"It has spaceships, a bank heist, Interplanetary cannibal zombies, geishas, ruthless government operatives, and a hot psychic kung fu fighting chick, how could you possibly have been bored!"

(A fan's reaction to a non-fan's dislike of Serenity.) more...

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 08:47 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Doctors don't seem to realize that most of us are perfectly content not having to visualize ourselves as animated bags of skin filled with obscene glop.

(Joe Haldeman, The Forever War)

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 08:34 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Seen on a mailing list I'm on...

Ken Burnside:

Agreed 100% on the Whiney Doomed Angstman aspect.

The other thing that boggled my mind when reading it was that the enemy ships (which were presented as Overwhelming and Unbeatable) were spacegoing fish that spat acid.

Which utterly and completely blew my suspension of disbelief out the airlock.

Rick Robinson:

Only out the airlock? Mine would fly off at relativistic velocities. Does suspension of disbelief have a mass? If so, there's the ultimate operatic space drive for you.

Heh.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 08:26 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Can we travel to other planets? Will the expense (or the transit times or the awful aching black) overwhelm us? Charles Stross considers the concept of interplanetary and interstellar travel and colonization.

This has (naturally!) generated a lot of talk among fans of space travel, science fiction, etc. Here's an excellent entry from Centauri Dreams, Paul Glister's site. Check out his book!

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 07:00 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Space Shuttle Atlantis and the ISS attacked by forces of the Empire? Say it ain't so!

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 02:09 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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One of my favorite authors, a proponent of the "new space opera", is blogging.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 06:15 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away I discovered a science fiction roleplaying game called Traveller. A little black box, three booklets. You provided pen, paper, dice and imagination. What fun we had during college with that! Traveller evolved into various editions, died, was brought back, died again, was brought back again. I drifted in and out.

Some time later another company brought out a science fiction roleplaying game based on Star Wars. I bought some of the modules, but never really used it. That game eventually faded, but that franchise went out to be run by the uber-gaming company...which also et the franchise fail.

They've now brought out The Saga Edition of the Star Wars roleplaying game. Is there still room for pencil and paper games in a world of many flavors of computer games? Here's a review that looks at the current edition.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 05:44 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Ladies and gentlemen, rest easy. The newest issue of Dave Langford's Ansible has been posted.

Charles McGrath calls Philip K. Dick `A Prince of Pulp, Legit at Last' and adds a little whitewash: `... "The Man in the High Castle," his most sustained and most assured attempt at mainstream respectability, and it's barely a sci-fi book at all but, rather, what we would now call a "counterfactual" ...' (New York Times, 6 May) [PB]

...and many other gems...

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 10:23 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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(2005 continues!)

Review can now be read here.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 09:56 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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(2005 continues!)

The review can now be found here.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 09:51 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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(2005 continues...)

The review can now be found here.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 09:14 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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(Archived reposts continued! 2005!)

The review can now be read here.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 09:02 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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(Various quotes from Quatermass episodes. Written by Nigel Kneale.)

A specialist tends to see everything in his own light.

All that "flying objects" business. Very fashionable. Quite de riguer for a bit, to have a nodding acquaintance with a few little green men.

An experiment...is an operation designed to discover some unknown truth. It is also a risk. more...

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 07:16 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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How To Survive Your Stint In Federal Service

(...thanks to the film version of Starship Troopers for being so bad that it inspired...)

Twenty useful tips brought to you by Gen. Paul Verhoven, C in C...

20. The enemy can drop driveless asteroids on your cities from over 1000 light years distance-presumably at FTL speeds-without resorting to any visible technology. Therefore, assume they're just stupid Bugs incapable of rational thought;

19. When piloting the ship, don't strap yourself in. When the ship is hit, you'll look cool flying through the air into the viewport;

18. Artillery? Only wussies need artillery.

17. Ignore those plasma bolts the mindless Bugs are firing at your ship-they're just "random light";

16. Be ready to shoot your buddies at a moments notice; they'll thank you for it;

15. Rest assured that, in the future, even the chicks are pumped on testosterone; more...

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 07:09 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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"At least once every human should have to run for his life, to teach him that milk does not come from supermarkets, that safety does not come from policemen, that 'news' is not something that happens to other people."

- Jake in The Number of the Beast.

Posted by: JohnL at 08:15 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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"People have a funny habit of taking as 'natural' whatever they are used to—but there hasn't been any 'natural' environment, the way they mean it, since men climbed down out of trees."

"Wherever Man has mass and energy to work with and enough savy to know how to manipulate them, he can create any environment he needs."

Robert A. Heinlein, Farmer in the Sky, 1951.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 07:30 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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One Jump Ahead; Mark L. Van Name (Baen Books, ISBN 978-1-4165-2085-6, June 2007. Cover art by Stephen Hickman.)

Sample chapters found here.

The review can now be found here.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 10:34 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Boundary; Eric Flint and Ryk E. Spoor (Baen Books, ISBN 1-4165-0932-1, March 2006. Cover art by Kurt Miller).

Sample chapters here.

The review can now be found here.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 10:30 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Russian Amerika; Stoney Compton (Baen Books, ISBN 1-4165-2116, April 2007. Cover art by Kurt Miller).

Sample chapters (24!!!) here.

Review can now be found here.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 10:28 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Science fiction author's Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle are featured in this article that recently appeared in The Washington Post. Fans of The Mote in God's Eye might want to note that they are correcting the book, one copy at a time. Fans of Robert A. Heinlein might want to look to their book Footfall for an appearance by that author as a character in the book! more...

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 05:29 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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