As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

Sci Fi

Humor in Sci Fi and Fantasy

by

Today’s topic comes from QSFer John Allenson: “What, if any, is the role of humour in science fiction and fantasy?” Most sci fi and fantasy tends to be pretty serious stuff – looking at the social and cultural impacts of current trends on the future, aka climate change, overpopulation, technical advances, etc for sci fo, and the imminent end of the world as dark forces converge in fantasy. But I’ve also read my share of humorous works, especially on the sci fi side – see Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, or Piers Anthony’s Xanth. I’m wracking my brain for some examples on … Read more

Building Your Own Religion

by

There’s an old story that goes something like this (via StackExchange): It is widely believed that L. Ron Hubbard and Robert A. Heinlein made a bet in a bar one night either than L. Ron could not create a religion, or to see who could create a religion first. (In the second case, Stranger in a Strange Land is often cited as Heinlein’s effort.) The story has been widely debunked, but it is a fact that sci fi author L. Ron Hubbard came up with Scientology. I often struggle with the role of religion in my sci fi stories – … Read more

Announcement: Missed Connections Anthology

by

QSFer Cari Z. has a story in the new anthology, Missed Connections: Anthology summary: A fleeting glance across a crowded space. Trains passing by in the night. Paths that once split unexpectedly cross again. Old friends reunited. Sometimes rediscovering a person and having new feelings can be just as intense as an initial spark. Less Than Three Press presents an anthology of stories about people who get a second chance to connect… Story Excerpt The International Space Agency (ISA) welcomes you to your new position as a candidate for Project Evergreen, the next stage in humanity’s cooperative exploration of our … Read more

Transhumanism and the LGBT Community

by

Today’s topic comes from QSFer Jim Comer: “Transhumanism and whether *sexuality* or *sex* will matter/could matter at all in a transhuman setting. Transhumanism takes many forms. AI is one of them. Others involve ideas such as immortality, bionics, cryonics and so on. Given the right-wing nuttiness of many hard-SF and transhumanist authors, what are some QUILTBAG answers?” Jim provided this link to give is a better idea what he is talking about: http://www.aleph.se/Trans/ Many sci fi authors have long predicted that humanity would eventually evolve, one way or another, to a transhuman or post-human state – something beyond what we … Read more

What the Frak?

by

Today’s topic comes from QSFer Jim Comer: “Profanity from books and conworlds – The swearwords in my made-up worlds tend to be very odd, such as “Puyurh baVasola”, which means “By the Flames of Paradise!”, or “Chochvort ve’amet!”, or “Go fuck a house-ape!” (um, those are in two different made-up languages, but I think you see what I mean).” So I thought it would be fun to take a look at swearing in theoretical worlds. I loved when Anne McCaffrey used “shards’ (form the idea of dragon’s eggs) as one of her curse words in the Dragonriders of Pern books. … Read more

Announcement: Rarely Pure and Never Simple, by Angel Martinez

by

QSFer Angel Martinez has a great sci fi book out: A search for missing children throws a misanthropic human GPS and an obnoxious human torch together in a struggle to survive dangerous conpiracies and each other. Damien just wants to be left alone. Too bad his variant talent as a locator makes him the go-to contractor for the government’s missing person cases. He can refuse, but it’s not so easy when the missing are variant kids. Blaze Emerson is a sparker. People fear him as much for his ability to call fire as his obnoxious, violent temperament. He’s good at … Read more

Moving Beyond MM in Fantasy, Sci Fi and Paranormal

by

I know I came to the party a little late. I’ve been writing since I was in my early years, and really made a go of it in my early twenties. But then after a string of rejections, I put things on the back burner, and didn’t really pull it off again until about a year ago. I’m now in my mid-forties. I always kind of figured that I would do some of my best writing at this point in my life, when I had more life experience under my belt. So anyhow, the party. As I’ve gotten more and … Read more

Will Our AI’s Be Autistic?

by

Andrew Sullivan at The Dish flagged this interesting tidbit: Most of the commercial work completed by AI will be done by special-purpose, narrowly focused software brains that can, for example, translate any language into any other language, but do little else. Drive a car, but not converse. Or recall every pixel of every video on YouTube but not anticipate your work routines. In the next 10 years, 99 percent of the artificial intelligence that you will interact with, directly or indirectly, will be nerdily autistic, supersmart specialists. In fact, this won’t really be intelligence, at least not as we’ve come … Read more

A Setback for Space Tourism

by

Kenneth Chang brings us the latest on the Virgin Galactic tragedy: The Virgin Galactic space plane that broke apart over the Mojave Desert on Friday shifted early into a high-drag configuration that was designed to slow it down, federal accident investigators have said. The accident killed the co-pilot, Michael Alsbury; the pilot, Peter Siebold survived after parachuting out of the plane. Clive Irving puts the disaster in perspective: From the beginning in 2004 there has always been a credibility gap between the fairground hyperbole of [Virgin Group founder Richard] Branson’s formidable publicity machine and the scientific reality of the enterprise. … Read more

Plot Bunny Time

by

Hi all, I thought we’d have a little fun today. I know all you writers constantly have lots of plot bunnies at your feet (probably playing with the dust bunnies down there, but that’s a different story). So let’s unleash some of them into the world – maybe they will find a loving home. Readers, feel free to jump in too. What are some of your wild, fun, silly, deadly serious, never-gonna happen, or just plain average ideas for a sci fi, fantasy or paranormal story? Extra points for an LGBT tie in. Please mind the bunnies underfoot.