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9 Great Books of SFF in Translation

By John Folk-Williams

Frankenstein in Baghdad - SFF in translation

Anticipating reading resolutions for next year, one is definitely to review more SFF in translation. Over the past couple of years of blogging, I’m appalled to see that I’ve only reviewed nine translated works, though each of these is a masterpiece in its own way. If I were to include all the international SFF I’ve […]

Filed Under: Favorite SFF, Science Fiction in Translation Tagged With: Ahmed Saadawi, Bruno Schulz, Clelia Farris, Dino Buzzati, Francesco Verso, Mohamed Kheir, Olga Tokarczuk, Rita Carla Francesca Monticelli, Stanisław Lem

Remote Control by Nnedi Okorafor – A Review

By John Folk-Williams

Remote Control by Nnedi Okorafor

From the brilliant opening of Nnedi Okorafor’s Remote Control, when we meet the confident Sankofa, just fourteen, walking a road in rural Ghana (“Small swift steps made with small swift feet”) the hints of her extraordinary power are everywhere. She is a subject of rumor, people hide from her approach, she wears adult clothes though […]

Filed Under: SciFiMonth Tagged With: Africanfuturism, alien technology, corporate dystopia, legend, Nnedi Okorafor, power, technology

Slipping by Mohamed Kheir – A Review for #SciFiMonth

By John Folk-Williams

Slipping by Mohamed Kheir

Mohamed Kheir has written in Slipping a brilliant series of stories that drop their characters out of time and space for brief periods and interweave their narratives to challenge the limits of story-telling. The effect is like a folding of reality itself as the terms of their lives change directions in a stray encounter here, […]

Filed Under: Science Fiction in Translation, SciFiMonth, Short Fiction Tagged With: dreams, Egypt, memory, politics, power, reality, singing, story-telling

The Quantum War by Derek Künsken – A Review for #SciFiMonth

By John Folk-Williams

The Quantum War by Derek Kunsken #scifimonth

Derek Künsken’s The Quantum War, the third book in The Quantum Evolution series, continues the stories that blend exciting space adventure with probing speculations on the philosophical and religious implications of altering human evolution. At the heart of these novels, set in the 26th century, are new human species, especially the Homo quantus, endowed with […]

Filed Under: Great Series Read Project, SciFiMonth Tagged With: artificial intelligence, brain, consciousness, Derek Kunsken, evolution, genetic engineering, religion, sacrifice, sentient beings, Venus

Philip K. Dick on What Is Science Fiction? #SciFiMonth

By John Folk-Williams

Philip K. Dick What Is Science Fiction

Philip K. Dick on What Is Science Fiction? continues an occasional series exploring how writers have thought about their craft and what it means. Instead of looking for pedantic definitions, I’m examining the ideas about science fiction that some of the best writers have offered, not as definitions but as reflections on their chosen genre […]

Filed Under: SciFiMonth, What is Science Fiction Tagged With: activism, alternate worlds, future history, Philip K. Dick, science, sff writing, vision

The Fallen by Ada Hoffman – A Review for #SciFiMonth

By John Folk-Williams

#SciFiMonth The Fallen by Ada Hoffman

As the second book in Ada Hoffman’s The Outside series, The Fallen picks up where The Outside left off but is less concerned with a continuing adventure than with deep probing of all the major characters. There is plenty of action as well, but I was totally absorbed in understanding the minds and backgrounds of […]

Filed Under: SciFiMonth Tagged With: altered minds, artificial intelligence, colonialism, community, neurodiversity, plurality, religion, transformation

5 Great Novels in My Lineup for #SciFiMonth

By John Folk-Williams

SciFiMonth 2021

November is here and it’s time for SciFiMonth, that great blog-along managed by Lisa of Dear Geek Place and imyril of There’s Always Room for One More. If you want to sign up, they have set up a master schedule where you can enter whatever you plan to blog or tweet about. Check out Lisa’s […]

Filed Under: Science Fiction in Translation, SciFiMonth Tagged With: Ada Hoffman, Derek Kunsken, Essa Hansen, Mohamed Kheir, Nnedi Okorafor

The Outside by Ada Hoffman – A Review

By John Folk-Williams

The Outside by Ada Hoffman

There is so much to love, so much to be challenged by in Ada Hoffman’s The Outside. It’s one of those books I immediately set about re-reading because the characters and what happens to them are so compelling. One of those characters, as I think about it, is the Outside itself, that mysterious level of […]

Filed Under: Reviews Tagged With: artificial intelligence, autism, consciousness, obsession, religion, sapphic love, shape-shifting, technology

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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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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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