We have all been dazzled by the artists’ visions of great cities in science fiction movies, like Metropolis, Things to Come, Blade Runner, The Fifth Element, the cities of Star Wars, Trantor in the TV series Foundation or the glimpses we’ve had of Gallifrey in the later Doctor Who stories. But I’m more interested in […]
My Favorite 2021 Locus Recommendations
As a fan and amateur writer who doesn’t go to conferences, there are few awards I get to vote for, so I’m happy to see several of my favorites on the Locus 2021 recommendations long list. As a subscriber to this venerable magazine, I can actually participate and sent in my ballot as soon as […]
Goliath by Tochi Onyebuchi – A Review
Just as I was wending my way through various fantasy worlds, Goliath by Tochi Onyebuchi slammed me back into a near future that is just a little bit removed from the ugly realities of today. Onyebuchi’s novella Riot Baby may have been a great outcry of pain, told in powerful prose, but Goliath is a […]
Servant Mage by Kate Elliott – A Review
In a recent interview at Before We Go Blog, Ken Liu mentions Kate Elliott as one of the very best fantasy writers of today and Servant Mage, this gem of a short novel, reveals Elliott as a master story-teller. Servant Mage tells the story of a young woman raised in servitude and taught to despise […]
The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin – A Review for #VintageSciFiMonth
For me, Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed is a treasure — along with The Left Hand of Darkness and The Lathe of Heaven, I think, her finest work in science fiction. It brings together so many of her themes in a complex story that is beautifully written and deeply engaging. Themes like coming home, […]
The End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov – A Review for #VintageSciFiMonth
Isaac Asimov’s The End of Eternity combines ideas about time travel with a questioning of the direction humanity could or should take over millions of years. However, the big issues about society, the development of humanity and the nature of Eternity are left to the end when a powerful turnabout occurs where expectations and assumptions […]
We by Yevgeny Zamyatin – A Review for #VintageSciFiMonth
Ursula K. Le Guin wrote that Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We was the greatest science fiction novel that had yet been written. I’m not as well-read as she was, but We, so influential on later books like Brave New World and 1984, is definitely the greatest one in my experience. From the beginning, its narrator, known like […]
Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick – A Review for #VintageSciFiMonth
Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick drew me in with one tightly written, deeply engaging scene after another. And like so many of Dick’s novels, it turns the protagonist’s life upside down and inside out in the first couple of chapters. It’s a must-read for any fan of Dick’s fiction. The […]
