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Sci Fi

Undiscovered Places

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Today’s topic comes from QSFer Alicia Nordwell: “A lot of ancient cultures came up with stories to explain natural phenomena with mythical reasonings. Science had explanations for many unknowns from the past, but what about the places in the world we still dare not go? Deep inside volcanoes, the Marianas Trench, the center of the world? Many authors of the past have written fantastical stories creating whole new worlds inside the one we think we know… but what do you think is hiding in the mysterious beyonds?” We’ve mapped the whole world, so hidden places are pretty few and far … Read more

“There Will be Phlogiston” by Alexis Hall

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Note: Someone in QSF Discussions told me about this book – I forget who – but I wanted to thank them.  I had no idea what I was getting into before I stepped into it, except I think we were discussing bisexual characters, and so everything was a pleasant surprise. This is a MMF Steampunk Novella, and I should note that this is #5 in a series.  I didn’t know that before I started it, but I didn’t find that to be a problem either, because it’s an origin story of sorts, our of bad assed trio. The backdrop is … Read more

Worldbuilding – Drawing Your World

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Over at WorldBuildingSchool.com this last week, they had a great post on drawing your own worlds: Being able to represent land on a map is a key skill required by any cartographer. So this tutorial will show you exactly how to draw land. Genesis 1:6 states “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” (NIV) Just as our real world requires dry land for land dwellers to live so too do our fantasy worlds. Though dry land is not something a fictional world must have, as films like Waterworld prove, however, for … Read more

Seeding Humanity

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Today’s topic is from Beth Brock: “Some scifi writers explain the similarities of humans to other alien races as “seeding”, as in an ancient race went through the universe and “seeded” the worlds with human-like DNA. How do you feel about that explanation that a lot of alien races are similar to humanity? How does that relate to LGBTQ studies?” I gotta say, this always bugged the hell outta me… why in the Star Trek Universe, for instance, most of the aliens are not only humanoid but could have sex and even produce viable offspring. It always struck me as … Read more

Exploring Moral Absolutes Through Sci Fi

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Today’s topic comes from QSFer Jim Comer: “Heinlein is often misunderstood as an individualist. He once said, however, that “moral behavior is survival behavior above the individual level”. Is this true in the societies that we create? What moral absolutes work in stories? Which ones do not?” Broadining this out a little, one of the main roles of sci fi has been to look at the morality of the culture. Fiction does this in general, but sci fi has a special function here, in that it can create an alternate culture/future/society that shines a light on the morals of our … Read more

A Near Miss…

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[Yesterday] morning, an enormous space rock missed Earth by a narrow margin of 745,000 miles, or about three times the distance from the Earth to the Moon. With a diameter of 550 meters and a velocity of about 35,000 miles per hour, the asteroid, known as 2004 BL86, will be so bright in the evening sky that it will be visible through binoculars. Scientists don’t expect another object of this size to pass so closely to Earth until August 7, 2027. By Becky Ferreira – Full Story at Motherboard

Crossing the Line

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Today’s topic comes from QSFer Beth Brock: “How do people handle age of consent in scifi and fantasy? Hell, even in the US of A we have differing ages of consent depending on the state you’re in. How do people feel when a 13 year-old character in a fantasy setting is having sex, or a 14 year-old alien is selling their body on the streets (when adulthood for those aliens is at a younger age). Where’s the line in spec fiction? How about how this relates to current LGBT issues (see Portland Mayor Sam Adams and Beau)? What if you … Read more

Making Organs

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Today’s topic comes from QSFer Cari Zee: “My husband’s been working on making cell scaffolds in bioreactors, the sort of thing you could use to make new joints and organs if you seeded/implanted them right. I love the concept of meta-materials, both organic and inorganic–how one base can become many different things depending on placement and stimulation.”. There are so many possibilities here – both positive and negative. Think of the diseases we could curer? Or think of the abuses we have made against animals (see the photo above) in the name of the advancement of the medical sciences. So … Read more

The Drugs of Tomorrow

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Today’s topic comes from QSFer Beth Brock: “How about drugs in a fantasy or scifi setting. Should they be different than drugs we are familiar with, or the same – with weird names to make them sound different.” I thought Angel covered this topic really well in Vassily the Beautiful, where a futuristic drug that’s near-impossible to kick was used as an important plot element. So what will future drugs look like / do? How might they be used in LGBT storylines? A new type of testosterone? A drug that can switch your orientation (or gender) for a night?

Announcement: Untrustworthy, by JR Gershen-Siegel

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QSFer JR Gershen-Siegel has a new sci fi book out: Tathrelle is the only liberal in the Cabossian government, representing the will of the people, and responsible for communicating with them how the war with the Cavirii is going. She has a pregnant wife and all seems well. The future seems promising, until she meets her new assistant. Something is off with the man. But when Tathrelle wakes up the following morning, subtle changes have happened overnight. She shrugs it off. Then it happens again. And again. Someone, somehow, is changing all of that, as Tathrelle begins to wonder if … Read more