• Blog
  • About
  • Stories of Elektra
  • Great Series Read Project
  • Archive

SciFi Mind

Visions of Future Worlds

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Goodreads
  • Mastodon
You are here: Home / Archives for fable

Norstrilia by Cordwainer Smith

By John Folk-Williams

Norstrilia by Cordwainer Smith

Norstrilia (written as two short novels in the 1960s but not published as one until 1975 after the author’s death), is a unique masterpiece by Paul Linebarger who wrote under the name Cordwainer Smith. The story begins with an odd preface that throws the key elements of the book at you in the manner of […]

Filed Under: Vintage Science Fiction Tagged With: Cordwainer Smith, fable, identity, immortality, patriarchy, religion, slavery, social classes, telepathy, transhuman

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke – A Review

By John Folk-Williams

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

Never having read Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell, I picked up her Piranesi with no preconceptions about the sort of book it might be and promptly fell in love with it. It’s a masterful fable about life in this world that introduces us to the mind of a narrator who proclaims himself to […]

Filed Under: Secondary World Fantasy Tagged With: alternate worlds, consciousness, fable, identity, memory, Piranesi, psychic powers, Susanna Clarke

Fables of Need: this census-taker by China Miéville and The Tartar Steppe by Dino Buzzati

By John Folk-Williams

This Census-Taker by China Mieville

I’m not sure what leads me to link these two books, as different and far apart in time as they are, but China Miéville’s this census-taker (2016)and Dino Buzzati’s The Tartar Steppe (1938) strike me as fables of human need. I’m not even sure what I mean by that, except that each book tells a […]

Filed Under: International Speculative Fiction, Secondary World Fantasy Tagged With: boyhood, China Miéville, Dino Buzzati, fable, glory, magic, military, mountains, The City & The City, trauma

The Wall by Gautam Bhatia, Book One of The Chronicles of Sumer

By John Folk-Williams

The Wall Sumer Cities in SFF

Gautam Bhatia’s The Wall is an intricate and compelling cross between fantasy and fable that strikes at something deep within human nature, a yearning to break through the barriers that hem us in. In the world of The Wall, the barrier is a literal one, vast, black, blocking out every sign of a world beyond. […]

Filed Under: Reviews, Secondary World Fantasy Tagged With: city, class structure, fable, fantasy, Gautam Bhatia, poetry, politics, religion, song, The Wall

Subscribe to SciFi Mind Posts



About SciFi Mind

nebula SciFiMind

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

Search SciFi Mind

Recent Posts

  • She Who KnowsShe Who Knows and One Way Witch by Nnedi Okorafor #Wyrd&Wonder
  • Lake of Darkness by Adam RobertsLake of Darkness by Adam Roberts
  • Death of the AuthorDeath of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor
  • Dissolution by Nicholas BingeDissolution by Nicholas Binge
  • The Fifth Head of CerberusThe Fifth Head of Cerberus by Gene Wolfe
  • The Sentence by Gautam BhatiaThe Sentence by Gautam Bhatia

Categories

© 2025 Copyright by John Folk-Williams · Dynamik-Gen On Genesis Framework