Tade Thompson, a psychiatrist who is also a prolific writer, has created an original interpretation of a classic science fiction theme in his Rosewater, the opening novel in the Wormwood trilogy – that of first contact on earth as alien cells enter human minds across the world. An alien mass hits the earth in Hyde […]
Understanding the Alien in Eden by Stanisław Lem
Is understanding the alien even possible for the human mind? That is the question posed by Stanisław Lem‘s Eden, a 1958 novel translated by Marc E. Heine for publication in English in 1989. And has anyone ever had a more exuberant imagination than this great Polish writer in presenting baffling alien civilizations for humans to […]
Human Connection in The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez
Simon Jimenez‘ The Vanished Birds is an amazing novel that takes you from humble beginnings on an agrarian planet across thousand-year time spans, multiple worlds, journeys through folded space, then by instant travel into mysterious dimensions beyond time and normal reality into the depths of human connection. It offers powerful and lyrical testament to the […]
Communicating Feelings in Samuel R. Delany’s Babel-17
I’ve never felt so close to a brilliant mind playing with the possibilities of language and the difficulty of communicating feelings as I have when reading Samuel R. Delany’s Babel-17. Of course, this SFF adventure from the early 1960s is all about language, the mysterious one named in its title. It’s up to Rydra Wong, […]
Pushing the Boundaries of Mind: Science Books for SFF Readers – 3
One of the reasons I’m drawn to science fiction is to see how writers explore boundaries of mind and consciousness. I mean not just the sort of psychic powers that were popular to write about 40 or 50 years ago (or superheroes today) but testing the limits of human consciousness. While sff fiction uses standard […]
A Diné Antihero in the Sixth World Series by Rebecca Roanhorse
Rebecca Roanhorse’s two book series, The Sixth World, is at once a brilliant evocation of the Diné homeland and a strong character study of a young woman who feels stranded between the worlds of human and immortal. She is an antihero at once reveling in and resisting her supernatural powers. Trail of Lightning and Storm […]
The Dystopian Lawyer Series by Christopher Brown
Christopher Brown’s two-book set (Rule of Capture and Failed State) about his hapless yet strangely effective dystopian lawyer, Donnie Kimoe, may come too close to our dystopian present for comfort, but they also shine with ideas about a better way to envision the future. As he put it in a recent essay in Literary Hub: […]
Multiple Worlds in Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Doors of Eden
Prepare for a wild ride through multiple worlds and fracturing reality in Adrian Tchaikovsky’s latest riveting novel, The Doors of Eden. The winning characters of this fantastic science fiction universe never know when a sudden drop in temperature signals a break in reality through which will pour creatures of one alternate earth or another. Sometimes […]
