Tag Archives: Science fiction

Recommendation: Edges (Inverted Frontier Book 1)

Posted on April 16, 2019 by

A few weeks ago I recommended Linda Nagata’s novel, Vast, the final book of her Nanotech Succession series.  Edges is both a sequel to that book, and the first episode in a new series, Inverted Frontier. As in Vast, this … Continue reading →

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Recommendation: Tiamat’s Wrath (The Expanse Book 8)

Posted on April 4, 2019 by

Tiamat’s Wrath is the eighth book of The Expanse series.  This is definitely a series you want to read in order, so if you’re just starting, I’d recommend beginning with the first book, Leviathan Wakes. This is the penultimate book … Continue reading →

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Recommendation: Vast

Posted on March 29, 2019 by

I have a bad habit of buying ebooks and then letting them sit in my Kindle account unread, sometimes for years.  I’m sorry to say that the book that was in this state the longest was Linda Nagata’s Vast.  I … Continue reading →

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Recommendation: Prador Moon

Posted on March 14, 2019 by

I’ve recommended Neal Asher’s books before.  This one is pretty much cut from the same pattern: superhuman AIs, fearsome aliens, exotic future technologies, and epic space battles covered in detail.  In terms of the chronology of his Polity future universe, … Continue reading →

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Captain Marvel

Posted on March 9, 2019 by

Last night I did something I rarely do anymore, saw a movie in theater right when it was released: Captain Marvel.  As Marvel movies go, it was typical: lots of action, special effects, heart warming moments, and laughs.  Marvel / … Continue reading →

Posted in Zeitgeist | Tagged , , , | 13 Comments

Why faster than light travel is inevitably also time travel

Posted on February 3, 2019 by

I’ve always loved space opera, but when I was growing up, as I learned more about science, I discovered that a lot of the tropes in space opera are problematic.  Space operas, to tell adventure stories among the stars, often … Continue reading →

Posted in Science Fiction, Space | Tagged , , , , , , | 81 Comments

Recommendation: The Soldier

Posted on January 21, 2019 by

I’ve recommended Neal Asher’s books before.  He writes epic space opera where the stories take place over a vast scale, most of the characters are superhuman or alien entities, and the forces involved are titanic.  That was the motif of … Continue reading →

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The dangers of artificial companionship

Posted on January 20, 2019 by

Lux Alpstraum at Undark argues against “Our Irrational Fear of Sexbots”: When most people envision a world where human partners are abandoned in favor of robots, the robots they picture tend to be reasonably good approximations of flesh-and-blood humans. The … Continue reading →

Posted in Zeitgeist | Tagged , , , , , | 11 Comments

Doctor Who: The Woman Who Fell to Earth

Posted on October 7, 2018 by

I’ve noted before that I’m a long time fan of Doctor Who, so naturally I tuned in to watch the first episode of the new Doctor played by Jodie Whittaker.  I’ll be honest here, I wasn’t sure what to expect … Continue reading →

Posted in Science Fiction | Tagged , , , | 19 Comments

A qualified recommendation: The Murderbot Diaries

Posted on September 16, 2018 by

I’m generally not a fan of most depictions of AI (artificial intelligence) in science fiction.  They’re often highly anthropomorphic, assuming that engineered intelligences would innately have motivations and impulses similar to humans or other living systems, such as caring about … Continue reading →

Posted in Science Fiction | Tagged , , | 13 Comments