What Science Fiction Lacks
Good criticism and brave critics. That’s what the science fiction field lacks. For decades now, most book reviews with in the field rarely give honest assessments of a given works strengths and weaknesses. Read any […]
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A Broader View of Science-Fiction Poetry
Paul Cook’s essay on the badness of SF poetry makes a few good points—while being woefully clueless in other respects. As someone with a passing fondness for speculative literature, and as one who has previously […]
SF Weapons 101: An Introduction
Science Fiction from its earliest incarnations has always featured some sort of futuristic weaponry. From H.G. Wells’ martian heat-ray to the most modern charged particle beam of Alastair Reynolds, SF weapons astound, confound and amaze […]
The Fed Puts Stamps of Approval on Science Fiction Authorship
Sometime after John W. Campbell died in 1971, a few science fiction fans launched a campaign requesting that the U.S. Postal Service issue a postage stamp commemorating the legendary editor of Astounding Science Fiction and […]
Halo Jones Interview with Ian Gibson
Before From Hell, before Watchmen, before The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, there was The Ballad of Halo Jones. Co-created by writer Alan Moore and artist Ian Gibson, Halo Jones was a space opera about a young woman who is swept up in […]
The Difference Between Thinking Like a Scientist and a Science Fiction Writer
I was in graduate school for astronomy when I started taking writing seriously. The first stories I wrote that were any good and started to sell tended to be fantasy or science fiction with horror […]
Interview: John DeNardo of SF Signal
SF Signal is a phenomenon. This past year at the Chicon 7 Worldcon, the website was nominated in two categories – Best Fanzine and Best Fancast – and walked home with the honors in the […]
T*Zers: David Gerrold’s – Doctor on the Enterprise
Earlier this week we warned you that today Amazing Stories would be teasing the heck out of you and everyone else in the science fiction world. That is at the very least, those fans of […]
Resident Evil
There are some people who think that a movie based on a video game should automatically be considered mindless trash. Good science fiction movies, they say, should be based on loftier sources, such as the […]
Some shows get cancelled before their time
I always hate getting in to a show and then it suddenly gets cancelled before it gets to even begin its story (Firefly is a key example). You might say that I should just not […]
When Hollywood Attacks!
There was no movie in 2012 that I looked forward to seeing more than Prometheus. It was being produced by Ridley Scott, the same man who produced Alien and Blade Runner. Unfortunately it wasn’t really […]
Amazing Stories to Publish David Gerrold Comic Script: Star Trek & Dr. Who Fans Might Collide with a Bang! Theoretically of Course
Ok, I’ll say it, if only to keep up with the current trend on the site: The Experimenter Publishing Company is pleased to bring you an Amazing First! Our first piece of new fiction, and […]
No. 6 – Theodore Sturgeon, The Next Question, Well-Meaning Scientists and The Evil They Can Cause.
2013 Feb 10 – Theodore Sturgeon, aka/Edward Hamilton Waldo, is best remembered for asking “What’s the next question?” In some portraits, you’ll see Sturgeon wearing a “Q,” with an arrow pointing forward, suspended from a […]
Why Science Fiction Poetry is Embarrassingly Bad
I have been bothered for a long time by what passes for science fiction poetry, at least the kinds of “verse” (I use the term hesitantly) that currently appears in the three main short fiction […]
Apollo’s Outcasts Brings Back the Space Adventure
Finally, we have an author not afraid to approach fresh innovative science fiction with an old-school style. Apollo’s Outcasts by Allen Steele is an inspiring throwback to the youthful excitement of space travel carved out […]
Christopher Nolan’s Inception as Shamanic Psychodrama
A few weeks ago, a friend and I were discussing which films should be considered science fiction and which shouldn’t. He claimed comic book/superhero movies should not be called SF. I claimed that Inception isn’t […]
Invasion of the Movie Snatchers
We live in a cinematic age of remakes, reboots and re-imaginings. Even new movies like The Hobbit feel like pictures that have gone before. This is hardly a new experience. Long before he became President […]
Is Science Killing Science Fiction?
Gregory Benford shared this on facebook, asking if this notion was true: Strahan, Jonathan, “Introduction,” Edge of Infinity, Solaris, 2012. This is just a short introduction to Strahan’s latest book of short stories, but he […]
The Galapagos Frontier Thesis
The formative American experience was the conquest of the western frontier. Would science fiction and fantasy exist without the frontier model? What does Japan’s parallel conquest of Hokkaido tell us about the legacy of colonial expansion?
The Top Ten Roleplaying Games of All Time
Pull the blinds and turn off the phone; it’s time to head to the Game Room and lock in on some hardcore meta-gaming action. In the Game Room we will explore the world of gaming […]
Elementary, my dear Watson-bot 2.0!
Crime and punishment. Both words are synonymous with genre fiction. Whether it is the flashy superhero racing to stop the next crisis or the “I’m too old for this shit” beat cop who stumbles upon a global […]
All I Want For X-Mass/Hanukah is –
Two front teeth? What strange, horrible and twisted things happened to that kid that all she wanted was body parts? Me? All I wanted was every darned space, army and action toy they could cram […]
The Lazy Apocalypse
One of my usual rants is that science fiction writers are lazy. (And greedy, but that’s another story.) Of course, both accusations are not true when you look at the careers of specific writers and […]
“I Like Science Fiction, It’s Got Like Giant Robots and Stuff, Right?” Science Fiction’s Self-Esteem Problem Part IV: To Boldly Go Where No Fan Has Gone Before
Over the last three weeks I have discussed the sources and causes of Science Fictions self-esteem problem. The genre’s inability to shed it’s pulp roots and ongoing pulpishness, the relative obscurity of SF to the […]
The Virtual Truth of the Bloodlight Chronicles
The Bloodlight Chronicles by Steve Stanton revives originality in today’s science fiction with a complex cyberpunk series.
Machines that Think Are Improbable
Intelligent robots have been part of the SciFi lexicon since before Fritz Lang’s seminal file Metropolis. While it’s fun to imagine what the world would be like with intelligent machines, the sad truth is that […]
Dress for the Occasion 2: The Decked-out Heroine
Previously I blogged about that favourite trope of SF & Fantasy illustration: The Scantily Clad Female. That topic generated a lot of comments, so let’s look at the opposite end of the spectrum and see […]
A Kepler’s Dozen
NASA’s Kepler mission has been watching a swath of the Milky Way watching for the signs of stars being eclipsed by planets in orbit around them. This takes patience and favorable geometry, but Kepler has […]
E-Zines vs. Dead Tree Zines: the more things change…
I have been producing fanzines off and on since 1976, shortly after encountering science fiction fandom and this particular aspect of that hobby interest. As anybody who has ever pubbed (that is fanspeak for “published”) […]
About Author
A professor of English and ESOL (teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) at Blinn College in Bryan, Texas, John Purcell has also been at various times in his life an insurance assistant underwriter, worked at a pig-packing plant in Iowa, and a professional jazz musician. John gave that last one up for teaching because he needed a steady paycheck to take care of a growing family. Yes, he is married – for 23 years now – and has three children, all grown. Well, almost; the youngest is 17 and still living at home, but as soon as that kid is done with college and gets a job, he gets the boot.
John currently publishes the online fanzine Askance, which is available for viewing and downloading at www.efanzines.com, and has been involved with science fiction fandom in one way or another for 40 years now. He is hosting the fanzine lounge at the upcoming World Science Fiction Convention in San Antonio, Texas – LoneStarCon 3 – and is looking forward to attending his first world con since 1978!
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