Currently I use the Smashwords web service for publishing my ebooks with The Ice War (link >>>) as the first to go online. They offered most hassle-free setup. (I intend to use Amazon, too, but that will take a month or so to arrange because I have to handle plenty of paperwork before getting an active account.) Read my Smashwords presentation here — link >>>
By chance I found this artwork by illustrator Ian McQue . In a precise manner it captures the mood of Alba, the frozen continent that serves as the backdrop for my dieselretro spy novel The Ice War. This scene could, for instance, show a Rhodes Inc “security squad” patrolling the wilderness near one of the corporation’s mines.
“Troop Carrier” by Ian McQue (click on pic for larger image)
Dieselpunks is a site dedicated to dieselretro art, music, literature and fandom. It has now published an interview with me, in which I talk about why and how I write diesel-flavored alternate history science fiction (e.g. The Ice War) and games (e.g. Lemuria) — link to interview >>>
The European Space Agency has produced this short movie, Ambition, about the Rosetta comet probe, but the presentation is straight out of the Avatar TV series. The director uses the barren Icelandic landscape skillfully.
The European Space Agency presents its vision for how mankind can establish a long-term presence on the moon at its south pole, where deep ever-dark craters can be mined for ice, a raw material that can be melted to water for colonists and electrolyzed to pure hydrogen and oxygen, i.e., potent rocket fuel.
Far below the ocean floors there are chthonic aquifers in which hitherto unknown microbes prosper thanks to their ability to “breathe” sulfates. Scientists and engineers at the Center for Dark Energy Biosphere Investigations at the University of Southern California have developed probes that descend to the seafloor and drill sealed holes through the sediments down to water-carrying rock layers. There they have collected samples of yet-unclassified microorganisms that flourish in that peculiar environment despite its lack of oxygen and light.
Here is yet another proof of how life finds ways of adapting to hostile environments; a comforting thought when I look with hopeful eyes at the barren Mars. Take a look at the picture below and read more here — link >>>
Dieselretro kentaur (by Jake Parker)
Jake Parker’s Deviantart gallery is here — link >>>
Kentaurs are a major race in my pre-steampunk fantasy RPG Gondica. If you add 200 years to the gameworld’s timeline, the kentaurs would probably look like the one above.
I enjoy clever resource management games, such as Sid Meier’s Civilization and Eclipse, because I am more interested in building than wrecking. I prefer game that provide multiple routes ahead; when building there should be different strategic options.
For me, a game combining resource management and Mars would therefore be a particularly attractive challenge. Now a team of Swedes are busy developing such a boardgame (link >>>). Competing factions strive to make Mars more habitable for humans by applying existing and futuristic technologies while juggling e.g. ecological and energy factors:
“The game ends when there is enough oxygen to breathe, oceans enough to allow Earth-like weather and the temperature is well above freezing, at least at the equator. It will then be possible, if not comfortable, to live on the surface of Mars.”
I am looking forward to getting hold of it later this year.
A playtest version published on Fryx Games’s website
My diesel-era spy adventure The Ice War has been published as an e-book via Smashwords. See facts & purchasing info here — link >>>
Basic Facts about the Book:
The year is 1940. In Europe Czech and German republicans have been fighting for years against the Habsburg Emperor’s oppressive rule. Rebel spy Johnny Bornewald is dispatched to the southern-most continent of Alba, the home of the non-human ursines, to gather technological intelligence. However, he and his native guide Linda Connor must flee for their lives through icy wastelands when war unexpectedly erupts there, too. More than polar cold and enemy gunfire imperil their lives when they get entangled in a conspiracy that may wreck much of Alba. Will Linda and Johnny be wily enough to evade their enemies’ schemes?
Cover by Per Folmer
Reviews
Swedish author Patrik Centerwall reviewed the Swedish edition of The Ice War (published in 2011) in the following manner:
The Ice War is a well-written, swift-moving and exciting adventure that touches several interesting issues of morals and philosophy. Anders Blixt does not make matters easy, neither for the novel’s characters nor for the readers. As far as possible, he makes us understand what choices must be made. He does not shirk from asking hard questions about the horrors of war. The novel is not long, but it is impressive how much it contains […]. The Ice War is very good and thought-provoking and it is warmly recommended to everyone who wants a somewhat different reading experience..
The Dream Forge 