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You are here: Home / 2020 / Archives for July 2020

Archives for July 2020

The Art of Unseeing in China Mieville’s The City & The City

By John Folk-Williams

The City & the City by China Mieville The Art of Unseeing

The City & the City by China Miéville takes the form of a murder mystery amplified by Miéville’s unique ability to find richly suggestive fantasy metaphors about our world. This one is about the art of unseeing or seeing only what you are permitted to recognize in the midst of the doppelgänger cities of Besźel […]

Filed Under: Reviews, SciFi Mystery-Thriller Tagged With: China Miéville, city, invisibility, metaphor, mystery, seeing and unseeing, The City & The City

Science Books for Science Fiction Readers – 2

By John Folk-Williams

Hiroshima Diary science books for science fiction readers

This second post in my series of science books for science fiction readers moves from the inner space of the human mind to ideas of expanding human life across the galaxy. From Kip Thorne’s astrophysics and Antonio Damasio’s neurobiology to Freeman Dyson’s essays on space and the diary of a doctor in the aftermath of […]

Filed Under: Science and Related Books for SFF Readers Tagged With: Antonio Damasio, apocalypse, black holes, consciousness, Freeman Dyson, Hiroshima, Kip Thorne, radiation poisoning, relativity, space travel, time warps

Octavia E. Butler’s Xenogenesis Trilogy: A New Species Emerges

By John Folk-Williams

Dawn by Octavia E. Butler Xenogenesis Trilogy

Prepare for a deep dive into the most intimate details of human-alien contact in Octavia E. Butler’s Xenogenesis trilogy. Step by step she takes you through the initial encounters between a human, Lilith Iyapo, and her Oankali captors (Dawn), the coming of age of a construct resulting from this union (Adulthood Rites) and the reconciliation […]

Filed Under: Great Series Read Project, Reviews, Vintage Science Fiction Tagged With: alien life forms, apocalypse, colonialism, gender, human emotion, Octavia E. Butler, sexuality, slavery, species, xenogenesis trilogy

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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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