Science, History, and Fiction in Everyday Life
The Forever War (1974) by Joe Haldeman is a military science fiction novel, telling the story of William Mandella, a soldier of the United Nations Exploratory Force that fights an interstellar war against the alien Taurans. Widely believed to be…
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Steel Beach (1993) by John Varley, is a sci-fi novel where humans now live on the Moon after an alien invasion. Steel Beach, this is the name of the colony, is a sort of utopian, free-love society run by a…
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Spin (2005) by Robert Charles Wilson, describes a future Earth that a race of powerful aliens, the Hypotheticals, have put in protective cocoon – the so-called spin membrane – that shelters but also isolates it from the rest of a…
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The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate (2007) by Ted Chiang, follows a fabric merchant of the ancient city of Baghdad that one day discovers gateways to travel to the future and the past. An original take of a well-known SF…
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Ender’s Game (1985) by Orson Scott Card is a military SF novel, and one of the most famous books of this genre, with sequels, comics and even a recent movie adaptation. A future Earth faces the menace of an insect-like…
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Friday 1 August was the last useful day to vote for the 2014 Hugo Awards and now, finally done with them, I must admit I was not able to read the whole bunch. Too many things, too little time. Some reviewers…
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A visionary and ironic melange of comedy and SF, Equoid (2013) is a brilliant example of Charles Stross’ prose and a stand-alone novella in his Laundry series. It features a field agent working for British government agency “the Laundry”, in…
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Neuromancer is a 1984 novel by William Gibson, and the first in the cyberpunk genre. Also the first book to win the so-called SF “triple crown” — the Nebula Award, the Philip K. Dick Award, and the prestigious…
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The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) by Ursula K. Le Guin, is the first, famous example of feminist science fiction. Also well-known for the first coherent representation of a genderless society in SF. Being the daughter of the famous anthropologist…
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Countdown (2011) by Mira Grant / Seanan McGuire is a novella part of the Newsflesh trilogy and the prequel of the famous novel Feed, one of the most innovative zombies stories. It’s summer 2014, and two genetically modified viruses escape the…
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