Russell Kightley

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About Russell Kightley
Russell Kightley's books are philosophical science fiction with a slice of satire and a twist of time travel. Often, they explore the nature of consciousness and reality. He lives in Canberra, the capital of Australia, with his wife, an astrophysicist, and his younger daughter, a science student. His elder daughter is a model.
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Author Updates
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Blog postMy books now have a proper home at russellkightley.com. There are all the normal bits: bio, list of books, email sign-up, blog, and contact, but there are detailed pages on some books as well as pages that link to prints and merchandise associated with the books (book art):1 year ago Read more
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Blog postPandemic Coronavirus entering a cell. False archival footage from the 1970s.
I grew up watching Survivors, a remarkably prescient series (1975) created by Terry Nation (who also did scripts for Dr Who). I still remember those opening scenes of airports and the London underground and they primed me to understand COVID-19. Apparently, the virus (in Survivors) was accidentally unleashed by a Chinese scientist... It seems that many leaders were not glued to their TVs in those distan1 year ago Read more -
Blog postCafé Street
JUST RELEASED for Christmas 2020!
A man decides he’s not in a simulation, a vegan planet goes wrong, a transition that never was, a mysterious street café, a plague party, a bad-news addict, and a grandfather’s paradoxical book. A wry look back on 2020 mixed with science fiction, time travel, alienation, and death. Take a seat in Café Street. But don’t ask for the bill. Released a few hours ago. Visit Café Street for half an hour (it's a shor1 year ago Read more -
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Blog postThree of my books: TIME AERIALS, QUALIA, & GLOBAL REPLACE are free on Amazon for a few days. Please try one the links below:
My Books: fiction.red (preview and buy)
My Books on my graphics site: https://www.scientific.pictures/my-books
My Books (direct Amazon link): https://author.to/RussellKightley
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Blog postVegan Revelation: The Four Mad Cowboys of the Apocalypse. Subverting fairy-tale and biblical imagery, this illustration of four mad cowboys astride flying cows shows the follies of delusion (false belief, lunacy, head in the clouds), gluttony (eating a beef burger), false science, and avarice (greed with money spilling out). This drawing was done years ago to show the behaviour that caused the outbreak of BSE (Mad Cow Disease). It applies just as much today with meat-eating risking the health of1 year ago Read more
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Blog postCicadas in a eucalypt in Deakin, ACT. Their screeching filled the air on our walk with Ollie this evening. Never so loud, never so many...
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Blog postCoronavirus particles pirouetting on a black background. The virion (virus particle of SARS-Cov-2) has characteristic faceting and a corona of spikes. The spikes (shown in reddish-orange) are trimers (three identical proteins wound together) that allow the virus to attach to a cell surface. Once it enters the cell, its RNA is released and directs the production of new virus particles. This novel coronavirus is the cause of pandemic COVID-19. Licence it here.
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Blog postVirus particles rotating on a black background. Rabies, Phages, Coronavirus, Adenovirus, and Influenza virus particles pirouette. Some, like rabies, flu, and coronavirus can be deadly, others, like bacteriophages and adenoviruses, can help us fight disease. But they all have a certain crystalline beauty. You can licence it here. Inspired by my VIRAL OCEAN design, this animation would make a great visual for exhibitions or the foyers of biotech companies.
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Blog postADENOVIRUS: Adenoviruses (AdV) are large naked viruses with characteristic fibres projecting from each vertex of their icosahedral capsids. Genome is double-stranded DNA. Adenoviruses tend to cause respiratory disease. Also used as vectors and for vaccines. This is a new version with more and brighter virions.
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Blog postAdenoviruses (AdV) are large naked viruses with characteristic fibres projecting from each vertex of their icosahedral capsids. Genome is double-stranded DNA. Adenoviruses tend to cause respiratory disease. A chimpanzee-derived adenovirus is used as a vector in the new Oxford vaccine against the coronavirus, (ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine)
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Blog postSupercavitating, rocket-powered torpedo (red) travelling through the sea in a bubble of its own creation. The flattened nose creates areas of very low pressure that result in bubbles (cavities). When these merge into a bubble that encloses the projectile, it is called supercavitation. Gas is expelled at the nose to help with the bubble creation. The cavity (containing water vapour) dramatically reduces the drag on the torpedo, so that it flies like a missile, many times faster than a conventi1 year ago Read more
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Blog postGraphene is an allotrope of carbon consisting of flat sheets of hexagonally arranged carbon atoms. When stacked in layers, graphene makes graphite, of pencil fame. Graphene is a very good electrical conductor because electrons easily travel along the plane of the sheet. May be useful in batteries, according to recent news items.
