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 Author; Alastair Reynolds
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| Itharu |
Posted on 21-01-2006 16:53
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 Posts: 363 Joined: September 23 2005 |
I got his lastest book, Pushing Ice... then found out he wrote 6 others before it. According to a short biography on him, he's a former ESA physisits so pretty much knows all the effects of gravity, velocity ect. that would be found in space on a space ship. Good reading over all, enough that I'm going to get his other books. They're not very long, but they aren't boring either. In addition, he poses some interesting concepts as well, like Cryogenics, nanite technology, Tokamak reactors, all between 2050 and 2170 I think. Look into it 
-Fear the Might of the Imperial Cortharian Fleet
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| The Casualty |
Posted on 21-01-2006 18:58
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 Posts: 47 Joined: December 29 2005 |
What's a Tokamak reactor? |
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| Glacialis |
Posted on 23-01-2006 14:21
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 Posts: 368 Joined: September 02 2005 |
I just finished reading the series that starts with Revelation Space. He is a gifted writer. Next in the series is technically Redemption Ark, but to fill in some backstory you should read Chasm City as book #2 and keep Ark as #3. It closes with Absolution Gap, though the author leaves open the possibility of another book in that universe. Casualty: Tokamak is not a new concept. Google can find you more information than we can easily type. In short, it's a type of fusion reactor. |
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| Cobalt Shiva |
Posted on 23-01-2006 18:09
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 Posts: 118 Joined: September 07 2005 |
I've been a Reynolds fan since the beginning (Revelation Space.) Good stuff - some of the biggest 'big SF' I've ever seen. His characters never seem quite human, but that's more than made up for by his talent at inhumanity - he creates a gothic horror out of the usually sterile behavior of machines and their slow melding with mankind. "This is tactical control..."
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| jigga_what |
Posted on 23-01-2006 20:34
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Posts: 28 Joined: January 15 2006 |
Casualty you may find this interesting: http://www.angolapress-angop.ao/noticia-e.asp?ID=409853 The way I understand it the problem with bringing the concept to its full potential is building something that can actually contain the reaction thats somewhere in the neighborhood of like 100 million degrees celcius or something, i forget. Anyway, thought that might help with the whole Tokamak talk... |
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| Glacialis |
Posted on 23-01-2006 20:36
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Posts: 368 Joined: September 02 2005 |
The experimental reactor, the one that the world can't seem to agree where to build, is a tokamak design I believe. |
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| Itharu |
Posted on 24-01-2006 01:53
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Posts: 363 Joined: September 23 2005 |
ITER is going to be a Tokamak. It's been the only stable way of making fusion, but they are only able to get something like 13MW of power from it. Good concept, bad outcome.
-Fear the Might of the Imperial Cortharian Fleet
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