Ray Nayler’s beautiful novella, The Tusks of Extinction, focuses on a handful of very different characters whose lives converge on a hunting expedition in the Russian taiga at least a century in the future. That convergence manages to speak volumes about human nature, greed, memory, family bonds, the connection of living things to the earth […]
Otherlands and More Science Books for Science Fiction Readers
Here are three excellent books about science that I’ve found helpful for updating ideas about the origins of life, the nature of the mind and the vanished worlds of extinct creatures and environments that preceded our present precarious moment. Otherlands: A Journey Through Earth’s Extinct Worlds by Thomas Halliday is one of the most extraordinary […]
Octavia E. Butler’s Xenogenesis Trilogy: A New Species Emerges
Prepare for a deep dive into the most intimate details of human-alien contact in Octavia E. Butler’s Xenogenesis trilogy. Step by step she takes you through the initial encounters between a human, Lilith Iyapo, and her Oankali captors (Dawn), the coming of age of a construct resulting from this union (Adulthood Rites) and the reconciliation […]
