2013, Fourth Quarter News Update

One-Planet-at-a-Time Quarterly News Update:  Fourth Quarter, 2013


NEWS:  First and foremost it is time to congratulate the winners of the Third Quarter Character Contest:

1) blackcherryangel’s OC McKenna OC McKenna
McKenna’s boots struck the floor hard as she paced back and forth in her frigate‘s underbelly. The holo-image showed a young woman bonded.  She wasn’t going anywhere. At least she was given a mat to provide some comfort. There was hatred in her eyes and not fear. That was good.  Hate kept captives alive. She stomped past her image again. It felt wrong to walk through the image of her prisoner.  So, she avoided her each time. Space was so cramped down here.  Ades over in the corner striking his punching bag and smoking at the same time.  It did not help that he had turned this into his own personal gym.
The young woman’s fate was in her hands. Possessing that power over another was intoxicating.  However that wasn’t the reason she chose her new profession.  She got no pleasure in doing to other women what was done to her.
“Don’t even breathe in my direction, got it?” She refused to ask what he would do in this situation.
He let loose a series of h
2) ILJackson’s Col Chafferey
3) DreamingHero’s Alison White

For those of you who may be new to this group, OPaaT is the largest functional shared universe community on dA and it basically operates like a gated community for levelheaded sci-fi enthusiasts by striking a balance between independent world building and community interaction.  For more info please check out the New Member Guide space-commander.deviantart.com… as well as the FAQ space-commander.deviantart.com….

Before this group gets much large it will be important to make sure that we continue to function well as a good medium-sized community.  We may not all have time to engage in multiple one-on-one collaborations at once, but one thing that we can do is to interact with each other on a social level.  In order to catalyze a more cohesive web of interaction, this journal entry as well as future ones will have a QUESTIONS FOR THE READER section at the bottom of the update.

The first draft of the Faster-Than-Light (FTL) Guidelines document is now available space-commander.deviantart.com….  The deadline for feedback will be December 31st and in January the FTL Guidelines document will become officially canonized into the group bylaws folder.

Last but not least, congratulations to OPaaT contributor desuran desuran.deviantart.com/ for being included in the August Feature space-commander.deviantart.com… for our new affiliate, the Sci-Fi-Society sci-fi-society.deviantart.com/.


RESOURCES:

1) FLOWCHART:  Navigating NPR’s Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy Books www.sfsignal.com/archives/2011…
2) Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Advice to New Writers www.mzbworks.com/advice.htm
3) Writer’s Digest www.writersdigest.com/
4) Forbes Magazine:  Publishing Is Broken, We're Drowning In Indie Books - And That's A Good Thing www.forbes.com/sites/davidvinj…
5) The Hugo Awards www.thehugoawards.org/hugo-his…


CONTEST:

The Fourth Quarter Contest will evaluate writing entries within OPaaT.  The minimum word count is 400 and the maximum is 5,000.  If you write a story with multiple scenes then my suggestion would be to aim for 600-1200 words per scene.  World building passages are also fair game, as well as poems and visual art that include well-written text within the description section.  Preview images are okay to include but in this particular contest entries will be judged exclusively by the merits of the actual text.


GROUP HIGHLIGHT:    

If you are searching for new as well as active sci-fi writers on dA then you need look no further than the Sci-Fi-Society sci-fi-society.deviantart.com/.  The SFS is one of the largest sci-fi groups on dA and the thing that I like most about the group is that it is exactly what it claims to be:  an actual sci-fi community.  Instead of operating like a professionals-only collection or an anything-goes dumping pile the founder, KarToon12 kartoon12.deviantart.com/, uses a common sense approach for quality control that allows levelheaded sci-fi enthusiasts to get the kind of exposure for their art that they deserve.  Another great thing about this group is that it runs features for ten members at a time each month in the journal sci-fi-society.deviantart.com/….  Below are ten of the best deviations from this group:

