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The Sentence by Gautam Bhatia

By John Folk-Williams

The Sentence by Gautam Bhatia

Much like his earlier novels, The Wall and The Horizon, Gautam Bhatia has created a secondary world with action taking place within a single city in his deeply interesting new book, The Sentence. On one level, this is a story about two sections of a divided city, Peruma, one ruled by a Council of corporations […]

Filed Under: SciFi Mystery-Thriller, SFF Cities Tagged With: anarchism, capitalism, class structure, Gautam Bhatia, identity, justice, law, revolution

Neom by Lavie Tidhar – A Review

By John Folk-Williams

Neom by Lavie Tidhar Locus Ballot 2023

In the helpful afterward to his hauntingly beautiful new novel, Neom, Lavie Tidhar describes his process of writing it as one of discovery. He wrote about a robot going to the flower market of the bustling city of Neom to buy a single rose. But why? He had to write another story to answer that […]

Filed Under: Future History, SFF Cities Tagged With: Central Station, city, family, future history, Lavie Tidhar, love, Neom, purpose, robots

Amazing Cities in SFF – 3

By John Folk-Williams

The Wall Sumer Cities in SFF

To round out for now this series on cities in SFF, I’m revisiting a few novels that capture the importance of how people experience urban environments and how the massive structures affect their language and thought. A city, after all, is not just buildings and a way of physically organizing dense populations, but also a […]

Filed Under: SFF Cities Tagged With: Arkady Martine, city, culture, Gautam Bhatia, language, Lavie Tidhar, memory, myth, poetry, power, religion

3 Great Books about Cities for SciFi Readers

By John Folk-Williams

Four Lost Cities - Great Books about Cities

Since I’ve been writing about cities in science fiction recently, I thought it would be helpful to highlight three great books about cities that can give readers a lot of ideas on the growth and transformation of these centers of human life. People have been congregating in cities since they began to trade goods and […]

Filed Under: Science and Related Books for SFF Readers, SFF Cities Tagged With: Annalee Newitz, archeology, city, civilization, indigenous culture, social change, space community, technology, urban planning

Amazing Cities in Science Fiction – 2

By John Folk-Williams

Terminal World - Cities in Science Fiction

Cities in science fiction stories often go well beyond the background of action. They set conditions that powerfully influence the choices characters have in their lives and the way they think about themselves. The four cities I’m highlighting in this post not only shape the lives of their inhabitants but also stand out as great […]

Filed Under: SFF Cities Tagged With: Alastair Reynolds, Becky Chambers, China Miéville, city, dystopia, ruined earth, society, technology, William Gibson

Amazing Cities in Science Fiction – 1

By John Folk-Williams

Cities of science fiction - We by Yevgeny Zamyatin

We have all been dazzled by the artists’ visions of great cities in science fiction movies, like Metropolis, Things to Come, Blade Runner, The Fifth Element, the cities of Star Wars, Trantor in the TV series Foundation or the glimpses we’ve had of Gallifrey in the later Doctor Who stories. But I’m more interested in […]

Filed Under: SFF Cities Tagged With: Alastair Reynolds, alien life forms, China Miéville, city, civilization, Foundation, Isaac Asimov, Revelation Space, Yevgeny Zamyatin

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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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