Kosmic Syren

Alicia (she/her) | author of the Nova Moss Chronicles (a sapphic space opera)

[kosmicsyren]

Hi! I'm an indie author who writes cozy f/f sci-fi and loves being a huge nerd. I've been on tumblr for over a decade, but this blog is pretty new, so there's not a ton here yet!

You can find my fandom posts under the tag kosmicsyren blogs and posts about my books/characters under nova moss chronicles.

My website: aliciahaberski.com

Follow me on Instagram: aliciahaberski

My books: Amazon | B&N | Bookshop

[elwenyere]

-- Ted Chiang, from "Why A.I. Isn't Going to Make Art"

[oldshrewsburyian]

I'm so glad they got Ted Chiang -- a wonderful writer of science fiction and thinker about technology, in my opinion -- to write this essay. My favorite line was this:

Generative A.I. appeals to people who think they can express themselves in a medium without actually working in that medium.

[kosmicsyren]

how am i doing? well i'm drafting a novel, so i'm flipping between "this sucks" and "i'm a genius" every 10 seconds. you?

[kosmicsyren]

The Cat From Outer Space (1978): My Pitch for an Overdue Remake

I love cats and space in such a personality-defining way that everyone who knows me knows this about me. I’ve been a cat lady since I’ve been able to form thoughts and a sci-fi fan for almost as long. So, I was well overdue to rewatch the 1978 Disney film The Cat From Outer Space. As premises go, this one could hardly be more ME, but I only remembered a single clip from childhood: the titular cat with his glowing collar. 

As much as I still enjoy the alien cat character, the rest of the movie is, to put it politely, mind-bogglingly dull. I realize I’m not in the original viewer demographic, since that was “people alive in the late 70s,” but even if this movie was once considered fun and entertaining, I am here to argue that it has not aged well. 

The movie opens with the cat, who is later nicknamed “Jake” but whose real name is  Zunar-J-5/9 Doric-4-7, making an emergency landing in a rural area on our planet. While searching for a human worth speaking to, he locates a scientist named Frank who happens to be studying the spaceship's power source. So far, so good! Unfortunately, nearly everything that follows is painfully silly and/or downright boring. Imagine taking a premise as cute and interesting as a cat arriving on Earth in a spaceship and teaming up with a nerdy scientist, then deciding the movie would be incomplete without a long-winded helicopter chase scene, a cartoonish mafia boss, and an entire arc based around betting on sports (?????).

Most of the plot hinges on Jake’s telekinetic powers, provided by a collar that glows when he’s moving things with his mind. All he needs to get his ship running again is gold, and instead of using his incredibly powerful abilities to, perhaps, find and steal some fucking gold, his new human friends hatch a plan to go to a bar and bet on televised sports while Jake forces the outcome of the games. (Again: ???????) There’s a military base and spies involved, and various forgettable Bad Guys who want the collar for themselves, and it’s all so bland that it’s no wonder why I didn’t remember anything about the story. 

I might have forgiven the film for its cheesiness if the ending had recaptured the charm of the start, but instead, it does the complete opposite: The alien cat. Does not. Get to go home. Instead, he decides to stay on Earth (FOREVER), and the movie ends—I swear I am not making this up—with Jake being sworn in as a US citizen. One could allege that I spooked my own cat by booing the ending out loud, but would one have any proof? Listen, I know the film is from a different era, and I’m being totally unfair! But this brings me to my point: 

If there’s one Disney movie that actually deserves a remake, it’s this one. The room for improvement is vast, and a modern version that didn’t waste the premise could easily become a new classic, worthy of rewatching for years to come. 

Just for fun, I will now “pitch” you my own concept for this would-be charming adventure, complete with my hypothetical cast.

The Cat From Outer Space Remake Pitch:

Two years before the story begins, a small spacecraft crashes into a rural area. A voiceover (Alexander Skarsgard) is heard of a pilot relaying a message to his homebase that he’s stranded on a non-hostile planet and his ship is damaged beyond repair. He agrees to find a safe haven and lay low while a rescue party is organized, but he’s warned that it will take time. The pilot then emerges from the spaceship, revealing him to be an Abyssinian cat with a glowing collar.

