An anthology of authentic and realistic hard science fiction
I was watching Smiley-seque BBC2 drama Page Eight last night, which bases its plot on the notion that the prime minister was aware of the US practice of covertly torturing people, and it occurred to me it was a story driven by moral outrage. This is not something that’s typically in short supply. Just look [...]
Filed under: science fiction | 1 Comment »
Earlier this week, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and US publisher Tor/Forge issued a press release announcing they would work together to develop and publish “NASA-inspired works of fiction”. Or, as the release put it, they would work together on “a series of science based, commercial fiction books … around concepts pertinent to the current [...]
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You’ve seen the Hugo Award results, you’ve seen the Not the Booker Award the Guardian runs each year. Obviously, a Not the Hugo Award should be done before the Worldcon hands out its shiny pointy rockets, but… I refuse to accept that Blackout / All Clear is the best genre novel(s) published in the US [...]
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So the Hugo results are in and… ho-hum. The Hugo Award for The Nicest Person Who Happened To Have A Novel Published In The Preceding Year went to Connie Willis for a novel so bloated it had to be published in two volumes. But that’s okay, because the nice people in charge of the award [...]
Filed under: 2011 hugo award, fantasy, science fiction | 8 Comments »
After missing the last two Bloodstock Open Air music festivals, we were determined to make it this year, and planned accordingly. Although ostensibly running from Friday 12 August to Sunday 14 August, the campsite opened the day before – as did one of the bars and one of the stages – so we decided to [...]
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As promised, during July I limited my reading to only books written by women. A dozen, in fact, which is about average for me; as are the subjects covered – science fiction, mainstream, crime, space, and autobiography. The Year of Our War, Steph Swainston (2004), was June’s book for my reading challenge, though I didn’t [...]
Filed under: books, readings & watchings 2011, women in sf | Tagged: hanan al-shaykh, jan morris, jay d blakeney, kelley eskridge, lauren beukes, lyda morehouse, margaret atwood, mary roach, phyllis ellis, steph swainston, sydney j van scyoc, zoë ferraris | Leave a Comment »
Lists, lists, lists, lists. Everyone likes lists. NPR are doing one here. They have cunningly called it a “Top-100 Science Fiction, Fantasy Titles”, which can mean either favourite or best. First they asked people to nominate titles. Then they asked Giant SF Brains Gary K Wolfe, Farah Mendlesohn and John Clute to whittle down those [...]
Filed under: book list, fantasy, science fiction | 8 Comments »
This month’s VideoVista is now up, with my review of Fritz Lang twisty-turny thriller Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (see here) and French historical drama La veuve de Saint-Pierre (review here).
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… that Rocket Science is now open for submissions? See here. Guidelines are here.
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I had originally picked Beukes’ Moxyland as one of my twelve books for this year’s reading challenge, but then I met the author at the Eastercon back in April, and Zoo City won the Arthur C Clarke Award… So I swapped one out for the other, even though the latter says on the back, “File [...]
Filed under: 2011 reading challenge, book review, lauren beukes, science fiction, women in sf | 6 Comments »
