Humble Bundle is doing an offer right now that I immediately had to purchase: Women of Science Fiction and Fantasy book bundle. At the lowest price point you get books like Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler and Kate Elliot’s Jaran. And since this is the Humble Bundle, you can pay as little as $1, and get some great books. If you pay slightly more you’ll get Robin McKinley, more Octavia Butler, Elizabeth Hand, Jo Clayton, and others. And if you pay $15 or more you get even more books. This is a great deal for anyone who likes Science Fiction. I haven’t read every book in this bundle, but the ones I have are excellent. When I found out about this bundle I immediately went and paid for the top tier, as these are books I know I would want to read or re-read as the case may be.

Do you have ideas for SciFi stories that keep popping into your head? I do, and I’ve decided to write them down here. Just so I can remember them and stop waking up in the middle of the night thinking about them.

• Vision - Our vision is largely made up by our brains. We only really “see” what’s right in front of us, and only when we want to. What if there were a being that could use this feature of our vision to hide in plain sight? Like it only moves in the millisecond of time when our eyes aren’t moving and thus can’t see it. Or it relies on our brains to fill in what we “know” should be there and so can stand right in front of you without you knowing it.
• Senses - Have you ever had the sense that someone was looking at you, staring at you? What if this were a real thing - and that empaths or telepaths really are walking among us and can sense that type of thing. What if someone honed that skill to an art form?
• Computers / Ghost in the machine - teh interwebz are getting pretty big now, and it might be large enough for sentience to evolve. But what if it evolved in the internet and then decided that it didn’t want to reveal itself to us? If it were smart, hiding would almost certainly be a safer strategy. But would an artificial sentience be willing to sacrifice people to protect itself? Would an AI have morality? Or would it do whatever it took to stay alive and hidden, and protect the secret of its existence at all costs?

I’m sure I’ll come up with more as time goes by.