In the present day, Liz (Drew Barrymore) lives in a modest suburban duplex, which doubles as a cat sanctuary. Her house is full of cat-themed artwork, and she wears cat sweaters and cat earrings. Her living room is adorned with cat trees and wall shelves, and her backyard is an elaborate catio that provides a paradise for the 20+ cats in her care. She lists each one for adoption, but there are always more cats than people who want one, which is fine with her. She’s always liked cats more than people, anyway. 

Liz’s neighbor in the other half of the duplex, Frank (Rege Jean-Page), is a nerdy astronomer who spends his free time watching space documentaries and checking the telescopes in his back yard. He believes he found an alien artifact years ago, which he keeps hidden, not wanting it to be confiscated before he’s able to find proof. Sometimes, Frank is out at night with his equipment while Liz is refilling the cat food bowls, and they have friendly chats.

Unbeknownst to Liz, her favorite cat, whom she calls Jake, is the alien pilot who crashed on Earth two years earlier. She noticed early on that Jake was highly intelligent and required a specialized diet after refusing cat food, so she decided to keep him as her own. Jake watches TV with her and even seems to react to the scenarios taking place on screen. While petting him, Liz sometimes says, “Where did you come from, you little genius?” 

For her day job, Liz works from home doing boring data entry to pay the bills and fundraise for her sanctuary, so she’s basically always home. Sometimes, Liz thinks she hears Jake speaking with a human voice, but he always meows when she enters the room, leaving her to conclude that it’s an auditory hallucination due to her inoperable brain tumor. She was warned that there could be neurological side effects, so she tracks her episodes in a journal. More than anything, she worries about what will happen to the cats if her health deteriorates to a point where she can’t care for them anymore. 

One night, Frank’s boyfriend Norman (Dan Levy) is en route to Frank’s home when a flash of light crosses the sky. Stunned, Norman slams on the brakes and gets out of the car to watch the UFO, taking a quick video with his phone. Rushing to Frank’s house, he tries to describe what he saw, and Frank watches the video in disbelief. 

Meanwhile, Liz’s evening is interrupted by Jake hopping onto the kitchen counter and speaking to her directly, informing her that he’s not from Earth and his friends have arrived to take him back to his home planet. Liz responds to this with panicked laughter, believing she’s hallucinating. Jake, who reveals his real name to be Zunar-J-5/9 Doric-4-7, calmly tells her that what he's saying is true, and any other human can confirm that he’s speaking. Liz is like, “Oh right, let me just run outside and ask someone if they can also hear my cat talking, nothing wrong with that plan." Then Jake’s collar glows while he makes Liz and a few nearby cats float, and Liz is fully freaked out. 

Liz, holding Jake, knocks on Frank’s door, because if anyone might believe in spaceships and alien cats, it’s him. Frank and Norman let her inside, thinking there’s an emergency, but Liz only stammers something about her cat acting strange, so the two men try to politely tell her that they’re very busy with work. Jake recognizes the images they have pulled up on Frank's PC and jumps over to the desk chair, reading the charts and explaining that it's the ship that has come for him. Frank does a double-take between the cat and Liz, and says, “That cat is talking.” Overwhelmed with relief, Liz exclaims, “You can hear him, too?!” Jake catches them up on his story, and Frank reveals the artifact he found two years ago, which Jake identifies as a fragment from his own ship.

The four of them attempt to travel to the second alien ship only to discover that it’s been placed under the control of a special ops team, with the area restricted to the public. People have gathered wearing alien costumes and demanding the truth, while the official reports say that it was nothing more than space debris. Using his collar + telekinesis powers, Jake is able to track down his alien cat friends, who have been rendered unconscious via tranquilizer darts, for which he blames himself, since he reported that the planet was not hostile. HIJINKS ensue as the four work together to save Jake’s friends and get their ship back, while Frank geeks out the entire time and Liz and Norman keep him focused. 

