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, […]
A Diné Antihero in the Sixth World Series by Rebecca Roanhorse
Rebecca Roanhorse’s two book series, The Sixth World, is at once a brilliant evocation of the Diné homeland and a strong character study of a young woman who feels stranded between the worlds of human and immortal. She is an antihero at once reveling in and resisting her supernatural powers. Trail of Lightning and Storm […]
Science Books for Science Fiction Readers – 2
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 […]
Octavia E. Butler’s Xenogenesis Trilogy: A New Species Emerges
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 […]
Doris Lessing: Shikasta
In an era when science fiction insists on “showing” rather than “telling”, Doris Lessing’s Canopus in Argos: Archives series challenges readers to think differently. In five books, starting with Shikasta in 1979, she produced an epic scale work more in the vein of Olaf Stapledon’s universal histories than current best-sellers, and no less dazzling and […]
