2014

The Doctor Trap by Simon Messingham

The novel “The Doctor Trap” by Simon Messingham was published for the first time in 2008.

The Tardis receives a distress call coming from the Earth’s South Pole. There, the Tenth Doctor and Donna Noble find an expedition attacked by an alien found in the Antarctic ice. While the Doctor is trying to save the members of the expedition, someone somehow manages to steal the Tardis.

On the legendary Planet 1, Sebastiene has absolute power. His passion is hunting and he already has many trophies of creatures from many planets. Now his goal is to hunt down a very unique and hard to catch prey and that’s why he summoned the best hunters in the universe. His new trophy will be the last of the Time Lords.

Orbital Sciences Cygnus spacecraft destroyed by the explosion of the Antares rocket after lift off (Image NASA TV)

It was late afternoon in the USA when the Orbital Sciences Corporation’s Cygnus spacecraft blasted off on an Antares rocket but a few seconds later an explosion caused their destruction. The disaster occurred at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS), part of the Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) NASA’s Wallops Island, Virginia. There are no injuries but damage to the launch pad was reported.

This was supposed to be the third official mission, called Orbital-3, Orbital CRS-3 (Commercial Resupply Service 3) or just Orb-3, of supply transport to the International Space Station for NASA. The security measures were started immediately after the explosion to begin the collection of the debris scattered in the area.

Image of emissions of water vapor and other compounds from the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko taken by one of the cameras of the Rosetta space probe's OSIRIS set (Image ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/ INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA)

While the Rosetta space probe’s Philae lander prepares to land on the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on November 12, the analyzes at a distance go on. The comet is about 450 million kilometers (about 280 million miles) from the Sun and its activity is increasing due to the sublimation of the ice, which becomes steam. The ROSINA (Rosetta Orbiter Spectrometer for Ion and Neutral Analysis) instrument has already analyzed some emissions finding that the comet really stinks.

Fire Pattern by Bob Shaw (Italian edition)

The novel “Fire Pattern” by Bob Shaw was published for the first time in 1984.

Ray Jerome is a journalist with a background as an engineer so he has a very practical and down-to-earth attitude. When he’s assigned the task to write an article about a case of spontaneous human combustion, he’s far from happy. Jerome thinks that it may be a hoax and has no desire to deal with that kind of story.

After getting some information about the subject, finding that in the past there have been documented cases of spontaneous human combustion never really explained, Jerome can only go to investigate the latest case. A track leads him to look for a doctor, instead he comes across another case of spontaneous human combustion that takes place in front of his eyes. Something is really happening but it turns out quite different from what he could have imagined.

Serena Williams won the WTA Championships, the final women tennis tournament, defeating the Romanian Simona Halep in the final 6-3 6-0. The American confirms she’s the no. 1 in women tennis winning this title for the fifth time.