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Currently ReadingRecently Read | I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve seen 2001: A Space Odyssey. I do have one huge regret about all those viewings, though. None has been in a movie theater on a big screen. I was 11 when the movie came out in 1968. I asked my parents to let me go see [...]            Tim July 24th, 2009 | Tags: DVDs, Favorite Film Friday, sci-fi | Category: Film | Comments are closed |  Print This Post |  Email This PostWorried about retirement or maintaining your standard of living in your “old age”? The near-future country in which Swedish author Ninni Holmqvist’s first novel, The Unit, is set has a comfortable future in store for many women 50 and older and men 60 and older. Imagine this: Your own, fully furnished apartment in a complex [...] Tim June 26th, 2009 | Tags: Book Reviews, fiction, Lost In Translation Challenge, reading challenges, Review Copy, sci-fi, world literature | Category: Book Reviews | Comments are closed | Print This Post | Email This PostFor whatever reason, series abound in science fiction and fantasy. You can’t go through those sections of a bookstore or library without seeing a large number of authors who have embarked on a series. Yet one of the problems that poses for a writer is how much space should be spent trying to bring a [...] Tim June 4th, 2009 | Tags: Book Reviews, Review Copy, sci-fi | Category: Book Reviews | Comments are closed | Print This Post | Email This PostThe latest issue of New Scientist contains a special section on SF. Among other things, it contains the picks of staff for various awards for SF books. Here’s a smattering: Staff: Best SF Book: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams Runners-up: Frank Herbert’s Dune and Iain M. Banks’ Use of Weapons Worst [...] Tim November 14th, 2008 | Tags: Books, sci-fi | Category: A Reading Life | Comments are closed | Print This Post | Email This PostAlthough normally cast in the future, science fiction still tends to be built upon current or relatively recent events and the state of the world. That’s certainly the case with The Mirrored Heavens, the debut novel by David J. Williams. Williams uses terrorist threats, political battles, military branch rivalries and East-West distrust and tension as [...] Tim June 28th, 2008 | Tags: Book Reviews, Books, Review Copy, sci-fi | Category: Book Reviews | Comments are closed | Print This Post | Email This PostIt’s surprising sometimes just what the popularization of certain scientific ideas can do. Certain concepts work their way into popular culture, despite the difficulty of math or science truly behind them. David Ambrose’s The Man Who Turned Into Himself indicates that even theoretical physics can actually prolong the life of and perhaps even resurrect a [...] Tim April 30th, 2008 | Tags: Book Reviews, Books, Review Copy, sci-fi | Category: Book Reviews | One comment - (Comments are closed) | Print This Post | Email This PostCatching up from my travels, I see a variety of SF-related book award news. First, the Hugo Award finalists were announced. I’ve actually read four of the five finalists for best novel: Brasyl by Ian McDonald, Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer, The Last Colony by John Scalzi and Halting State by Charles Stross. The only [...] Tim March 24th, 2008 | Tags: Books, sci-fi | Category: A Reading Life | Comments are closed | Print This Post | Email This Postio9, the SF blog that never seems to run out of posts or topics, this week comes up with The Twenty Science Fiction Novels That Will Change Your Life. It’s a rather broad title, since the post is really talking about how the books might impact your view of things, whether because “they’ve altered the [...] Tim March 1st, 2008 | Tags: Books, sci-fi | Category: A Reading Life | 2 comments - (Comments are closed) | Print This Post | Email This PostScience fiction as literature of substance? What a concept! Needless to say, I was happily surprised when the South Dakota Humanities Council chose Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 as the state’s book for The Big Read in 2008. Yet I about fell on the floor Friday when my mail contained a notice and registration form for [...] Tim January 13th, 2008 | Tags: Books, sci-fi | Category: A Reading Life | One comment - (Comments are closed) | Print This Post | Email This PostScience fiction’s most common motif is speculating on our future. Sometimes, though, it also gives a glimpse of our past. That is especially true with reissues of classic works, such as Philip Wylie’s Triumph. First published in 1963, Triumph is a heart-of-the-Cold War tale of nuclear apocalypse. The trigger of a cataclysmic World War III [...] Tim December 14th, 2007 | Tags: Book Reviews, Books, Review Copy, sci-fi | Category: Book Reviews | Comments are closed | Print This Post | Email This Post |         The views expressed here are mine and mine alone. I do not speak for my law partners, our associates, staff and clients or my family and friends. Not only should any opinions here not be attributed to them, chances are they probably don't agree with me.  | ||
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