Examining how science is used in science fiction and popular TV shows: “Of course, there are plenty of groan-worthy gaffes in the Buffyverse, too, as there are in just about any form of popular entertainment that dares to inject a bit of science. That’s why nerd-gassing is such a popular and time-honored pastime among the […]
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Posted inFiction, Reading List
Reading List: 6 Great Sci-Fi Stories About Robots
Hilary Armstrong is a literature student at U.C. Santa Barbara and a Longreads intern. She recently shared six stories for the science-fiction newbie, and a reading list for Fantasy Newbies. These stories offer a little breadth, a little curiosity, and a little levity to the idea of artificial life.
Posted inFiction, Reading List
Reading List: 6 Great Sci-Fi Stories About Robots
Hilary Armstrong is a literature student at U.C. Santa Barbara and a Longreads intern. She recently shared six stories for the science-fiction newbie, and a reading list for Fantasy Newbies. These stories offer a little breadth, a little curiosity, and a little levity to the idea of artificial life.
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Invention of David Bowie
A brief history of the rock legend’s style and fashions: “Bowie’s image was as carefully contrived for album covers as for the actual musical performances: Sukita Masayoshi’s black-and-white photograph of Bowie posing like a mannequin doll on the cover of ‘Heroes’ (1977), or Bowie stretched out on a blue velvet sofa like a Pre-Raphaelite pinup […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Sell Out: Part One
[Fiction] The first chapter of a serialized novella, about a pickle maker from the early 1900s who is transported to modern-day Brooklyn: “The science men come and explain. I have been preserved in brine a hundred years and have not aged one day. They describe to me the reason (how this chemical mixed with that […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
An Epilogue to the Unread
A son attempts to get an unpublished manuscript of Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance Cycle for his dying mother, an avid science fiction and fantasy reader: “Mom is completely nonplussed. I am a little hurt, but then I realize I haven’t seen Mom once the past several weeks with her hands on a paperback or her Kindle. […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Machine-Tooled Happyland
Science fiction writer Ray Bradbury, a longtime Disney fan, finally goes to Disneyland. “The new appreciation of history begins with the responsibility in the hands of a man I trust, Walt Disney. In Disneyland he has proven again that the first function of architecture is to make men over make them wish to go on […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
For Tablet Computer Visionary Roger Fidler, a Lot of What-Ifs
Roger Fidler was a head of innovation for Knight-Ridder who convinced his company to let him set up a lab in the early 1990s to explore the creation of tablet computers. They were next door to a lab owned by Apple: “Fidler smiles through a scruffy gray Jobsian beard. He has known the answer for […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Walking the Line Between Good and Evil: The Common Thread of Heroes and Villains
Mythology, science fiction and comic books are chock full of stories of heroes and their battles against the ills of society—the eternal struggle between good and evil. We are meant to view these two main characters—the Hero and the Villain—as opposites on the spectrum of ethics and morality. But are they really so different when […]
Posted inMember Pick, Nonfiction
Budd & Leni
The story of Hollywood screenwriter Budd Schulberg’s unlikely collaboration with Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl.
