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Sci Fi

Car of the Future

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Car of the Future

This could be the car of the future If you thought a pint-sized clown car was going to be the vehicle of the future, you may have been on to something. The Toyota iRoad, which isn’t even three feet wide, is a fusion of motorcycle, tiny electric compact car, bobsled and shopping cart — and you could be driving it in a few years. The company is testing the three-wheeler now in the San Francisco Bay area, which is home to some of the worst traffic in America. The idea is not to replace Toyota’s pioneering hybrid Prius or best-selling … Read more

Terrible Queer Characters

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Well of Loneliness

Today’s topic comes from QSFer Amanda Clay: “We’ve talked about really good queer representation in sf/f, how about really bad? What are the worst queer characters and story lines you have ever had to suffer through” You know, the ones that are so stereotypically over-the-top gay. Your limp-wristers. Your comically bad evil gay villains. Your “doomed to the pits of hell” 50’s lesbians. Your really bad men in drag passing as transgender folks. Your invisible bi characters. We can mine TV, film, and literature for this one. And have you written any that, looking back, you just kinda go “ick”? … Read more

Crazy Like A Fox

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Alan Turing

Today’s topic comes from QSFer Victoria Stagg Elliott: “I just watched the Imitation Game last night so my potential question is inspired by Alan Turing. Alan was a tortured genius. His craziness gave him the genius to crack the enigma code and end WWII, two years early. He probably saved millions of lives. But that craziness and societal homophobia also meant that he was dead by suicide at age 41. In what ways does our own craziness benefit our writing while perhaps being less than beneficial in our lives? How has societal oppression shaped our writing and how we express … Read more

Sci Fi Futures – Near or Far?

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Her

Today’s topic – how do you like your sci fi – near or far? There are a lot of great stories out there that take current trends and extrapolate them into the near future. The film “Her” was one of these that I really enjoyed, because it had that “just-around-the-corner” feel, like it could actually happen within a few years. I loved this film’s ideas of how we might soon interface with tech. Then there’s a branch of sci fi that’s set so far in the future that it’s no longer recognizably connected to our present – or is in … Read more

Getting There

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Today I’m wondering about getting there. If you write or read interplanetary or intersolar sci fi – how do characters get around? Oh sure, there’s always hyperspace. But what are some of the more creative ways you’ve written, read, or thought about to get Captain Donatella and First Communications Officer Christopher from Planet Fabulous to Amazonia? And how about on-planet? In 100 years, 500 years, 1000 years, how will we get from one end of the Earth to another? Space elevators? Sling shots? Tunnels through the middle of the Earth? Go a little crazy here with me.

Will Wearable Tech Take Off?

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Apple Watch

The Android smart watch’s time may not yet have come: Despite heavy promotion of Android Wear, Google’s hardware partners, including LG Electronics, Motorola Mobility and Samsung Electronics, only shipped 720,000 of the devices last year. With the arrival of products such as Motorola’s hotly anticipated Moto 360, the smartwatch market was expected to take off. But the data from market research company Canalys shows that consumers are still far from convinced that they need buy one. “Android Wear will need to improve significantly in the future, and we believe it will do so,” said Daniel Matte, analyst at Canalys. Full … Read more

Announcement: IM, by Rick Reed

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IM, by Rick Reed

DSPP author Rick R. Reed has a new sci fi thriller book out: The Internet is the new meat market for gay men. Now a killer is turning the meat market into a meat wagon. One by one, he’s killing them. Lurking in the digital underworld of Men4HookUpNow.com, he lures, seduces, and charms, reaching out through instant messages to the unwary. When the first body surfaces, openly gay Chicago Police Department detective Ed Comparetto is called in to investigate. At the scene, the young man who discovered the body tells him the story of how he found his friend. But … Read more

Strong Female Characters in Spec Fic

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Women in sci fi

There’s a long-standing tradition of male dominance in speculative fiction, but especially in Sci Fi. If you look back at the Golden Age sci fi writers, they are, if not all, than at least 95% male. This has shifted in recent years, but there’s still an under-representation of both female authors in mainstream sci fi, fantasy and paranormal (with, of course, some very notable exceptions). And there also seems to be a lack of strong female characters in these genres, lesbian and straight. So my questions to you today: What can we do about this? Are there still factors holding … Read more

NASA’s Dawn Spacecraft Orbits A Dwarf Planet

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Ceres

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft made history at 4:39 a.m. PST Friday morning when it reached Ceres and became the first man-made object to orbit a dwarf planet. According to NASA, the objective of the Dawn mission is to “study the asteroid Vesta and dwarf planet Ceres, celestial bodies believed to have accreted early in the history of the solar system. The mission will characterize the early solar system and the processes that dominated its formation.” Dawn was launched from Cape Canaveral in September 2007, with an ultimate destination of the asteroid belt that lies between Mars and Jupiter. Dawn’s first target … Read more

Park of the Future?

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NYC Park

Pier55, the massive public NYC Hudson River park backed by Barry Diller and Diane von Furstenburg to the tune of $113 million has won unanimous approval from the Hudson River Park Trust on Wednesday, DNA Info reports: Pier55 will feature 2.7 acres of new floating public park space rising from the river near West 14th Street. The pier is expected to open in the spring of 2019, said Madelyn Wils, president of the Trust… …Diller is contributing $113 million to Pier55’s construction, and will fund the park’s maintenance for 20 years. See the Full Story at Towleroad.com