BUY THIS GRAPHENE ANIMATION.1 year ago Read more -
Blog postMy shed, where I do all my writing and illustrating, looking magical in a Canberra sunset from a couple of nights ago. You might just glimpse a Hills Hoist in the foreground.1 year ago Read more
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Blog postCircular waves radiate out from two point-sources creating an interference pattern as they superimpose on each other. The waves sum together producing higher peaks and deeper toughs at some points, whilst cancelling each other out at other points. This is done in the same rose gold metal style as the two-slit experiment. You can licence it here.
2 years ago Read more -
Blog postThomas Young's classic double-slit experiment. Created and rendered in Blender in pale rose gold. Composited in DaVinci Resolve. Plane waves hit a screen with two gaps. The gaps act as new wave sources, creating two sets of circular waves radiating outwards. These two new waves create an interference pattern as they superimpose on each other. The waves sum together producing higher peaks and deeper troughs at some points (constructive interference), whilst cancelling each other out at other p2 years ago Read more
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Blog postProjectile (red) travelling through the water in a bubble of its own creation. The flattened nose creates areas of very low pressure that result in bubbles (cavities). When these merge into a bubble that encloses the projectile, it is called supercavitation. Larger objects can use supercavitation but they must augment the pressure drop with gas expelled at the nose (e.g. rocket-powered torpedos).
BUY THIS SUPERCAVITATION ANIMATION. The counterintuitive phenomenon is created when a pro2 years ago Read more -
Blog postAll my designs are available as jigsaw puzzles. Perfect Christmas presents.
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Blog postFifteen new designs just proofed (printed in Germany) and up for sale on my shop. They include VIRAL OCEAN CHRISTMAS and GREEN ROOM and another QUALIA design.
2 years ago Read more -
Blog post
Another in my series of wave animations. This is also in UHD (4K) and you can watch it at full size from this blog by clicking the video expand button.
Generalised animation of the increase in frequency observed in waves emitted from an approaching source (or conversely a decrease in frequency in waves emitted from a receding source). This Doppler Shift happens in sound waves (e.g. a siren of an approaching emergency vehicle or the change in pitch of a passing car engine2 years ago Read more -
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Generalised animation of a moving wave source travelling at the same speed as the waves. An example would be an aircraft travelling at the speed of sound (Mach 1). The waves expand outwards at the same speed as the object moves and concertina together at the front of the object. This assembling wall of compression that cannot escape is called the sound barrier in the case of aircraft. If the plane exceeds the speed of sound it breaks through the sound barrier and becomes supers2 years ago Read more -
Blog postYou can watch this video at UHD (4K) filling your screen by clicking the expand button. Brand new animation of the increase in frequency observed in waves emitted from an approaching source (or conversely a decrease in frequency in waves emitted from a receding source). Happens in sound waves (e.g. a siren of an approaching emergency vehicle or the change in pitch of a passing car engine) and in light waves (the red Doppler shift of a receding star or the blue Doppler shift of an approaching2 years ago Read more
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Blog postI discovered Bob Shaw after picking up an ageing paperback of The Two Timers. I was looking for something to read late one night and I came across the yellowed book hidden in a bookcase. I'd always hoped to discover something magnificent, and this was it. It was like finding a hidden room in my own house. Two nights ago, I finished Night Walk, and before that, Dagger of the Mind. Plus a couple of short story collections. They're slightly dated but dated to that nostalgic time when I was growi2 years ago Read more
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Blog postWith all this excitement going on about water ice on the moon, and a new lunar age dawning, sit back and watch this re-vamped animation showing the phases of the moon:
Simplified, mechanical-style animation of the Moon orbiting the Earth showing the phases of the moon.
THE MOON varies in appearance throughout the lunar month as it orbits the Earth. This animation shows in a very simplified form how the sunlight (coming from lower right) shines on the Earth (bluish-white) an2 years ago Read more
Titles By Russell Kightley
Yesterday Makers: A Story from a Time Machine
Jul 24, 2016
$3.50
Paxton wants vengeance, and his time ship—which he barely understands—can give it to him. And all without the paradoxes. But there's less to Paxton’s world than he realises—much less. Pierce is Paxton’s mentor. Pierce is smart and charismatic and highly evolved, but he can’t help Paxton. And Pierce has bigger fish to fry. A creative act—a weird collaboration between a woman and a machine—underpins everything. But everything has a cost...
