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You are here: Home / Archives for alien life forms

Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh

By John Folk-Williams

Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh

Emily Tesh set herself a difficult task in Some Desperate Glory. Present the reader with a young protagonist raised in a militaristic society who is all about duty, war-breeding, xenophobia, homophobia and worse, then draw her through enough world-shattering experiences to make her interesting, flaws and all, from start to finish. And Tesh hits the […]

Filed Under: Space Opera Tagged With: alien life forms, artificial intelligence, coming of age, family, identity, multiple worlds, spaceships, trauma

Isle of the Dead by Roger Zelazny – #VintageSciFiMonth

By John Folk-Williams

Isle of the Dead by Roger Zelazny

Every January is Vintage Science Fiction Month, the not-a-challenge created by Andrea at the little red reviewer and Retro Rockets podcast as well as Red Star Reviews. It’s definitely one of my favorite scifi celebrations. The original idea was to comment on science fiction written before your birth year – but I believe “vintage” came […]

Filed Under: Space Opera, Vintage Science Fiction Tagged With: alien life forms, gods, multiple worlds, religion, revenge, Roger Zelazny, telepathy

Ringworld by Larry Niven – #VintageSciFiMonth

By John Folk-Williams

Ringworld by Larry Niven

If you’re new, as I am, to Larry Niven’s Known Space world, you’ll find an astonishing amount of information online about this hugely influential series of novels and short stories. Ringworld (1970) was Niven’s first novel in the sequence. There are articles about all the characters, alien species, technologies and events of Known Space as […]

Filed Under: Space Opera, Vintage Science Fiction Tagged With: agency, alien life forms, alien technology, city, fallen world, Known Space, Larry Niven, religion, spaceships

Excession by Iain M. Banks – A Culture Novel

By John Folk-Williams

Excession by Iain M. Banks

Well, it’s a new year – and good wishes all around! After a mentally tired December when I wrote little, I relaxed while getting to know the work of Roger Zelazny – and re-reading Iain M. Banks’ Excession, the fifth of his Culture books. Some people suggest starting with other novels set in this universe […]

Filed Under: Space Opera Tagged With: alien life forms, artificial intelligence, gender, Iain M. Banks, identity, spaceships, The Culture

Redemption Ark by Alastair Reynolds – # SciFiMonth Review

By John Folk-Williams

Redemption Ark by Alastair Reynolds

It may seem strange to pick the middle book of a trilogy for my rereading of Revelation Space (now called the Inhibitor Trilogy). But Alastair Reynolds’ Redemption Ark is a magnificent novel that stands mostly on its own and goes in depth into the major Conjoiner characters and the threat to humanity posed by the […]

Filed Under: SciFiMonth, Space Opera Tagged With: Alastair Reynolds, alien life forms, altered minds, redemption, Revelation Space, robots, spaceships, transhuman

A Storm of Wings – A Novel of Viriconium by M. John Harrison

By John Folk-Williams

A Storm of Wings Viriconium

From the beginning of M. John Harrison’s A Storm of Wings (1980), you know you’re entering a shattered world with a diminishing human presence, but it is also a dazzling world captured in densely brilliant and beautiful prose. This second novel of the Viriconium series caught me by surprise. The first, The Pastel City (1971), […]

Filed Under: Fantasy Fiction Tagged With: alien life forms, city, civilization, consciousness, human survival, M. John Harrison, memory, rebirth

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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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