After the binge-watching comes the binge-reading.
Science Fiction
Posted inBlog Post, Nonfiction
Beautiful Nowheres: ‘No Man’s Sky’ and the 500th Anniversary of ‘Utopia’
Five centuries after Thomas More’s classic was first published, we still dabble in perfect-world-building.
Posted inNonfiction, Profiles & Interviews, Quotes
A Sort of Readiness: Ursula K. Le Guin
A conversation between two novelists — Choire Sicha chats with Ursula K. Le Guin.
Posted inBooks, Fiction, Quotes
The Weirdness of Near-Future America
You, Little Sylvia, will come up knowing the truth, but to the rest of the world–to jellyfishes, crackers, finkies, and swells, to Bosom families and Consolidated alike–the stars are not real. The planets are not real. Astronomy, if spoken of al all, is regarded as a delusional cult scarcely more respectable than the Jesus Lovers. […]
Posted inFiction, Nonfiction, Reading List
Sci-Fi Is for Everyone: Six Stories About Marginalized Groups in Science Fiction
Genre literature has power. Mainstream science fiction, historically, has a representation problem. (Why are there no black people in the future? Or, better yet, why is there only one black person in the future?! Did LGBTQ people disappear, too?) Where does that leave us?
Posted inFiction, Nonfiction, Reading List
Sci-Fi Is for Everyone: Six Stories About Marginalized Groups in Science Fiction
Genre literature has power. Mainstream science fiction, historically, has a representation problem. (Why are there no black people in the future? Or, better yet, why is there only one black person in the future?! Did LGBTQ people disappear, too?) Where does that leave us?
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Ray Bradbury on Science Fiction and the Art of What’s Possible
“Science fiction is the fiction of ideas.”
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Why Microsoft, Google, and Apple Are Working With Science Fiction Writers
Science fiction writer Eileen Gunn recently wrote in Smithsonian magazine about how the science fiction genre informs the way we think about the real world. Here, Gunn writes that big tech companies like Microsoft have hired science fiction writers to do “design fiction”—coming up with new technology ideas through imaginative works: Microsoft, Google, Apple and […]
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.