1) TarienCole’s The Mimic’s Mirror :thumb336350943:
2) Metarex12’s A.I.
3) khronosabre’s Caelum Lex Caelum Lex Chapter 1: Medical Attention
Cyrus had never cared much for hospitals. At least the clinic he'd managed to find on this foreign planet - or rather, the clinic he'd thrown himself into like a madman - was hardly the image of mild terror one might expect. The clear glass medical building appeared pleasant, clean and quiet this evening. All was well. Until he burst in, out of breath, and all eyes turned onto him.
Ignoring the startled looks of a dozen waiting patrons, he advanced toward the main desk, immediately meeting the eyes of the curious receptionist.
"Hi, I need help," he began, short of breath. "The captain of my ship was wounded and it got infected. Badly infected. He's got a fever of 105 and he's completely delirious. We knocked him out with some sleeping pills, but we don't have the right treatment and we don't have a doctor aboard. Please, I can't get him here. I need someone to come with me. The ship's just in the north dock, not far. We can pay."
The receptionist heeded his plea with an intent, steady
4) SgtPossum’s Yurei YureiOn Yurei, there are gulls. Billions of them. They fill the skies from one yellow horizon to the next.
Among the mountains of refuse there are people, the last of Yurei’s once great population, who eke out an existence in shanty towns and concrete tunnels with steel gates. They hunt rats and hogs and the occasional amphibian Hi-go, though few of those have survived the transformation of a vibrant planet that had just begun to be colonized by sophisticated terrestrial life to two hundred million square kilometers of landfill. In small areas where they have scrounged enough suitable soil, they grow cabbages, potatoes, carrots, and a hardy local fruit called leppuna.
But on Yurei, it is the gulls who thrive.
Okyo watched them from atop a mound his village had created. It was solid, an enormous jigsaw of welded steel supported by enormous bars collected from various dumpsites, made to look like just another mountain to the dumper frigates. He marveled at their combination of grace and
5) homunculus888’s Zeeko’s Journey
6) Laura-Lie’s I had an out-of-body experience i had an out-of-body experience.I had an out-of-body experience at the age of thirty-one.
Every year between the ages of ten and eighteen, I sent a letter to NASA.  I told them a little bit about myself, the same general description year after year, and always insisted that despite my medical condition, I would one day love to sail through the stars.  My dream was to be out there in the universal abyss, exploring every unknown corner until we knew all that we could.
Art would taunt, “Sick kids don’t go to space” before Mom slapped the back of his shoulder with a spatula.
NASA was as nice as they could be, but the bottom line was that we all knew I couldn’t do it.  The spaceship would need to have extra space just for the amount of medication and equipment I’d have to bring along, and that was if I could even survive the zero-gravity environment.  Whoever wrote the responses encouraged me to keep dreaming, and boasted about donations the association made to various sickle cell charities.
7) lecaptaindom’s Apocalypse:  What now? Apocalypse: What now? Chapter 1Chapter 1
The red light at the chamber's base began blinking as the last fail safe protocol activated. In the event that any and all power fails, the chamber will send out its S.O.S through the system and deactivate, opening its doors to whomever was inside. This is what happened to the dusty forgotten cyro-chamber number twelve. The red light began blinking, and the extreme cold finally shut off. The air-sealed door undid its locks, allowing just enough space for the frigid air to escape. This in turn did two things. One, as the cold air escaped, the chamber's occupant finally began to awaken after his long assisted sleep. Two, the chamber opening activated the room.
The teen's eyes slowly opened a crack then immediately shut as his brain began to wake up and receive stimulation, causing a massive headache. After a moment, he gasped, and then inhaled a large breath. The intake of cool air allowed his brain to begin functioning a little more. Slowly, he began breathing normally, and af
8) RipleyNox’s TOTGA :thumb313020818:
9) Mothbanquet’s Mass Effect: Dark Saga :thumb351136172:
10) KarToon12’s Jamie Jupiter


QUESTIONS FOR THE READER:

1) Are you currently engaged in any art projects beyond what you are doing with OPaaT?

2) Are there any specific deviations in your gallery for which you would like thoughtful, in depth feedback?

3) If OPaaT hosted a book club within the quarterly news updates three times a year would you be interested in participating?

4) What is an upcoming sci-fi book, movie or video game that you are looking forward to?


2013, Third Quarter News Update one-planet-at-a-time.deviantar…
2013, Second Quarter News Update one-planet-at-a-time.deviantar…
2013, First Quarter News Update one-planet-at-a-time.deviantar…
2012, Fourth Quarter News Update one-planet-at-a-time.deviantar…