For several years now, I’ve been a member of the Board of Directors of Harbourfront Centre, one of (if not the) largest public arts centres in Canada. One of our more high profile endeavours is to yearly host the International Festival of Authors. And one of my favourite privileges as a Board member is to attend the Festival’s opening cocktail party. Continue reading Review of Robert J Sawyer’s “Rollback”
Spin cycle. Yes, it was a pun. Sue me.
After binge reading both the Ringworld and Fleet of Worlds sagas, I jumped straight into another famous science fiction multi-volume epic: Robert Charles Wilson‘s Spin books. Continue reading Review of Robert Charles Wilson’s Spin Cycle
The following is a spoiler rich review of both the Ringworld saga and the Fleet of Worlds books.
I am an unabashed fan of Larry Niven’s collection of stories and novels set in the so-called “Known Space” universe. They go back five decades and have even extruded onto the holy shrine of science fiction, Star Trek, via a disavowed animated episode back in the 70s. The jewel in the Known Space collection is, of course, Ringworld, which is perhaps the granddaddy of the that weird mega-engineering sub-genre of sci-fi. (Mind you, I have to show off my geek creds by giving a shout out to Orbitsville, a much lesser known entrant into that genre, that was written about the same time.) Continue reading Fate of Worlds: Return From the Ringworld
This article is a mostly spoiler-free discussion of Larry Niven’s original Ringworld books. For a review of Fate of Worlds: Return From The Ringworld, follow the link.
For about four months now, I’ve been reading for pleasure…. again. It’s been a long time. So much of my reading time is consumed with technical documents and news (and Facebook), that finding a few free hours per week just for fun reading has been difficult. So I got a tablet computer specifically to make reading more convenient. And in the past 3 weeks, I’ve read five novels. It’s a full on addiction, and other things on my to-do list have suffered. Continue reading Return to the Ringworld
I don’t remember the last time I got a chance to read for pleasure. I’m not complaining, because I love my life and I love my job. But it leaves me very little time for pleasure reading. So a few weeks ago I decided to dedicate a few minutes a day (yes, a few minutes) to reading fiction. Continue reading The Mote In God’s Eye
Over on Esquire.com, there’s a list of the best science fiction films of all time, supposedly as determined by a survey of scientists. Their list:
Continue reading The Best Science Fiction Movies Ever? And What is Science Fiction, Anyway?
Let’s face it, when it comes to science fiction, Jews wrote the bible. And they wrote a lot else besides. Ursula Le Guin says that the Frankenstein myth (and Mary Shelley) are the mothers of invention of science fiction, and she may be right (she usually is). But the Frankenstein myth is a variant on the Golem story, the story of a man created without a human soul, and it goes back over a thousand years in Jewish folklore before Shelley created her version, on that dark and stormy night in Switzerland. Continue reading Jewish Science Fiction
I’ve often said that the first sign of old age is nostalgia. Well, it seems that I’m officially old. For some reason I was contemplating the best ever opening segments of TV shows. Weirdly, most of the best ones seem to have been produced in the 1970s, which, coincidentally (ahem) happened to be the time of my glorious childhood. Continue reading The Best TV Show Opening Segments
Well, Fringe is over. Yeah, I know, it ended a while ago. But this is my first chance to sit down and write about it. Continue reading Review: Fringe Finale!
It’s 2013. We survived the Mayan apocalypse. Or did we? (Cue spooky music). Continue reading 2012 Skiffy Year in Review
