Category Archives: science fiction

Cosmic Websites; Recent Headlines

Posted on Friday 13 January 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

Let’s begin with an item from December, on a website called Topia: A World of Good, promoted on Facebook today by David Brin since it reproduces a list Brin compiled on his own blog some time ago. 21 COSMIC WEBSITES … Continue reading →

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Longtermism (and Science Fiction), part 2

Posted on Wednesday 14 December 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

More about “longermism,” Effective Altruism, how they relate to science fiction, and whether or not books can be reduced to six-paragraph summaries.

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Change and Survival: A Refined Conception of Science Fiction

Posted on Tuesday 29 November 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

A couple items today have perhaps led me to a new formulation of the idea of “science fiction.”

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Remembering Greg Bear

Posted on Monday 21 November 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

This isn’t the best photo of Greg Bear, but it’s the one I took, back at the 1984 Worldcon, in LA, the very first Worldcon I attended. I can’t tell what book he was holding, or waving — it’s his … Continue reading →

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Whither Science Fiction 2022?

Posted on Friday 18 November 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

It’s been obvious for a couple decades that fantasy is outselling science fiction, and dominates the books critics speak of when compile lists of the “best science fiction and fantasy” of the year. Today’s post is about how that is … Continue reading →

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SF Links: Stories and Crashed Spaceships

Posted on Tuesday 15 November 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Two notable items today from the Tor.com website. About stories; about crashed spaceships (loosely).

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Ari Wallach, LONGPATH: Becoming the Great Ancestors Our Future Needs

Posted on Saturday 5 November 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

This is a modest little book with great ambitions to change the way people think. And more power to it if it does. But for anyone who reads science fiction, for example, or is familiar with big issues and long-term … Continue reading →

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One More Round of Links, with no Comments

Posted on Monday 31 October 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Let’s just compile them with minimal comment. Some are worth returning to. Here’s everything I haven’t already posted since the 1st of October.

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SF and Literary Topics

Posted on Wednesday 26 October 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Cormac McCarthy, Philip K. Dick, Top Horror Stories, SF for Beginners, the Storytelling Bias, latest NYTBR SF/F reviews, Mathematical fiction

Posted in Psychology, science fiction | Comments Off on SF and Literary Topics

Alastair Reynolds, “Turquoise Days”

Posted on Sunday 23 October 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

This week’s Sunday novella is “Turquoise Days” by Alastair Reynolds. It was first published in a thin chapbook from Golden Gryphon Press (shown left in the photo above) in 2002, then in a two-novella collection, Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days, from … Continue reading →

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