"Kingsley Amis did in his 1960 critical study New Maps of Hell. Amis contended that science fiction, like jazz, developed a self-aware identity in the second and third decades of the twentieth century, attracted a knowledgeable and devoted following largely of younger fans, and gained new levels of imaginative and stylistic sophistication in the 1940s...By … Continue reading American Science Fiction, Classic Novels of the 1950’s
Tag: science fiction
Silurian Stories
I have a idea for a series of stories exploring the Silurian Hypothesis as recurrent history, where we discover previous industrial civilizations on earth, and are in turn discovered by the industrial civilization after ours, possibly after some minor colonization of the solar system but where climate change catastrophe cuts the sustainability of human settlements … Continue reading Silurian Stories
Lordess Foudre
"Be yourself or someone else will." —http://lordess.io/ Enjoying Lordess Foudre's art. Figured it warrants an add to my bookmarks.
Watching Babylon 5 in 2018
Note: I've tried to avoid any spoilers, which significantly limits this discussion. In June 2018, Babylon 5 became available on Amazon Prime. On Amazon Prime, the series starts with The Gathering, which is a 2 hour pilot that lays out the narrative framework with different actors from the main series. Then, it's 5 seasons of … Continue reading Watching Babylon 5 in 2018
Greg Egan and the Permutation Problem
"Then on September 26 of this year, the mathematician John Baez of the University of California, Riverside, posted on Twitter about Houston’s 2014 finding, as part of a series of tweets about apparent mathematical patterns that fail. His tweet caught the eye of Egan, who was a mathematics major decades ago, before he launched an … Continue reading Greg Egan and the Permutation Problem
Exploring the Future Beyond Cyberpunk’s Neon and Noir
Discussion of nine current subgenres in science fiction: Chinese Sci-Fi, Afrofuturism, Gulf futurism, Climate Fiction (Cli-Fi), Solar Punk, Water Crisis Thrillers, Kitchen Sink Dystopia, Woke Space Opera, and The New Weird. Each category has three book suggestions. Of the suggestions I've read (which are very few), I've liked Ann Leckie's Ancillary trilogy and everything by … Continue reading Exploring the Future Beyond Cyberpunk’s Neon and Noir
The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction
"Of all the things you can read on the internet, The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction is one of the only good ones. In perpetual conversation with itself, ever growing and expanding—perhaps threatening, in its accumulated obsessions, to become self-aware—this index of the fantastic documents possible pasts and futures alike." —M.H. Rowe. "The Encyclopedia of Science … Continue reading The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction
After Atlas, Malthus Shrugged
"In 2014 I was visiting a university in Alaska, and happened to sit in on a lecture by the Norwegian policy expert Willy Ostreng about the new geopolitics of the Arctic. After talking about climate change in the Arctic and the increased accessibility to oil and gas, he embarked on a detailed elucidation of the … Continue reading After Atlas, Malthus Shrugged
Clark Ashton Smith
"While Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Joyce, Stein, H. D., and Stevens explored new ways to map human experience and interior-reflection, Smith abandoned any belief that human dreams, history, and character concealed any deep meaning at all. Instead he boldly marched off into his fantastic, improbable visions of a far-future earth populated by dueling necromancers, kings crowned with … Continue reading Clark Ashton Smith
Eclipse Phase
Eclipse Phase is a transhumanist, science fiction roleplaying game with anarchist tendencies. The second edition is currently in open play test (read: free) on Drivethrurpg.com. In an interview, Rob Boyle, one of the creators of the game, describes how politics can drive story and serve up critiques of technology. I particularly liked this quote: "[There is a] … Continue reading Eclipse Phase
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