The Lost Calling - Chapter 13

Present Day

Near  planet Kor'Daren

Imhari system, Inner Laskaris Arm

Calrose was given the co-pilot's seat beside Keona, while the others strapped in behind them. Driz and Arabel occupied seats in front of data terminals where they could monitor the ship's systems and do their best to aid in the execution of the plan. But it was really down to Captain Keona and her piloting skills to get the tethered ships moving and manage to control the metal monstrosity toward the surface of Kor'Daren.

The engines of the Dasaq'Wen fired and the mass of the two ships slowly began to move. Driz's short child-like fingers played over the control panel as he bypassed systems that Arabel had worked hard to design. Though he wore no CDT, he was using very similar skills to jack into the GRV's control system. He fired up the solitary engine that Uden had managed to get running and opened the throttle.

The conjoined ships twisted as Keona tried her best to control the direction of the ship, while engines of vastly different strengths pumped out thrust in slightly different directions. The stars in the front viewport spun and twisted before slowly steadying. Keona managed to angle the connected ships toward the planet, visually sighting it in the window and trying to keep it in place. The cockpit she sat in hadn't changed, but she could feel the difference in the shape of the ship. Her view no longer sat in the center of her thrust vector, but was off to one side. It threw her off, but innate piloting skills and years of practice on numerous ships allowed her to quickly adapt.

The Lost Calling - Chapter 12

Present Day

Near  planet Kor'Daren

Imhari system, Inner Laskaris Arm

Jett was laying unconcious, strapped to a bed to keep from floating away in the micro-gravity. A tall feminine figure drifted over him, scanning his body with an attachment connected to her CDT. Large almond-shaped eyes glanced back and forth from the med-scanner display to her patient.

"What happened?" Calrose asked as she entered the med-bay. She pushed herself up to the bedside, grabbing its siderails for support. "Is he alright?"

The woman hovering over Jett was the Salacean Calrose had seen on the communication feed. Up close the more alien features of her face were more apparent. Her eyes were much larger than a humans with long eyelashes and thin eyebrows. Above her eyes, at the center of her forehead were the small slits of her nostrils, subtly opening closing with her breath. The space between her eyes were completely devoid of the nose structure of a human, instead the soft rust-red skin sloped down gradually to big full lips. Her mouth was perhaps her most humanoid feature, opening to reveal a human-like tongue and teeth.

The Lost Calling - Chapter 11

Present Day

Near  planet Kor'Daren

Imhari system, Inner Laskaris Arm

"That is not what I was expecting," Arabel said, staring out the front viewport window. "It looks nothing like the schematics their ident is broadcasting."

"Captain Hakar warned me about that. It worried me at first, but I can't say I wouldn't do the same. The hull of this thing is still factory," Calrose patted her palm against the wall," but between you and Jett, the inner workings aren't exactly to original specifications."

"I guess," Arabel conceded.

They both continued to look out the viewport. The Dasaq'wen was still on approach. It had been decelerating for the past few hours as it neared the GRV. It had only come into visual range within the last few minutes and the two women couldn't take their eyes off it as it slowly crept closer and closer.

The Dasaq'wen began to grow before them, the distance shrinking and the true size of the ship becoming apparent. The ship dwarfed the GRV, easily twice the length of the little waste hauler, with massive bird-like wings that stretched out on either side. Its general form was sweeping and graceful without any sense of angular aggression, but as the ship grew closer, Calrose could see that the hard planysteel hull was a patchwork quilt of mismatched pieces as if the entire ship had been built a hundred times over from whatever was lying around.

"Are they here yet?" Jett called out from behind them, ascending the ladder from the lower deck. The two women jumped, unaware of his presence.

"They are approaching now. I have the ship in a stable position so the Dasaq'wen can attach to our airlock." Calrose responded, still staring out the window.

