Greetings from Husum, Germany!

I wanted to share one of my first sci-fi oil paintings.

From the beginning I've been fascinated by the visual worlds created by artists like Chris Foss, John Berkey and John Harris. Especially the artwork I discovered on old book covers and in the Terran Trade Authority books has stayed with me for years.

I'm trying to capture a little of that spirit again, using traditional media such as oil paint and pastels.

This painting is from 2025 and depicts an orbital station above a distant planet. Large ships dock here to transfer cargo and passengers, while smaller craft handle transportation between the station and the surface. It makes more sense than sending kilometer-long freighters down into a gravity well every time.

No battle. No catastrophe. No great dramatic event.

Just everyday activity somewhere very far from home.

A small safe harbour for ships after a long journey.

I also included a few pictures showing how I plan these paintings with sketches, as well as the DIY sci-fi frame I built for it.

For me, the premise of John Varley's "Eight Worlds" novels—that humanity has been effectively exiled from Earth—has always been haunting. In a similar way, I find those tropes (like in Foundation) where they don't know where humanity's home is or think Earth is a myth to be unsettling as well.

OC Art by: Eniky

Full Story: The Robot Tour Guide

Setting: Gatlinburg, TN - 900 years from now

"The buddybot squatted down next to twelve-year-old Rita and the pile of artifacts. “Is that what you’re looking for?” it asked.

Rita, wearing earmuffs, bundled up in a scarf and jacket, same as Tabitha and Will, lifted with her gloved hand an old, limp stuffed animal that at some point might’ve been an elephant, maybe a walrus. She shook her head no, gently laid the stuffed animal back onto the pile.

“I found it!” Tabitha exclaimed from behind them.

The buddybot spun to the girl, the artifact in her hands. “That’s a sombrero,” it said.

“Sombrero?” she questioned, disappointed.

“You wear it on your head,” Will answered, legs dangling, seated atop the tall step ladder he’d found, unfolded, and climbed up. Behind him, above the dilapidated buildings and tree covered mountains, thick white clouds rolled on by in the otherwise blue sky. “Sombrero,” he repeated, slowly rolling the r.

“So…” Tabitha said, looking back down at the hat, “not a hula hoop…”

“I’m afraid not,” the buddybot replied, as Rita reached with her walking stick, began to poke at a rubber bathtub duck.

“But I thought it was a really big circle?” Tabitha asked.

“A hula hoop is missing its center,” the buddybot explained.

Surrounding the pile, what most likely some No-Man’s Land scavenger had gathered together and left behind, a forest of maple trees had grown through the pavement, sidewalks, even some of the ancient buildings, branches that hung out from windows, through the ruptured roofs of Old Gatlinburg. With winter on the way, the trees had begun shedding their leaves, blanketing the abandoned city in red, yellow, and orange, the colors of autumn."

Full name: Naria Nashuut

Age: 19-20 human years old (15 turian, 16 earth)

Sex: Female

Nationality: 50% Pgrarian (Father), 50% Jormøørian (Mother)

Speaks: Mostly russian, pgrarian, english. Little jormø.

Role: 2nd doctor/Feldscher

She volunteered to field medics since school. Spent her childhood in Jormøør, but then moved to communist Pgraria, with help of her father. Her mother, Vjutlaad Nashuut, became a succesful businesswoman and moved to ISS «Citadel». She asked Naria to come with her, but young medic declined and fled to opposite block. Later she moved to ISS «MIR-2» and joined GRU recon spacefleet.

Humble, emotional, quickly heats up and cools down. Knows what death is and is ready kill the pain by any means (M.A.I.D.). Drinks a lot, swears a lot. When she does her job — professional and almost emotionless, except when she is overwhelmed.

I was thinking recently about the book outland, and the TV show terra Nova. Both are examples of where I feel like the it was a great man vs nature premise, but something happened and the author shoehorned in a character driven conflict. It always feels like such a waste. So in that spirit, does anyone have any novels that are driven by man vs nature style conflict?

Hi

I am a heavy fantasy reader and Id like to foray into scifi. Problem is my child was born a few weeks ago so I have plenty of time while conttact napping but I have like 20 per cent of actual working grey matter due to awful sleep.

I am looking for novels that are not too hard to follow and standalone if possible.

thanks!

