Second Ascent audiobook publishes today! Pick up your copy wherever audiobooks are sold.
Douglas Phillips
@dpscifi.bsky.social
Author of the Ascending Carbon and Quantum Series, hard sci-fi based in real science with positive outlooks to the future. I'm a scientist, progressive, and futurist. I feel fortunate to get a brief glimpse into this amazing universe!
Just four days left until my Second Ascent audiobook releases! I can't wait to hear it. Audiobooks are way more fun than most people realize. In some ways even better than a movie because they tell the whole story. August 25, wherever audiobooks are sold. rbmediaglobal.com/audiobook/97...
Due to a production error (I screwed up), the paperback edition of First Ascent had no page numbers! It was perfectly readable; you just didn't know where you were. Our production team (me) has since resolved this issue, but if you own a rare copy without page numbers, you are now a millionaire.
Second Ascent Audiobook is now available for pre-order! I haven't listened to the whole book yet, but the audio sample is fantastic! rbmediaglobal.com/audiobook/97...
RBmedia | Second Ascent
Listen to the audiobook Second Ascent, written by Douglas Phillips, narrated by Anna Caputo.
rbmediaglobal.com
Dept. of Learn Something New Every Day: We've always called the saltwater side of Seattle, Puget Sound. More recently, the name Salish Sea came up. A rename? Like renaming Mt. Rainier to Tahoma or Tacoma? Actually, no.
Here's a virtual walkthrough of what will one day be the world's largest telescope, under construction in Chile. #ExtremelyLargeTelescope www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rZ0...
ELT Explorer - Teaser
YouTube video by European Southern Observatory (ESO)
youtube.com
La edición en español de Quantum Space (Espacio Cuántico) casi há alcanzado el top 10 de ciencia ficción dura en España. Si lo consigue, me pondré en contacto con mi traductor y pondré en marcha el segundo libro. #LibrosEspañol www.amazon.es/dp/B0GTNJJ2YQ
The sketch for my next sci-fi book is complete! I have a 30-page outline with enough detail to allow a ghost writer to take over. I won't do that (and I also won't submit my outline to AI) because THIS IS WHERE THE FUN BEGINS! Why would anyone not want to write the story they just dreamed up?
I'm a Plotter, which means I don't start writing until I know (and love) the whole story I want to tell. Pantsers are the opposite - they get an idea and start writing (which I will never understand).
For anyone who has read the first two books in the Ascending Carbon series, help me plan book 3...
For writers, TV Tropes must be the greatest resource ever created. This page, Stumbled Into the Plot, proves it can also be the world's greatest time waster! One trope leads to another in a maze of smiles and fascination. tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwik...
Stumbled Into the Plot - TV Tropes
If you've got a story that needs a protagonist you can either have them be a chosen one, where forces have already pre-determined who is to be The Hero that saves the day (eg. prophecy, bloodline, the...
tvtropes.org
My notes for all 3 books of the Ascending Carbon Series! Green are ideas that didn't make it into Book 1 but did get into Book 2. Violet are open ideas. Blue are key concepts/thoughts critical to the story. And yellow are thoughts that still need work. For some reason, I'm getting wordier as I go!
Tonight I watched the 1956 movie Forbidden Planet for the first time ever. Sure, a few of the special effects were good, and I can see how both Roddenberry and Industrial Light & Magic borrowed from it for Star Trek and Star Wars...
Today's book research: Nihilistic doomers, often Gen Z aged, often Americans. They believe civilization is collapsing and nothing can be done about it. In fact, we deserve it. Bring it on!
Today's book research: news podcasts. I sampled the better-known show hosts at Spotify. These days almost all US news/political podcasts are conservative. Some explicitly state they are comedy. Many are bankrolled by media moguls giving the host freedom to say whatever they want without being fired.
The Indie Book Awards for 2026 have been announced, and I'm proud to report that First Ascent was a finalist. It didn't win, but with so many books now published directly from author to reader, I'm very happy with the silver medal. (Yes, they really sent me a medal!) www.amazon.com/dp/B0F2C7NCVS
I don't write a single sentence of my first draft until I have a fully coordinated outline, start to finish. I can't imagine how painful it must be for pantsers to reach the story midpoint and realize they need to rewrite whole chapters. With an outline, I can make the changes in minutes. #author
Today's book research: how right-wing media dominates US public discourse. I've always pinned our divisiveness on Fox News, but that thinking is out of date. The real answer is far more sinister, as this article explains: objectivejournalism.org/.../media-ma...
Pop quiz (no cheating): Earth is nearly 4x larger than our moon, Luna. A low altitude spacecraft can orbit Earth in about 90 minutes. How long does it take to go once around Luna? ...
Today I asked, how would Jupiter and Ganymede appear while standing on Callisto? I got pretty close to the answer from the Solar System Simulator. Callisto in the foreground with Ganymede just coming out of Jupiter's shadow.
Today's research topic: how large would Ganymede appear if you were standing on Callisto? These days, a Google search automatically includes an AI response and this one turned out to be a classic case of AI being supremely confident but absolutely wrong! #AIsucks
Doing research for book 3 in the #ascendingcarbon series, focusing on Jupiter. This image was taken by the Webb telescope's Near Infrared Camera. The colors indicate temperature with white the coldest. It's a fantastic way to better understand the meteorology going on in this complex atmosphere.
Today's book research topic, Jupiter's magnetosphere, the strongest in the solar system. Unlike Earth's iron core, Jupiter's electromagnetic field is generated by electrically conductive liquid hydrogen and Jupiter's high rate of spin (one Jupiter day is only 9 hours and 55 minutes long).
If you've ever taken a science class where the complexity of nature was necessarily simplified, you'll get this joke... Milk production at a dairy farm was low, so the farmer wrote to the local university, asking for help from academia. #sciencejoke
Today's research topic: proteins and ribosomes. Proteins are complex molecules, folded into specific shapes useful for a given function. They are the bricks that build our bodies and the tools that regulate matters. Humans have 20,000 different types of proteins. www.youtube.com/watch?v=gG7u...
From DNA to protein - 3D
YouTube video by yourgenome
youtube.com
Each year, the Consortium for Mathematics gives award to students who model real world problems. This year, the problem was building a moon community using any combination of space elevators (isec.org) and rockets to transfer people and materials.
International Space Elevator Consortium
International Space Elevator Consortium (ISEC) is composed of individuals and organizations from around the world who share a vision of humanity in space.
isec.org
Today's research topic: the "dark ages", defined as the centuries of intellectual malaise between the classical age of ancient Greece/Rome and the Renaissance. European scholars of the 16th century coined the term in part from Italian poet, Petrarch, who in 1330 wrote:
Research for the next book. Today's topic: the three body problem. Orbital mechanics for a two-body system like Earth & Luna are straightforward, but when you introduce a third body, things go south fast. Most three-body solutions are chaotic, but some form regular repetitions, fascinating to watch!