Science, History, and Fiction in Everyday Life
The Dervish House (2010) by Ian McDonald is near-future science fiction/ thriller novel. It follows, through alternate character perspectives, a bus bombing incident in Istanbul. Dark, at times cynical, absolutely fascinating, it was shortlisted for a series of awards (…
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There’s still about one month or so left to nominate people/zines for the Hugo Awards (and the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, incidentally) – the awards themselves will be awarded at the next Worldcon – MidAmeriConII –…
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The Sirens of Titan (1959) by Kurt Vonnegut is a SF novel portraying a Martian invasion of Earth. Its main theme is free will, and the possibility for humanity of ever achieving it – a constant issue in Vonnegut’s work and…
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After all the controversies and the issues of this year’s Hugo Award, it’s sort of a miracle that things went not so bad, after all. Voting has been massive, and this is a great thing, no matter where people stand…
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This year voting for the Hugos has been painful, for a series of reasons – not least because of the so-called Puppygate that has ravaged the web in the last months. The whole story has started to look like House of…
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Leviathan Wakes (2011) is a SF/ space opera by James S. A. Corey – i.e. the pen name of Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck. It is also the first instalment in the Expanse series, followed by Caliban’s War, Abaddon’s Gate,…
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Brasyl (2007) is a novel by Ian McDonald. It portrays an original SF thriller set on three different timelines – i.e. Brazil at different moments of its history: past, present and a dystopian future. Dark, compelling and politically engaged, it…
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The City & the City (2009) is a weird fiction novel by the British author China Mieville and based on the investigation of a mysterious murder. Brilliant, compelling and vaguely hallucinatory, it combines many cultural influences, Borges, Robbe-Grillet and Calvino…
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If you had the impression by following the twitter feed of Dysprosium/ Eastercon 2015 (i.e. the Eastercon SF convention in the UK where, among others, the announcement of the Hugo nominations are given) that this year things have flamed out…
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Parasite (2013) by Mira Grant/ Seanan McGuire is an interesting blend of techno-thriller, horror and SF. It features a near-future humanity made virtually disease-free by a gentle, genetically engineered parasite living symbiotically with its human hosts. It’s easy to figure…
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