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Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor

By John Folk-Williams

Death of the Author

Death of the Author marks the second time (the first being Who Fears Death) Nnedi Okorafor has led me through a reading experience that felt interesting but not overwhelming only to deliver an ending section that made me wonder how she does it. For that ending delivers a powerful impact that changes my view of […]

Filed Under: Post-Apocalytic Tagged With: artificial intelligence, family, identity, imagination, love, Nnedi Okorafor, robots, story-telling

Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky

By John Folk-Williams

Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky

I once read that most novel plots could be reduced to two great starting points: a stranger comes to town, and someone goes on a journey. In Adrian Tchaikovsky’s comic and thought-provoking Service Model, the one-time valet robot named Charles embarks on a journey to discover the source of a fatal error in his routines. […]

Filed Under: Post-Apocalytic Tagged With: Adrian Tchaikovsky, agency, artificial intelligence, free will, human survival, justice, library, robots

Foundation’s Edge by Isaac Asimov

By John Folk-Williams

Foundation's Edge

When Isaac Asimov wrote Foundation’s Edge, a sequel to the original Foundation trilogy, he was very much into his project of integrating all of his major works into one universe. The year of publication was 1982, thirty years after the appearance of the trilogy in novel form and a full forty years after he started […]

Filed Under: Space Opera, Vintage Science Fiction Tagged With: Gaia, galactic empires, Isaac Asimov, mind, psychohistory, robots, spaceships

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: Urban Fantasy 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

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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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