Last year, I picked up and read The Stars My Destination for the first time. It’s an astonishing book, one that I alternatively wish that I’d read it earlier, and that I’m glad that I read it now, with the capabilities to really get how important of a book it is. I’ve been waiting to get to Bester for a while now.
Over on the Kirkus Reviews Blog today: The Nomadic Alfred Bester, Renaissance Man.
In my latest article at the Kirkus Reviews Blog, I ask: What Scares You About Science Fiction?
I also throw down a challenge to people unfamiliar with science fiction as well as existing sf readers (that’s you).
Are you up to the challenge?
Over on the Kirkus Reviews Blog today, I take a look at an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s At The Mountains of Madness.
From the article:
Published by Sterling, this volume adapts Lovecraft’s At The Mountains of Madness in a classic style reminiscent of Hergé’s Tintin. In the story, Professor Dyer leads an expedition to Antarctica in September of 1930. With a biologist, engineer, physicist and meteorologist, and a geologist on board, their mission is to take core soil and rock samples from areas of unexplored Antarctica, run tests, and report their findings back home. By November, they enter McMurdo Sound, and the adventure begins.
Click over and check out the rest of the review.
Did you ever notice that some novels are extensions of (or based off of) shorter works of fiction? This week at the Kirkust Reviews Blog, I take at look at that very thing. I used this as an opportunity to interview Ted Kosmatka, Catherine Lundoff, Will McInrosh, Linda Nagata and Robert J. Sawyer — all of whom have novels that began life as short fiction.
See some of the challenges they faced over at the Kirkus Reviews Blog in When Short Fiction Grows Into a Novel.
One of the interesting things that I came across recently was the story of the Futurians at the 1st WorldCon in 1939. The Futurians were a legendary group of fans – quite a few notable authors came out of their ranks over the years, and it looked like an interesting story, one that was far more complicated than I thought.
Go read about it at the Kirkus Reviews blog: The Futurians and the 1939 World Science Fiction Convention.
Recently, I looked at books whose film adaptations will be in theaters by year’s end. But we all know that the road from book to screen is a long one that has more pitfalls than bridges. This week at the Kirkus Reviews Blog, I take a look at some of the science fiction and fantasy books that have been optioned and might (hopefully) see the light of day as a film or television series.
Check out More SF/F Books to Read Before You See Them on the Screen.
Today on the Kirkus blog, I take a look at The Lovecraft Anthology, Volume 1.
From the post:
You can’t be a speculative fiction fan without coming into contact with something inspired by Lovecraft. From the Dungeon Dimensions of Pratchett’s Discworld series, to Ridley Scott’s Aliens, to Mike Mignola’s Hellboy, pop culture is full of nods to Lovecraft’s Old Ones, so it doesn’t surprise me at all that someone would choose to mine this material to build a comic series/anthology. Published by Self Made Hero, The Lovecraft Anthology certainly struck a chord with me.
Click on over to check out the rest of the post.
I’m at it again over at the Kirkust Reviews Blog, where I name my SF/F picks for May.
Check it out!
One of the things that I’ve found distinctly interesting about the Golden Age of SF is how the authors shape the field that they’re in, but also how much one can extrapolate a larger picture out of an author’s life. An excellent example of this is Judith Merril, through whom one can find an excellent viewpoint of the shifts in publishing, as well as a number of similarly-high-profiled authors writing at the same time.
Go read The Connections of Judith Merril over on the Kirkus Reviews Blog.
It’s no secret that science fiction has its share of fun with literature’s most beloved consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes. What I didn’t know was that there were way more crossovers that I would have thought.
At the Kirkus Reviews blog today, I continue my look at Speculative Fiction’s Love Affair with Sherlock Holmes (Part 2).
Check it out!
It’s no secret that science fiction has its share of fun with literature’s most beloved consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes. What I didn’t know was that there were way more crossovers that I would have thought.
At the Kirkus Reviews blog today, I start looking at Speculative Fiction’s Love Affair with Sherlock Holmes.
Check it out!
