Rick A. Allen

Science Fiction Author

A little about me: I'm an older guy who grew up reading great science fiction by such masters as Isaac Asimov, Larry Niven, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein, Clifford Simak, and Robert Heinlein. My favorite current authors are Neal Stephenson and Alastair Reynolds. I started writing a few years ago to try to create a book (and now series) that I think my younger self would have loved to read. Hopefully you will, too! And if you have any comments, I promise to always read your emails to me, and provide a response. I love hearing from my readers!

How far is far?

View in browser How Far is Far? Dear Reader, We're accustomed in science fiction to throwing around the term "light-year," but do we really have a good feel for just how far that is? I was reminded of this fact recently when I read an article saying that Voyager 1, after nearly 50 years, is almost 1 light-day from home (it will pass that point in November). At that pace, a light-year would take just under 18,000 years. A light-year is 16 billion miles, but how far is that? Our minds don't...

19 days ago • 2 min read

Passive House certified

View in browser Passive House Dear Reader, A personal announcement this month, combined with some science: We built our house here in Colorado Springs, and just got it certified as a Passive House, the first one in Colorado Springs and 8th in the state. What's a Passive House? It's a concept that is better-known in Europe, but making inroads in the US. I usually explain it as a way to make a building extremely energy-efficient, with three fundamental elements: Super-insulated: our external...

about 2 months ago • 2 min read

Beautiful as individuals, deadly in mass

View in browser Beautiful as individuals, deadly in mass Dear Reader, It's that time of year again, when (depending on where you live) the snow falls. When I lived in Syracuse, it was inundating feet of snow with the redeeming factor that Syracuse has more snowplows per capita than anywhere else (or at least I thought so). It's much nicer here in Colorado Springs, where we get less snow and it melts away much quicker. And I can enjoy seeing snow on the top of Pikes Peak while my driveway is...

3 months ago • 2 min read

Writing Progress

View in browser Writing Progress Dear Reader, I'm making good progress on the latest novel (#4 in the Star Riders series). I just finished the first draft of the first quarter of the book, where the action takes a left turn. I think I mentioned back in the July newsletter that I wrote the first couple chapters even though I planned to delete them, so that I knew what happened. I've now figured out a way to communicate the essentials of those missing events to the reader without a ton of...

4 months ago • 2 min read

Schrödinger's Cat Updated

Schrödinger's Cat Updated Dear Reader, This is my first newsletter using my new email provider, Kit (formerly called ConvertKit). I hope you like the fresh format! The conversion process from my two previous providers, MailerLite and MailChimp, took me almost a week, but I think everything is nailed down now. One problem I had was that a couple people unsubscribed during the process and I lost track of them, so if you unsubscribed in the last month: my apologies! Please unsubscribe again, and...

5 months ago • 3 min read