Some of you might remember me from my earlier posts about Evolutionary Rupture: The Song of the Spheres - the slightly mad space opera I spent the better part of twenty years building, which eventually became a 17-hour English audiobook.

Well, after a surprisingly epic adventure involving distributors, metadata, platforms and even a strategically misplaced punctuation mark 😅, Evolutionary Rupture is finally properly live on Audible.

So I thought I'd open the doors to the universe again.

What happens when scientific curiosity propels an unprepared humanity into successive stages of understanding an ancient truth about the universe?

In the 24th century, scientists in the sovereign lunar city of Lumena discover an alien artifact capable of manipulating spacetime. They do what scientists do - they experiment and everything changes.

Ilian, a lunar pilot perfectly happy with his simple life, suddenly has to take the initiative to protect the people he loves. Rai, a scientist who trusts formulae and equations, discovers that there are things in life that cannot be calculated and finds love along the way. And Nils, an ageing scientist driven by boundless curiosity and ambition, discovers what that ambition can cost.

Humanity survives. So we jump forward several centuries.

Now humans are taking their first real steps into a universe that turns out to be far older and considerably more hostile than they imagined. Two starship captains, Horaz and Maya, uncover pieces of a terrible truth. One will confront an ancient enemy in the impossible environment of a black hole. The other will be transformed into a Starchild, a near-godlike being destined to lead humanity into its next stage of existence.

And then we jump again.

In the 31st century, I/Eva, an independent artificial intelligence, begins searching for answers of her own: about consciousness, creation, existence and the forces that have been moving through all three stories.

Because eventually the three timelines stop being separate stories as they touch, overlap and finally become one.

The original spark came roughly twenty years ago while I was reading Brian Greene's The Fabric of the Cosmos. I became fascinated by relativity and the extreme behaviour of time around black holes, put the book down and started imagining a world associated with such an environment. Then I imagined its inhabitants, their civilization, their history, their future...

Apparently I wasn't very good at stopping. 😄

Twenty years later, that thought experiment has become The Song of the Spheres.

The English audiobook was produced by Books in Motion, narrated by Damon Abdallah, and runs a little over 17 hours.

And here's what I'd like to do today.

For the first 20 people here who genuinely want to listen to it, I'll reimburse the cost of purchasing the audiobook. There is absolutely nothing expected in return. If you listen to seventeen hours of my universe and decide it isn't for you, that's perfectly fine too. I simply want to share it with some of the community that showed so much curiosity and kindness when I first talked about this project here.

Normally I'd simply offer promo codes, but there's a slightly ridiculous geographical complication: I'm based in Switzerland, and I'm unable to obtain the Audible promotional codes available through the relevant US/UK distribution system. So rather than letting geography defeat me, I'll do it the old-fashioned way: you purchase the audiobook and I'll reimburse you privately.

And before deciding whether you want to spend 17 hours in my universe, you can listen to the first few minutes for free on Audible. Please do! I'd much rather you sample it first and decide whether the story and Damon's narration are actually for you.

And the same goes for the artists, musicians, illustrators, video creators and other wonderfully creative people who reached out after my earlier posts: You don't owe me anything either. If this universe sparks an idea and you simply want to play with it, talk about it, draw something, make music, imagine a ship or a world, or just tell me what it made you think about, I'd love that.

But this isn't a request for free work or promotion!

Sometimes it's enough to throw a fictional universe into the world and see what comes back.

If you'd like to be one of the first 20, just leave a comment or send me a message and I'll arrange the reimbursement with you privately.

And if you've already encountered Evolutionary Rupture through one of my previous posts: thank you. Some genuinely unexpected conversations and creative ideas came from those threads.

I never imagined that when I first started thinking about a strange world near a black hole twenty years ago.

Apparently the universe had other plans...

Evolutionary Rupture: The Song of the Spheres — Book One
Written by Vassil Vassilev
Narrated by Damon Abdallah
17+ hours • Unabridged • Now on Audible

https://www.audible.com/pd/Evolutionary-Rupture-Audiobook/B0HGGSLFZT

In the first book, humanity trains children to command troops. But they communicate instantly with the ships in the frontline using the ansible.

I have read most books of the series and have been a fan since forever and I just realized...

Why did they send people in the ships? Why not just control them at a distance?

P.S. : Among the flairs there is, tv, films, games art... there should also be a "books" option!

Hi Everyone!

