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The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older

By John Folk-Williams

The Mimicking of Known Successes

The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older, author of the remarkable The Centenal Cycle, is a many-layered book that becomes more and more interesting upon closer examination. On the surface, it is a very good mystery about the search for a missing man. It is also a fine relationship story about the investigator, Mossa, […]

Filed Under: SciFi Mystery-Thriller Tagged With: city, human survival, Malka Older, relationships, ruined earth, sapphic love, space colonies

Children of Memory by Adrian Tchaikovsky for #SciFiMonth

By John Folk-Williams

Children of Memory by Adrian Tchaikovsky

By now, I just accept the fact that Adrian Tchaikovsky can write about anything in SFF and do it brilliantly. Children of Memory, which follows the award-winning Children of Time and Children of Ruin, continues this great saga of human evolution and species uplift in multiple star systems. There is a moving and exciting story […]

Filed Under: Great Series Read Project, SciFiMonth, Space Opera Tagged With: Adrian Tchaikovsky, human survival, identity, memory, sentient beings, space colonies, terraforming

Otherlands and More Science Books for Science Fiction Readers

By John Folk-Williams

Otherlands - Science Books for SciFi Readers

Here are three excellent books about science that I’ve found helpful for updating ideas about the origins of life, the nature of the mind and the vanished worlds of extinct creatures and environments that preceded our present precarious moment. Otherlands: A Journey Through Earth’s Extinct Worlds by Thomas Halliday is one of the most extraordinary […]

Filed Under: Science and Related Books for SFF Readers Tagged With: alternate worlds, brain, cognition, evolution, genetic change, human survival, life forms, navigation, species, subminds

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

Needle by Linda Nagata (Inverted Frontier Book 3)

By John Folk-Williams

Needle by Linda Nagata (Inverted Frontier Book 3)

Needle is the third book in Linda Nagata’s compelling Inverted Frontier series that began with Edges and continued with Silver. This is an epic story of the search for remnants of human civilizations reaching back from the farthest reach of settlement toward the origin of it all. Urban and the crew of the Dragon encounter […]

Filed Under: Indie SciFi, Space Opera Tagged With: alien minds, consciousness, human survival, Inverted Frontier, Linda Nagata, memory, power

These Lifeless Things by Premee Mohamed – A Review

By John Folk-Williams

These Lifeless Things by Premee Mohamed

There is a moment in Premee Mohamed’s brilliant novella, These Lifeless Things, when the narrator, an anthropologist exploring a post-apocalyptic landscape, says in frustration with her “hard” science colleagues that there is more than one way of knowing. That gets to the heart of this absorbing narrative. She has found a treasure in the ruins […]

Filed Under: Post-Apocalytic, Reviews Tagged With: alien life forms, city, human survival, knowledge, narrative, post-apocalytic, science

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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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