It went by, I suppose. I took a look at my computer’s time-and-date display and was surprised to see it was Saturday already. I guess it just snuck up on me. I have slow progress on all forms of history; especially since I decided to break down my category of Northeastern US cities into Mid-Atlantic, Midwestern, New England and Northeast Plains cities.

I have also begun work on an alternate SF history, a coming-of-age story about a pair of freinds who combine to develop the space program as it should have been. I begin with them starting high school in 1970. Rather than tell about it, I have been advised, I should write it. It’s going slow, but I think I can manage it. Later stories in this same universe will deal with the human exploration and colonization of the Solar system.

I had been working on a historical fantasy, but I want to begin at the beginning, or as close to it as I can get, and I am too far removed in time, space, and culture from East African Paleolithic hunters and gatherers to the story justice, so I’m putting that one back to sleep.

A question on the Traveller Mailing List (devoted to the Traveller role-playing game) about doing it in 3 dimensions revived an old project I had set aside. I am using the AstroSynthesis program by NBOS software for three-dimensional star mapping. I had reached a certain point, and set it aside because it had become unmanageable. I decided to start over. Since I began the first time, various brown dwarfs substars have been identified, and the locations make a difference in the routes and timing of my science fictional colonization. So far, the direction of development is somewhat resembling the early Alliance-Union universe in the work of C. J. Cherryh, in her “Hinder Stars” region. I haven’t yet quite reached Tau Ceti (which is Pell’s Star, in her universe), but I’m getting close. I also haven’t read her latest in that universe “Alliance Rising”, but I might.