Science, History, and Fiction in Everyday Life
There are not a lot of things in space cooler than planets, and Saturn can rightly claim the crown for the coolest one (I personally prefer Uranus, but I’m a minority opinion). And since Cassini reached Saturn’s orbit in 2004, we’ve been…
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I Am Legend (1954) by Richard Matheson is one of the most influential books written in speculative fiction. It is a SF/horror novel, featuring humans turned into vampires by a virus, and following the story of the only survivor to…
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This is a guest review on Space Pirate Captain Harlock – 宇宙海賊キャプテンハーロック (2013) – the latest movie of the manga/anime created by Leiji Matsumoto in the 70s. Some background of the original series can be found here, but previous knowledge is not necessarily…
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After 10 years of travel, ESA spacecraft Rosetta yesterday reached her target, becoming the first probe to ever orbit a comet. Look at the incredible achievement in these snapshots and videos. The official name of the celestial body is Comet Churyumov–Gerasimenko,…
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Raft (1993) by Stephen Baxter, tells the story of a few thousand humans in an increasing hostile environment, located in an alternate, high-gravity universe. They are divided in classes, they fight against each other, and they have eventually to leave in…
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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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We all know by now that, differently from what SF movies led us to believe, you can’t hear a sound in space. Therefore no spectacular Star Wars kind of explosions, which rather respond to the Rule of Cool than to astrophysics….
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The Day of the Triffids (1951) by John Wyndham is a post-apocalyptic, sci-fi horror novel where mankind, with the exception of the protagonist, Bill Masen, has been blinded by a mysterious meteor shower. To make things worse, the world is…
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Keeping on the exoplanet series, after the general introduction and the presentation of the oldest one (so far) discovered, today I am going to address another interesting characteristic: distance. Distance matters, no discussion about it. I have already mentioned the importance of the…
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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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