The Lost Calling - Alien Species

The twelve alien species that make up the Republic in The Lost Calling were not fully realized while I was working on the comic form of the story. In the early stages I had a basic idea for each of the races, but had not yet decided how they would fit into the story. They weren't fleshed out until I began work on adapting the setting to be used in a weekly roleplaying game with my friends. To help them visualize and understand their choices of possible alien races to play as, I needed to finally design these creatures. Each with a distinct evolutionary backstory and a timeline within the history of the Republic, they served as distinct alien races to populate my fictional galaxy.
Below are the original designs provided to my gaming group and currently used on the data entry pages in the Far Reaches wiki.

The Lost Calling - Character Concepts

As I have noted before, The Lost Calling was originally planned as a graphic novel. I actually scripted and illustrated the first couple chapters of this graphic novel before abandoning the idea of a comic and instead focusing on telling the story of Rebecca Calrose and her crew in the form of a novel series.
Below is some of the early concept art I did when designing the characters of the story.

The Lost Calling - Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Present Day

Nexus Gate

Location Unknown

"This is Keona Hakar of the transport vessel Dasaq'wen," the Krahl said slowly, enunciating every word in Kheprilectic, ensuring her words were as well understood as possible. "We have received your distress beacon and have come to offer assistance."

The Krahl female wasn't as large and bulky as Calrose remembered the males of the species. She was big by human standards, but on the viewscreen, the pilot appeared sleek, her scaled arms filled with long wiry muscles. She was also a brilliant blue-green color with patches of lighter greens that spattered across her face like freckles. Blue-green colorations in Krahl were rare enough, but it was the combination of her skin color with the brilliant golden plumage on her head that made her stand out. Krahl females, unlike other species of reptiles, were the more colorful. They sported long scale-like protrusions on top of their head. At a distance they looked like sharp pointed feathers arranged almost hair-like on their scaly heads. But they were actually a strange structure that evolved from modified proto-feathers from their ancient ancestors. Upon closer inspection, the plumage looked more like quills than feathers, a gift from their evolutionary past on Kra Lok. The Krahl evolved from a line of creatures that were just beginning to branch out from their reptilian ancestors and take on more mammalian traits. A similar chain of events has played out on a trillion worlds, usually culminating in mammals who then have a higher likelihood of evolving sentience. But things were different on Kra Lok and the Krahl were the only sentient species of reptiles discovered in the galaxy.

The Lost Calling - Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Nexus Gate

Location Unknown

The short range of the GRV was once again working against them. Despite broadcasting for a solid three standard days, radiowaves could only travel so fast. There was no reason to put a sublight frequency communications array into a ship built to operate within a single solar system. Without the ansible, the beacon had to rely on sending a signal that could only travel at the speed of light. But unless it was interrupted or was lost in the noise of other radiation, the signal should soon be making its approach to the edges of whatever solar system they found themselves in.

Calrose sat in the small mess of the ship doing the math in her head. Imagining every few hours just how far the signal had reached by now. With a gate in the system, there had to be someone nearby. Gates were rarely built or continuously maintained in systems that wouldn't use them. They were autonomous constructs that could operate without the help of a sentient being for quite some time, but it was unnecessary to have one where it wasn't being used to help Republic species traverse the galaxy.

The Lost Calling - Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Present Day

Nexus Gate

Location Unknown

Calrose felt the nausea wash over her. Most humans experienced FTL sickness, but all humans felt gate-sickness. The reality warping properties of being spat out on the other side of the galaxy were hard to stomach. No matter how many times you did, and for Calrose it was still few, you never got used it. Every gate had a robotically maintained 'runway' that gave incoming and outgoing jumps, plenty of space for their crew to deal with the affects.

Calrose looked over at Arabel. The gravity-nets were still down and the massive braid of red hair coiled around the teen like a serpent. Arabel was unconcious, a common symptom of the jump. Even the most well designed numan adaptations couldn't overcome the way gate travel affected their bodies. Other species fared better, but it would always feel like the unnatural thing that it was.

The captain heard Jett vomiting behind her. She really hoped that he found the sickbags in time. Gate jumps weren't a regular thing for the GRV, a small craft built for hauling things back and forth within a star system. But it had made jumps before. Even small haulers tended to make jumps just to get to the system they were working in. So it had a coordinate-dialer and the necessary nav-computer to use the gates. But it was such a rare thing and with no FTL drive, there was little occasion to stock sickbags in easy to reach locations.