In the end, with Jake and his fellow alien cats ready to safely board their ship, Jake invites Liz to come with them. Her illness would be easy to cure on his home planet, he explains, but she’d have to live out the rest of her days there, since his superiors have deemed Earth unsafe to visit for several more centuries. She grapples with this, reasoning that she can’t possibly leave since her cats need her. Jake tells her he understands and will remember her kindness and friendship before leaving a heartbroken Liz in his wake. Frank and Norman encourage her to go if she wants to, offering to take over the sanctuary in her absence. After some deliberation, Liz rushes to follow Jake, shouting that she’s coming with him after all. 

After a small time jump, Frank and Norman check the telescopes in their backyard, which is twice as big now that they've removed the fence separating it from Liz's yard and expanded the catio, giving the cats more room to roam. Frank has also published a book documenting his research on alien life forms. Somewhere far away from Earth, Liz arrives on the cat planet with Jake, discovering a gorgeous, fantastical city full of flowers and gleaming futuristic buildings . . . and thousands of alien cats, who have gathered to celebrate the return of their catstronaut friends. Liz has never been happier.

~The end!~

This is only ONE example of how cute and fun this concept could potentially be, of course, and the possibilities are basically endless. But, personally? I’d watch the hell out of this movie. 

[aemelia]

This has been a topic in one of my discord groups today and I’m so curious what everyone’s approach is as a writer.

Writing linearly means starting at the beginning of the story and writing each scene in chronological order from beginning to end.

Writing non-linearly means you might start midway through the story and write the beginning later, or you might write scenes at random and join them up later, or you add in placeholders as you write to go back to later (like “add action scene here”).

Outlining means coming up with a sequence of plot points to guide the story - i.e. planning/mapping out what the main story beats will be throughout it.

Writers, do you…

Write linearly + outline

Write linearly + don’t outline

Write non-linearly + outline

Write non-linearly + don’t outline

It changes each time

Voting ended onAug 25, 2025

Personally I’m a linear writer, and I don’t outline. I have a loose idea of where the story is going to go, but that’s it. And I can’t skip scenes or use placeholder text — my brain starts shrieking at me lmao.

[jetslay]

Superman & Lois by Howie Noel.

[kosmicsyren]

Clois: Rediscovering a Legacy Ship

A couple thoughts I had while watching Superman (2025):

Wow, I haven't loved Clark/Lois THIS much since I was a kid and they were my first-ever ship thanks to the 90s TV show

Gee, what wild coincidence that the main character of my book series is from a destroyed planet and has super strength and spends her days helping people and is SO in love with her wife..... AHEM

Another thought I had as soon as it was over was I need to watch that again. I've now seen it twice, and I'm impatient for the streaming release. Going into it, I expected a fun time, but I didn't expect my new favorite version of a legacy ship or the best comic book movie I've seen in years. I need all the pleasant surprises I can get right now, so I'm leaning in.

Of course, when it comes to my character Cori Nova, I drew inspiration from multiple sources. My personal head-cast for her is Grace Harper in Terminator: Dark Fate (if that wasn't already obvious from the art commission I posted). But it's fun to think about how much early media shaped my taste in fiction and romance.

As far as ships go, my ultimate weakness is the dynamic of a Secretly Powerful Soft Nerd + The Pretty Badass They Fell HARD for ... and it finally clicked that I can trace that directly back to swooning over Clark/Lois at age 6/7.

I remember telling one of my friends back then that I liked "imagining Lois saving Clark." She scoffed at this, genuinely confused, and said, "No, it should be Clark saving Lois!" I think that was the moment when I knew she just didn't get it and that some people sadly aren't gifted with fangirl brains. I also feel deeply, deliciously validated every time Lois canonically saves Clark, so THANK YOU, new movie, for that gorgeous arc!

Maybe I should do a series of posts about my favorite fictional couples? There's a question mark there so it won't be weird if I never get around to it.

