Book Announcement!

I'm pleased to announce that Medieval Robots, my book on medieval automata, will be coming to bookstores and the Internet in Spring/Summer 2014. It's official.

My cat ate my book contract.

Playing Those Medieval Robot Games

Google has alerted me to the fact that Starbound, a PC game that should be coming out in the next few months, contains medieval robots. The Glitch, a collective simulation of artificial, sentient, self-aware beings, were created by a god-like race to simulate the process of "civilization." But all of the experiments destroyed themselves, except for the ones that are still stuck in the Middle Ages. 

I need your help here, folks. I know nothing about gaming, but this sounds awesome. If you have any information about Starbound or its world, let me know! 

Russian Meteorite Could Provide the Next Excalibur

Intense! That Russian meteor was bananas. Apparently, the bright explosion was perhaps caused by the amount of iron in it. 
 
This meteor was unusual because its material was so hard — it may have been made of iron, the statement said — which allowed some small fragments, or meteorites, perhaps 5 percent of the meteor’s mass, to reach the Earth’s surface.

An enterprising smith could, under the right influences, forge this meteoric iron into a sword for the ages. 


Fallen to earth in a falling star, a clap of thunder, a great burst of light; dragged still smoking to be forged by the little dark smiths who dwelled on the chalk before the ring stones were raised; powerful, a weapon for a king, broken and reforged this time into the long leaf-shaped blade, tooled and annealed in blood and fire, hardened...a sword three times forged, never ripped out of the earth’s womb, and thus twice holy.... (Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Mists of Avalon)

Except that apparently Terry Pratchett has already done this.