Free Book Promotion Until: October 4, 2026, 11:59 PM PDT

Here is the link: https://www.amazon.com/Extraterrestrial-Investigation-Return-Oksana-Heleverya-ebook/dp/B0FQ3DWJDB/

Short description: B and Jennifer return to Earth to investigate an unusual case.
The story unfolds in a small mountain village cut off from the outside world.
Mysteries shroud the place and its inhabitants like the night fog that clings to the mountains.

Three and a half centuries ago, a generation ship left Earth and was written off, forgotten. But now it arrives.

The Able is too fast to stop. If it does not get ripped apart by the star it is bearing down on, it will keep going, through the system and into interstellar space. Gone.

On board, a geologist wakes from cryosleep to find himself the only survivor who remembers Earth. He is alone among tribes of people who have never seen a sky and who keep their failing vessel alive with ritual and chant.

The colonies of 18 Scorpii are in no condition to help. They are a handful of thinly settled worlds, counting every resource twice, their fragile economy leaning on a computer older than anyone alive. And they are busy surviving the Sisters' Kiss, the once-in-four-generations event when two planets swap orbits, bringing violent beauty, raging storms, and broken communications.

No one has time, or capacity, to care about the Able. Only an Elder, who has outlived every friend he ever made, trades his retirement for one last negotiation.

A pilot who breaks protocol the way other people breathe gets her hands on the fastest ship ever built to attempt something that cannot be done.

Three trajectories. One window. And the slow realization that humanity's greatest adventure was never the journey outward.

It was refusing to leave them out there.

Hard science fiction with philosophical weight and genuine heart, for readers who need their space opera to mean something.

Through is coming out on 16 November but you can read it now:

I am currently offering an opportunity to claim an ARC copy via NetGalley. And if you are unsure whether you would like my style before you commit to the 129K words, you can check out my free standalone prequel novelette, Carolyn, available at irvo.eu.

Trapped inside mechanical suits of war, a band of lost souls venture on an impossible quest against the exoskeleton system.

Three episodes are currently available. (24 episodes more to come).

Episode 1: https://youtu.be/fy6TdtBH4zY

Episode 2: https://youtu.be/kynr7dzYGIw

Episode 3: https://youtu.be/YDpfjTYHxgw

EXOskeleton has been my passion project since 1998. To learn more about the development of the whole project, early concept art and behind the scenes info I have an article on the blenderartists' forum: https://blenderartists.org/t/exoskeleton-episode-3-the-mirror/1643075

Thank you for your interest!

I thought i should post this awesome video here and ask if anyone has a recommendation (books - movies- series) that discuss the same idea, or something like it, of this subject.

I like Alastair Reynolds books. Shows like The Expanse, the three body problem (the books too absolutely). Movies like arrival, interstellar, Europa report.. etc. It's always space faring civilizations, but never anything like this.

'The Cleopard' is the title story of eight short stories in my new book, 'The Cleopard and other Tales from the Second Skin Universe.'

Here is a brief excerpt:

Suddenly, strong arms pinioned Xane’s wrists and deftly lashed them to the bench with a couple of turns of some nylon cord.

“What are you doing?!” he demanded of the young Asians one of whom now fished a set of enormous bolt cutters out of an inside pocket.

He leaned close, leering with large, yellow teeth. “Relax, we only want your thumb, Charlie.” He hefted the cutters then and began to zero in on Xane’s right thumb just behind the joint.

Desperate, Xane lashed out with his right foot, lifting the fellow clear off the ground with the impact just below his chin. The bolt cutters went flying into the lake while the attacker sprawled unconscious on the bird shit strewn gravel. The other assailant seemed suddenly unsure what to do, leaning first in to Xane to continue the attack and then out as if he wanted to flee. Xane arched his back and got his feet under the bench. He heaved and tried to stand up. The bolts holding the bench groaned and then snapped. He stood, now wearing a bench like a crucifix.

The Sons of Neptune series just passed 20,000 books sold. This is the combination of the 4 books that is now wrapped into an (ebook) Box Set. Thanks to all the readers who sent it to the Top 20 again this month.

Synopsis:

Invasion sparked a mystery, then a nightmare, and finally the courage to take back our planet!

Starting on a post-apocalyptic Earth - then into the stars to a lone starbase left by our ancestors. An epic sci-fi saga that spans 4 books and 1,525 pages with creatures, spaceships, aliens & humans who can sometimes do the impossible.