[andromaquynh]

new andromaquynh bts just dropped hhhhhhhhh thank you captain ngo thanh van ma’am (and the captions 🥺)

“Chill for a sec… just waiting for the light to change 🫣🤪”

“200% focus for this scene…”

“You’re already tall… and now you’re even standing up high… 😫”

[kxrxnoid]

I hope they get a happy ending

[kosmicsyren]

Murderbot Ep 10 Review & S2 Thoughts

Apple TV+

As you may have noticed, I decided not to review the individual episodes anymore after Ep 7 and instead wait until the end of the season to post again. There were two reasons for this: First, I didn't have much to say that I hadn't already said. Second, I've noticed that a lot of book fans are genuinely enjoying this show, and I really don't like being a hater unless I'm on Discord with my bestie.

Therefore, I'm happy to report that after a rocky start, I thought the finale was mostly a strong episode. Gurathin finding a way to get Murderbot's memories back was a cool addition to the story, as was Murderbot being rescued from the acid bath at the last minute. Nice suspense, nice callbacks to earlier episodes. Some of the temporary amnesia stuff didn't totally land: When Murderbot was reunited with the PresAux team and questioned about not remembering them, I found it odd and confusing that Murderbot just . . . stood there, not responding or narrating about its lack of response.

When the memories were successfully restored and we got back to the book plot, though, the rest of the episode was great. Murderbot's Anthropologie outfit? Excellent. Its complicated feelings about Mensah's plan to be its guardian? So well done. I do wish Murderbot's narration as it left the station included the observation that it had literally never seen the public/human areas before, because that was such a cool line in the book, but it's a minor note here. I loved seeing Murderbot board the cargo transport, still adjusting to its first taste of freedom but resolute in its decision to leave on its own.

Now onto the part where I have mixed feelings. With confirmation that the series has been renewed by Apple TV+ for a second season, I am struggling to be optimistic. On the one hand, I'm super excited to see the Murderbot + ART dynamic play out on screen. Their friendship is the one of the most compelling parts of the books, in addition to being SO fucking funny. On the other hand, I am also bracing to be painfully bored if there's a subplot of the PresAux team doing human things in every episode, which seems likely given the amount of screentime allotted to them in S1. One of the book series' major strengths is that we don't see anything Murderbot doesn't see and therefore never learn anything that isn't important for Murderbot to know. Sit-com antics at the Preservation commune or whatever just aren't going to match up tonally, especially if they're given equal weight to Murderbot's journey . . . but I'd love to be proven wrong and for it to find a great balance.

If you're a book fan who loved this show, that's awesome, and I hope you continue to love it. Personally, I'm still hoping we get an animated adaptation someday that follows the book narrative more closely and better illustrates the far-future tech Murderbot uses. If you're a fan of the show who hasn't read the books, I REALLY hope you're inspired to check them out now. You will fall in platonic love with a cyborg who has anxiety, and it will be beautiful.

Kosmic Syren end message.

[aestheticvh]

[rosettyller]

I'm gonna find them. The only question is, are you gonna do what you do best, and fight by my side? No. You will fight by my side.

Andy & Quỳnh in

The Old Guard 2 (2025)

[kosmicsyren]

After a five-year wait, we FINALLY got this reunion. In a weirdly underwhelming film with some awkward editing, it was nonetheless great to see these characters again. Five hundred years apart means lots of complicated emotions, and both actors lean into the angst beautifully. There's a specific way I think this scene could have been even stronger, though.

Andy's guilt weighs so heavily on her that we can practically feel the size of it through the screen. Meanwhile, Quynh is absolutely simmering with the pain of betrayal and wholly justified rage. In fact, I think she shows admirable restraint, because it's objectively fucked up that Andy gave up on looking for her. Yes, the ocean is huge, and Andy did search for hundreds of years. But, as Quynh rightfully points out, she stopped. I really wanted Quynh to ask her why she stopped so that Andy would have to explain—not only to Quynh but to the viewer. It’s not like she didn’t have the time or resources.

Of course, we know Andy is prone to losing hope when she can’t battle-axe her way through an obstacle, but this is Quynh we're talking about. Her soulmate, her closest friend, her companion for centuries. Andy owning that she failed is good, but I wanted more of an explanation!

