Author: Steph P. Bianchini
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See you on Europa
Yes, “on” it is the correct preposition. It’s not the continent I’m talking about; it is the Jupiter’s moon with the same name. Why…
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SF Classics – Blood Music by Greg Bear
Blood Music (1985) by Greg Bear, originally published as a novelette in the SF magazine Analog, portrays the frightening experiment of a biotechnologist who creates…
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Horror Classics – The Fog by James Herbert
I read this novel (to be precise, and oddly enough, in its French edition) long time ago. I don’t remember what I thought at that…
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NaNoWhat? – Options and (Damage) Assessment
A few days ago I received an email from the NaNoWriMo Team kindly informing me that I, proud winner of the 50,000 word-race, am now in…
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All the (Egyptian) names of Rosetta
Not happy with having discovered many of the secrets of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko thanks to the Rosetta mission and its Philae probe, ESA-Rosetta team scientists have…
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SF Classics –The Man in the High Castle by Philip K Dick
The Man in the High Castle (1962) by Philip K Dick is one of the most famous books of alternate history. In this dystopian…
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Book Review – The Lives of Tao, by Wesley Chu
That SF is becoming less anglocentric is an exciting and much-welcomed novelty, and I’m not talking here (just) about language, but also culture and…
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The myth of Planet X
…which is maybe not a myth after all. When I have written some time ago about Nemesis, or the Death Star, in fiction and in…
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Book Review: The Martian – Andy Weir
Reviewing The Martian is not an easy task, for a series of reasons. The most important is that there has been a lot of hype around…
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Classic ghost stories – M. R. James
I am not a great fan of supernatural per se, I have to say, and my favourite horror stories have generally a scientific explanation…
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XXI CENTURY SCI-FI – The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
The Windup Girl (2009) by Paolo Bacigalupi is a SF dystopian / biopunk novel. It’s set in Thailand in the 23rd-century, where powerful biotech…
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The birth and death of space wonders
That things don’t last forever, we all know it. After all, we witness cycles of life and death every day. But there are things…
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Simulating galaxies – an amazing video
Galaxies are one of the most incredible objects in the universe, and they are in continuous evolution. Thanks to the Virgo Consortium for Cosmological Supercomputer Simulations,…
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Solid Bodies in the Solar System – a great map
That xkcd is an amazing website, you already know (and if you don’t, go and have a look at it now! You won’t regret it).…
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SF Classics – Rendezvous with Rama
Rendezvous with Rama (1973) is a novel by Arthur C. Clarke, set in the 2130s in the Solar System. Rama, initially mistaken for an…
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Dangerous visions – a controversial SF anthology
In 1967, Harlan Ellison put together a short-story anthology titled Dangerous Visions. Mildly put, this collection made history and “almost single-handedly [it] changed the…
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From Titan with love
During this Christmas break (still ongoing) I was thinking about the most amazing videos I have watched in 2014, and there are many that qualify in this…
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Black holes are not all the same – A gallery
If there’s a stellar object that’s both scaring and fascinating at the same time is the black hole. Scientists are still debating about what its…
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XXI CENTURY SCI-FI – 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson
2312 (2012) by Kim Stanley Robinson is a SF novel about a (relatively) near future of interplanetary colonisation. Humanity has spread across the whole Solar…
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Interview to Ken Liu, on Amazing Stories
An interview to Ken Liu, the SF Chinese-American writer, author of some excellent short stories (published on F&SF, Asimov’s, Analog, Lightspeed, Clarkesworld among others)…
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One year of blogging
Today is my first birthday as a blogger. The Earthian Hivemind was online first on December, 16 2013, just giving a flash report on…
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SF Classics – The Drowned World by J. G. Ballard
The Drowned World (1962) is a SF novel by J. G. Ballard, an author that has written in other literary genres and became especially famous…
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2014: a year of (awesome) space missions
2014 will be a year to remember for space missions. No matter what achievements are awaiting us in the future (hopefully plenty), the last 12…
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Science in SF – Articles for Amazing Stories
In addition to astrophysics and space exploration, I do also write articles about another of my favourite subjects, science in science-fiction, on this blog and…