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The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler

By John Folk-Williams

The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler

I was late coming to Ray Nayler’s The Mountain in the Sea, partly because it seemed too Earth-bound a story, partly because I thought it might be too much a novel of ideas, cut off from the flesh-and-blood characters that make a story work. My impressions were completely wrong. The Mountain in the Sea is […]

Filed Under: SciFi Mystery-Thriller Tagged With: alien language, androids, artificial intelligence, communication, consciousness, corporate dystopia, octopus, robots, slavery

The Crane Husband by Kelly Barnhill

By John Folk-Williams

The Crane Husband by Kelly Barnhill

Kelly Barnhill’s The Crane Husband is, in many ways a companion piece to her longer work, When Women Were Dragons. In both, the desire of a woman to break free of the normal bounds of life takes literal form, but at great cost to others. In one case, they become dragons – at times on […]

Filed Under: Fantasy Fiction Tagged With: art, coming of age, family, Kelly Barnhill, obsession, robots, shapeshifter, transformation

Robotic Ambitions Kickstarter from Apex

By John Folk-Williams

Robotic Ambitions Apex Book Company

Apex Book Company will begin a Kickstarter campaign on February 21st to raise funds for a new anthology, Robotic Ambitions. I don’t usually join in campaigns like this, but Apex is an important institution in the SFF world. I’d like to help make this book possible — I have to add that I have no […]

Filed Under: Short Fiction Tagged With: androids, Apex Books, artificial intelligence, consciousness, robots

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

New Voices in Chinese Science Fiction, Edited by Neil Clarke, Xia Jia, Regina Kanyu Wang

By John Folk-Williams

New Voices in Chinese Science Fiction

In her introduction to New Voices in Chinese Science Fiction, Xia Jia explains how she and the other editors selected and found translators for the work of eight writers who had never before had their stories presented to the English-speaking world. I found the eight stories the editors chose to be fascinating. Several are brilliant […]

Filed Under: International Speculative Fiction, Science Fiction in Translation, Short Fiction Tagged With: artificial intelligence, Chinese science fiction, death, neuroscience, robots, tradition, virtual reality

Neom by Lavie Tidhar – A Review

By John Folk-Williams

Neom by Lavie Tidhar Locus Ballot 2023

In the helpful afterward to his hauntingly beautiful new novel, Neom, Lavie Tidhar describes his process of writing it as one of discovery. He wrote about a robot going to the flower market of the bustling city of Neom to buy a single rose. But why? He had to write another story to answer that […]

Filed Under: Future History, SFF Cities Tagged With: Central Station, city, family, future history, Lavie Tidhar, love, Neom, purpose, robots

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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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