eQuilter has Star Trek fabric!!! There are several more but that one is my favorite. I love that it’s Original Series. Of course I could put them all together in a quilt since it is quilting fabric but it’s the thought of wearing it that’s tempting me. But I don’t know… Give me time; I’m [...]

This is a very brief review of Serenity: The Shepherd’s Tale. There are no major spoilers but maybe a hint so if you don’t want any hints you might want to stop reading this now. I don’t read “graphic novels” (I think I might have more respect for them if they would just call them [...]

Hellhole by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson is good old-fashioned science fiction. It has many of the familiar sci-fi tropes: FTL, an evil empire, a spoiled and out of touch nobility, wild frontier planets with disgruntled colonists, weird, serene aliens with impressive mental powers, and a secret plan to win independence. If you are [...]

I hate when I have to sign something. My signature never looks the same twice so I’m always a little worried that someone is going to have a problem with it. Like, “We can’t accept this. This isn’t really your signature.” Using signatures seems rather primitive but I guess there’s no secure and practical alternative [...]

I recently finished two short books by Neal Asher. The Parasite is apparently out of print and used copies of it start at well over $100 at Amazon.com. You don’t want to know what new copies of it cost. Fortunately there’s a Kindle version. It’s a must read for fans of Asher’s Polity universe, though [...]

I finished reading book one of The Mongoliad. It’s okay but not great and as I was reading it I was thinking that I probably wouldn’t bother to continue with books two and three but then I get to the end and there’s no kind of conclusion nor even a logical break. It just ends [...]

I was going to do one of these every week but it hasn’t worked out that way. Anyway, today’s quote is from Excession by Iain M. Banks. I think a little explanation might be required for those not familiar with Banks’ Culture novels or especially for those not very familiar with science fiction in general. [...]

I finished my second reading of China Mieville’s Perdido Street Station. The first time I read this book I was blown away by its uniqueness and the beauty of Mieville’s prose. The second time, in addition to enjoying the beauty and the weirdness of it, I was struck by what a really good story it [...]

I love this! This is Ryan Cartwright of the SyFy series Alphas. I was searching for interviews and stumbled upon this. And that’s the great thing about the Internet, you know – the things you find that you’re not looking for. Possibly a little bit NSFW.

What else can you say about a seven foot long Lego Serenity? Go look at all 75 photos on Flickr. This thing is incredible. I first saw it here.

Andrea has found a list of 10 Sci-Fi Novels People Pretend to Have Read. (I’m glad he said “sci-fi”. “SF” is so pretentious.) I do not pretend to have read books. First, I have actually read enough classic, highly acclaimed, really big books to impress almost anyone I might want to impress. Second, most of [...]

Ray Bradbury has died. I can think of no better memorial than his own words, my favorite essay ever – Coda.

This week’s episode of Eureka was fun. They did the old body swapping thing, with the swapping happening randomly and at hilariously inconvenient moments. This trope* has been around a long time. The earliest I remember is the famous Captain Kirk/Dr. Janice Lester switch in Star Trek: TOS but I’m sure that is not the [...]

Neal Stephenson wants science fiction writers to stop being pessimistic. Apparently he’s just reading the wrong books. There is still a lot of positive, hopeful science fiction. What is needed is more optimistic sci-fi in the movies and on TV where more kids will see it and be inspired. And we need more gadget driven [...]

I finished Player of Games last night. (What I said about the three sexes… a little more detail was revealed later in the book so that’s no longer really a valid post.) This is the second Iain M. Banks novel that I’ve read and the second in the Culture series. I am hooked in a [...]

I’m in the middle of Iain M. Banks’ Player of Games. I might post more about the book in general after I’ve finished it but there’s something in it that started me thinking and I wanted to go ahead and throw it out there for (hopefully) discussion. There is a race of humanoids in this [...]

I finished reading China Mieville’s Embassytown yesterday. This one is science fiction but it’s only slightly less weird than his fantasy novels. It’s a very fascinating story that deals with the connection between language and thought. Embassytown is a human community inside a bubble of Earth-type atmosphere, surrounded by the natives’ city. The natives, the [...]

I’ve been downloading books and stories from Project Gutenberg (Which probably would disappoint Amazon because I know when they sold me my Kindle they were hoping to make a lot more money off of me than they have.) including some very old science fiction. The interesting thing you discover from reading old sci-fi is that, [...]

Two books I read recently: Consider Phlebas is the first of Iain M. Banks “Culture” novels. The story is told from the the point of view of an outsider – someone working for the enemies of the Culture. He is a “Changer”, what we more commonly call a “shape-shifter”. His mission is to find a [...]

A few weeks ago Jaquandor recommended to me (via email) Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey. It’s space opera so I immediately decided to give it a try. I often find scientifically plausible science fiction tiresome. I want warp drive, artificial gravity and all that other cool, made-up stuff. Come on people, it’s fiction. [...]

Jaquandor of Byzantium’s Shores asks for reader questions a couple of times a year and this time I asked two science fiction questions. As soon as I submitted the second one I thought, “Hey! That would have been fun to discuss over here.” So I’ve been waiting patiently (okay a bit impatiently) for Jaquandor’s answers [...]

Last week I finished reading Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash. It’s not the sort of thing I usually go for but it was a lot of fun. It’s set in an alternate America in which there are no laws and the Federal government is relatively powerless – it merely exists, without any apparent purpose – and [...]

A commenter on the book list post recommended I, Robot. I’ve been a huge fan of Isaac Asimov’s non-fiction books and I always enjoyed seeing him on talk shows. My first encounter with Asimov was Adding a Dimension, a sort of idiot’s guide to difficult science. Asimov had a way of explaining science so as [...]

Jaquandor posted the Top 100 Science Fiction Books, according to an NPR poll, and bolded the ones he’s read, italicized the ones he wants to read and commented on some of them. I don’t usually take the time to do these lists but I’m interested in this one. I’m just going to bold the ones [...]

We saw Cowboys and Aliens last night. It was a fun movie, as we expected. Take a traditional western with all the usual western cliches and add scary aliens. How could that not be fun? If I were to complain about anything it would be that the aliens were inconsistently hard to kill. Sometimes they [...]