When Berkeley-based science fiction author Annalee Newitz set out to write a novel about a hopeful future, The Terraformers was the result. And I am here to report that they succeeded brilliantly. It’s set at a far-distant time when the human race has spread among thousands of worlds...
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In May 1817, a Scottish physician named William Jardine (1784-1843) abandoned his post as a surgeon’s mate on a British East India Company ship and settled in Canton to take up life as a merchant. Over the succeeding years, he prospered in the opium trade and, in 1832, cofounded...
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Romanticized accounts of the World War II codebreakers at Bletchley Park convey the impression of a cozy community of brainy people with Oxford and Cambridge degrees laboring in isolation in the countryside. And there is some truth in this picture during the first two years of the war. But that...
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Readers may know Aya de León as the author of the four books published to date in her Justice Hustlers series of thrillers. Four have appeared to date among her eleven novels. But all her work so far shares an outspoken progressive perspective and highlights an activist approach to today’s...
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What distinguishes a novel as science fiction as opposed to fantasy or literary fiction? Surely, at least one thing is certain: science or technology must be central to the story. After all, the dictionary defines science fiction as “a genre of fiction that creatively depicts real...
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Mysteries & Thrillers Tuesday includes my latest mystery and thriller book review,
with links to other science fiction content.
Nonfiction Wednesday includes my latest nonfiction book review,
with links to other nonfiction content.
The Weekly includes summaries and links to all the previous week’s three to five book reviews, including some that don’t appear in any of the other newsletters.
Mysteries & Thrillers Tuesday includes my latest mystery and thriller book review, with links to other science fiction content.
Nonfiction Wednesday includes my latest nonfiction book review, with links to other nonfiction content.
The Weekly includes summaries and links to all the previous week’s three to five book reviews, including some that don’t appear in any of the other newsletters.