Category Archives: science fiction

Joe Haldeman’s “The Hemingway Hoax” + 3

Posted on Sunday 14 August 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

“The Hemingway Hoax,” by Joe Haldeman, first published in April 1990, is the third story in the big Gardner Dozois anthology being perused by the Facebook reading group I’m following. (See previous Sundays’ posts.)

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Longtermism

Posted on Monday 8 August 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

A key aspect of (good) science fiction is that it takes a long term view, of the species, of the universe, as so few individual people do.

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Paperback Sets: Asimov’s Foundation Novels

Posted on Sunday 7 August 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

I’m going to begin a series of posts capturing photos of some of the many sets of matching paperbacks that appeared in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when I began buying books, that I have acquired (some when published … Continue reading →

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Walter Jon Williams: “Surfacing” + 2

Posted on Saturday 6 August 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

This week’s story being consider by the Facebook Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction group, for its reading of the big Gardner Dozois book shown here, is the second story in that book, a 1988 novella by Walter Jon … Continue reading →

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Recent Doonesbury and Utopian Ideologies

Posted on Sunday 31 July 2022 by Mark R. Kelly
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Reading Clubs and Robert Silverberg’s “Sailing to Byzantium”

Posted on Friday 29 July 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

I’ve never belonged to any kind of reading club, or ‘book club’ in the sense of a group of people meeting every couple weeks to discuss a book they’ve all read. (A recent example in pop culture is the movie … Continue reading →

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Shatner on Trek Since Him, and What That Might Mean

Posted on Saturday 23 July 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

The Hollywood Reporter, Ryan Fish, 21 July 2022: William Shatner Sounds Off on ‘Star Wars,’ Latest ‘Star Trek’ Shows During Lively Comic-Con Appearance Heavy.com, Eric Pesola, 22 July 2022: Is Shatner right? Is Roddenberry ‘Turning In His Grave’ Over New … Continue reading →

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Evolution, Culture Wars, and Science Fiction

Posted on Thursday 30 June 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Jerry Coyne, 29 Jun 2022: Once again: A misguided article on why the theory of evolution is obsolete This discusses an article in the UK newspaper Guardian, Do we need a new theory of evolution?, by Stephen Buranyi, which uses … Continue reading →

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Proper Ways of Thinking: Women Without Men

Posted on Saturday 18 June 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

NYT, Pamela Paul, 21 June 2022: She Wrote a Dystopian Novel. What Happened Next Was Pretty Dystopian.

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Aesthetics: The Starship Enterprise

Posted on Sunday 12 June 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

I was quite struck some years ago, 2014 it must have been, by an analysis of the design of the original starship Enterprise that showed how it relied heavily on the “Golden Ratio,” the artistic proportion of 1.618. And how … Continue reading →

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