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SciFi Mind

Visions of Future Worlds

SciFi Mind Continues as a Newsletter

By John Folk-Williams

I found it too difficult to migrate this entire site to a new location, so instead I am leaving the blog as is and continue to publish as a free newsletter on Substack. There will be a few edited reprints in that new format, but for the most part, the newsletter will have new content […]

Filed Under: Reviews

SciFi Mind Is Moving Soon

By John Folk-Williams

Over the next couple of weeks, SciFi Mind will move to a new hosting site, and that will take a while to get everything working again, so please be patient. I will also be switching to an email newsletter format so you will be able to get the full text of each post in your […]

Filed Under: Short Fiction

Halcyon Years and Other Sabbatical Reading

By John Folk-Williams

Halcyon Years

Before I get to Halcyon Years and other SFF reading during my sabbatical, I’ll say a few words about other books I’ve been into. One of the pleasures of time off has been reading outside of genre as well as picking up just about anything that catches my eye. I spent a lot of time […]

Filed Under: SciFi Mystery-Thriller, Space Opera Tagged With: Alastair Reynolds, artificial intelligence, Gareth L. Powell, historical fiction, magic, power, spaceships, Ursula K. Le Guin

The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester

By John Folk-Williams

The Stars My Destination

Alfred Bester wrote two important science fiction novels in the 1950s – The Demolished Man and The Stars My Destination. While I have some reservations about the first, I have to agree with a couple of generations of great writers that the second is one of the best scifi novels of the 20th century. The […]

Filed Under: SciFi Mystery-Thriller, Vintage Science Fiction Tagged With: Alfred Bester, corporate dystopia, identity, purpose, spacetime, teleportation, time travel, transformation

Where the Axe Is Buried by Ray Nayler

By John Folk-Williams

Where the Axe Is Buried

Ray Nayler’s haunting novel, Where the Axe Is Buried, draws us into a dystopian world governed in most countries by AIs, and in one Federation, by a single human mind successively incorporated into different bodies to achieve a kind of immortality. While some of the AI governed countries see themselves as free and the Federation […]

Filed Under: Future History Tagged With: artificial intelligence, dystopia, governing the future, oppression, power, Ray Nayler, surveillance society

The Folded Sky (White Space Book 3) by Elizabeth Bear

By John Folk-Williams

The Folded Sky

Elizabeth Bear’s The Folded Sky, the third novel in her White Space series, tells a stand-alone story, full of grand space opera tropes, including Alcubierre-White drives that fold space for faster than light travel, space pirates, sentient ships, a diverse crew of “syster” species, and a star about to go nova. But it’s not just […]

Filed Under: Space Opera Tagged With: alien language, alien life forms, artificial intelligence, Elizabeth Bear, family, spaceships, story-telling

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About SciFi Mind

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Something is struggling to be born in this damaged and inspiring world, and I believe science fiction and its speculative cousins are helping us figure out what it is. It’s pushing the imaginations of fiction writers to bend and twist familiar forms to try to capture the forces that are hurling us into a barely conceivable future. This blog is my small way of exploring the half-perceived … Read More about About

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Recent Posts

  • SciFi Mind Continues as a Newsletter
  • SciFi Mind Is Moving Soon
  • Halcyon YearsHalcyon Years and Other Sabbatical Reading
  • The Stars My DestinationThe Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester
  • Where the Axe Is BuriedWhere the Axe Is Buried by Ray Nayler
  • The Folded SkyThe Folded Sky (White Space Book 3) by Elizabeth Bear

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About the Author

A late-comer to the worlds of science fiction, John Folk-Williams circled around it, first by blogging (primarily through Storied Mind) about inner struggles and the mind’s way of distorting reality. Then he turned directly to SFF as an amazing medium for re-envisioning the mind and the worlds it creates. He started this blog as a way to experiment with writing science fiction and to learn from its many masterful practitioners.

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