The Lost Calling - Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Five Years Ago

Som Len Bar, planet Drosi

Malentar System, Inner Bellus Arm

"I spent half a cycle in that hellhole," Calrose said nursing a drink far stronger than she should be drinking in the middle of the day. She nibbled at a meager snack laid in front of her by the bartender, trying his best to put food in her if she was going to drink like that.

"I'm sorry to hear that. I know quite a few folks who have spent time in lock up. But you seem pretty broken up about something that happened over a decade ago." The Zygoshan knew better than to say something like that, but the woman had been moaning at his bar for nearly two hours. If he didn't push her, he wasn't going to get rid of her anytime soon.

"Prison wasn't really the problem," the woman looked up at him. He always thought humans looked weird, how could anyone find such hairless creatures appealing. But this one looked particularly rough. Her dark features seemed puffy and undernourished. She probably hadn't seen a decent sleep in ages. He had his share of drunks, especially human ones, but there was more to this particular patron.

The Lost Calling - Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Fourteen Years Ago

The Yucari, capital-class peace-keeper

Hestatian System, Inner Ghanan Arm

Over two standard years after her graduation, Rebecca Calrose had risen to the rank of Chief Lieutenant. Monitoring the gunning systems of the Yucari, a capital class assault ship in service to the Thoren military. Her terminal sat so far from the piloting deck on the bridge that it was far too easy to forget her dreams of ever flying again. She hadn't controlled so much as a drone in months. Her smile had faded weeks into her last post, a position that would only last a few months. Her hopes starting to fade as well, she resigned her fate and took the gunnery post on the Yucari.

Leaving the Republic Protectorate behind her was the last straw. She made excuses that she was just leaving one peace-keeping ship for another, but she knew better. The Yucari was classified as a capital-class peace-keeper, but anyone who knew anything about military craft, knew all too well that the Yucari was just an assault ship with a fancy paint job.

The Lost Calling - Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Sixteen Years Ago

Republic Station - Talanovia

Krontomera System, Inner Ghanan Arm

Rebecca Calrose always wanted to be a pilot. To see the stars and travel the infinite worlds between them. But life had a habit of getting in the way. Her thoughts wandered back to her youth and how she went from a small station brat to finally graduating from the Academy of Republic Forces. She hoped her parents would be proud if they were still alive to see her now. Decked from head to foot in the finest uniform given to cadets. It would become her dress uniform worn as an entrance cadet on whatever ship or station she found employment on.

Waiting with her peers, the commencement speeches began, but her excitement could hardly let her pay attention. A squat blue-skinned figure stood on the platform. It was Commander Rota, one of her favorite teachers at the Academy. But even though the short statured Bantonian was speaking Kheprilictic, the most common tongue in the Republic, to Calrose, at that moment, it was all just noise.

It had been generations since her family left the Earth-controlled regions of space. The Mynaterra Arm of the galaxy was mostly controlled by a number of xenophobic human zealots, often putting them at odds with the Republic and its goals of peace among sentient species. Worst of these human factions was the Heritage League, which Calrose refused to admit that her own lineage had ties to.  She was more proud of her great great grandmother who fled human controlled space for the more civil worlds of the Republic.

The Lost Calling - Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Gavriel System Gate - NX-G5411698

Gavriel System, Inner Bellus Arm

"There it is," Arabel pointed at one of her displays. Touching a thin point of light on the screen the pixel expanded into a detailed schematic of the Nexus Gate. The diagram spun into two seperate two-dimensional images showing the ring-like object from different angles while listing out current information about its relative systems.

"How much further?" Calrose asked, her mind was back on track, plotting out her objectives for the next stage of her plan, ignoring those parts that had already gone awry. She fell back on her military training. After the initial shock of what she had done, she had to press on. Complete her mission and worry about the ramifications later. What's done is done, as her mother used to always say.

"Another two megameters to the gate. If you keep this heading we should see the entry vector beacons soon."

A moment's pause and the captain pointed out of her viewport window. "There. I see it."

