book review
Books reviews of the best science fiction stories, texts, educational texts, and journals.
The Third World War by Sir John Winthrop Hacket
Over 6,200 paperbacks line shelves in my apartment. My wife is an artist, and uses our apartment as her gallery. There was a fight for wall space and I recently lost a skirmish. My solution was logical. Consolidate and toss books that I have read which honestly I think is about 500 - 600. Part of my cathartic process is to write a quick review of the books I remember. Sometimes a quick skim ignites a memory of something particular I liked about the book. The Third World War by Sir John Winthrop Hacket was a sort of alternate reality novel, I remember reading in 1986 as a freshman in college. I must say there are some very detailed sections of, military briefings that can be skimmed through with no real impact. It seems still relevant these days with such uncertainty in American ideology and political stability.
Arnold SeleskeyPublished 7 years ago in FuturismPhilip K. Dick's VALIS Analyzes Religious Destiny
If you really think about it, the story of Jesus is a work of science fiction. He's a man with superpowers that include turning water to wine, healing others, and coming back from the dead. All jokes aside, religion and science fiction truly go hand in hand although people often try to separate the two. Some of the religious themes that permeate sci-fi stories include the idea of the afterlife, reincarnation, original sin, fictional religions, Messianism, and many other themes that can be found in the works of Philip K. Dick. As a science fiction writer, Dick wrote 44 novels and 121 short stories including Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?,A Scanner Darkly, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, VALIS, and many others. Some of the films that have been adapted from these stories include Blade Runner, Total Recall, A Scanner Darkly, Minority Report, Paycheck, Next, Screamers, The Adjustment Bureau, and Impostor. Throughout his lifetime, he won several awards including three Hugo Awards, five Nebula Awards, one British Science Fiction Association Award, and many others. There is even a Philip K. Dick Award that was established in 1983 which honors the previous year's best science fiction paperback original published in the US. In 2007, Dick became the first science fiction writer to be included in The Library of America series. The writer died in 1982 after suffering two strokes at the age of 53, but his legacy lives on today in his stories such as VALIS.
Mackenzie LuPublished 7 years ago in FuturismScience Fiction Feminist Dorris Lessing
Doris Lessing, made famous by her epic novel of the female experience, The Golden Notebook, was also a prolific writer of science fiction. She was not a fan of genre distinctions. She called science fiction "some of the best social fiction of our time," writing woozy, difficult books about psychic women and fallen paradises.
Stephanie GladwellPublished 7 years ago in FuturismSci-Fi Cult Classic 'Illuminatus'
Vintage high sci-fi is science fiction that is geared to a cannabis culture, whether it's written for that culture or about it. And like any other genre it's got its share of good books and its share of cliché-ridden sci-fi pulp. We've got one of each; a three volume set called Illuminatus by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, and The Crack in the Sky by Richard Lupoff.
Joshua Samuel ZookPublished 7 years ago in FuturismBest Sci-Fi Graphic Novels for Kids
It can be challenging to find science fiction graphic novels for children that aren’t too scary or violent, but also don’t demean kids or gloss over their interests. While you have to make the call for your own kids, here are six great choices for all the youngsters on your Christmas list. Whether they’re preschoolers who can’t yet read or high school students who’ve been adoring fans of the genre for years, you’re sure to find something that’s just right. (And yes, it’s totally ok to devour it from front to back before you wrap it and pass it on to them. I won’t tell.)
Sarah QuinnPublished 7 years ago in FuturismBest Ben Bova Books
“I suggest in the beginning of 'The Story of Light' that you walk into a party blindfolded,” bantered Dr. Ben Bova to radio host Ben Hodel on his KPFK program Hour 25, “see where that gets you.”
Futurism StaffPublished 7 years ago in FuturismPower of Psychologistics
T. A. Waters was a lifelong student of the mental sciences. His 1970s book Psychologistics was an operating manual for the mind. The program can allow the brain to:
Stephanie GladwellPublished 7 years ago in FuturismDr. Hans Moravec's Robotic Future
Dr. Hans Moravec was perhaps the world's most vocal advocate of humanlike robots: creations resembling us that could theoretically live forever—and make us obsolete. As the author of a controversial book that proposed that robots replace the human species, Moravec was able to start arguments almost at will. He even went so far as to say that God (as he understands him) is probably using computers to design earth species. He was completely unconvinced by how traditional religions explained the future of human beings. If you explain the human condition in terms of continual progress, it's easy to look at humans evolving into robots.
James LizowskiPublished 7 years ago in FuturismIs Vernor Vinge's Singularity The End Of Days?
Vernor Vinge is a former San Diego State University math professor and a Hugo award-winning science fiction novelist. He is best known for his novels and novellas A Fire Upon the Deep (1992), A Deepness in the Sky (1999), Rainbows End (2006), Fast Times at Fairmont High (2002), and The Cookie Monster (2004). In Vinge's 1993 essay "The Coming Technological Singularity" Vinge wrote, "Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence, also referred to as the singularity. Shortly after, the human era will be ended." The singularity, in essence, is the end of days.
Joshua Samuel ZookPublished 7 years ago in FuturismThought Provoking Political Dystopian Books
If 2016 can teach us anything, it is that fiction can become reality. As a common rule, humanity strives for constant progress; movement towards a superior standard of living. But what happens when everything goes wrong instead? As humans we constantly question the 'what if' scenario. The dystopia genre is the anthesis of utopia and is a mainstay of science fiction writing over the years. The genre has taken the 'what if' to speculate about a future where every aspect of life has taken a distinct and frightening turn for the worse. Within the classic dystopian genre there lies the more thought provoking political dystopian theme. A typical tale involves a future society with an oppressive government that demands conformity. Sometimes this is in the wake of a disaster that has befallen humanity or society as a whole has taken a dark and oppressive turn for the worse. Often times there are no beautiful endings in these political dystopian books, only a joyless and dysfunctional future with glimpses into the light.
George GottPublished 8 years ago in FuturismDan Simmons' Hyperion
In Hyperion, Dan Simmons accomplished the creation of one of the most beautifully rendered science fiction universes ever encountered in the readers mind. Hyperion tells the story of a group of seven strangers on their way to the distant world of Hyperion. Earth is dead, but humanity has spread among the stars in a web of worlds (connected by an FTL transportation system called The Web) known as the Hegemony. There are worlds humans live on which are not a part of the Hegemony, but that number is in constant decline as the benefits of conformity outweigh the benefits of independence. Somewhere in the galaxy, a self-aware collective of artificial intelligence known as the TechnoCore have made their home, helping the Hegemony to care for its technology. Also spread in between the stars are the Ousters, “barbarians,” who roam in Zero-G mobile cities and flotilla, attacking Hegemony targets whenever the opportunity presents itself.
Joshua Samuel ZookPublished 8 years ago in FuturismUniverse Collecting
“People still read books! This generation has hope!” – Harlan Ellison I love science fiction because I collect universes. Each novel, each story, is another world unto itself. I started collecting, or hoarding, as some family members might call it, when I was ten years old.
Joshua SkyPublished 8 years ago in Futurism