ANOTHER CHANCE TO WIN!

Earlier this month lovers of audiobooks had a chance to win a free download of a compelling mystery thriller. My award-shortlisted novel Dead Air is now an audiobook, narrated by me (because I was a radio broadcaster for thirty-five years—I kind of know my way around a microphone). It’s the gripping story of a radio morning show host who’s marked for death by unknown enemies and his struggle to face an unthinkable situation. Reaction to the audiobook has been gratifying, and I’d like to spread the word to even more potential listeners—and readers too.

So I’m going to do it again. Give you a chance to win the book, that is. But this time, with some bonuses.

Here’s how it works: when you sign up for my newsletter on my homepage www.scottoverton.ca before the end of October 2016 you’ll be entered into a draw to win one of ten free downloads of the Dead Air audiobook from Audible. But if you don’t listen to audiobooks and would rather read Dead Air on your own, just let me know. I’ll contact the ten winners and give you the choice of receiving the audiobook or ebook version of Dead Air. You get it in the form you’ll enjoy the most. In fact, if your household includes an audiobook lover and a dedicated ebook fan, I’ll give you both versions!

It’s as easy as filling out the signup form, and I give my solemn promise that I won’t give your email address to anyone else or spam you myself—you’ll only get news about my books and career when there’s some solid news to tell.

But here’s another bonus: If you also invite someone you know to enter the draw, and they do (and they tell me it was your idea), then both of you will be given two entries—a double chance to win the draw.

I think it’s a pretty sweet deal. So if you’re looking for some absorbing reading—or listening—enter the draw now on my homepage www.scottoverton.ca and tell your friends and family.

Because good reads should be shared.

MAYBE WE'RE ALONE IN THE UNIVERSE AFTER ALL

Photo Credit: A. Passwaters/Rice University based on original courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech at http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_1454.html

The question of whether or not life exists elsewhere in the universe has been examined in countless ways, and much of the discussion depends on knowing how rare an occurrence life is. When it does arise, how likely is it to evolve into an intelligent species? We’re now nearly certain that there are at least hundreds of other planets in our galaxy (based on our best instrumentation and scientific rationale) and assume that the number is actually higher than that by orders of magnitude, but we still don’t know the odds of life arising in any given place, let alone intelligence. And sometimes rather oblique investigations make the issue even murkier.

Although we can imagine forms of life composed of different elements, Earth life is based on the element carbon. Without carbon-based molecules, there would be no life as we know it. So is carbon a common element on extraterrestrial planets? If so, we might have high hopes that carbon-based life would have arisen elsewhere. The problem is that many scientists who investigate planet formation feel that Earth shouldn’t have large amounts of free carbon that isn’t locked into the planet’s core. So some researchers from Rice University have theorized that Earth must have been hit by a Mercury-type planet something like four billion years ago and absorbed the doomed planet’s carbon into Earth’s upper mantle and crust, where it could eventually be used for the evolution of life forms. If that’s true, and if carbon-based life couldn’t arise any other way, then the rarity of that exact type of collision means that the number of planets hospitable for our kind of life would be equally rare.

Another couple of researchers at Cornell University have approached the question of life’s scarcity in a completely different way. They’ve calculated the rate at which genetic material (like DNA) increases in complexity through natural evolution, reasoning that if you work that rate backward you can figure out how long ago the most basic life forms came into being. According to their calculations, it took far longer than we’ve previously thought for life to arise and ultimately evolve into intelligent beings—nearly ten billion years, in fact. Ten billion years ago is before the existence of the solar system, so they propose that life arose elsewhere and travelled to Earth by meteorites. But if it really does take that long for intelligent life to develop, then we shouldn’t be expecting visits from advanced aliens anytime soon. They’ll all be at about the same stage of evolution as we are—we may even be among the first intelligent species to arise.

What would it mean to us if we do turn out to be alone in the galaxy? On the bright side, we won’t go out into space and face a slew of hostile races eager to kill us off, as in Starship Troopers by Heinlein, and the John Scalzi Old Man’s War series. But it would also mean that we’ll never find companionship beyond our own kind, never get fresh perspectives on art, music, love, or the meaning of life. We’d never get a chance to learn from others with very different experiences. Even worse, if the number of planets with carbon-based life turns out to be near zero, then it will also be nearly impossible for us to find new worlds that are hospitable to us and our fellow Earth species, which means we’ll have to terraform every planet we encounter before we can colonize it, a process that could take thousands of years.

Much as I hate the thought that venturing out into galactic space would bring humanity into conflict with other races, I really hope that life isn’t a rare thing in the cosmos, and that we’re not the only intelligent beings. A universe with no inviting planets or potential friends would be hostile indeed.

WHERE'S A HANDY ROBOT CARPENTER WHEN YOU REALLY NEED ONE?

As I write this, my wife and I are in the process of building our next house. I’ve never built a house before. I think the biggest structure I’ve actually built was a doghouse, and I struggled to assemble a pre-fab shed so, yes, I’m probably crazy. We’ve needed a lot of help from incredibly generous (and knowledgeable) family and friends. But I found myself asking, “Why aren’t there robots I can rent that would do all this for me?” Doesn’t every hapless DIY-er ask this question?