Imagine it playing out like this, for example:

Andy: I searched. I did, I searched for centuries. Quynh: But you stopped. Why? Andy: Quynh...  Quynh: Tell me why, Andromache. Tell me why you gave up. Why you left me there. Because I haven’t been able to think of a good reason. Andy: You have every right to be angry.  Quynh: I have every right to ask you why.  Andy: Because it was too hard, alright? I couldn’t do it without you. The one person I needed to keep me going wasn’t there. You were gone. And it was my fault. I couldn't keep trying and failing. I couldn’t do it anymore. I'm not that strong. Quynh: That’s not how I remember you. Andy: You remember how strong you made me. Then I lost you, not just once but every day that I didn't find you. It hurt too much to hope anymore. So I just ... stopped hoping to see you again and started hoping your suffering would end.

Oops, this is becoming a fix-it fanfic, isn't it? Ahem. But just THINK of the possibilities for angsty expo! In my mind, this alt version of the convo still leads to the fight and Quynh taking the necklace back, so I'm not suggesting that the actual scene was without its strengths, of course.

Earlier in the film, it comes as a delicious gut punch to hear Quynh tell Booker that she spent her centuries entombed at the bottom of the sea fearing that Andy was suffering the same fate and wanting to break out and rescue her. Because of course she did—not only was she trapped physically, she was trapped in time, the memory of being ripped away from Andy replaying in her head every time she briefly regained life. In that same vein, I wish Andy had revealed something of equal weight related to her own struggle. But maybe they're saving that for the hypothetical next installment.

It feels silly to be optimistic about a third movie happening given that this is Netflix, but if we do get lucky, I hope there's an even better heart-to-heart for these two in store.

And a kiss. We better finally get a fucking kiss.

[aryas-zehral]

So I just mainlined all the Murderbot books in a week and previously I've done a similar thing with the Becky Chambers books. I want to start something new (well I kinda want to start something new but I also kinda wanna reread all the Murderbot books.... anyway,) based on that information

Any recommendations?

[o-craven-canto]

One of the most charming things in astronomy, IMO, is the theme naming of planetary features.

The craters of Mercury, which is named after the Roman god of messages and information (among other stuff), bear the names of artists: composers (Haydn, Verdi, Vivaldi), writers (Homer, Vyasa, Murasaki), and painters (Giotto, Harunobu, Goya).

Large features of Venus are named after women of myth: mountains and plateaux after goddesses (Freyja, Tefnut, Lakshmi, Aphrodite), plains after mortals (Guinevere, Leda, Lavinia). Smaller features are named after women of history: scientists like Lise Meitner, artists like Anna Pavlova, and rulers like Cleopatra.

Having been named first, the features of our Moon and Mars are a bit all over the place.

The lunar maria ("seas") are named after states of mind: Tranquility, Serenity, Ingenuity, and, uh, Moscow. Or after clouds (Mare Imbrium) and storms (Oceanus Procellarum). Craters bear the name of astronomers (Tycho, Hipparchus), physicists (Oppenheimer, Leibnitz), and space travellers (Grissom, Gagarin), but there's a bit of everything (Caesar, Icarus).

On Mars, we have the plains of silver (Argyre) and gold (Chryse), the Tharsis plateau, plains named after Greece, Isis, and Utopia, mount Olympus and mount Peacock, and more astronomers for the craters (Huygens, Herschel, Lowell). The moons of Mars are of course named after the sons of the god of war, Deimos ("dread") and Phobos ("panic").

Jupiter doesn't have many permanent surface features, of course, but its moons are named after Zeus' numerous lovers: Io, Europa, Callisto, the boy Ganymede, Metis, Leda, Pasiphae. One exception is Amalthea -- the goat that nursed him as an infant on Crete. The features of volcanic Io are mostly named after fiery, temperamental gods (Loki, Chaac, Amirani); those of Europa after places from Europa's own legend (Cyclades, Tyre) or Celtic myth (Conamara, Annwn, Dyfed); those of Callisto after Nordic myth (Valhalla, Asgard, Fimbulthul); those of Ganymede after Egyptian holy cities (Memphis, Abydos) and Mesopotamian myth (Mummu, Lakhmu).