"And it looks like we're not alone," the purple numan said, pulling up even more scan data onto her screens. "I am picking up at least three more of those nasty ships orbiting the gate."

"Dammit," Calrose muttered solemnly.

"Well I suppose it couldn't have been that easy," Arabel said and then immediately regretted it. "Sorry, Cap."

The captain ignored the comment and the apology. She was determined to stay on point.

The Lost Calling - Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Waste Disposal Collection Port

Gavriel System, Inner Bellus Arm

Captain Calrose gritted her teeth as she maneuvered the ship around waypoint beacons as she got closer to the traffic of ships surrounding the port.

"Bel," she called over her shoulder to the redhead. "I have an idea, but it's a really stupid one."

Arabel seemed to brighten at the comment, a smirk breaking across her thin purple lips. Any fear she was feeling was quickly being replaced with excitement. This is the action she was hoping for. And she knew she could put their lives in the hands of her capable captain. She looked back at Calrose, admiring the dark-skinned woman with those piercing eyes. Arabel wasn't usually one to be attracted to women, or humans for that matter, but there was certainly something alluring about the sense of strength the captain possessed.

"What do you have in mind, Cap?" the teenager asked.

"Something that might just get us killed," Calrose grimmaced, her full lips becoming tight. "But I think I have an idea of how we can actually outrun this thing."

"How? Even after dumping all that mass, we don't have a peak drive anywhere near as powerful as whatever that thing is packing. That ship certainly isn't human tech."

"It looks like the hate-filled lovechild of a Predator-class assault ship and a trade frigate from the Dagon Empire," Jett observed. "A bad ass piece of 'rat-tech if I ever saw one."

The Lost Calling - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Waste Disposal Collection Port

Gavriel System, Inner Bellus Arm

"You really think it could be pirates?" Arabel asked, her excitement helping her initial fear to subside. "What would they want with a Garbage Port?"

"Pirates, anti-Republic activists, scrap thieves, who knows. I don't plan on sticking around long enough to find out."

Jett climbed up a ladder from the lower deck. His two meter height poking up halfway into the cockpit.

"What's going on, Captain?"

"Bel says someone is jamming all signals in the area. Not sure who, or why," Calrose replied simply, her attention was on the manual controls as she gunned the accelerator.

"I think I've got something."

As Jett pulled himself into the room, he and Calrose turned to look at Arabel. The redhead scanned the readout on her wrist, turning her seat to them, but not actually looking up. Hard tap wired ran from her CDT to her terminal on the wall. Data scrawled across the screens at a blinding speed.

"I've managed to cancel out the source of the jam," she looked up just long enough to flash an impish smile. "Scanners are now reading a large vessel."

She looked up at the two others in the room, a serious look on her purple face.

"And it's coming straight at us!" her voice rose with excitement. "Captain, I suggest you step on it!"

The Lost Calling - Chapter 1

Chapter 1

193 lightseconds from Gavriel

Gavriel System, Inner Bellus Arm

The soft hum of the engines, vibrating through the ship, was lulling Captain Rebecca Calrose to sleep. The delicate white noise, that she normally tuned out, and the thick blanket of stars that filled her viewport were as good as any lullaby. It was always hard on the longer stretches. The auto-nav had control of the ship, and she was just taking her shift monitoring systems and counting the hours before they arrived at their destination.

The ship, formally known as the GRV-219, didn't have a proper faster-than-light drive on it. Such expensive technology was rather unheard of for a Garbage Retrieval Vehicle. The standard issue peak-drive sufficed to get their mass moving at nearly the speed of light. This was complex enough when trying to haul three or four waste disposal transports behind the ship in normal space. The faster a ship accelerates toward the speed of light, the more massive it becomes, therefore making it harder to get moving. The quantum vacuum point cell that powered the drive was like scaled down version from the massive power plants that ran Nexus Gates. It wasn't spectacular, but Calrose was happy for what she had. Anything less and the constant trips back and forth within the Gavriel system would take months rather than hours.

The lights in the cockpit flickered and died. The hum of the engine stopped and the sudden silence was almost deafening. For an odd frightening second, Calrose feared she had gone deaf and blind. But as her eyes adjusted to the nearly perfect dark, she could see the stars again through the viewport. Her confusion turned to annoyance.

