Category Archives: Literature

Writing Science Fiction–Human and Non-human Universes

Good fiction takes the reader into worlds that can differ either a little or a lot from our own, but in ways that allow for a seamless transition. Creating fictional backdrops that don’t jar the reader’s sense of credulity is far harder than it might seem, however. For that reason writers tend to stick with […]

The Book Of Lost Things

The dedication of The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly reads “For in every adult dwells the child that was, and in every child lies the adult that will be.” Nothing could better describe this dark fairy tale, a coming of age story about a boy named David.  When his mother dies, she leaves […]

The Multiverse – Physics Catches up with Sci-Fi

In earlier pieces here I’ve talked about the Heinlein “multiverse” and how I consider the idea of parallel universes one of the successful predictions of science fiction. Along comes physicist Brian Greene to support that assertion in a far more elegant way than I could. His book The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep […]

Isaac Asimov’s “Nightfall”: The Triumph of Ignorance

In honor of the special tribute to Isaac Asimov on the podcast this week I thought I’d share some thoughts on one of his superlative short stories (almost always ranked as one of the top sci-fi short stories all time), “Nightfall”. Although written when he was only 21, it captures two of the key elements […]

I am Number Four

About a month ago I listened to the audio book of I am Number Four, and I rented the movie last night. Usually I don’t like to read a book and watch the movie so close together, but I did this time for comparison purposes. Let’s just say I feel like this movie should have […]

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

I love finding a great series of books to read after the last one has been published. That is what happened to  me with The Hunger Games trilogy. My friend told me I had to read it, and since I listen to her when it comes to books, I did. The basic premise of the […]

Simak’s Dystopia, or a World Gone to the Dogs

City by Clifford D. Simak There are any number of well known authors in science fiction (e.g., Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke, Vonnegut), and I’ve written about two of them in previous articles. There are other significant authors who are not as well known, however, and I thought I’d introduce one of them through one of his […]

A (Partial) Robert A. Heinlein Reading Primer

” Robert Heinlein ” Oil on Panel © 2009 Donato Giancola Recently I put together a reading list of Robert Heinlein’s books for one of the other contributors to SFSN. He didn’t realize that many were thematically related, and that there was a “best” order in which to read them, which I pointed out. He […]

Writers To Watch Out For:

Over the past months we here at Sci Fi Saturday Night have been talking to self-published authors in various stages of their work. There are those like Tracy Hickman, who began in traditional publications and moved slowly into select elegant self-publishing projects. There are the success stories, like HP Mallory who began as self published […]

Goodnight Dune

According to this article, Paramount has decided not to go forward with making Frank Herbert’s best selling novel Dune into a movie franchise. To hold you over until the Dune rights-holders find another deal, I offer a Dune-themed bedtime story entitled Goodnight Dune.

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