science fiction
The bridge between imagination and technological advancement, where the dreamer’s vision predicts change, and foreshadows a futuristic reality. Science fiction has the ability to become “science reality”.
Sci-Fi Military Books
As a sub-genre of science fiction, sci-fi military books often imagine the future of war, relying heavily on speculative technology and, oftentimes, extraterrestrial combatants. Many authors rely on historical events, such as Hannibal or the Vietnam War, and transcribe them for the future. Instead of nations in conflict, authors present planets at war. The ethics of war and consequences of military action are on the front-lines of many sci-fi military books. When is war justified? What is the value of one life versus many? New moral dilemmas present themselves as science fiction concepts muddle the line between what is and is not permitted. Military science fiction is about the people engrossed by the carnage of war and the larger problems facing them.
Futurism StaffPublished 9 years ago in FuturismAndy Weir's The Martian Review
Andy Weir’s debut novel, The Martian, is something of a success story for self-published authors everywhere. Released by the author as an e-book in 2011, the book was picked up for broader distribution last year by Crown Publishing group, and is now well on its way to the big screen. The book itself is a labor of love for Weir, a well-researched and highly-realistic work of speculative fiction. It endeavors to answer a fairly straightforward question, how could a person survive on Mars if they were stranded there? This question requires knowledge of space travel, orbital physics, botany, and NASA bureaucracy to answer effectively, and Weir quickly establishes his expertise on all of the above. The resulting book is impressive for the amount of preparation it must have required before pen could be put to paper, and manages an engaging story to boot.
Michael GoldPublished 9 years ago in FuturismSci-Fi Movie Women of the 90s
Science fiction films in the 1990s featured some of the most iconic women to appear on the big screen. Too often when people think "women in sci-fi" we think of what used to be called “scream queens,” that is, the actresses who appeared in scores of latter day B pictures running from extraterrestrials on earth or grappling with tentacled creatures on spaceships or what have you.
Glenn KennyPublished 9 years ago in FuturismScience Fiction Author Frederik Pohl
Pohl’s early career unfolded over the background of the Great Depression and the Second World War, a climate of unimaginable fear and uncertainty. This was the so-called "Golden Age" of science fiction, the years of John W. Campbell's catalytic editorship of Astounding Science Fiction, when pulp publishing was slowly metamorphosing into a defined genre, an era when its practitioners hadn’t yet begun to comment on the gloomy aspects of progress. To Pohl’s generation, science represented the potential for escape from the disaster of economic failure and war. No one was looking for a downside; they only saw the virgin capacities of uncolonized planets, and dreamt of a people united in the betterment of the species through new technology. “In those early days,” Pohl writes in his lovely collection of short stories, The Early Pohl, “we were as innocent as physicists, popes and presidents. We saw only the promise, not the threat.”
Claire EvansPublished 10 years ago in FuturismClaire Evans on Sci-Fi, Aliens & Music
In light of all of this cross-pollination, musical/science fiction I thought that I would talk to you about the relationship between science fiction, music – music and the future.
Futurism StaffPublished 10 years ago in FuturismWill Artificial Intelligence be Nostalgic?
In 1996, I decided to teach myself to use my parents’ turntable. They weren’t home; I was sixteen years old. I really, really wanted to listen to The White Album on vinyl. I had a version of it on cassette, but I craved the authentic experience. At the time, I believed that I related more to The White Album than my parents did. I always loved The Beatles when I was young, maybe because digging something “vintage” is part of the same emotional gymnastics involved with reading and loving science fiction.
Ryan BrittPublished 11 years ago in Futurism