The Cambias Digression

Notes and thoughts on everything from what I had for breakfast to the fate of the Universe.

  • Scarab Mission Debuts Tomorrow!

    Tomorrow is January 3, the official publication date of my new novel The Scarab Mission!  This is my sixth published novel, my fourth published by Baen Books, and the second full-length work in my "Billion Worlds" series. As always I'm proud to see it come out, pleased at the good reviews it has gotten so…

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  • Christmas and Hanukkah Dinner!

    One last food post about our magnificent December 25 dinner, and then I'll get back to serious talk about space aliens. This year, since Christmas and the final night of Hanukkah happened on the same day, we decided to do a really big holiday dinner. Both of our kids would be home, and we invited…

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  • Interview With the Scarab

    If you want to see an interview with my character Solana Sina, one of the protagonists of The Scarab Mission, check out this Web site: The Protagonist Speaks. Her interview is here. You can find out something about her awful childhood, her colleagues on the mission to Safdaghar, and some of what went wrong. Then you…

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  • Seasonal Music

    Note: the Worldbuilding series will continue. I've been busy with other things over the past month but I haven't abandoned it. It's December, and one of the local radio stations has gone over to an all-Christmas music format for the entire month. As it's one of my presets on the car radio, I wind up…

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  • Scarab Mission Ad!

    Here's a great ad for The Scarab Mission, currently running in Library Journal: Pre-order now!  

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  • Notes on Worldbuilding Update

    There's been a slight delay, due to me going to the World Fantasy Convention in New Orleans, and then getting over a cold I picked up on the trip. But I'm better now, and I've started by updating the Worldbuilding series. I've added a section on Hycean Worlds to entry number 10, "Weird Worlds." Expect…

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  • Publishers Weekly Praises Scarab Mission!

    I'm very pleased to see that Publishers Weekly had a very favorable review of The Scarab Mission in their latest issue. Here's what they had to say: Cambias expertly combines confident worldbuilding, high stakes action, and suspenseful mystery in his second Billion Worlds space adventure (after The Godel Operation). Safdaghar, one of the billion space…

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  • Notes on Worldbuilding Part 12: Hot Life

    Update (May 2023): I've amended this entry to reflect some stuff I've learned since I posted it. Specifically, the section on dusty plasma, and an expansion of the sulfur-based life section. Upper Update (December 2023): Isaac Arthur has a video up about silicon-based life. You can watch it here. So far, most of the characteristics of…

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  • Notes on Worldbuilding Part 11: Artificial Worlds

    I wasn't exactly sure where to put this, since it could just as easily appear later in the series after I've discussed alien civilizations and technologies. But this feels like the right place. Until now we've talked about planets and moons which form naturally, the result of random planetesimals and interplanetary dust accreting and colliding.…

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  • My WorldCon Schedule

    In two and a half weeks I'll be in Chicago for ChiCon 8, the 80th World Science Fiction Convention. I offered to participate in programming events, and they're really making me sing for my supper this time. Thursday, September 1 (all times are CDT) 2:30 P.M.: Writing and Story Development for Tabletop Games. This is…

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