I came across an interesting tidbit a while ago, while reading something about Robert Heinlein: he served as a researcher during World War II, alongside fellow SF authors Isaac Asimov and L. Sprague de Camp. At the NAES, they all worked on various experimental projects, working in the high-tech, cutting edge of R&D that’s so often portrayed in the genre at the time. It’s a neat story, one that tells quite a bit about each of the authors.
Read all about it over on Kirkus Reviews: Asimov, de Camp and Heinlein at the Naval Air Experimental Station.
I must admit a fondness for comparing film adaptations to thir original source material. Perhaps that’s why I’m at the Kirkus Reviews Blog today, where I recommend that the unitiated Read These Science Fiction & Horror Books Now to Prepare For Their Upcoming Film Adaptations.
Over on the Kirkus Reviews Blog today, I have a new post up on Boom Studio’s Higher Earth, written by Sam Humphries.
From the post:
Heidi lives on a trash planet. Bright circles in the sky open up and dump trash everywhere. People fight over the scraps dumped on them. Heidi lives alone and fights hard to keep what little she has. Rex is a soldier. He travels from Earth to Earth. Is he running from something or to it? When he finds Heidi, everything changes for them both. Rex convinces Hedi she needs to come with him, and drags her first to a Sunshine Earth full of refugees, then to an Earth that never had an extinction level event and is full of dinosaurs. Everywhere they go, they are pursued and attacked by the agents of Higher Earth. When Rex is badly wounded, Heidi learns the truth about who she is, why she was living on that trash planet, and has to make a choice to either trust Rex and embrace her destiny, or run for her life. Forever.
Click over to the Kirkus Reviews Blog to read the rest of the review.
This week at the Kirkus Reviews Blog, I look at Highlights & Top Picks from April Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Books.
Go forth, adventurous readers! (Or go fourth…see what I care…)
When I was writing about C.L. Moore a couple of weeks ago, I came across a familiar name several times: Leigh Brackett, another female author writing during the Golden Age of SF. She had a fascinating career as both a short story author, novelist and screenwriter.
Want to know more? Read about Leigh Brackett’s Planetary Romances over on Kirkus Reviews.
This week at the Kirkus Reviews Blog, I look at More Science Fiction and Fantasy Books Kids Should be Reading in School.
This was a list I derived from an informal poll of the Twitterverse and Facebook. I was happy to see that several genre classics were being named. I named several on those on the first list, but had enough notable book titles to write about in this new, second list.
How many of them have you read?
On the Kirkus Reviews Blog today, I take a look at a Comic Anthology from Dark Horse called, Robert E. Howard’s Savage Sword Volume One.
From the post:
When you think of Robert E. Howard, you probably go straight to Conan, arguably his most famous character. But Howard, like most authors, had many more characters and stories beyond Conan. Dark Horse Comics brings many of those characters together in their new Graphic Novel, Savage Sword Volume One.
Not too long ago here at the Kirkus Reviews Blog, I talked about Once Upon A Time Machine, an anthology of short stories in comic form. Savage Sword is in that same vein. It collects original stories featuring Howard’s characters, many of whom you may not be familiar with. Yes, Conan is there, but so are John Silent, Dark Agnes and The Sonara Kid, to name just a few.
Click over to the Kirkus Reviews Blog to read the rest of the post.
This week at the Kirkus Reviews Blog, I look at Suspension of Disbelief in Science Fiction :
All readers of fiction, whether it be mainstream fiction or genre fiction, go into a story knowing it’s not actually true. They are willing to believe a story’s premise and setting at the outset, before reading the first word. But the initial open-mindedness of a premise is different than the continued belief in that premise. Suspension of disbelief is the act of postponing one’s judgment on the believability of a fictional story. This is important in all fiction, of course, but is even more important in science fiction and fantasy, where the worlds being portrayed can be very different from our own.
Hop on over and check it out.
Of all the works of his career, Isaac Asimov’s Robot stories are perhaps some of his best known works. Spanning short stories, novellas, centuries and even genres, his fiction helped change the perceptions of robots in science fiction.
Go read Isaac Asimov and the 3 Laws of Robotics over on Kirkus Reviews.
