Category Archives: science fiction

Miller, A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ

Posted on 15 June 2019 by Mark R. Kelly

This 1959 novel is one of the most popular and celebrated science fiction novels of all time. It’s set in the years following an atomic war, it portrays religion in a relatively favorable way (in contrast to the skeptical or … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, science fiction | Leave a comment

Oliver, THE WINDS OF TIME

Posted on 1 June 2019 by Mark R. Kelly

This science fiction novel, from 1957, is by an author known for anthropologically informed works; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chad_Oliver. (The edition I read, the only edition I have, is a 1975 Avon Equinox trade paperback, one of its “SF Rediscovery” series that ran … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, science fiction | Leave a comment

Heinlein, DOUBLE STAR

Posted on 31 May 2019 by Mark R. Kelly

This short novel is from the late 1950s, and is the first of four novels for which Heinlein won the Hugo Award. It’s short and snappy, notable in part because it’s not essentially a science fiction novel. It’s about politics … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, Heinlein, science fiction | Leave a comment

Simak, CITY

Posted on 15 May 2019 by Mark R. Kelly

Clifford D. Simak’s CITY, published in 1952 but composed of stories published in magazines from 1944 onward, is a story cycle that tells the future of humanity as it abandons cities for country estates and then moves off Earth to … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, science fiction | Leave a comment

Oliver Sacks on Forster and Rees

Posted on 24 February 2019 by Mark R. Kelly

There’s a short essay by the late Oliver Sacks in current issue of The New Yorker: The Machine Stops. He muses about people walking down the street staring at their phones. Much of this, remarkably, was envisaged by E. M. Forster … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Human Progress, Science, science fiction | Leave a comment

H.G. Wells: THE TIME MACHINE

Posted on 3 February 2019 by Mark R. Kelly

H.G. Wells’ THE TIME MACHINE is one of the foundational science fiction novels. Published in 1895, it was Wells’ first novel, though it’s short enough that later anthologists have reprinted it as a novella (e.g. in the second volume of … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, science fiction | Leave a comment

Eric Frank Russell: SINISTER BARRIER

Posted on 22 January 2019 by Mark R. Kelly

This is an early genre science fiction novel, first serialized in Unknown magazine in 1939, later revised and expanded and published in 1948 by Fantasy Press. I have the latter edition, in a used copy I picked up about six … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, science fiction | Leave a comment

Links and Comments: Psychology and Economics; SF and Fantasy

Posted on 8 October 2018 by Mark R. Kelly

Several items from Sunday’s NYT. First a review of a new book by Steven Johnson, FARSIGHTED: How We Make the Decisions That Matter the Most; the review is by Adam Grant: How Do We Make the Long-Term Decisions That Matter?. … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Psychology, science fiction | Leave a comment

Update on SF Definitions

Posted on 2 September 2018 by Mark R. Kelly

A couple of weeks ago I summarized several interesting panel discussions I saw at the World SF Convention in San Jose in mid-August. One panel was about definitions of SF, not so much good or bad definitions as different types … Continue reading →

Posted in science fiction | Leave a comment

C.P. Snow’s The Two Cultures, The Third Culture, Big History, and 2001

Posted on 10 May 2018 by Mark R. Kelly

C.P. Snow’s “The Two Cultures” is the famous 1959 lecture and then essay about the divide between the scientific community and the literary ‘intellectual’ community, an essay much referenced in books about the acceptance of science in modern culture (with, … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Science, science fiction | Leave a comment