The Lost Calling and the Far Reaches Project

Last year I began a new project. This is not surprising as I am constantly starting new projects. But this was an idea that would have a number of twists and turns while it found its way to fruition. It started with the desire to do another comic series. Something between the high action work of A Drop of Blood and the strip format of GeoGuys (both previous projects of mine you can check out).
I began work on a webcomic series that would tell the story of the crew of a space garbage truck. While fleshing out designs and the setting of this story I started thinking about world-building. One of my favorite passtimes, but quite an undertaking. I fell back to an old idea I once had of getting a group of creative types together and having a collective that works together to create a single universe. The shared universe idea is nothing new, especially for fans of comics. And the writer collective working on a collections of collected stories isn't an original idea either, but it always intrigued me. What if you have artists, writers, web designers, prop-makers, and others all working to create works that connected to a shared fictional space. This is an idea I will keep coming back to until it works, but from this was born the Far Reaches project.
Out of this collective was born a shared wiki that over time has built up a catalogue of information about a science fiction setting. From my initial set up, members have created technology, locations, and alien creatures. This evolving galactic encyclopedia now forms the basis for numerous new creative works. Art, writing, and even games have spawned out of it.
The first big work to come out of this project has been a large scale role playing game that my weekly game buddies and I participate in. They all play characters struggling to make a living in a wild and thriving galaxy. But unlike most RPGs where the gamemaster holds all the power of creation in the world, our game plays out like an improv group. Players help create and describe the places they are exploring. They are as much a part of the world building as I am. All of this gets fed back into the wiki to further flesh out this fictional world.
Now back to the webcomic. With scripts written for nearly fifty pages of the comic, and most of the design work done, I began work on the comic. Drawing every few days to get pages made. Those of you that follow my online streams may have watched some of this. However, about 14 pages in I began to feel the weight of this project, the scale of what I was trying to take on. It was also becoming harder to fit all of this work into a growing busy schedule.
As my projects often do, this got set aside for some time. But I was still running the RPG which kept me invested in the setting. I thought about the last big RPG setting I created, which spawned the idea for a serial novel (the first few chapters are posted on this blog). This time, instead of just writing the same story of my players, I would write a tale that fit into this same universe. Toying with plots and a few failed attempts at short works, I kept coming back to the abandoned webcomic. Now I have dedicated part of my writing time to fleshing out the original comic script into a full novel. Without the added time and pressure of illustrating the book (just yet at least), I have been able to quickly dive into this new idea. I never have expectations when it comes to my writing. I have been working on one of my novels off and on for over a decade. They may never get finished, and this work might just have the same fate. But I plug away at it none-the-less.
I have decided to start sharing my first draft of this novel as I write it. Posting a chapter or two as they are written. So stayed tuned to this blog and help me out by commenting and giving constructive feedback as I share The Lost Calling.

(If you are a creative type and would like to participate in the Far Reaches project, or would like information for running your own roleplaying games in the setting, feel free to contact me.)

Distraction, Writing, and the future of TentacleNews

It has been a long time since I have posted anything on here. Over 5 months in fact. But that isn't to say I haven't been busy. Sadly blogging has become less of a hobby for me. Twitter has become my go to place to share links and little events in my life. Streaming services like Twitch and places like Tumblr and dA have become new places to debut new art. The online store has taken off and we are doing well with sales, so I have been working on an odd variety of projects from prop replicas to a new novel concept. My new part time job even employs some of my art skills as I help design the look of new rooms at an Escape Room entertainment venue.
But I will try to not completely neglect this place. It is really where I got my start. But it can be tough to devote time and proper attention to every social media platform and project I have on the go. But I am hoping to turn this place into a source for one thing. While I will still do my annual best of list, this blog will become the site upon which I share my writing projects. I hope to return to my literary analysis projects of Lovecraft 101 and Pulp 101, which were still in their infancy when I took a few years off from them. But also my plan is to return to my bigger writing projects. The half dozen novels I have in progress, mainly. This site will hopefully become a place I can share early drafts and get feedback. My goal is to write one day every week. Pushing me to create new material that I can then share.
I hope those of you still following and reading this blog will enjoy what is to come.

