Jackson Allen's Blog

Today I’m test-driving Bluesky as a new comment platform – WordPress comments are frequently nothing more than a breeding ground for dipwad spam bots so I generally don’t use it. Reddit *might* have become my defacto comment platform but we all know how that went. So no, no Reddit. With the advent of Bluesky and...

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Anyone else find themselves missing scifi experiences of yore – I have, that’s why I started ‘Make Your Own Scifi Adventure.’ Those Choose Your Own Adventure stories were a great way to kill time in the car. I can’t make my own CYOA book – they own the trademark. Turn-based or interactive fiction doesn’t have...

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I’ve created this post for my Chinese scifi readers because a large portion of my web traffic comes from China. Is it AI scraping my data? Who knows? I am taking the opportunity to be friendly to members of my human family. Here goes: 我提前道歉,因為我的中文不太流利。歡迎！感謝您造訪本網站。始終歡迎來自中國的讀者,與世界各地的人們分享故事和想法真是太棒了。如果您有任何疑問、想法或回饋,請隨時與我聯絡。瀏覽愉快的一天！ I apologize in advance because I am not very fluent...

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The post 向我的中國讀者致以問候 | Quick Shoutout to my Chinese Scifi Readers first appeared on Inkican.

Someone shot me an excellent video by Angela Collier that asks a simple question: “You want a space elevator … why?” Having watched the video, I want to provide some alternative perspective to the story she’s telling herself – and us – about space elevators. This directly relates to Mike.Sierra.Echo, so let’s take a moment...

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Something fun and happy to tell you about. Bashed together a new logo to reflect more of, well, me – storytelling / simplicity / art / cyberpunk – but I’m also trying other forms of art (painting) so I decided to paint it. I usually work with Photoshop and stuff, but someone was giving free...

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Something difficult happened to me today in a Scifi Thought Leader kind of way – requiring a sad choice. One of my professional colleagues surprised me by telling me of a decision. Because of my role as Jackson Allen the Author, he didn’t feel he and I could be friends anymore. I’m shocked and saddened,...

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The post STL: Choice first appeared on Inkican.

A Redditor blew my mind today, by explaining why the best scifi isn’t scifi at all.  Doesn’t that sound crazy? I thought so, too. But then I read the explanation and something clicked about the universal appeal of universal stories. What made Star Trek II succeed where Star Trek: The Motion Picture failed? Lots of...

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Some exciting solarpunk news – the future smells like onions! No, seriously – a new nanocellulose material has been developed to increase the longevity of solar panels. Here’s Dr. Ben Miles with more:  TL;DW – ‘Scientists have developed a biodegradable film made from red onion skin extract and nanocellulose that blocks 99.9% of harmful...

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Can a squirrel death be funny? It can when it’s *this* squirrel – take a look. Just something I did for fun – Happy Monday.

The post Just for Fun – Squirrel Death Soundtrack first appeared on Inkican.

Space week coming up, so let’s talk about getting to the next level of space elevators. As you know, I’m intensely interested in them as part of my novel Mike.Sierra.Echo.  Of course, everyone loves to talk about the necessity of space elevators – how much better it would be if we had one. Then someone...

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