Tag: science fiction
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YA Fiction, Eco-Lit, An Algorithm Writing its own Sci-fi…
Why So Many Adults Love Young-Adult Literature (The Atlantic) These books are about coming of age, and we’re still coming of age.“What all these YA novels share is a universal coming of age experience,” Jennifer Loja, president of Penguin Young Readers, wrote to me in an email. The bildungsroman—the original term for a coming-of-age story—dates…
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The Future in Sci-Fi, Asian Anglophone Fiction, and more…
Why is science fiction so afraid of the future? (The Verge) It’s not just Trek, either: over the past 20 years, mainstream science fiction creators have largely handicapped their work by situating their stories within known timelines. Reboots and prequels dominate the day, from Ridley Scott’s Prometheus and Alien: Covenant to a reported live-action Jetsons series (no, really). And when creators tell…
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Sci-Fi in Iraq, NaNoWriMo, Making a Living From Books, and more…
Why serious literary fiction like Ishiguro’s is vital in times like these (The Guardian) Eminent publishers predict a long-term decline for the entire industry, as younger people turn to other forms of entertainment. From a personal perspective, such worries feel well-founded: I organise the books events for the Brighton festival, and it’s been interesting to observe…
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Trans Sci-Fi, Imagining the Internet, and more…
Why Science-Fiction Writers Couldn’t Imagine the Internet (Slate) Quantum mechanics defies common sense—so much so that Einstein never really accepted it. But as experiments today, from entanglement to quantum teleportation, demonstrate, quantum mechanics does describe the universe at fundamental scales. That’s why science fiction—though it can inspire human imagination, as Stephen Hawking said in the…
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Zena Shapter, author of Towards White
What is the biggest thing that people THINK they know about your subject/genre that isn’t so? I write science fiction and fantasy, and people (who don’t read it) tend to think of it as ‘all spaceships and magic’. It isn’t! Science fiction, for example, can indeed be based on space, time travel or life on…
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Towards White by Zena Shapter
They know what’s going to happen to you… after you die. Scientists in Iceland think they’ve figured out one of our greatest mysteries – where the electrical energy in our brains goes after we die. According to the laws of physics, one form of energy must always become another form. So the electrical energy in…
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An Author Arrested for Murder, Science Fiction in China, and more…
He was writing a book about a murderous author. Now he’s accused of four murders. (The Sacramento Bee) A Chinese crime writer working on a novel about a serial-killing author may have based the book’s storyline on his own life. Liu Yongbiao, an award-winning Chinese crime novelist, was arrested early Friday morning for allegedly bludgeoning four…
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Sci-Fi Feminist Icons, Fan Fiction, Nnedi Okorafor and more…
Science Fiction’s Under-Appreciated Feminist Icon (The Atlantic) Feminist science fiction has a notable history, but the genre has long been dominated by stories written by, and solely featuring, men. I can’t help but feel awkward reading one of the most celebrated short stories of the genre, Isaac Asimov’s 1941 tale “Nightfall,” which contains no women at…
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Challenges Facing Chinese Literature, Sci-Fi in the Trump Era…
Chinese literature still facing challenges reaching broader audience overseas (Global Times) While China boasts a good amount of best-selling authors, only a few of them have managed to make any headway in English-speaking countries. Besides Mai, Galaxy Award and Hugo Award winner Liu Cixin and Nobel Literature Prize winner Mo Yan, there are not many…
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Queer Writers, Women’s Voices and the Future of Sci-Fi…
The Women’s Prize for Fiction: Why female voices matter more than ever (The Telegraph) Yet this is surely what we need now more than ever – female protagonists who are blunt and sassy; snarky but strong. Characters who are not necessarily likeable or even admirable, but entirely themselves without any inhibitions. And that means rescuing overlooked…
Waking Writer 