# Cal Meacham's new book! And half a dozen pieces of fiction! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 15, 2013, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cal-meachams-new-book-and-half-a-dozen-pieces-of-fiction/666363 "2013-08-15T22:52:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cal-meachams-new-book-and-half-a-dozen-pieces-of-fiction/666363/1 "2013-08-15T22:52:24Z")
I’ve had a run of good luck getting my writings accepted for publication recently, and it’s all coming out now: 1.) **How the Ray Gun Got Its Zap!: Odd Excursion in Optics** – my new book from Oxford University Press is being released next month. I’ve taken columns that I’ve written over the past decade, great expanded them and updated them, and added new commentary. The title chapter is a History of the Ray Gun, but I also include chapters on Edible Lasers, The Miracle of St. Gascoigne (how telescopes got crosshairs), The Magic Lantern of Omar Khayyam, the Telephote, the History of Retroreflectors, and other weird stuff. > **[How the Ray Gun Got Its Zap](https://global.oup.com/academic/product/how-the-ray-gun-got-its-zap-9780199948017;jsessionid=CE38EE7FBFE4B6953DFD6680F32CF934?cc=us&lang=en&)** > > How the Ray Gun Got Its Zap is a collection of essays that discusses odd and unusual topics in optics. Though optics is a fairly specialized branch of physics, this book extracts from the discipline topics that are particularly interesting,... The Amazon site lets have a look at the contents: > **[How the Ray Gun Got Its Zap](https://global.oup.com/academic/product/how-the-ray-gun-got-its-zap-9780199948017;jsessionid=CE38EE7FBFE4B6953DFD6680F32CF934?cc=us&lang=en&)** > > How the Ray Gun Got Its Zap is a collection of essays that discusses odd and unusual topics in optics. Though optics is a fairly specialized branch of physics, this book extracts from the discipline topics that are particularly interesting,... 2.) The latest issue of **Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact** contains my story _Putting Down Roots_. The topic is one that some Dopers might find interesting. It’s out on newsstands now. [http://www.analogsf.com/2013\_10/index.shtml](http://www.analogsf.com/2013_10/index.shtml) 3.) **Tales of the Undead: Suffer Eternal** contains my story _After the Bucket_, a funny Zombie story. > **[Amazon.com: Tales of the Undead - Suffer Eternal (Tales of the Undead Series...](https://www.amazon.com/Tales-Undead-Suffer-Eternal-Book-ebook/dp/B00BTPZLCM)** > > Amazon.com: Tales of the Undead - Suffer Eternal (Tales of the Undead Series Book 2) eBook : Wol-vriey, Chappell, Gavin , Pointer, David S., Dunn, Robin Wyatt, Rowe, Jeremy, Singh, Rishan, Slade, Mark, Ostromecki, Jennifer, Rehac, Paul J., Rowark,... 4.) Other fiction of mine has appeared online recently, including _The Adventure of the Sweet Strength_, _Bullseye_, and _The Ipswich Abhorrence_. You can find them with a bit of searching. _Bon Appetit!_ ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cal-meachams-new-book-and-half-a-dozen-pieces-of-fiction/666363/2 "2013-08-15T22:58:52Z")
Mistakenly used the wrong URL for the Amazon site of “How the Ray Gun Got Its Zap!” Should be: > **[How the Ray Gun Got Its Zap: Odd Excursions into Optics: Wilk, Stephen R.:...](https://www.amazon.com/How-Ray-Gun-Got-Its/dp/0199948011)** > > How the Ray Gun Got Its Zap: Odd Excursions into Optics \[Wilk, Stephen R.\] on Amazon.com. \*FREE\* shipping on qualifying offers. How the Ray Gun Got Its Zap: Odd Excursions into Optics ---
**Author:** ![shantih](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f6c823/32.png) [@shantih](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shantih)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cal-meachams-new-book-and-half-a-dozen-pieces-of-fiction/666363/3 "2013-08-15T23:59:47Z")
Wow! Congratulations! ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cal-meachams-new-book-and-half-a-dozen-pieces-of-fiction/666363/4 "2013-08-16T01:22:30Z")
Oh, and another piece coming out soon (I don’t know exactly when): The follow-up to my first book, **Medusa: Solving the Mystery of the Gorgon** has gone through the editing process, and will appear in _Classical World_ (“The Quarterly Journal of the Classical Association of the Atlantic States”). It’s entitled **The Scarecrow of Os** [http://caas-cw.org/wp/?page\_id=49](http://caas-cw.org/wp/?page_id=49) It’s a refereed journal, and it has taken forever and a LOT of editing to finally reach what they deemed an acceptable form. But it allows me to finally put into print a lot of material that I have dug up since publishing _Medusa_. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cal-meachams-new-book-and-half-a-dozen-pieces-of-fiction/666363/5 "2013-08-16T04:17:34Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > **How the Ray Gun Got Its Zap!: Odd Excursion in Optics** – my new book from Oxford University Press is being released next month. I’ve taken columns that I’ve written over the past decade, great expanded them and updated them, and added new commentary. The title chapter is a History of the Ray Gun, but I also include chapters on Edible Lasers, The Miracle of St. Gascoigne (how telescopes got crosshairs), The Magic Lantern of Omar Khayyam, the Telephote, the History of Retroreflectors, and other weird stuff. Sounds good. But I’m torn between it and _Low-Dimensional Nitride Semiconductors_. ---
**Author:** ![Gagundathar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cal-meachams-new-book-and-half-a-dozen-pieces-of-fiction/666363/6 "2013-08-16T04:22:45Z")
Wow! That is terrific news, **CalMeacham**. Congratulations. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cal-meachams-new-book-and-half-a-dozen-pieces-of-fiction/666363/7 "2013-08-16T11:30:45Z")