Best of 2015

How can it possibly be the end of the year already?! This year has gone by so fast I don't even know what hit me. And a whirlwind year it has been. Filled with a lot of challenges and good times. Not as much painting and artwork as I really would have liked, but a rather successful year nonetheless. With so much going on as the holidays near, company coming to visit, juggling time between two families, planning Yule parties and get-togethers, even finding time to finish long promised projects. Well with only a few days left in the year, I finally have a few brief moments to finalize my list of the best things I enjoyed this year.

As per usual, this is not necessarily the best things from 2015, but merely things I discovered and immensely enjoyed this year. From movies, to shows, comics to games, there has been a lot going on. I failed to read as many books as I did last year (120), even counting all the numerous graphic novels this year, I will be happy to break 100.

Let's get to the list!

Movies:
Live Action - Feature
Winner: Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
Honorable Mentions: Ant-Man (2015), The Martian (2015), and Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)

Documentary - Feature
Winner: Going Clear (2015)
Runner Up: Print the Legend (2015)
Honorable Mentions: Citizen Four (2014) and Jorodowsky's Dune (2013)

Animated - Feature
Winner: Inside Out (2015)
Runner Up: Minions (2015)

Television:

Live Action - Drama Series

Winner: Jessica Jones (Netflix)

Live Action - Comedy Series

Winner: Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Netflix)

Animated Series

Winner: Star Wars Rebels (Disney)

Runner Up: Steven Universe (Cartoon Network)

Anime Series

Winner: One Punch Man (Viz)

Runner Up: Sailor Moon Crystal (Viz)

Music and Audio:
Artist of the Year
Winner: Halsey
Runner Up: Taylor Swift
Honorable Mention: Halestorm

Album of the Year
Winner: Endless Forms Most Beautiful - Nightwish (2015)
Runner Up: Adventure - Madeon (2015)

Podcast

Winner: Welcome to Nightvale

Runner Up: No Such Thing as a Fish

Books and Comics:

Crime Fiction

Winner: Sins of the Father - Lawrence Block (1976)

Runner Up: Cadillac Jukebox - James Lee Burke (1996)

Honorable Mention: Blind Descent - Nevada Barr (1998)

Horror Fiction

Winner: Curse of the Wendigo - Rick Yancey (2010)

Science Fiction and Fantasy

Winner: Honor of the Queen - David Weber (1993)
Runner Up: Leviathan Wakes - James S A Corey (2011)
Honorable Mention: The Witcher series - Andrzej Sapkowski

Children's Fiction
Winner: Zita the Spacegirl series - Ben Hatke (2011)
Runner Up: Princess and the Pony - Kate Beaton (2015)

Non-fiction
Winner: What If? - Randall Munroe (2014)
Runner Up: The Disappearing Spoon - Sam Kean (2010)

Comics
Winner: Giant Days (Boom)
Runner Up: Big Feminist But (Alternative Comics)
Meg's Pick: Nimona (Harper Collins)
Honorable Mention: Princess Princess

Games:
Tabletop Game
Winner: Steampunk Rally (Roxley)
Runner Up: Evolution (North Star Games)

Roleplaying Games
Winner: Deadlands (Pinnacle Entertainment)

Video Games -
Best RPG: Yokai Watch (3DS)
Best Action Game: Elite Dangerous (PC)
Best Artistic Game: Ori and the Blind Forest (PC)
Best Multiplayer: Monaco (PC)
Best Casual Game: Pokemon Picross (3DS)
Best Gaming Surprise: Rocket League (PC)

I hope you all enjoyed your 2015 as much as I did. Be sure to check out all these great recommendations, and if you have any awesome things I should check out in the new year, let me know in the comments! Have a fantastic new year!!

