Tag: sci-fi
Book Review: The Big Front Yard by Clifford D. Simak
The Big Front Yard by Clifford D. Simak My rating: 4 of 5 stars Read for the 12 in 12 Challenge and the Big Fun in a Little Package Novella Challenge. This story won the 1959 Hugo Award for Best Novelette. This story is a fun speculation about what happens when ordinary folks in a […]
Read More Book Review: The Big Front Yard by Clifford D. SimakThe History of Cultural Groups in the Wyrd West
This essay details the history of various cultural groups in the Wyrd West, and how and why they developed the way that they did. With the fluctuating, and often regional, changes in physics after the Cataclysm, a lot of modern technology that we take for granted in today’s world were rendered useless; or, worse, dangerously […]
Read More The History of Cultural Groups in the Wyrd WestStory Review: The Star by Arthur C. Clarke
The Star by Arthur C. Clarke My rating: 4 of 5 stars Read for the 12 in 12 Challenge. This story won the 1956 Hugo for Best Short Story. This, along with A Case of Conscience by James Blish, is a story from a similar period in which the author confronts the apparent opposition of […]
Read More Story Review: The Star by Arthur C. ClarkeBacteria Eats Heavy Metals, Excretes Gold Nuggets
By Michael Irving If the goose that laid the golden egg had a real-life counterpart, it would be C. metallidurans. This hardy little bacterium consumes toxic metals and excretes tiny gold nuggets, but how and why it does so has never been fully understood. Now, German and Australian researchers have peered inside the microorganism and figured […]
Read More Bacteria Eats Heavy Metals, Excretes Gold NuggetsBook Review: Enemy Mine by Barry B. Longyear
Enemy Mine by Barry B. Longyear My rating: 5 of 5 stars Read for the 12 in 12 Challenge and the Big Fun in a Little Package Novella Challenge. This book won the 1979 Nebula and 1980 Hugo and Locus Awards for Best Novella. I saw the movie many years ago. In the days of […]
Read More Book Review: Enemy Mine by Barry B. LongyearBook Review: The Bicentennial Man by Isaac Asimov
The Bicentennial Man by Isaac Asimov My rating: 5 of 5 stars Read for the 12 in 12 Challenge, and the Big Fun in a Little Package Novella Challenge. This story won the 1977 Hugo, Nebula and Locus for Best Novelette. Once again, Asimov proves his mastery of the medium of “science fiction story.” He […]
Read More Book Review: The Bicentennial Man by Isaac AsimovWe Can Navigate Using Pulsars: Where to Now?
By Robbie Gonzales HALF A CENTURY ago, astronomers observed their first pulsar: a dead, distant, ludicrously dense star that emitted pulses of radiation with remarkable regularity. So consistent was the object’s signal that astronomers jokingly nicknamed it LGM-1, short for “little green men.” It wasn’t long before scientists detected more signals like LGM-1. That decreased the […]
Read More We Can Navigate Using Pulsars: Where to Now?Successful Worldbuilding in SFF Mashups
Science fiction and fantasy mashups are popular right now. They give us an excuse to abandon typical SFF tropes for elements we’re familiar with in other genre fiction. Here’s some tips and tricks for successful plotting and worldbuilding in a mashup genre: Familiarize Yourself with the Blended Genre Okay, so you’re writing a space opera […]
Read More Successful Worldbuilding in SFF MashupsDan Koboldt on Magic Versus Technology in SF/F
By Dan Koboldt It’s always bothered me that fantasy and science fiction get lumped together into a single category. The two genres seem very different, at least on the surface. Fantasy usually features some kind of magic as a core speculative element. It often takes place in a secondary world at a pre-industrial state of […]
Read More Dan Koboldt on Magic Versus Technology in SF/F
