Dear DC: Little Girls Play Board Games, Too

The folks on Sword and Laser recently had a brief discussion about the Justice League:  Axis of Villains board game, which apparently includes no women.  Peter V. Brett has a post about it here.  In short, his daughter didn’t want to play the game because it didn’t even have Wonder Woman. WONDER WOMAN.  The single […]

No, Repetition Does Not Mean Science Fiction is Stagnating…Per Se

(This is going to be a bit ranty.  Be prepared.)  There’s been a bit of talk lately about Project Hieroglyph, an Arizona State University anthology (and website) which attempts to address the argument in Neal Stephenson’s “Innovation Starvation.”  I recommend reading that essay yourself; it makes some compelling points about science fiction and the failure […]

The Purpose of Science Fiction (and, Technically, Fantasy)

In the 200th episode of The Coode Street Podcast, the hosts (Jonathan Strahan and Gary K. Wolfe) and guests (Kim Stanley Robinson, Robert Silverberg, and Jo Walton) briefly discussed the seemingly nebulous question, “Does science fiction have a purpose?”  It’s worth a listen. I would respond initially by saying that the question is somewhat malformed. […]

Video Found: John Brunner on SF

This is making the rounds: John Brunner talking about genre classification, sf poetry, and so on. What it reveals, I think, is the cyclical nature of the sf community. We keep coming back to the same questions, but it’s surprising how little progress we seem to have made in these matters. At least a good […]

Top 10 Posts for August 2014

Not a whole lot was going on here for most of August, but I did post a few new things, which appear in the following list.  Enjoy! The Taxonomy of Genre: Science Fiction as Supergenre Movie Review: Riddick (2013) (or, I’m Going to Mega Rant Now) Top 10 Overused Fantasy Cliches Top 10 Science Fiction […]

On Robin Williams

You have probably already heard about the death of Robin Williams by (apparent) suicide.  Given the public nature of celebrity deaths, I have a feeling a lot of people are somewhat desensitized to the whole thing.  I, however, feel inclined to say a few words about Robin Williams. I was born in 1983.  Basically, I […]