Mar 08
A hopeful Atompunk depiction of the Space Age from the early 1960s complete with revolving space station and a family of astronauts with jetpacks. Now the early 1960s were likely as sexist as America ever got, and very very firmly into gender roles — boy child has a blue spacesuit, and girl child a pink …
Mar 07
Exhalation by Ted Chiang Alfred A. Knopf, 2019 Ted Chiang is a SFF writer who’s been around for a while but has yet to produce a novel. This collection came out in the early days of 2020 and features his work up to 2019. I checked it out of the Seattle Public Library a …
Mar 04
Atompunk: A retro-futuristic aesthetic centered around the technology of the 1950s extended into the 21st century and beyond. It often depicts “traditionally American” values such as the nuclear family and a suburban lifestyle; conversely, the totalitarian regimes of Communist Russia and its satellites with their emphasis on technological power. I define its heyday as the …
Feb 20
Blackfish City by Sam J. Miller Ecco, 2018 Look at this cover. Isn’t this one of coolest book covers you’ve ever seen? The black background, the red, white, and blue neon tubes, the circular orca logo surmounted by an Inuit hunter, done in a style harkening to NW Coast Indian art… now this promises excitement! …
Feb 01
One of the things I enjoy about vintage SFF illustrations is how it’s possible to pinpoint the time in which they were painted by how they depict hairstyles, clothing, and other elements. Take the image above. The woman has a fashionable hairdo like that of the Moonbase girls on the Gerry Anderson series UFO (1970) …
Dec 30
A selection of randomly generated SFF novel titles that appeared in my Twitter feed 2017 – 2020. Any one of them would make a fine book. SF, Fantasy, and Steampunk Novels Rebellion’s Acolyte Shadows of Stinging Grass Dowsing the Dragon Harry Potter and the Brawler of Blackworth Harry Potter and the Assassin’s Blade A …
Nov 23
I was going to post this as “The Worst Science Fiction Paperbook Book Cover Ever” and let it stand, but then I noticed its resemblance to this seminal Pop Art collage by British artist Richard Hamilton. The palette is the same, the sense of clutteredness, the busyness of the composition. Both have a white, male …
Nov 09
In 2011 we should have been wearing jumpsuits and whizzing up and down spiral ramps to airports in the sky. Jeez, what went wrong?
Sep 03
Charn is my favorite Lewisian creation … more than Aslan, more than Narnia itself. No other place in fantasy embodies such grandeur, sinisterness, and decadence … which is quite the accomplishment, as Lewis only gives hints of it. Jadis herself says, in a reflective moment: I have stood here when the whole air was full …
May 06
I’ve always considered Dune and its many sequels more science fantasy than science fiction. Sure, there’s starships and other planets, not to mention sandworm biology, but there’s also a Catholic-like sisterhood with sinister mind powers, swordfights, a Chosen One trope, and a feudal society with emperors, princesses, and dukes. Herbert cribbed a lot from human …