Multi-layered time travel that undermines your reality...
Multi-layered time travel that undermines your reality...
Other Formats:
Paperback
Time Aerials: A Time Travel Diversion
Jun 21, 2015
$4.50
A dying man's life flashes past as science fiction stories created by his panicked brain. Trying to make sense of its imminent demise, the brain spins tales of monster flies, and time machines, and weird factories, and a library of unreachable books. As it fights to stay in the past, forever circling its final moments, the dementing organ casts itself as The Great Mind, a god-like entity at the end of time. This Sum of the Dead resets a repeatedly breaking universe, trying to put things right. The Time Aerials are its own tree-like brain cells whose fractal branches leak into time and create consciousness itself. But the brain, like all artists, leaves clues and conceits and signatures hidden in plain sight...
This is metafiction and the brain’s an unreliable narrator. Perhaps the book’s an instruction manual, maybe one of many...
This is metafiction and the brain’s an unreliable narrator. Perhaps the book’s an instruction manual, maybe one of many...
Other Formats:
Paperback
RETRO VIRION: A Tale of Lunacy & Loss
Apr 21, 2021
$2.99
A man spirals into madness, believing he's in touch with prehistoric animals, the unborn, and the dead. The world around him teeters on a knife-edge, threatened by a nightmare virus that destroys everything in its path. The unreliable narrator, who's immune to the plague, takes you on a journey into the broken heart of existence, to a fractured consciousness as big as the universe itself, and as small as one man's mind. But is he really mad or is he right? Or is he the hallucinating survivor of a devastating pandemic?
Café Street & Other Stories
Dec 21, 2020
$0.99
An unimportant man chats to his television. The best-laid plans for a green and vegan world go wrong. A man wakes up as a woman, or so he thinks. A busy street becomes an eerie café. A plague party with neighbours. A bad-news addict, a doomscroller, gets his comeuppance. And a grandfather writes a book in code. But who's it really for? Sit in Café Street and sip the heady brew. But hurry up. You don't have long.
Global Replace & Other Stories
Jan 13, 2020
$0.99
Two wives share a house divided. A writer creates a sexy new partner. A backseat driver's trapped. A devilish elevator runs out of floors. And clothes control the man. Short, sharp jabs into your mind. Philosophical sci-fi quick reads.
$3.50
Qualia is an elderly widow, dying alone in her bedroom. Suddenly, she’s a young housewife in a psychiatrist’s office, explaining how she’s hearing voices in the walls of her house—and how her husband, Pierce, is ignoring her. There’s something wrong with her world. She’s given a slender book of clues, and a little dog full of surprises by two complete strangers. No one wants to take her money except for her disbelieving psychiatrist—and Pierce pays for him. Did Pierce write the book to drive her mad? Is her doctor gaslighting her? Can she trust anyone except the talking walls? Bit by bit, she peels open the mystery. Then it’s Pierce’s turn…
The metafictional love child of TIME AERIALS and YESTERDAY MAKERS, this novel takes you down a rabbit hole of nested realities, perversions, illusions, and time travel. Marriage therapy has never been so expensive or weird or twisted. But it’s a bumpy ride to awareness.
The metafictional love child of TIME AERIALS and YESTERDAY MAKERS, this novel takes you down a rabbit hole of nested realities, perversions, illusions, and time travel. Marriage therapy has never been so expensive or weird or twisted. But it’s a bumpy ride to awareness.
Ecstatic Automata
Sep 20, 2015
$0.99
Jessica stared at the advert:
Conscious male seeks conscious female for conversation.
The words jumped out at her. They always did. The ad never changed. It was bait dangling in the river. And one day she would bite.
The player enters a simulated war game. He plays at new love. But others have eyes on his toys...
Conscious male seeks conscious female for conversation.
The words jumped out at her. They always did. The ad never changed. It was bait dangling in the river. And one day she would bite.
The player enters a simulated war game. He plays at new love. But others have eyes on his toys...
Lethe's Road
Aug 30, 2015
$2.99
Would you know if you’d shifted to another universe, or even to another body? A new word appears, and a new life opens. And you ask yourself, “How long have I been here?”
Lethe's Road is a cozy, psychological story, with a dash of time travel, set in an altered Canberra, in a hot, Australian summer. A small family notices a subtle change in their world. Then the journey begins…
Lethe's Road is a cozy, psychological story, with a dash of time travel, set in an altered Canberra, in a hot, Australian summer. A small family notices a subtle change in their world. Then the journey begins…