Tag: Science fiction
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Recommended Reading: What Makes This Book So Great
What Makes This Book So Great is a compendium of blog posts about Jo Walton’s rereads of books, not necessarily all science fiction and fantasy. These are blog posts originally published on Tor.com, so they are short, breezy, and quick to read. Walton is such a prodigious reader, averaging a book or more a day (I wonder…
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New blog: Sci Femme
I’ve resurrected an old idea of mine, which is to read science fiction about women and blog about it. I call the blog Sci Femme, and I hope to use it as a forum for longer-form essays about themes and trends in science fiction written by women. I’ll be looking at both new and classic…
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A survey of classic science fiction, with notes about diversity in sci-fi…
At some point, I set out to read a representative sample of all the “great” writers of science fiction, so I could feel reasonably well-educated in the genre. If you haven’t read a lot of science fiction, I recommend this exercise. It provides a grounding so you can learn where the well-worn tropes originated and appreciate…
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Watch out, that writer’s taking an info-dump!
This is another entry in my ongoing series identifying common problems in self-published novels. As a writer, you’ve got a terrific idea for an alien planet, a fantasy world or a dystopian future. You’ve worked out all the details, and you just know that no other writer has come up with something this creative or…
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More book reviews! Science fiction by women…
I was pleased to contribute three of my book reviews to SF Mistressworks, a blog devoted to reviewing science fiction written by women and published during the 20th century. The reviews: A Gift Upon the Shore by M.K. Wren The Eye of the Heron by Ursula K. Le Guin Where Late the Sweet Birds Sing…
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Recommended science fiction reading for people who don’t like science fiction
I am a great fan of science fiction. I have been reading it all my life, and I read across the spectrum of the genre, from the very soft to the very hard. I enjoy it all, as long as it’s well written. But I realize that science fiction is not for everyone. Some people…
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Frankenstein: The first science fiction novel?
I had admired the perfect form of my cottagers- their grace, beauty, and delicate complexions: but how was I terrified when I viewed myself in a transparent pool . . . and when I was convinced that I was in reality the monster that I am I was filled with the bitterest sensations of despondence…
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Science fiction is my mythology…
A post about why I love science fiction so much in all its forms over on my book reviews blog.
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I recommend some great reads about immortality
Not too long ago, I wrote a post on one of my other blogs musing about our eternal quest to live longer, preferably forever. While the search for the secret to immortality probably goes back to when we first figured out the whole death thing, and once took the form of such magical interventions as…
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Hell is repetition: The theme of cycles in science fiction
Recently, I have become fascinated with the notion of cycles. We humans tend to regard everything linearly, with a beginning and an end, because that is our individual experience. But taking a wider view, we can see that events tend to happen in cycles, that an end leads inexorably to another beginning. It’s easiest to…
Shannon Turlington 