🌌 On this day in 1978 the very first episode of the very first version of Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy went out on Radio 4. We can't tell you how proud that makes us.
Here's a lovely programme about Douglas and his creation, presented by his friend John Lloyd, that went out on the 40th anniversary.
Want some #verisimilitude for your post-apocalyptic story? Four years after the pandemic started, 7 out of 7 examined #battery-powered candles had burst batteries. 3 out of 7 had destroyed circuitry and were irreparable. I restored four of the candles to working order with a lot of cleaning and scrubbing, but of course they required fresh #batteries.
Takeaway: Nothing battery-powered left for four years will work when found. Much of it will be destroyed.
Bonus: Gasoline has a shelf life and may be useless in 6-12 months. Sorry, no verisimilitude in Mad Max.
Hello new followers! I know that many of you found me because of the birthday posts and cover art. I have been writing religiously about the texts-- published primarily between 1945-1985 -- on my fanzine website for more than a decade: https://sciencefictionruminations.com/
I'm an obsessive reader and writer of whim. I've conducted review series on diverse topics from Native American SF authors to generation ships.
My idea for a time travel book that I started 1 year ago but I gave up 😒
Introduction.......
Corey an 18 year old kid is visited by his 60 year old self that tries to warn him of mistakes that he is going to make in his life. While Corey makes the changes suggested it changes more than he thought with horrific repercussions! Don't fw the future, or the future will fw you !!!!
What yall think? #TimeTravelAuthors#sciencefiction
Technology and science wasn't magic, and Sharp Eye knew this more than ever. Five generations ago, Fleetmaster Running Talon had turned a portable cannon on his first Tyrannosaur, and ended their species rein of terror. Since that day, science and progress had ruled their world. Telescopes and the study of astronomy were unknown to her grandkin. The laws of orbital dynamics took a decade to render correctly, and her own grandmother had invented the slide math-relator that made verifying it all possible.
She lived in a world that promised her hatchlings steamships that could cross the Great Ocean between ports reliably, in days, because it need no sails. It offered /their/ hatchlings the possibility of powered flight using a lightweight heat engine. Literature discussed the not too fictional possibility of one day visiting the moon.
She ought have been happy with life and her grand future.
This wasn't the case. She turned the great telescopes with there photo capture plates toward the sky every night.
She'd found a streak.
Not a new planet. Something far smaller. Something far closer.
The rodent was very brazen outside the window. She'd been throwing the mammal bits of meat for the last month as she'd directed the telescopes, so of course he was. It chittered. With googly eyes, needle teeth, and the rotted smell of offal, the creature wiggled its pink nose and whiskers at her. It could see through a window! So smart. Its furry kind survived the freezing nights on the mountain, where despite her downy feathers, and a heavy parka, she could barely breathe the frigid night air. It burned her lungs.
She'd found a giant rock in space. A week later she confirmed it was two. The latest plate insisted she'd found a co-orbiting swarm, the biggest the size of a city or larger, the rest not that much smaller. Its mass made her think it was mostly iron-nickel. The length of the streaks on the plates grew smaller as the planet's gravity well influenced the orbit, sending it down on their heads.
Physics was physics. The ellipse calculations were irrefutable.
Between the constantly erupting volcano lands on the opposite side of the continent—which made sunset burn orange and purple, and sometimes caused snow to fall at the equator—and the dirt and dust that would be kicked out of the atmosphere by the meteor impact to rain down molten rock across the land, would it be that prolific mammal's descendants who'd inherit her decimated world?
Sharp Eye took a deep breath, inhaling the steam of her tea. The big question was: Did she announce her findings? While she had time?
Did it matter?
Who was she to break the world's ignorant bliss by announcing the inevitable? Fame didn't matter any more. How could it?
She sipped her tea and watched the soon to be victorious vermin nose through gravel, looking for roaches. She set the cup down, thinking how pleasant living only in the present was. She knew the future.
Then she thought, surely roaches would survive. Right?
"Star Trek: Strange New Worlds": Niemand will singende Klingonen
Man kann eine Star-Trek-Musical-Folge machen. Ob man das machen sollte, ist eine andere Frage. Eine Rezension der 2. Staffel von Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
Intriguing analysis of Asimov’s Foundation trilogy and its central flaw.
From M. Keith Booker’s Monsters, Mushroom Clouds, and the Cold War: American Science Fiction and the Roots of Postmodernism, 1946-1964 (2001) #scifi#sciencefiction#Marxism#history
Exciting news! Deep Sky Anchor will be bringing you the entirety of my Otters In Space series — starting with the classic first novel, all the way through the not-yet-released fourth book — right here online, with an illustration for every chapter!
Not a surprising list…. Science fiction films before 2013 made with the assistance of the Pentagon
From Stephen Dedman’s May the Armed Forces Be With You: The Relationship Between Science Fiction and the United States Military (2016) #scifi#sciencefiction#history
Well, this is my #review of #Dune, and it is complete, because it ended here.
Random thoughts, my journey of reading and more filler because it's my #blog after all. Mild #spoilers ahead, behind a clear warning and you can skip them!
Ages since I've seen a science fiction film as good as this – and it's a debut, made on a shoestring. Just fizzing with ingenuity, atmosphere, and quiet thrills
Ancora un po' di viaggio in Italia con Uriel Fanelli, entità multiforme che vive in rete sin dagli albori, ora anche nel fediverso.
Tra le sue molte manifestazioni eccolo scrittore di racconti&romanzi di #Fantascienza; lo stile è particolare, così come l'accanirsi su certi argomenti.
Amare o odiare... in ogni caso scritto magnificamente e con finale indimenticabile.
It's award nomination season! For your consideration, the best two things I published this year: The Terraformers, a novel, and "Unhearable Music," a short story which appeared in Rolling Stone's "future of music" issue. Thanks to all the kind people who supported me by publishing these strange stories about future ecologies, and mega-gratitude to my readers, who made The Terraformers a success.
Influential editor Cele Goldsmith (1933-2002) was born on this day. She published first SF works by Thomas M. Disch, Ursula K. Le Guin, Keith Laumer, Sonya Dorman, and Roger Zelazny and brought Fritz Leiber out of retirement! Bibliography: https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?23574
I am 💯 obsessed with Sci fi ain gon lie. The biggest wish I would have in the whole world is if aliens from other planets would connect with us . Surely this is a possibility at some time in the future?
Just want to connect with other Sci fi folks to discuss? Tho hope not just fiction 😬 #sciencefiction
James Leslie Mitchell (1901–1935), better known as Lewis Grassic Gibbon, was born #OTD, 13 Feb. Author of SUNSET SONG – & many other titles from #HistoricalFiction to #ScienceFiction – he is one of the most important #Scottish writers of the #20thcentury