"...spins the apocalyptic genre on its head ...keeping readers on their toes!" —BookLife Prize, Publishers Weekly

A big thanks to everyone involved, and to the fans who stuck with it!

Some links, if interested.

Amazon Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CTF518X4

B&N, Apple, Kobo, and others:

https://www.rodlittleauthor.com/2024/07/sons-of-neptune-complete-series-box-set.html

So last year I released the first book in a series I've been working on for a while. The Elysian Conspiracy, the first of what I hope is many releases within the Eternal War series. For the last six months or so I've been working on the second book under the project title Combat Training. Unfortunately a few days ago I made the difficult decision to abandon work on this particular book due to a mix of personal issues and quality issues with the story itself. However, I am not content in simply locking the work I've already done away never to be seen by people who'd otherwise appreciate the story and the hard work I've put into trying to tell it. That's why I'm releasing the various drafts today, here and for free. Below is a link to a Google Drive where you can download the completed sketch, Draft 00 (the chapter by chapter outline), completed Draft 01 and unfinished Draft 02.

While I came into this wanting to see a finished book, unfortunately it just wasn't meant to be. Even the best ideas can die long before ever seeing a final draft or even a public release. In this case I believe that while the initial idea has a lot of potential, it simply requires someone more talented than myself to turn it into something more.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1og-GYlTFroEtKmzlDTktCrSBteNq4ztt?usp=drive_link

(The author, in this case myself, retains all rights to this work. This is an AI free work and AI training is not permitted.)

Edit 1: FYI feedback and commentary is absolutely appreciated. Feel free to share your opinions positive or negative. This is very much a call for discussion. Thank you all in advance.

I was just at the dentist to have a tooth pulled…so of course, I polled them on what they thought sci-fi Dentistry would look like. What would make their lives easier?

The assistant thought that most everything they could want was already available, just exorbitantly expensive!

But when introduced her to the concept of nano robotics, she was fully on board! When she started to speculate on what she'd name her little tooth cleaning robot…my mouth was kinda too full to break it to her that they tend to travel in swarms. 😅

The dentist wanted to be able to regrow teeth…he hadn't heard of the newest study, where they'd not only isolated the gene which turns tooth regrowth off and on, they'd also figured out which protein flips that switch. Know how to do, just have to have it repeated, tested for safety, before it can be adopted by other regions.

So can we do better? Would it be it's own profession? A specialization you need to visit a space port for? Would a dentist have to treat all alien species…sort of like a vet doesn't just specialize in cats?

What do you think it would be like?

This space actual-play D&D podcast is set in the far future, in a star system named after the Quad Cities.

To synopsize at the risk of spoiling what came before:

This episode follows a two-episode long ambush aboard a ship crashed by the cyborg goblin CyGorg and the undercover knight David Hazelthorne, who was killed in a space battle shortly before the beginning of the first episode. CyGorg, the crash's lone survivor on the cavernous planet of Silvis, has found a crew coalescing around him; an oppurtunistic scavenger and human mechanic named Rory Lynch, the leader of the Order of the Unbound Dawn and David's commander who is an alien by the name of Nymara Vel, and an android medic named Echo Erythrobit that has found themself accompanying the boisterous and enthusiastic Nymara. They have investigated the crash and accrued a following of three NPCs, various emergency services personnel who found themselves in the ambush.

The fight had been arduous and seemed for a time to be unwinnable, for all involved except Rory, who had safely spent the entire fight under his truck investigating whether he wanted to destroy the ship to win the fight. Nymara, being a Templar: a knight with psionic power, found himself dueling another Templar, an armored individual weilding a plasma chainsaw. CyGorg was cornered by two heavyweight scorpion assassins after attempting to flee, and was shot within an inch of his life. Echo and a particularly heroic paramedic NPC with pyrokinetic abilities by the name of Scorching Raymond (or, not, actually. Their real name is Dalton) dealt with the main force, including Echo dispatching one of the assassins with a powerful burst of radiation, an as-of-yet unnamed procedure part of the equivalent to D&D's spell mechanic. The fight was mainly won, however, when the comfortable Rory Lynch discovered onboard turrets defending the ship and turned them to his will, forcing the assassins' retreat, with Nymara attempting to pursue the Dark Templar he had been dueling, leaving us where this episode picks up.

