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Amazing Cities in Science Fiction – 2

By John Folk-Williams

Terminal World - Cities in Science Fiction

Cities in science fiction stories often go well beyond the background of action. They set conditions that powerfully influence the choices characters have in their lives and the way they think about themselves. The four cities I’m highlighting in this post not only shape the lives of their inhabitants but also stand out as great […]

Filed Under: SFF Cities Tagged With: Alastair Reynolds, Becky Chambers, China Miéville, city, dystopia, ruined earth, society, technology, William Gibson

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin – A Review for #VintageSciFiMonth

By John Folk-Williams

The Dispossessed

For me, Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed is a treasure — along with The Left Hand of Darkness and The Lathe of Heaven, I think, her finest work in science fiction. It brings together so many of her themes in a complex story that is beautifully written and deeply engaging. Themes like coming home, […]

Filed Under: Vintage Science Fiction Tagged With: anarchism, capitalism, exile, exploitation, language, poverty, rebellion, science, society, Ursula K. Le Guin, utopia, wealth

The End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov – A Review for #VintageSciFiMonth

By John Folk-Williams

The End of Eternity

Isaac Asimov’s The End of Eternity combines ideas about time travel with a questioning of the direction humanity could or should take over millions of years. However, the big issues about society, the development of humanity and the nature of Eternity are left to the end when a powerful turnabout occurs where expectations and assumptions […]

Filed Under: Vintage Science Fiction Tagged With: eternity, future history, genetic change, governing the future, Isaac Asimov, society, time travel

Six SFF Visions of Governing the Future

By John Folk-Williams

Infomocracy Governing the Future

There have been an abundance of SFF novels depicting dystopian conditions coming in the next century but relatively few that have offered a vision of governing the future. What would it be like to live amid the surviving or transformed structures of a different world? Would ordinary people have any say or freedom? Here are […]

Filed Under: Favorite SFF Tagged With: agency, Becky Chambers, Failed State, governing the future, H.G. Wells, Infomocracy, Malka Older, society, William Gibson

A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine

By John Folk-Williams

A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine

With a cascade of luminous and psychologically intricate prose, Arkady Martine’s A Desolation Called Peace picks up shortly after the conclusion of A Memory Called Empire. It’s another brilliant book that I find even richer than the first volume of this series on the Teixcalaan Empire and its remote satellite, Lsel Station. The two novels […]

Filed Under: Great Series Read Project, Reviews, Space Opera Tagged With: alien minds, Arkady Martine, communication, galactic empires, identity, language, love, society

Nexhuman by Francesco Verso

By John Folk-Williams

Nexhuman by Francesco Verso

Nexhuman by Francesco Verso brilliantly blends the story of a young man’s obsessive love for a transhuman being with a vivid depiction of a consumerist society strangling on its own trash. Skillfully translated by Sally McCorry, the novel poses powerful questions about what it means to be human. We see this world through the eyes […]

Filed Under: Reviews, Science Fiction in Translation Tagged With: Francesco Verso, Frankenstein, immortality, love, Nexhuman, society, transhuman

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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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