And while I am at it

[james_davis_nicoll]

Consider glancing through some stellar databases if you are going to set a story in a stellar system near Sol rather making up a star and plunking it down near the solar system. I'm more forgiving if this involves a red dwarf or a brown dwarf - Yes, I know it's questionable to call brown dwarf stars but I am lumping them into the set of all large bodies warm enough for us to heat ourselves by - but the cases I am thinking of involve bright stars of the kind we are unlikely to have overlooked.

Barlowe's 1990 Expedition: Being an Account in Words and Artwork of the 2358 A.D. Voyage to Darwin IV is the worst offender that comes to mind: it is set in a non-existant system six and a half light years from the Sun. Anyone with a passing knowledge of the nearer stars knows what stars are that close to the Sun and none of the four stars in question match Darwin IV's star. It's as silly as a National Geographic-funded expedition to a previously uncharted island-continent in the Grand Banks..

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Monty Python got there first with the expedition to lake Pahoe.

William Hyde