Hacker News Reader

Comment by JoeDaDude | Hacker News Reader

Geoffrey Landis , the writer of the subject article, may be known to some HN readers as a science fiction author. One of his SF stories, and one of my favorites in recent times, is available for free on the web. See "The Long Chase", available here:

http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-long-chase/

View on HN

Wow. I just stayed up late to read that. Completely worth it.

What else has he written?

His first novel is Mars Landing (I have not read it myself). He lists his SF bibliography on his website [1]. It consists mostly of short stories which appeared in various magazines, but a couple of stories are available free on the web [2], [3].

[1] http://www.geoffreylandis.com/G_Bibliography.html

[2] http://www.geoffreylandis.com/time_prime.htp

[3] http://www.geoffreylandis.com/interlude.htp

That's a great read, thanks for linking.

I am little peeved by the maneuver at the beginning of the story though. You cannot use a slingshot maneuver around the sun to gain speed relative to the sun - that's simple conservation of energy. I know Geoffrey Landis is NASA scientist, so hard to understand how he could get that wrong, but it seems he did.

I think he in the story he means use the Oberth effect not a slingshot?

Ah, that would explain it! Was not aware Oberth effect was thing, thanks!

Anyone who enjoys this story will likely also enjoy _Tau Zero_ by Poul Anderson.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com