Someone said in a Facebook authors’ group that hey, we were all in competition with one another. Yeah, no. That’s zero-sum thinking, and it does not quite work with books and stories — especially now. It’s 2019. Books have shelf life. Scarcity is not ubiquitous Yes, some things are governed by scarcity. For example, people buy maybe one house. They either buy this one or that one. (Let’s not discuss the superrich who buy several houses....
I first came across Lagrange Points many years ago in Arthur C. Clarke’s novel A Fall of Moondust. It boggled my young mind, picturing satellites orbiting in seemingly static positions around the Moon! Of course, in fact they were orbiting Earth and the Moon, affected by and in balance with both gravitational sources. (This is what I think some of the best science fiction does: explore scientific concepts, even in passing, within a fictional story....
If you’re a science fiction fan like I am, here’s a new reading list: Novel Winner: Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie (Orbit US; Orbit UK) Nominees: We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, Karen Joy Fowler (Marian Wood) The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Neil Gaiman (Morrow; Headline Review) Fire with Fire, Charles E. Gannon (Baen) Hild, Nicola Griffith (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) The Red: First Light, Linda Nagata (Mythic Island) A Stranger in Olondria, Sofia Samatar (Small Beer) The Golem and the Jinni, Helene Wecker (Harper)...
Warning: Spoilers! If you’ve been like me, wondering where the hell Battlestar Galactica has been going, the return of the show this weekend has (will) probably answer(ed), and with some excitement and a few huge revelations. Yes, I’m going to talk about them here. That’s why the spoiler warning above. Revelation 1: The planet — presumably Earth, though we have seen no real objective proof, no half-buried Statue of Liberty…...
The Man Who Fell to Earth movie poster. I never had the opportunity to see The Man Who Fell to Earth in a theatre, and the existing video versions were pretty murky when it came to the shadowy dark scenes. This movie is very unusual and requires some patience to settle into its pacing, but once you do, you’re in for a ride. No longer. This Blu-ray transfer is excellent....