Andrew Liptak is a freelance writer and historian from Vermont. He is a 2014 graduate of the Launch Pad Astronomy Workshop, and has written for such places as Armchair General, io9, Kirkus Reviews, Lightspeed Magazine, and others. His first book, War Stories: New Military Science Fiction is now out from Apex Publications, and his next, The Future Machine: The Writers, Editors and Readers who Build Science Fiction is forthcoming from Jurassic London in 2015. He can be found over at www.andrewliptak.com and at @AndrewLiptak on Twitter.
After working our way through the pulp era, it’s time to begin looking at the ‘Golden Age’ of Science Fiction. Many people felt that this movement began [...]
Catherine Lucielle Moore was one of the earlier female authors to have been writing within the genre, with her first stories published in the early 1930s to a great success. [...]
REVIEW SUMMARY: A great follow up to Control Point. MY RATING: BRIEF SYNOPSIS: Following the events of Control Point, Col. Alan Bookbinder finds himself reassigned to FOB [...]
The internet is abuzz with the possible news that J.J. Abrams will be directing the newly announced Star Wars Episode VII. Ever since the announcement that Disney had [...]
In my previous Kirkus Reviews column, I talked about E.E. ‘Doc’ Smith and his stories that kickstarted Space Opera. This week, we’re going back a little [...]
Space Opera is said to have begun with a fellow known as E.E. ‘Doc’ Smith. Last time we talked about science fiction, we left with Hugo Gernsback and his [...]
In December 2011, we had a week where three movie trailers hit the web: The Dark Knight Rises, The Hobbit and Prometheus. They looked stunning: these were perfectly crafted [...]
REVIEW SUMMARY: A unique and interesting resource when looking at history. MY RATING: BRIEF SYNOPSIS: Science Fiction tends to be closely linked with contemporary history in [...]
Recently, T.H. White’s novel The Once and Future King has appeared on my radar quite often, in no small part due to fantasy author Lev Grossman’s repeated efforts [...]
The Hobbit is upon us. The deluge of marketing was compounded by word that Peter Jackson managed to work out a third film, turning the Hobbit into the Lord of the Rings [...]
REVIEW SUMMARY: A redundant and uninteresting read. MY RATING: BRIEF SYNOPSIS: Jack Casey, retired soldier in England’s collaborator army, is brought back to track [...]
With the live action adaptation of The Hobbit released into theaters soon, it makes sense to look at how The Hobbit was written in the first place. That’s what [...]
Chuck Wendig is a novelist, screenwriter, and game designer. He’s the author of Blackbirds, Double Dead and Dinocalypse Now, and is co-writer of the short film [...]
J.R.R. Tolkien was a veteran of the 1st World War, something that I’d never examined all that closely, and for this week at the Kirkus Reviews blog, we’re [...]
With October’s Horror duo over with, I decided that it was time to shift gears again to focus on some of the background on Fantasy literature. I came across George [...]
Welcome to a new column here on SF Signal: …And Another Thing, a weekly commentary on issues and news from the speculative fiction community! We feel that there’s [...]
With October a traditionally – horror themed month capped with Halloween, it seemed appropriate to follow up Bram Stoker and Dracula with another notable horror author: [...]
REVIEW SUMMARY: A dark, gripping character novel. MY RATING: BRIEF SYNOPSIS: Miriam Black knows how and when you’re going to die, just by a simple touch. When she meets [...]
It’s October, and taking off from the end of September, we’ve shifted gears from Science Fiction to Horror Fiction on the Kirkus Reviews blog, where I continue [...]