Category Archives: scifi

New hard sci-fi web series: L5

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L5 is a new hard sci-fi web production that has recently released their pilot episode on YouTube.

This is the best production in this genre that I have seen for a long, long time. The premise is good, the writing excellent, good acting (even from the minor characters), good production values, and good CGI that isn’t intrusive and melds well with the other parts. All done for about $15k in crowd-funding.

Check it out!

Imagine returning from an exhausting adventure only to find that your home is abandoned, empty. Not just your home, but your neighborhood, your city, in fact, everyone, everywhere, seems to be missing. This is what happens to the crew of the first manned mission to Barnard’s Star – they return after awakening from suspended animation to find that their ship-board AI has sent them on a relativistic tour of the stellar neighborhood while they slumbered, dilating time so severely that nearly 200 years have passed on Earth. After coming to, they discover their vessel is adrift at LaGrange point 5, within visual range of a vast O’neill cylinder-colony. The night side of the Earth shows no lights, and no one answers their calls across all frequencies. They have no choice but to dock with the colony and explore its cavernous interior in the hopes of finding help. When they find the colony to be airless and devoid of life, the remains of human civilization baking in the Sun for decades, their predicament becomes even more dire. Following in the traditions of great legendary hard science fiction, their exploration of this relic of their own civilization will take them on a trans-humanistic and spiritual sojourn.

The History of Science Fiction Infographic – Ward Shelley

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A fantastic hand-drawn infographic showing the historical flow of science fiction:

[infographic] History of Science Fictions

“History of Science Fiction” is a graphic chronology that maps the literary genre from its nascent roots in mythology and fantastic stories to the somewhat calcified post-Star Wars space opera epics of today. The movement of years is from left to right, tracing the figure of a tentacled beast, derived from H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds Martians. Science Fiction is seen as the offspring of the collision of the Enlightenment (providing science) and Romanticism, which birthed gothic fiction, source of not only SciFi, but crime novels, horror, westerns, and fantasy (all of which can be seen exiting through wormholes to their own diagrams, elsewhere). Science fiction progressed through a number of distinct periods, which are charted, citing hundreds of the most important works and authors. Film and television are covered as well.

History of Science Fiction at Ward Shelley’s site.

The Big Idea ‹ Singularity&Co

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This is such and incredibly awesome idea:

We love books. A lot. And we love sci-fi books, new and old. But mostly old.

And there are a lot of great old sci-fi books out there that are out of print, out of circulation, and, worst of all, not available in any sort of digital format.

Given the subject material, that’s just not right.

So here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to open a bookshop, both online and and in real life, in Brooklyn, NY where we live and work. It doesn’t have to make much money. It doesn’t have to make any money at all, since our day jobs cover our rent.

But what it will do is let us choose one great out of print work of classic and/or obscure sci-fi a month, track down the people that hold the copyright (if they are still around), and publish that work online and on all the major digital book platforms for little or no cost. Every month on this website visitors will get to vote on the next great but not so well remembered work we will rescue from the obscurity of the past.

via The Big Idea ‹ Singularity&Co.

Some good recommendations on SciFi books

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From GalaxyExpress’s Heather, comes a list of recommendations for SciFi romance novels that your butcher, more macho friends will like too.

  • GRIMSPACE – Ann Aguirre (space opera; singularity SF).
  • THE MYTHMAKERS – Robert Appleton (space opera; outlaws; alien artifact)
  • ALPHA – Catherine Asaro (near-future suspense; AI; androids)
  • IN ENEMY HANDS – KS Augustin (hard SF space opera w/ erotic elements)
  • ENEMY WITHIN – Marcella Burnard (space opera; military SF)
  • SONG OF SCARABAEUS – Sara Creasy (cyberpunk & biopunk)
  • METAL REIGN – Nathalie Gray (space opera; badass aliens)
  • DARKSHIP THIEVES – Sarah A. Hoyt (space opera; genetic engineering)
  • GIRL GONE NOVA – Pauline Baird Jones (military SF; space opera)
  • THE HIDDEN WORLDS – Kristin Landon (singularity; space opera; nanotech)
  • DRIVEN – Eve Kenin (post-apocalyptic)
  • TOUCHED BY AN ALIEN – Gini Koch (comedic SF, think Men In Black)
  • GAMES OF COMMAND – Linnea Sinclair (military SF; space opera; cyborg)
  • THE SPIRAL PATH – Lisa Paitz Spindler (military SF; superhuman; space pirates)
  • ENDLESS BLUE – Wen Spencer (military SF; superhuman/genetic engineering; alternate dimensions)

via 15 Sci-Fi Romances Your Boyfriend Will Love.

Red Dwarf Theme

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This has been an earworm for the past few days:

It’s cold outside, there’s no kind of atmosphere
I’m all alone, more or less
Let me fly far away from here
Fun, fun, fun in the sun, sun, sun

I want to lie shipwrecked and comatose
Drinking fresh mango juice
Goldfish shoals nibbling at my toes
Fun, fun, fun in the sun, sun, sun
Fun, fun, fun in the sun, sun, sun

I’ll pack my bags and head into hyperspace
Where I’ll succeed at time-warp speed
Spend my days in ultraviolet rays
Fun, fun, fun in the sun, sun, sun

We’ll lock on course straight through the universe
You and me and the galaxy
Reach the stage where hyperdrive’s engaged
Fun, fun, fun in the sun, sun, sun
Fun, fun, fun in the sun, sun, sun