Understanding Dinosaurs - Part 10: Further Reading

So now I hope you all know at least a little bit more about dinosaurs than when we started this series. It has been a lot of fun to research and write. If you would like to know more on some of the topics I covered, you can always go back and explore all the links within each article.
What? You already did that? Still want more? Okay, I think I can help you there. Below are a number of books, websites and documentaries to further scratch that paleontology itch. I hope it further ignites an interest not only in dinosaurs, but in science in general.
A special thanks to everyone who has been very supportive of this article series.

Further Reading:
Books~

Dinosaurs: The Grand Tour - Keiron Pim/Jack Horner
The book that inspired this entire series. One of the best general overviews of dinosaurs with dozens of facts about hundreds of species. Beautifully illustrated and written in simple layman's terms that anyone can read and understand. A great introduction to the deeper world of dinosaurs.

The Great Dinosaur Debate - Robert T Bakker
Written by the author of my favorite fictional dinosaur book (Raptor Red), this enjoyable non-fictional book discusses some of the more controversial theories to come out of paleontology in the last few decades. Most interestingly is Bakker's theories on warm-blooded dinosaurs (a theory now widely accepted).

Wonderful Life - Stephen Jay Gould
This book, by one of the greatest evolutionary biologists, covers the evolution of early life on earth as depicted in the Burgess Shale fossils found in the Canadian Rockies. It doesn't discuss dinosaurs, but rather the earliest forms of life from nearly half a billion years ago.

Dinosaurs: The Most Complete, Up-to-Date Encyclopedia - Dr. Thomas R Holtz Jr.
Like the first entry on this list, this is a massive encyclopedic tome written as a great introduction into the many forms of dinosaurs and interesting facts about their lives and evolution. Written for young readers, its facts and concepts are easy to understand. Great for young dino-nerds who are craving a big reference book.

Feathered Dinosaurs: The Origin of Birds - John Long
A thorough and well written overview of the evidence showing the connection between birds and dinosaurs. Beautifully illustrated, this feathered branch of the dinosaur family tree comes to life with current up-to-date science.

Documentaries~

Dinosaur Planet
A four-episode series produced by Discovery Channel, with a more narrative style than straight up fact-driven documentary.

Walking with Dinosaurs
This is an obvious recommendation. Though a few years out of date, it was the first major CGI driven dinosaur documentary. Rather than presenting boring interviews and shots of fossils, BBC created a series that looked and felt more like the nature documentaries of David Attenborough. This series has since gone on to inspire literally every dinosaur documentary since.
(Note: a theatrical film was also released but had a ridiculous audio track added on top giving the dinosaurs voices. I do not in any way recommend that. However if you have the bluray, or see the newly released version titled Prehistoric Planet, the original documentary audio track is available.)

Planet Dinosaur
The follow-up series from BBC plays like an updated Walking with Dinosaurs, however this series covers more of what is known and speculated about dinosaur anatomy and behavior. It also shows a few less depicted species alongside the more well known ones.

Bigger than T. rex
This Nova documentary covers the history of the spinosaurus discovery, the loss of its fossil remains during WWII and more excitingly takes a deep look at the new evidence that shows how little we really know about this creature. Sadly, after watching it, you'll probably start pointing out the inaccuracy of every spinosaurus toy in the toystore.

Note: Many Discovery Channel and other well made TV documentaries are available on YouTube. Many of these are uploaded without the permission of the producers. They can be found by searching for "dinosaur documentaries". However, be warned, amateur and less scientific 'documentaries' also exist here.

Web Videos~

SciShow - Hank Green's fantastic science show answers lots of dino related questions.
5 Animals That Aren't Dinosaurs
What Killed the Dinosaurs?
Will We Ever Run Out of Dinosaurs?
Resurrection Biology

CrashCourse - related to SciShow, a quick classroom overview of various topics.
Evolutionary Biology

Vsauce - Michael Stevens discusses interesting ideas and the science behind them
Jurassic World Science

Discovery News - Answers to all your odd science questions
Dinosaur related topics


Websites~

Discovery Channel - Dinosaurs

The Smithsonian Institute

Bizarre Dinosaurs - National Geographic

Dinosaur Timeline - The New Scientist

Dinosaur World - BBC

Live Science

Dinopedia

Understanding Dinosaurs - Part 9: Dinosaur Extinction

About 66 million years ago, the Cretaceous period, and the Mesozoic era with it, ended. Like the great Permian extinction that began the Mesozoic, it too wiped out a large portion of the life on earth (around 75%). But most notable among these extinctions was the demise of the non-avian dinosaurs, leaving only the birds to continue into the Cenozoic era that we live in today.

