Ad Astra Science Fiction Institute

Posts about speculative fiction, writing tips, cutting-edge science, and other cool stuff. No AI slop. The Ad Astra Institute for Science Fiction & the Speculative Imagination brings together creators, educators, and fans to study and create speculative fiction that changes the world. Through a growing set of classes, we offer a comprehensive education and ongoing community. The people we work with create art that opens minds and imaginations, reaching for the stars and striving to "Save the world through science fiction!" Originally founded at the University of Kansas, we've grown into a nonprofit offering workshops, masterclasses, SF courses, and more. Check us out: AdAstra-SF.com or more on Linktree

[epifaniacintilante]

[gentlier]

Image I.D.

An excerpt from an interview of Elena Ferrante by Sandro and Sandra Ferri in The Paris Review:

INTERVIEWER

Are you concerned with your readers? Do you care about the effect your writing will have on them?

FERRANTE

I publish to be read. It’s the only thing that interests me about publication. So I employ all the strategies I know to capture the reader’s attention, stimulate curiosity, make the page as dense as possible and as easy as possible to turn. But once I have the reader’s attention I feel it is my right to pull it in whichever direction I choose. I don’t think the reader should be indulged as a consumer, because he isn’t one. Literature that indulges the tastes of the reader is a degraded literature. My goal is to disappoint the usual expectations and inspire new ones.

End I.D.

[retroscifiart]

Art by Les Edwards for Jupiter Magnified by Adam Roberts (2002)

[soursorrel]

Jupiter Magnified

Cover for a book by Adam Roberts and published by PS Publishing. This was a tricky one. I really just illustrated the title so the painting

[blueboxbeagle]

By LabradoriteKing on Pinterest

[sonneillonv]

As a Dungeon Master I nearly scrolled past this before my brain kicked my own ass and reminded me that I have tried looking up 'Blue Gemstones' at LEAST a dozen times in the last six months and never found anything this helpful.

[adastra-sf]

Pink Planet shows salty surprise

The "Pink Planet" (aka GJ504b) orbits a Sun-like star 57 light-years from Earth. It's huge, about 25 times the mass of Jupiter, but relatively cool compared to most huge planets - just 550°F (290°C) - roughly the temperature of a bread-baking oven.

New spectroscopy reveals that it holds a rich mix of chemicals, including water vapor, methane, carbon dioxide, ammonia, and metals, all shrouded in salt clouds.

more in the Astronomical Journal paper: X

[apod]

2026 June 19

Starry Night II Image Credit & Copyright: Rodrigo Guerra, Original Painting: Vincent van Gogh

Explanation: Does this scene look familiar? It is a modern recreation of the famous painting Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh. Both the image and the painting depict a tall tree on the left, a crescent moon on the upper right, the planet Venus just to the right of the tree, a foreground horizon rising from left to right, and clouds above the horizon. Differences include that the photograph was taken in mid-April earlier this year in Cascavel, Brazil, while the painting was composed in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France, in 1889. The original Starry Night is considered by many to be one of the three most famous paintings in the world today and a statement about the wonders of the night sky. Today is (roughly) the anniversary of the morning that van Gogh saw the sky that he later painted in his version of Starry Night.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260619.html

[enchantedbook]

'The Council of Frogs ' by Matt Emmons

[linecoveredinjellyfish]

i'm founding a new school of media criticism which i've decided to call Bitism. the Bitist school of literary analysis asks a simple question: is this work committed to the bit?

you see, any work of fiction is either committed to the bit or it's not. the worst thing a piece of media can be is ashamed of its own premise, of the genre it in habits, of the tropes and aesthetics we expect from it. to be committed to the bit does not inherently make it good, but it makes it more worthy of respect than those which are not.

also, that's not to say that a story cannot parody or criticize the genre it inhabits or mimics. we can discuss the bit, we can deconstruct the bit, we can ask ourselves whether or not it's a good bit, but to commit to it first will strengthen these discussions, not detract from them. commitment to the bit is, after all, the first step to genuine sincerity. and sincerity will exalt and elevate parody such that it can stand on its own feet.

commitment to the bit turns melodrama into camp, elevates parody to biting commentary, and allows cringe to open up into a resonant, if unpolished, expression of true emotion.

fully expect bitism to take the literary world by storm sometime in the next few years.

[cosmicfunnies]

Stellar Temperature!

