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Visions of Future Worlds

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Eyes of the Void by Adrian Tchaikovsky

By John Folk-Williams

Eyes of the Void by Adrian Tchaikovsky

I love a space adventure that lures me on with the promise of revealing the fundamental nature of a fictional universe, preferably through a dazzling experience that only the hero has earned the right to have. Well, no one can really explain the nature of everything, at least not very clearly, so far, but Adrian […]

Filed Under: Space Opera Tagged With: Adrian Tchaikovsky, alien life forms, alien minds, altered minds, communication, consciousness, reality, space colonies, universe

Belladonna Nights and Other Stories by Alastair Reynolds

By John Folk-Williams

Belladonna Nights by Alastair Reynolds

Belladonna Nights and Other Stories is a great way to get into Alastair Reynolds’ short fiction. Ever since reading the beautiful “Nightingale” in Galactic North, set in the Revelation Space universe, I’ve been alert to a theme of personal loss and grief caused by separation from a loved one or because of the imminence of […]

Filed Under: Short Fiction Tagged With: Alastair Reynolds, alien life forms, galaxy, grief, loss, Revelation Space, spaceships, war

Fevered Star and Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

By John Folk-Williams

Fevered Star by Rebecca Roanhorse

Fevered Star is the second book in Rebecca Roanhorse’s brilliantly imagined series Between Earth and Sky. Picking up directly after the conclusion of Black Sun, Fevered Star pushes its central characters in new directions while building on their gods-driven purposes played out in a richly imagined setting that draws together elements of many pre-Columbian American […]

Filed Under: Great Series Read Project, Secondary World Fantasy Tagged With: avatar, city, gods, human emotion, indigenous culture, power, Rebecca Roanhorse, religion, sacrifice

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

The Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction – 2021

By John Folk-Williams

Year's Best African Speculative Fiction 2021

The Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction (2021), edited by Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, reprints 29 gripping stories that test the limits of everyday reality. As diverse as the stories are, most of them push their characters across boundaries between this world and the spirit world, between past and present, human and robot, the living and the […]

Filed Under: International Speculative Fiction, Short Fiction Tagged With: Africa, Africanfuturism, alternate worlds, ancestors, robots, self-worth, sentient beings, spirits

Dark Theory by Wick Welker

By John Folk-Williams

Dark Theory by Wick Welker

Wick Welker’s Dark Theory (the first volume of a series called Dark Law) poses basic questions about what it means to be human in a far-future poisoned world. The story begins in a junkyard where people have to scavenge the means of survival. Two young women, the generous-hearted Lucindi and the hardened and cynical Miree, […]

Filed Under: Indie SciFi, Reviews Tagged With: apocalypse, artificial intelligence, city, consciousness, cyborg, friendship, identity, memory, power, robots, ruined earth

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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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