The moons of Saturn are named after Titans, the brothers and sisters of old Chronos: Rhea, Dione, Tethys, Enceladus, Prometheus, Pandora, Iapetus, and of course the largest is just named Titan. The largest features of Titan bear the name of all orts of places of legend (Dilmun, Xanadu, Aztlan, Shangri-La), its creaters of deities of wisdom (Papuan Afekan, Etruscan Menrva, Lakota Ksa), and its hills after JRR Tolkien's characters (Bilbo, Gandalf, Arwen).

The moons of Uranus are all named after characters from Shakespeare's plays (Oberon, Titania, Puck, Miranda, Caliban, Cordelia) and Alexander Pope's poems (Ariel, Umbriel). Shakespearian names are also given to the craters of Oberon (Coriolanus, Falstaff, Romeo) and Titania (Calphurnia, Jessica, Imogen).

The moons of Neptune are of course all water deities and creatures: Triton, Naiad, Thalassa, Proteus, Hippocampus. The features of Triton are named after monsters of the deep sea (Kraken, Apep) or water-related deities and spirits (Heqet, Hiruko, Tangaroa).

[desimonewayland]

First images from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory.

With its 3.2 billion-pixel camera, the Rubin Observatory captures extremely detailed photographs including this small piece of a much larger image of the Virgo Cluster, a group of galaxies some 55 million light-years away.

Another snippet of Rubin’s photograph of the Virgo Cluster includes the spiral galaxies NGC 4411 and NGC 4411b. Above are a trio of interacting galaxies “Every time you zoom in, you find a new interesting detail,” said Clare Higgs, an outreach specialist working for Rubin.

[kosmicsyren]

Murderbot Ep 7 Review: Why did the SecUnit cross the road?

Apple TV+

I was correct when I predicted that I'd have stronger feelings about this week's episode. As it turns out, those feelings are mostly negative, so if you'd rather avoid negativity about this show, this is not the post for you.

From the beginning of this show and during every episode, there's something I've been thinking, but I wanted to let the season play out before I made it my official opinion. This episode cemented it so firmly that I no longer feel the need to wait: I wish these books had been adapted as an animated series instead of live action.

Look, I KNOW it's annoying when someone says "I wish they'd done [completely different thing]," rather than engaging with a piece of media as-is. But this episode was the epitome of everything that makes the show so much weaker than the book story, and I am certain that an animated series that aligned with Martha Wells's narrative more closely would knock this adaptation out of the fucking stratosphere.

An animated Murderbot series would work extremely well for multiple reasons, but mainly: A) the show could stay in Murderbot's POV the whole time and let the rest of the cast stay minor characters and B) the tech and setting could be 900% cooler + more immersive and better reflect the far-future world of the books.

Just imagine an animated Murderbot series that keeps more of the character's narration intact, shifts to a split screen of multiple inputs when Murderbot checks the security cameras / drones / notifications, and features lots of groovy tech and gorgeously alien landscapes!!! In the book, Murderbot can feel when someone else is poking around in the same data it's reviewing—picture that playing out on screen vs the live-action character just having throwaway lines about it.

Maybe it's just me, but I can't think about animated Murderbot without getting chills.

Meanwhile, every scene in this episode was as silly and pointless as a knock-knock joke. The flashback to the PresAux team at a fancy dinner doing a convoluted sharing ritual? The alien creatures mating on top of the Hopper?? Murderbot barely doing anything in this episode?! (What show is this again???) Ugh.

The book series is framed as "diaries" because it's exclusively the titular character's perspective. All we ever know is what Murderbot knows/learns, and that is part of the brilliance of the narrative. Not only is it a delight to be in Murderbot's head, but lots of the plot happens off-page, or in Murderbot's peripheral, or while it's not paying attention. Therefore, only the most important details actually make it to the reader, and we never have to wade through extraneous information, stale expo, or meaningless scenes as the story unfolds. Sitcom style Murderbot with forced side arcs for the supporting characters and lots of wacky hijinks therefore feels like a major downgrade to me.