When I was a kid, teachers told us that we couldn’t use calculators on tests because when we were older, we obviously wouldn’t be carrying calculators around with us everywhere.
I wonder what we’ll be carrying around with us in another forty years or so. Continue reading
I’m a big fan of Alastair Reynold’s earlier books like Revelation Space. I didn’t like Terminal World, his foray into steampunk, and unfortunately, I had a similar reaction to Revenger. Continue reading
The best thing I can say about 2020 is that it’s going to end at some point.
Fortunately, there are many truly excellent science fiction books published this year to both distract and illuminate us. It’s a nice variety of stories, including deep weirdness, space-opera goodness, diverse authors, and a few laughs.
Dive in. Continue reading
A good anthology can stretch your mind in a way that a singe novel can’t. You’ll have to plow through the occasional clunky story, but these books will also expand your sense of what science fiction can be. Continue reading
Detective fiction in the English-speaking world is considered to have begun in 1841 with the publication of Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” and have been extremely popular ever since, showing up in every single literary genre. Continue reading
Possibly the best monster invention of the past century, zombies, well, refuse to die.
Since most zombie stories give them non-magical origins, I’m stretching the definition of science fiction to put them in this list. But more importantly, they’re just fun stories. Continue reading
By 1845, a growing number of stories that featured scientific writing had emerged, leading critics to call this new genre “scientific romance.” Today, of course, we simply call it science fiction. Continue reading
With the coronavirus changing the world, at least in the short term, it also seems that climate change will do the same in the long term. If we can’t get people to do something simple like wearing masks, how can we get corporations and governments to stop nudging the planet in Venus-like directions? Continue reading
Sometimes a book comes along, and science fiction is changed forever afterwards. Here are some of those books. Continue reading
Science fiction authors often use pen names to sell more books or protect their non-literary reputations (which often end up paling in comparison to their literary reputations). Continue reading