has become a world of blood thirsty infected.

The manuscript for this (my first) novel, slides in at 40,126 words. It has done pretty well in the testing and editing phase. I have probably sent out 10 copies and I have been very pleased with the response. The most common was that people felt that it was engaging, most thought it was scary and were hesitant to read it before bed. This I think is a great reaction considering the inspiration for the story came after having three terrible nightmares.

So now the proposal is in work and it is far more work than I had anticipated. I kind of feel like it might not be worth the effort if it turns out that I can't get an agent and end up self publishing. But then I remind myself that I haven't gotten anything done unless I made a real effort at it. So this weekend is dedicated to completing that proposal.