Word of the Week #7

Word of the Week #7

bacchanal
noun

an occasion of wild and drunken revelry.

Source: Peter F. Hamilton's Judas Unchained.

In Hamilton's Judas Unchained and the previous book Pandora's Star, humanity has colonized hundreds of worlds using small wormhole portals to shuttle people between one point in space to another. One character just spent years in the woods and emerged to rent a hotel and feast on food. That was where this was used.

To use it in a sentence, I'd say:
Louis engaged in a bacchanal of food and drink after his three years in the wilderness.

Mystery Character Edit

His face lies hidden behind a black mask, darker than night that obscures his ghostly pale skin.

Tendrils of wiring and nutrients run across the remains of his charred body, most of it burnt or disintegrated after a fiery clash that nearly killed him before.

Tubes keeping his body animated run the length of his black exterior with a conglomerate of machines at his trunk keeping his necrotic flesh alive through the miracles of technology.

His arms are supported by lattices of webbing and a composite mesh matching his black exterior, a dull black, that supplies the being with earth shattering strength.

The being's charred legs are nothing but burnt trunks of meat hidden by augmented machines that allow him to leap from great distances.

Machines in his core beep and buzz as they struggle to continuously enhance his strength and keep their host alive, their red and blue lights dazzling unsuspecting victims.

The mask, a shiny jet black composite of hard metals and soft lining, is featureless save for a gaping hole where the mouth would be and two sunken in gaps where the eye sockets would be.

Inhuman powers allow him to bend the laws of physics to his will, letting him throw his victims across entire chambers or launch furniture at them.

His footsteps aren’t loud enough to echo in the grey halls of his kingdom, the only telltale sign of his presence being of his slow, wet breath.

Mystery Character

His face lies hidden behind a black mask, darker than night that obscures his ghostly pale face.

Tendrils of wiring and nutrients run across the remains of his charred body, most of it burnt or disintegrated after a fiery clash that nearly killed him before.

The tubes keeping his body alive run the length of his black exterior with a host of machines at his trunk keeping the corpse alive through the miracles of technology.

His arms are lattices of webbing and a composite mesh matching his black exterior, a dull black, that supplies the being with earth shattering strength.

His charred legs are nothing but burnt trunks of meat hidden by augmented machines that allow him to leap from great distances.

Machines located in his core beep and buzz as they struggle to continuously enhance his strength and keep their host alive, their red and blue and white lights shining day in and day out.

His mask, a shiny jet black composite of hard metals and soft lining, is featureless save for a gaping hole where the mouth would be and two sunken in gaps where the eye sockets would be.

His footsteps aren’t loud enough to echo in the grey halls of his kingdom, the only telltale sign of his presence being of his slow, wet breath.

Word Count: 222

Word of the Week #6

Word of the Week #6

congruous
adjective

Corresponding in character or kind; appropriate or harmonious.

Source: Peter F. Hamilton's Judas Unchained.

In Hamilton's Judas Unchained and the previous book Pandora's Star, humanity has colonized hundreds of worlds using small wormhole portals to shuttle people between one point in space to another. Travel is instantaneous. So whenever they look for a world to colonize, they look for qualities that would make it "H-congruous", meaning humans can live and breathe there naturally without the use of technology. It's a key term that isn't quite explained in the book and it isn't an actual scientific term but used widely in his story.

To use it in a sentence, I'd say:
When humans finally stepped through the Coslay wormhole, they were shocked to find the first ever H-congruous world outside of the Solar System.

Word of the Week #5

Word of the Week #5

Foc's'le
noun

The forecastle, a superstructure in the bow of a merchant ship where the crew is housed; - the spelling is intended to reflect the common pronunciation among seamen.

Source: Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian

I came across this word by reading Patrick O'Brian's "Master and Commander", the same book that bares the name of the Russell Crow movie about a seafaring vessel and her commander. The book is written in the style of the 19th Century and a lot of the words used in the book are old fashioned.

To use it in a sentence, I'd say:
The man turned towards the foc's'le and saluted his newly appointed senior officer, then proceeded to make his rounds across the deck.

Comparing Media

On Wednesday, Orbital Sciences Corporation's Antares rocket made history as it took off for the International Space Station to deliver its new payload capsule.

The flight marks the second private company to enter the realm of space exploration after the decommissioning of the space shuttle fleet and solidifies NASA's new commercial spaceflight initiatives.

Coverage from CNN for Orbital Science's rocket launch was a 5 minute segment that included an interview with a former NASA astronaut.

The anchor, Natalie Allen, starts the segment with a video of the Antares rocket launching into orbit where she spends about 40 seconds on the actual news bit of the launch.

She dives into background information at 47 seconds into the video.

At 1 minute 40 seconds Leroy Chiao, a former NASA astronaut and former member of the Review of United States Human Space Flight Plans Committee is interviewed

The broadcast spent a little bit of time on the actual news, gave some deeper information and knowledge on subject and used Chiao to explain the current condition of the space program to the viewer.

She sources NASA, Orbital Sciences and Leroy Chiao.

The Wall Street Journal had a small tidbit on the Orbital Sciences launch, and was the only one out of the major national print newspapers that included it in any capacity.

Neither of the local newspapers included it in their pages.

The Journal dedicated seven by seven inches of space on page B3 of the business section of the Journal, including a seven by four and a half photo of the rocket taking off from the Wallops Space Center in Virginia with four columns.

This article was about three hundred words long, with a longer online version that doubled its word count.

Despite its page designation, the article by Andy Pasztor was a short blurb on the launch, the company and the new commercial space race between industry players in the United States to shuttle gear and personnel to the International Space Station.

It briefly touched up on the company's hiccups and its main competitor, Space Exploration Technologies Corp, commonly known as SpaceX.

There are no quotes in this print version.

Huffington Post's coverage had four sources, including a tweet from current ISS resident Karen Nyberg.

They used information gathered from Orbital Sciences, the company's executive vice president and retired astronaut Frank Culbertson and NASA.

Finally, a science writer by the name of Seth Borenstein also added to the article.

The Huffington Post article was 645 words long, had links to Orbital Science's company website and the NASA press release.

There was a bit more detail and casualness to the article, a bit more information on Orbital's only other competitor SpaceX and their own delivery system.

It felt a bit more in-depth than the CNN video and the Wall Street Journal blurb.

Sources: Orbital Sciences Rocket Launches Cygnus Spacecraft On Debut Mission To ISS

Word Count = 469

Word of the Week #4

Word of the Week #4

Fraught
adjective

to be filled or destined with something undesirable
causing or creating great stress or anxiety

Source: "Abaddon's Gate" by James S.A. Corey 

 I originally saw this word in the book by James S.A. Corey as the author describes a scene with great fear and dread engulfing everyone in that particular room. There's a tremendous amount of foreboding throughout the entire book at this point, just the idea that something bad will happen and it's pouring out of every character.

To use it in a sentence, I'd say:

Every face in the bomb-rigged bus was fraught, the prickling sensation that death lay minutes away creeping into their faces.