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Tag Archives: sf-ish
“The Affinities”: Weaponized Psychology
“What will be the next big technology?” is a question that gets constantly asked. The answers are usually boring: smaller and more prevalent computers, some new energy source, some advance in space tech, or maybe something will finally happen with … Continue reading
Deep Time Geology and the Fermi Paradox
A few weeks ago I went out for a beer and some geology, and learned one reason why the sky is so dark. The beer came from The Burren, a rundown Irish bar in Somerville MA. The geology … Continue reading
Lovecraft is Winning
I was standing in the SF section of a bookstore the other day, looking at the anthology shelves. Of the 74 short story collections they had there, 7 were based on H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthuhlu Mythos. “The New Cthuhlu”, “Shadows … Continue reading
“The Martian”: Really Mundane SF
A few years ago Geoff Ryman, the renowned author of “Was” and “The Unconquered Country”, got sick of the tropes of science fiction. Faster-than-light interstellar travel, aliens, and alternate realities were cheap devices that encouraged boring and lazy writing. While … Continue reading
The Future Is Living Around You
A while ago the SF site io9.com asked What’s the Most Futuristic Thing About You?. They were wondering if their readership was part of that unequally distributed future that William Gibson writes so memorably about. The replies described the amazing … Continue reading
“Gravity” and Retreating From Space
I was once surfing around the cable channels when I came upon a screen that was almost completely white. Almost, but not quite – slight ripples and whorls were moving slowly across it. There was hardly any sound, just a … Continue reading
Ray Bradbury, 1920-2012, RIP
The opening to “Something Wicked This Way Comes”, 1962: The lightning rod salesman has come to Green Town, Illinois. He is talking to two boys, Will Halloway and Jim Nightshade: neighbors, best of friends, closest of rivals, one born light … Continue reading
Steampunk vs Apple-ism
I had no idea how big steampunk has gotten. There was a gathering of them in Waltham this last weekend at the Watch City Festival, and 17,000 people showed up. I took the kids there on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, … Continue reading
A Prank That Looks Too Natural
So I was at a rather dull seminar at MIT when I happened to gaze out the 8th floor window of the Stata building: Yes, that’s a Dalek triumphantly shaking its blasters at the MIT sky line. The silver column … Continue reading
Why Was Heinlein So Wrong?
The eclectic blog Lists of Note recently published a list of predictions that the SF writer Robert Heinlein made in 1952 for what the year 2000 would be like. Here they are, with my comments in red for wrong and … Continue reading
A Niche in the Library of Babel 