Hey, cool! Congratuations! ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cal-meachams-new-book-and-half-a-dozen-pieces-of-fiction/666363/8 "2013-08-16T14:59:42Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Sounds good. But I’m torn between it and _Low-Dimensional Nitride Semiconductors_. Mine probably has more good one-liners. But I haven’t read Bernard Gil’s book. A quick look on the Amazon site doesn’t turn up any thigh-slappers, but that’s not a fair trial, I admit. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cal-meachams-new-book-and-half-a-dozen-pieces-of-fiction/666363/9 "2013-08-16T15:14:37Z")
**CalMeacham** , we prefer that people obtain moderator permission in advance of posting threads like this. We would have granted that permission, so I’m not going to close the thread or anything, but consider yourself reprimanded. Or at least looked at sternly. **twickster** , Cafe Society moderator ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cal-meachams-new-book-and-half-a-dozen-pieces-of-fiction/666363/10 "2013-08-16T15:43:43Z")
> [@twickster](#): > > **CalMeacham** , we prefer that people obtain moderator permission in advance of posting threads like this. We would have granted that permission, so I’m not going to close the thread or anything, but consider yourself reprimanded. Or at least looked at sternly. > > **twickster** , Cafe Society moderator the ray gun was only set to ‘stun’. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cal-meachams-new-book-and-half-a-dozen-pieces-of-fiction/666363/11 "2013-08-16T16:07:18Z")
Set Phasers on “deep fat fry” Mr. Sulu. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cal-meachams-new-book-and-half-a-dozen-pieces-of-fiction/666363/12 "2013-08-17T01:03:40Z")
> [@twickster](#): > > **CalMeacham** , we prefer that people obtain moderator permission in advance of posting threads like this. We would have granted that permission, so I’m not going to close the thread or anything, but consider yourself reprimanded. Or at least looked at sternly. > > **twickster** , Cafe Society moderator I asked for and received permission to post from **TubaDiva** , back on March 20. There’s no need to reprimand, or even stern looks. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cal-meachams-new-book-and-half-a-dozen-pieces-of-fiction/666363/13 "2013-08-17T01:46:26Z")
Since you didn’t talk to the moderators in this forum, and since the communication you did have with staff was almost six months ago, and since you didn’t bother to state in your OP that you had cleared the thread, you can understand why I would think you hadn’t obtained permission. I hereby rescind my stern look. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cal-meachams-new-book-and-half-a-dozen-pieces-of-fiction/666363/14 "2013-08-17T03:04:20Z")
_ **Rescind My Stern Look** _ A bold, if unconventional memoir/law school exam/mixtape by a moderator more usually known for piercing old-school jeremiads and lapidary filigree animadversions in the style of Jane “The Bodyslammer” Austen and the blind poet Homer writing under the name of Edgar Allan Hemingway. Citing precedents with the mental agility of Ron Zeigler deflecting a question about Watergate and the homeopathic total recall of the 1938 Manhattan Yellow Pages, the authoressette spins a web of loosely connected braggadocio, cinnamon, and rejected New Yorker cartoons that delve in the limbic system of the reader like a dental drill wielded by a concupiscent seminary student. Reading this tome will have the same effect as dropping it on your pinky toe, which you will be able to forevermore wave in the faces of the less erudite and proclaim, “twickster was here.” Available in Kindle, Nook, Squirrl, Kernel, Bleu, Eticket, Vitaphone, Keebler, Sonny, Hog, Blimp, Tacky, and Thingamabob editions. Oh, congrats to you too, Cal. BTW, How did the ray gun get its Xap? I mean Zap? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cal-meachams-new-book-and-half-a-dozen-pieces-of-fiction/666363/15 "2013-08-17T12:24:40Z")
Dang. If only there were room for that in my sig. ---
**Author:** ![Ellen\_Cherry](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellen_cherry/32/3600_2.png) [@Ellen\_Cherry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellen_Cherry)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cal-meachams-new-book-and-half-a-dozen-pieces-of-fiction/666363/16 "2013-08-17T15:31:17Z")
I now want to marry Ex. Mapcase. Or at least bear his spurious descendants. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cal-meachams-new-book-and-half-a-dozen-pieces-of-fiction/666363/17 "2013-08-17T16:06:43Z")
I’m usually partial to teak. But a [Cherry Mapcase](http://image.artfact.com/housePhotos/charltonhall/35/420435/H0063-L44162701.jpg) has a irresistible void that that just begs to be opened and filled, over and over again, spreading the insertions gently from side to side, lovingly tucking them into the depths so that not the tiniest area remains untouched, a collection of seeds containing histories, memories, and motivations that build into more than the sum of their parts, into a glorious new corpus that can one day burst into the world to be admired, held up to view, touched and fondled and loved. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cal-meachams-new-book-and-half-a-dozen-pieces-of-fiction/666363/18 "2013-08-17T16:52:05Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > _ **Rescind My Stern Look** _ > > Oh, congrats to you too, Cal. BTW, How did the ray gun get its Xap? I mean Zap? > > 🙂 Read the Book. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cal-meachams-new-book-and-half-a-dozen-pieces-of-fiction/666363/19 "2013-08-17T18:43:02Z")
> [@twickster](#): > > Dang. If only there were room for that in my sig. Hm. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cal-meachams-new-book-and-half-a-dozen-pieces-of-fiction/666363/20 "2013-08-17T18:52:24Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Read the Book. You’re sending an autographed copy? Terrific! Seriously, this is all great news. I’m a regular and passionate reader of similar columns in places like American Scientist so this is right up my alley. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cal-meachams-new-book-and-half-a-dozen-pieces-of-fiction/666363.md?page=2)