For well over a century, scientists have debated about what wiped out these creatures and why none of them continued on to today. It has only been in the last 20-30 years that we have begun to cement a firm theory as to what happened (though many alternative theories do still exist). By looking at the layer of rock known as the K-Pg (or sometimes K-T) boundary, we can look at the moment of extinction in the fossil record. Below it, are the older periods of time, such as the Cretaceous and the Triassic before that. Above this line, is the Paleogene, first period of the Cenozoic era. Within that line, however, exists some rather interesting things, namely the concentration of iridium a metallic element similar to platinum. It exists in this layer in much higher concentrations than in the rock above or below it.

In 1980, a physicist named LuisAlvarez and his son, noticed that this band of odd rock could be found all over the world. Iridium being an incredibly rare element on earth, it lead scientists to the idea that the earth was hit by some foreign body, causing some global catastrophe. This is now known as the Alvarez Impact Hypothesis and is the most widely held theory as to the cause of the Cretaceous-Paleogene Extinction. Thirty-five years of science since then, have lead to further evidence to support this theory. The discovery of the Chicxulub Crater off the coast of Mexico seemed to be the clincher. All evidence pointed to a large astronomical object (probably 10 km wide) smashing into the earth with the force of over 2 million nuclear bombs.

But it wasn't just the impact itself that would have wiped out the majority of life across the globe. While anything near the site would just be incinerated, the rest of the planet suffered through years of horrendous side effects. The cloud of dust and debris from the impact would have blocked out the rays of the sun, killing off plants and phytoplankton that could no longer create food. This would have worked its way up the food chain, killing off herbivores who no longer had plants to eat, and then carnivores who lost things to hunt.

Because dinosaurs made up the greater bulk of the food chain, they would have been hit the hardest. They were large animals who needed an enormous amount of food to survive. On top of that, they would have been more vulnerable to the toxic gases, acid rain, firestorms and shifting weather brought on by the cataclysm . It would be the smallest of things, lizards and early mammals, insects of various kinds, and some birds that would survive by seeking shelter underground, requiring less food, or being able to make long trips to find suitable shelter and nourishment.

This has been the standard model for many years. Often focus shifts on the aftermath as to the leading cause of the long term die off around the world. Sometimes it is a massive global winter, while other times it is something else. But other theories do still exist that play down the importance that even the Chicxulub impact had on the event.

The Deccan Traps Hypothesis points the finger at a massive group of volcanic eruptions leading to a slow die off as toxic gases and dust filled the air. There is a lot of evidence to support this theory as well, which has lead many scientists to add it into the larger Alvarez Hypothesis. It is unlikely any one thing caused the global devastation, but more likely an incalculable chain of events that coalesced into the event that nearly wiped out all life on earth once again. It is often these combination theories that make the most sense for such a wide spread phenomena. Theories of a severe drop in sea levels, multiple impacts, volcanic eruptions, climate changes and radiation are prevalent. But all could easily work together to create a really bad 'wrong place at the wrong time' kind of event.

Regardless of the how, scientists do agree on one thing. The Cretaceous-Paleogene Extinction event saw the end of the non-avian dinosaurs. We find no fossil evidence of them above the K-Pg Boundary. It is unlikely that even the smaller non-avian dinosaurs lived beyond a few hundred thousand years of the event. Evidence found, just outside my door, in the Red Deer River also points to the fact that these dinosaurs were on the decline in the last 10 million years leading up to the event. As their numbers paled, a massive ecology altering event would easily wipe the remaining out.

But every story has to have an ending. Though the event took out all the non-avian dinosaurs, we were left with the avian ones who survive to this day. Sure we have fossils and other traces of dinosaurs that grace the exhibits of a thousand museums, but there is just something awesome about knowing that there are still dinosaurs just outside your window.

Next Time: Further Reading