X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (5 Oct 2025)
IN THIS ISSUE:
* Quick Status
* WIP SAA (a different kind of gift of art)
* Some News Items
* VIPER rover news
* Citizen Science opportunities — save the world!
* Sardonic Masterclass
* How to help
Latest substacks: Ethics & Validation in my Autistic Brain [updated 28 Sep]; Awesome Science Communicators - this is not ‘fact collecting’; and Red Dwarf - substance over style, but with style
Greetings Dear Subscribers,
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If you like this, or just want to help, please forward/post the link! (see see the ‘How to Help’ section at the bottom) https://XHoYenAuthor.com/newsletter
=== Quick Status ===
AotF continues to grow, slowly but surely, now around 26k words in the first draft MS. Not as much progress as at my last report, but day job retirement hasn’t helped as much as I’d hoped. That recent substack article on my meltdown will explain a lot. I’m still adjusting. But I am back to it.
Some of you may have noticed that I changed the top quote panel on my web site. Very important stuff that goes back long before the current situation. Those who don’t know history will be tricked into repeating it.
=== WIP SAA (a different kind of gift of art) ===
Space Autistic Author
SAA isn’t just my way of doing cross-promo with other creatives. It’s not a collection of infomercials. It’s art.
Sure, it’s not a Caravaggio, a Muse progrock opera, or “Ted Lasso”, but if you don’t consider SAA art, then neither do you consider to be art a great many other simple artistic pleasures without which our world would feel barren.
There’s a long history of animation being art, from the amazing visual art of the early Disney works, regressive as they were, through to lowbrow/highbrow works full of brilliant cultural and intellectual nuggets, like The Simpsons, Futurama, Home Movies, Family Guy, Archer, Rick & Morty, and on, through to the Hiyao Miyazaki works, Star Trek: Lower Decks, Spiderman: Across the Spider-Verse, and Flow (see poster shown here). And no doubt others.
I’m not saying “Space Autistic Author” is great like those other works are great. It’s put together by one person. How could it possibly be compared? But what criteria are we using here? “Flow”, for example, could be described as “a cartoon about a cat who survives a flood and has a few somewhat anthropomorphized interactions with other animals”. If that’s the level of investment we’re willing to give something like “Flow”, then sure, we can easily dismiss SAA as the sad rantings of a tortured autistic who should keep his perspectives to himself. Is that really the right way to approach citizen art?
Come on, admit it… my “the smoking man” adaptation in SAA Log 3’s X-Files homage was fun, and unique!
You may not like the particular works in that list above, but you like, or would like, some things very much akin to them, I’m sure. Now imagine your life devoid of your list. The works in your list and mine were created because someone genuinely wanted to create and share something fun, possibly educational, maybe even enlightening. Everything else related to their actually coming into existence for us to experience is about the resources needed to make that happen, and the dedication required to power through all the inertia factors.
Art is not defined by the overblown auctions(/money laundering tricks) of “high society”.
So, yes, SAA is art, damn it. And a great deal of human creativity and artistic and technical effort goes into it. Recognize it for what it is — something heartfelt that joins many other honest works that add those little bits of enjoyment to our lives in an otherwise coldly and manipulatively commercial world.
Ahem. End of inner child defensive rant. :)
As mentioned in the last newsletter, over the last couple of years I’ve had very little success getting creatives interested in a guest appearance on SAA. So, in the absence of better ideas, I’m just going to use it for my own purposes until fellow creatives desire to participate.
On that note, as mentioned above, recently I had a major meltdown. My two psychiatric war buddies were there to hear me with compassion and no judgment, and that (amazingly) pulled me right out of the crisis phase of it. The next episode of SAA will explore that dynamic through more pop sci fi homage (sort of like what I did with Log 3) — I’ll be returning to my roots with a number of Star Trek: The Original Series references. I’ve already built most of the exterior animations, and that was fun. :)
=== Some News Items ===
Here are a few news stories I feel need to be shared.
=== VIPER News (which is much bigger than just VIPER) ===
On the science front, here’s a bit of news (thanks, Jay). The VIPER rover I supported for the last three-ish years, and which was inexplicably cancelled very late in the program, has been resurrected as a payload to fly on a Blue Origin vehicle.
That’s nice, but there are so many questions. The way this program (and Artemis as a whole) has been screwed around with from above is unprecedented. Why was it cancelled in the first place? Was it a political stunt to make the current administration seem like saviors of the mission? Was it a way to take the lander contract away from Astrobotics (the original ride) and give it, without going through proper evaluations, to another billionaire collaborator (originally SpaceX, but they can’t get their Starship working reliably in time, so now Jeff Bezos)? I don’t know, but all these unprecedented overrides from above make me wonder. Right now, the Artemis program is only alive through first landing of astronauts. Perhaps a lunar development program named after a female god is simply unacceptable? One must wonder about the value the administration places on VIPER aside from its public relations value and its value as a tax money gift to friends.
If we’re lucky, smarter minds have prevailed and this is the first step in reviving Artemis, because losing it is losing the Moon, and losing the Moon means giving the Moon to China. As noted in this linked story, China routinely pushes its boundaries into international waters and beyond. Dangerous incidents have occurred. Space is no different.