Source:

Types of Stars | Stellar Classification, Lifecycle, and Charts

There are many different types of stars in the Universe, from Protostars to Red Supergiants. They can be categorized according to their mass

[abandonedography]

Built over 1,000 years ago in the dead center of an ocean of sand dunes, nobody actually knows who constructed this circular fortress. This is Ksar Draa in Timimoun, Algeria. An ancient architectural marvel whose true origin story is completely lost to time.

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[devinellekurtz]

Mama and Baby Dragon My new artbook "Modern Dragons" is on Kickstarter for 11 more days!

[charlesoberonn]

This looks like a fucking parody post, or an edgy edit, but it’s 100% official real Flintstones.

[charlesoberonn]

Clarification: I don’t hate this book, I love it, it’s amazing. It’s just that taking a step back and looking it out of context is still really funny. Especially the line “We participated in a genocide, Barney.”

[femboy-fever]

ok but imagine them in their cartoon forms saying this dialogue i’m

[wondermanaging]

can we have some context to this, perhaps?

[charlesoberonn]

Bedrock is having a mayoral election. One of the candidates is a violent war mongering asshole that riles people up against the lizard people. This reminds Fred and Barney of their time in the army.

Back then the father of said violent candidate was riling people up against the “tree people”. Fred, Barney, and other soldiers fought what they believed to be a defensive measure against the tree people. Turns out, it was actually an invasion, in order to kill off the tree people and take over their forest to build Bedrock.

That’s what Fred means when he says he and Barney participated in a genocide. They literally did.

(Extra fun fact, Barney adopted a tree person baby after the war, and his son Bamm-Bamm is the last tree person.)

[connard-cynique-deactivated2024]

just fucking read it

http://readcomiconline.to/Comic/The-Flintstones

[fuocogo]

There are a lot of interesting things about this post but the AK-47 shaped spear is what really got me

[actuallyjuststealingmemes]

This is just as wild with the context

[birdscreaming15-deactivated2020]

[charlesoberonn]

Some of my favorite moments in the series

[esoteric-merit]

From the foreword to 2021 print of the comic.

[charlesoberonn]

I’m glad people want to read it but don’t it on the pirate site linked above, though. It’s full of malware and annoying ads.

The omnibus of the full series is only about $30 online.

[piscesintherain]

If you don’t have $30 going spare, check your local library. If they don’t have it, they can help you with interlibrary loan. Or they might just buy it - libraries want to carry books people will read!

[spockvarietyhour]

Luna-16 in Star City's "The Eyes"

[adastra-sf]

Bees are smart!

New research reveals that bumble bees (Bombus terrestris) are much more cognitively advanced than previously thought:

We've known for a while that they play with balls, count, recognize faces, and even feel rhythm. Now we know they can achieve one of the highest peaks of cognitive performance: spontaneously solving problems.

And like the chimps in prior research, using a tool was the bees’ own idea.

"This is essentially an insect version of the classic ‘box-and-banana’ problem," study author Olli Loukola said.

"The animal must realize that an object can be repositioned and then used as a tool to reach an otherwise inaccessible goal."

And then they did it.

This is the first research proving bees can have insights on par with large-brained vertebrates. It’s remarkable when you consider the vast difference in brain size - a bee’s 1 million neurons are capable of the same goal-oriented problem-solving as a chimp’s 2.8 billion.

Imagine the implications! How might you use this discovery for worldbuilding fantasy creatures and science-fiction aliens?

original paper in the journal Science: X

article: X

[br1ghteyed]

i think i tend to forget how good boredom is for creativity because we're all so addicted to numbing ourselves with screens and stimulation. but standing in the shower or going for a walk with no music or just sitting in your bedroom without being allowed to touch any screens & all of a sudden i have multiple new projects to start, a solution to a months-long plot problem & 4 new original characters

[anarchistmemedistro]

[cheerfulomelette]

It's called the Default Mode Network.

It occurs when we're not focusing on external (visual) stimuli and allows us to take a wider view of the world, making connections and solving problems.

Default mode network - Wikipedia

[nemfrog]

The dragon. Fictitious & symbolic creatures in art. 1906. 

[noodledesk]

The Best [advice]: The best writing advice I ever received was in a fortune cookie that said: “the work teaches you how to do it.” The work, the art, whatever you wish to create, is the best teacher—an organizing intelligence begins to reveal itself only when you start writing. So get to work! The second best writing advice is Goethe’s “do not hurry; do not rest.” 

Naheed Phiroze Patel, 10 Asian American writers on the best (and worst) advice they’ve ever received. (by Katie Yee)

[adastra-sf]

We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.

- Ray Bradbury