Category Archives: science fiction

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 →

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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 →

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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 →

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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 →

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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 →

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From the Ridiculous to the Sublime: My Own Journey to 2001

Posted on 3 April 2018 by Mark R. Kelly

Yesterday, April 2, 2018, was the 50th anniversary of the release of the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, still regarded as the best (or at least one of the best) science fiction films of all time, and as among the … Continue reading →

Posted in Arthur C. Clarke, Films, Personal history, science fiction | Leave a comment

Ray Bradbury Reread, Introduction

Posted on 8 February 2018 by Mark R. Kelly

In January 2018 I began a grand, systematic, plan to revisit the books by the core authors of science fiction. I’ve explored some of the books by these authors in recent years, and have posted reviews and comments about them … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: SF, fantasy, and SF cinema

Posted on 18 December 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

» io9: 10 works of science fiction that are really fantasy I love lists like these, and I still mean to compile many of them. Still, I’m not sure I agree with some of the selections on this list. This … Continue reading →

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Sfadb progress toward ultimate Top 100 Lists

Posted on 3 November 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

Over the past two weeks I’ve made much progress on the next stage of my sfadb.com site — the compiling of all awards references and citations references into overall scores and rankings. One product of this effort will be Top … Continue reading →

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