Imagine looking up at the Moon, knowing it’s owned or at least controlled solely by China as a result of these kinds of machinations, just like its other claim-pushing in international waters. That’s a real possibility if we abandon the Moon for what’s nominally a pie-in-the-sky, flags-and-footprints push to Mars but which is really just intended to be a money funnel to Musk/SpaceX. This would be the equivalent, a hundred years ago, of using a cannon to launch cars across the San Francisco Bay Strait rather than letting the engineers build the Golden Gate Bridge, just because the bridge would take years to design, fund, and build properly and one rich guy with the leader’s ear wants the tax money to build a flashy but unsafe car cannon.
=== Citizen Science opportunities — save the world! ===
A special thanks to my old pal, Chris, for pointing me to this Citizen Science resource.
There are many opportunities for casual participation, handled by NOAA, USGS, NASA, etc., from hands-off distributed computing opportunities (where you leave your computer running software that downloads raw data for a given project, processes it using your CPU, then uploads the processed data), to CrowdMag (a cell phone app that collects, processes, and uploads geomagnetic data using your phone’s in-built magnetic sensor in conjunction with your GPS location feature being enabled), to a variety of other more hands-on opportunities (up to building your own backyard radio ‘telescope’ to pick up signals from the Sun, Jupiter, etc. for upload to institutions that know how to use such data).
=== Sardonic Masterclass ===
Normally I wouldn’t include something like this, but this one is for the books, historic.
The All New Government Approved Daily Show with your Patriotically Obedient Host, Jon Stewart
=== Standard Stuff === How to Help ===
Why help? Since I subvert pop genre expectations instead of pandering to them, and because of my autism and other isolating factors, it’s extremely difficult and expensive for me to reach out into the world to find my audience. I don’t have a team helping me. Just writing newsletters like this is an exercise in self-esteem suspension of disbelief (swirly thing alert!).
I truly rely on word of mouth and grassroots support. In case anyone assumes this is some kind of gravy train side hustle, I’m still thousands of dollars in debt on this, and every convention adds more red to my ledger. I’m in this for the long haul, but I must keep reaching out and pushing. This is not “write it and they will come”, that’s the erotic fantasy romance section (which sells itself).
How to help: Reading my books, writing reviews (if you liked them :), and passing the word would be great. If not that, then one could post my one-page ads (see below, or on each book’s page on the web site) on appropriate billboards and tell people about my web site, https://XHoYenAuthor.com .
Please help with discovery by posting this week (or maybe set reminders in your calendar for July and November?) something like the following:
Know someone who likes irreverent, inclusive, hopepunk sci fi? Check out this award-winning author: XHoYenAuthor.com/lauds
But here’s something very nice that anyone can do to help — request that “Minimum Safe Distance” be carried by your local library!
It’s usually as simple as going to your library system’s web site and searching for “suggest a purchase” or “submit a suggestion”. Usually, there’s a special page for that, and often it’s at the front of your dashboard.
They will want information like this:
Title: Minimum Safe Distance
Author: X. Ho Yen [please get the capitalization and spaces right, one after the period, another after ‘Ho’]
Publication year: 2022
Format: Book/Paperback
# of pages: 396
ISBN: 978-0-9766158-1-1
Publisher: Grand Unification Monastery
Audience: Adult
Language: English
Notes:
Good professional editorial reviews, including Kirkus:
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/x-ho-yen/minimum-safe-distance/
“…Ho Yen’s descriptions of advanced technologies should please fans of hard SF, but what really makes the book work are the questions it raises about what it means to be a person and a member of a species.” Our verdict: Get It
Carried in Arapahoe County Library System:
https://arapahoelibraries.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S115C2180350
and the Colorado State Library Book Club Resource (https://csl.catalog.aspencat.info/Union/Search?view=list&lookfor=minimum+safe+distance&searchIndex=Title&searchSource=local),
and Biblioboard (https://library.biblioboard.com/content/a3f3fc17-626b-428b-b6a2-5b5a9a44a494).
Author web site: https://XHoYenAuthor.com
This process usually takes only a few moments once you find the book suggestion/recommendation page. Thanks! Put a reminder in your calendar right now!
I haven’t been emphasizing “Custodians of the Future” as much as MSD, but only because MSD has more kudos (which is because I spent a lot more money on MSD, and that’s unsustainable). I’m hoping that interest in MSD will lead to interest in my other stuff.
Space Autistic Author
If you haven’t watched “Space Autistic Author”, Logs 1 to 3, yet, do check them out. They’re only a few minutes long, but they’re fun! Logs 2 and 3 demonstrate how SAA allows cross-promotion with other creatives without requiring anyone to vouch for anyone else’s work. Pass the word!
While you’re there, check out the other videos on my channel, especially the Galacticon ‘23 video (in 4 parts). That one’s longer, but it shows why my pen name is not cultural appropriation, and gives a fun overview of Mars exploration (since the late 1800s) with details of my participation in it, mostly on the Mars Global Surveyor mission.
https://XHoYenAuthor.com/media
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All purchase options can be found here: https://XHoYenAuthor.com/books. Both sites include links showing how several of the big vendors allow you to gift eBooks.
Thanks for sticking with me! I hope it’s at least mildly entertaining to watch this author second career thing come together.
Please do share my page with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoys Corey’s The Expanse, Older’s Infomocracy, Card’s Speaker for the Dead, Mandel’s Station Eleven, Suarez’ Delta-V, or movies like “Arrival” and “Don’t Look Up”. I'm convinced my books would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote them for me and I'm in that audience.
Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com