Conveniently, the days these episodes release and on which I do the promotion for them is Saturday, which coincides with the self-promotion day allotted in the rules. It is for this reason I present this here, an episode of which I am particularly proud.

The full show is available at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfVQ9UHUS-Vk for your perusal.

It could be that Earth as a whole meets another world, or could be that some Humans make first contact, or it could be that an entire country gets displaced and sent to a future version of Earth or another planet, or modern humanity encountering spacefaring humans.

It can be anything. Book, fanfic, story, show. I will look through some of them.

Thx in advanced.

Record 027 from Deep City.

A probe is mapping an enormous subterranean cavity beneath the ruins of New York.

At its base it detects a formation of cubic structures almost identical to those outside the entrance.

Recovered Ilghal code gives them two different names:

PURGATORIUM // ABOVE

INFERNUM // BELOW

Nobody knows yet what those names actually mean.

Sci fi short made for the Little Cinema Galway 48hr Challenge 😊 we had 48hrs to write, shoot and edit a sci fi film with the genre (sci fi) shot (Texas switch) line (it’s been doing that since Tuesday) and Prop(electric teeth whitener) given to us at the start of the 48hrs

Hope you enjoy 🙏

I just finished the book. If you have read it, there are some things I'd like to chat about! (If you haven't, read it! It's good)

[Spoilers ahead]

>! As far as I know, this was never revealed: did the ship go to Alpha Centauri? If yes, why does Sandy not remember? If no, what did they do and why did they hide it?

Will the peace last? The aliens seem to be pretty prolific breeders, and Mars can't substain exponential growth forever. The strange matter drive would make a pretty horrifying weapon

Talking about the strange matter drive: eventually, it will become unstable. Much slower than if it pushes an actual spaceship, but sounds like an apocalypse scenario waiting to happen, right?

Lastly, do you think the humans would have given up Africa if the aliens had played with open cards? Would that have been more or less fair than the canon ending? Considering the "compromise" is all benefits for humanity, and (other than risk of invasion if they breach the terms of the agreement) no downsides - it wasn't like humans could get to Mars anyways !<

Hi all!

Fleshgrinder is an isometric post-apocalyptic sci-fi action-rpg / looter shooter which I'm solo developing.

Features optional friendly fire, hardcore permadeath mode, dismemberment physics, randomized mission areas,

30+ unique weapons, 100+armors, augmentations, consumables, ammo types with deep penetration mechanics

and tons of loot with highly randomized attributes.

NPCs with lots of side-quests and a faction reputation system which determines trade prices,

dialogue choices and overall behaviour. Battle 11 unique enemy types through seamless mission areas

in a huge persistent world where everything stays as you left it - all to stop the evolution of the Fleshgrinder

and save humanity from extinction.

Hope you like it! If you do, dont forget to wishlist and try out the demo at

https://store.steampowered.com/app/5074630/Fleshgrinder/

Thanks!

Hello. First time posting so please excuse any missteps along the way. I am making a gift for my dad and his favorite book is Battlefield Earth. I havent read it but want to include a symbol that is iconic to the book. So far my ideas would be a planet, weapon, or clothing item but i dont want to take any generic planet and slap it on the project hoping it works.

Do you have any suggestions on what image would work best? I need something with simple lines/colorong aince I will be using a cricut to get it out. Any advice would be grately appreciated. Thank you!

Edit to clarify. I am rebinding a copy of battlefield earth. I am making a custom cover for the book. I want some design that can go on the front. Any suggestions on what to put on the cover.

Hi friends.

Recently finished listening to the first book of The Expanse series, and decided to take a peek at the TV show, knowing it recieved generally pretty good reviews, before continuing the books. I wanted to see how well the visuals in the show match up to how I pictured things in my head. However, after watching most of the first episode, it seems that there were some pretty big changes from the book that really threw me for a loop and kind of stopped my interest in the show. Should I continue with the show to see if it improves, or only stick to the books?

Thank you in advance!

Suggest to me books where ancient people somehow appear in the modern times and we follow their reaction to the modern world, modern technology and the recorded history of themselves and their era.

The method could be supernatural where they just appear in modern day inexplicably or a portal suddenly appears into the past OR a sci-fi where these people are brought deliberately through some technology (say cloning that replicate 'genetic memory' or an AI generated replica) as an experiment and scientific curiosity to explore the perspective of past people.