Hard Science Fiction and Author Gender: Does It Matter To You? (Poll)

Wednesday, December 1st, 2010

Historically women have been less likely to enter the hard sciences than men, and similarly less likely to write hard science fiction.   Happily, some do, and do it well, in my opinion. When I talk about hard science fiction, I mean stories in which science is central to the story, doesn’t smell too much like […]

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Poll: Would you like to be Bionic?

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

There’s an article about artificial limbs with a picture of an attractive woman, a double-amputee, running along the beach.   The premise of the article is that some artificial limbs are starting to outperform original limbs, in at least some ways.   This trend will continue into the future, no doubt, until we have the capability to […]

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The Top 10 Space-Based Science Fiction Series ever on TV (with Poll)

Saturday, September 19th, 2009

There are a bunch of good lists concerning science fiction tv over on wiki.   I tend to post a lot about movies, but this time I want to post about space-based science fiction series on tv.   It always seems like there’s at least one decent one, and sometimes more than one.   I’m going to take […]

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The Ten Scariest Science Fiction Movies (Including Poll)

Thursday, September 3rd, 2009

I’ve always been a fan of horror.   I loved monster movies — the old Universal movie classics — as far back as Star Trek at least.   Maybe longer.   A lot of my early science fiction sales were stories with horror elements.   Even today I like horror movies and my favorites tend to be science fiction […]

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The Big Bang Theory on TV: A Step Forward or Backward?

Wednesday, July 1st, 2009

The issue of the TV comedy, The Big Bang Theory, came up in comments earlier this week. Pros: the show is funny and gets its science and geek culture very correct. Here’s a scene about the problem with teleportation: Cons:   for the most part, the characters are stereotypical nerds who lack social skills, dress oddly, […]

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Poll: Best SF/Fantasy/Horror Movie Soundtrack?

Sunday, February 22nd, 2009

OK, I don’t want to repeat myself exactly from yesterday’s sf band thing, but I was inspired by Phil Plait’s post about this utterly fantastic video: As you may or may not know, Orff’s ‘O Fortuna’ was used extensively in the movie Excalibur.   Other parts of the soundtrack had this great theremin-sounding stuff and wailing […]

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A Poll: Your Favorite Science Fiction Band?

Saturday, February 21st, 2009

Last week I linked to an article about how U2 was the greatest science ficiton band.   I like U2, but think that the claim is ridiculous.   Am I alone?   I suggested some bands like Queen, Iron Maiden, the Orbital, and Blue Oyster Cult were much better choices.   U2 just doesn’t do that much stuff I […]

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