Content note: Minor spoilers.I'm behind on movies, but I'm trying to catch up on the ones I missed when they were in theaters. The 2016 film I most wanted to see was Arrival, and it was worth the wait.Arrival is a first contact sci-fi story, based on Ted Chiang's novella "Story of Your Life". It begins with twelve huge ovoid spaceships appearing silently, simultaneously, at twelve locations across the Earth. Every eighteen hours, a hatch opens in each of the ships, and the human beings … [Read more...]
A Fireside Chat with the Tempter
October 31, 2016 by Leave a Comment
It was a chilly autumn night, and I was up late in my study. In the hearth, a bright blaze of logs had long since crumbled into glowing coals, filling the room with warmth. Outside, an orange harvest moon hung low over dark treetops, and jack-o-lanterns hid among the tangled stubble of the garden path, their grinning faces reflected in the dark glass of the window.My thoughts were growing heavy, turning pleasurably to sleep, when I was roused by a sudden, sharp rapping at the door. The … [Read more...]
Dark Heart Now Available For Free!
October 31, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Happy Halloween!Because it's the season for tricks and treats, I've got one to offer. For a brief time only, I'm making my first novel, DARK HEART, available for free (update - see below). It's a fantasy epic set in a world where mortals rose up, overthrew the old gods and took their places, only to find that divinity isn't all they dreamed it would be. If you haven't read it yet, now's the opportunity you've been waiting for!Here's the capsule summary:Three gods rule the world … [Read more...]
Movie Review: The Martian
October 26, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Content note: Contains some spoilers.It says something about our era that so many of the most popular movies and TV shows are grim, depressing stories of disaster and dystopia. Is it a reflection of the popular mood? A sign that we've lost hope in ourselves and our ability to achieve great things? Why are there so few works of culture which make us feel optimistic, which tell us that better days are ahead?This weekend, I saw a movie that's a welcome exception to that gloomy trend: Ridley … [Read more...]
SF/F Saturday: The Culture
October 10, 2015 by Leave a Comment
For all its virtues, Star Trek was a series that often failed to do justice to its own ideas. We're told that Starfleet is just one small part of a vast, advanced utopian civilization, but that means that the settings and characters of the various TV shows were atypical representatives of the Federation. We only ever saw brief glimpses of what ordinary life in such a society would be like.Iain M. Banks, who died tragically early in 2013, did better with his Culture sci-fi series. Like the … [Read more...]
SF/F Saturday: The Half-Made World
July 25, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Something I've often wondered is why so many great or classic fantasy stories are set in a real or fictionalized Europe. Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, C.S. Lewis' Narnia series, Robert E. Howard's Conan series, Terry Pratchett's Discworld, The Wheel of Time, A Song of Ice and Fire, Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell... the list goes on and on. And it can't just be chalked up to European fantasy authors being more popular, since some of the authors of these … [Read more...]
Atlas Shrugged: The Cobra Commander Dialogues
April 25, 2015 by Leave a Comment
If you've been reading the comments on my Atlas Shrugged posts, you've probably seen the hilarious "Cobra Commander" dialogues written by commenter and jet-setting billionaire playboy author Sneezeguard (that's how he requested to be credited).In it, the fictional evil overlord inserts himself into the plot of Atlas Shrugged, accompanying the characters and trying to comprehend the difference between Rand's heroes and villains, and learns for himself that even evil has standards.I've … [Read more...]
SF/F Sunday: Goodnight Stars
April 20, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Earlier this week, I posted about the "Sad Puppies'" reactionary campaign to hijack the Hugos. I have an addendum to that: two nominated authors, Annie Bellet and Marko Kloos, have announced that they're withdrawing their works from consideration.Both Bellet and Kloos were part of the Sad Puppies' slate, although neither sought out that support. In respective public announcements, they both stated that they don't wish to be associated with the SPs' campaign, nor do they want anyone to harbor … [Read more...]
The Sci-Fi Fans Who Fear Change
April 15, 2015 by Leave a Comment
The Hugos, one of the most prestigious awards for sci-fi and fantasy writing, have been hijacked. After several years in which the awardees had become increasingly diverse, reflecting the broader reach and appeal of SF/F, readers discovered that this year's nominees were dominated by a ballot-stuffing campaign organized by a right-wing faction that calls itself, no joke, the Sad Puppies.The SPs' slate includes works by Vox Day, a.k.a Theodore Beale, a loathsome right-wing polycrank who … [Read more...]
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