Whatever happened to those predictions that we’d have robot servants to perform all the menial tasks of life for us? Were futurists and science fiction writers just way too optimistic about the timeline required to develop such technology? Or were they flat out wrong, and there are too many hurdles to overcome to be worth it?

Let’s look at the processes involved in building my house. A properly programmed human-size robot should be able to select the correct lumber for a given wall and transport it to the site. With an extra accessory or two, it ought to be able to measure any cuts necessary and chop the wood into the required lengths. It might need to be a little bigger to include the laser measure and saw blade, though. Then it could probably place each piece in the proper configuration and pop a few nails in to hold it in place. Hmmm, I guess we’d better give the robot a built-in level and nailer, too. Gee, suddenly the robot’s getting a bit heavy for that plywood floor and kind of bulky to squeeze under those temporary braces keeping the newly-framed wall from falling over. Maybe there’s a reason cars built by automation require gigantic factories.

OK, let’s try again. We’ll give the robot hands like humans have, to let it just grasp the tools it needs each time, like we do. Never mind that our hands require nearly thirty different bones and 2500 nerve endings per square centimeter to provide the dexterity and bio-feedback needed to handle tools and other things. Let’s say we’ve solved that, and now we tell the robot to hammer a nail into something. For our new house my wife and I chose an exterior cladding that’s a kind of thick panelling with a dense outer coating to do the job of ten-test and siding all in one. A clever idea in theory but Boy, does it like to repel nails! You see, it takes a bit of extra effort to pierce the coating and the stuff bounces like crazy—try driving a nail into that. No, wait—that’s not difficult enough—make it a fancy round-headed nail. Got the picture yet? Every time the hammer hits the nail, the position of the nail changes a little and the angle of attack of the hammer stroke has to adjust to compensate, perhaps with a slight turn of the hammer face and a stroke that’s more of a push than a swing. Or a bit more left force than right, with just a touch of body English. Get it wrong and the nail goes Ping! and flies off into the fourth dimension, never to be seen again.

There are countless tasks in house-building that require mental and physical versatility like that, from compensating for warped boards, to judging how far you can tolerate something that’s just slightly off-level or off-square (OK, ‘slightly’ might be an understatement). Not to mention adaptation to the on-site environment—windy or wet, flat or rough, and full of sawdust. Robotics experts will tell you that there are huge numbers of micro-decisions involved in some of the most routine tasks, and we completely take for granted the extraordinary abilities of our brains and bodies to handle them.

I can’t really predict if we’ll ever produce robots with that kind of sophistication, but I do know that jobs like house construction will be out of the question until we change the arcane conventions of the field. Like language that includes studs, cripples, and scabs (oh my!). The fact that “dressed lumber” means a 2 x 4 is actually 1 ½ inches x 3 ½ inches, and an 8-foot stud is only 92 5/8 inches long instead of 96. And speaking of inches, the imperial system of measurement has got to go. Have you ever tried to use a calculator for an equation involving measurements like 27 13/16ths?

Any logic-based robot brain could be forgiven for quickly going insane.

WIN THE AUDIOBOOK OF MY NOVEL DEAD AIR

Although I consider myself a science fiction author, my first published novel was a mystery/thriller called Dead Air, the story of a radio morning man who discovers that someone is out to kill him. Well, I’ve now published it as a complete audiobook and you can win a free copy! See the details below.

I was a radio broadcaster myself for more than thirty years, most of them as a morning show host like my character Lee Garrett in Dead Air (except I’m a nicer person with a much happier life!) So I was drawn to create a story about the vulnerability of radio personalities, while giving readers an insider’s look at the broadcasting business. Most of us listen to the radio every day—how much do we know about what really goes on behind that microphone? Dead Air answers that, as well as offering a gripping story of an ordinary man faced with an extraordinary struggle. What would you do if you learned that someone wanted you dead?

You can read more about the plot of Dead Air here.

Though the novel has been available in print and e-book formats for a few years, I decided to help it find a new audience among book listeners. As a career broadcaster, it made sense for me to narrate the book myself, so I produced it first as a free podcast which is still available through iTunes and directly from my web page. Now the unabridged Dead Air audiobook is available through Audible, Amazon, and iTunes (under Audiobooks/Mystery/Scott Overton). Even before launching it, I’ve been getting great comments from those who’ve found the audiobook by accident.

The audiobook isn’t free, but it can be for you! Beginning today, and for the first two weeks of September only, I’m holding a draw to give away ten free copies of the Dead Air audiobook. All you have to do to enter is to sign up for my mailing list using the form on my home page before September 15, 2016. Don’t worry—I won’t spam you. I keep all email addresses confidential and I only use them to send out news about my writing and such when there is news. After September 15, I’ll contact winners individually with the code for your free audiobook.

If you love audiobooks, if you love mysteries with lots of action, if you love very human stories…well, you get the idea. The Dead Air audiobook is for you. Enter now and best of luck!