Library Journal just announced the winners of the inaugural Self-Published Ebook Awards. The competition “recognizes authors who submit the best ebooks in their respective genres” (fantasy, science fiction, romance, and mystery). I received a Tweet about it while making dinner and idly clicked the link; if I kept “tasting” the chili, there wouldn’t be any left for the … More “Blue Karma” Wins LibraryJournal Ebook Award
Only twenty days until the adaptation of The Martian hits theaters! The sci-fi survival tale will undoubtedly fuel interest in the feasibility of real-life trips to the Red Planet. NASA head Charles Bolden anticipates such a mission could occur in the 2030s, although Martian author Andy Weir thinks 2050 is a more reasonable timeline. In either case, … More Melting Mars (Supervillain Style)
Back in February I wrote a post about the Cassandra curse of sci-fi writers: when a concept you’ve imagined is unexpectedly mirrored in reality. This weekend brought perhaps the most uncanny such moment I’ve ever experienced. According to USAToday, a private company plans to ship fresh water from Alaska to California, just like the fictional Nilak company in my … More The Real-Life Nilak? Company Proposes Shipping Water to Drought Zone
“Think of it as the literature museum,” my father told me when I was fifteen. I was a dually-enrolled high school student at the local college, and frustrated with some of the ideas I encountered in the curriculum’s so-called classic novels. Dad, a veteran English major himself, helped me contextualize the antiquated stories by likening … More The Literature Museum: Sci-Fi and Sexism
As a lifelong sci-fi geek, I thought I’d seen every variant of alien contact narrative the genre had to offer, from the invasion epics to the misadventures of benign visitors to thinly veiled social allegories. Even the enjoyable ones often rely on predictable tropes. But Dawn, the first installment in Octavia Butler’s Xenogenesis trilogy, captivated … More Review: “Dawn” by Octavia Butler
If you’re interested in literature, STEM education, environmentalism, or just want to look at a picture of Jon Snow from “Game of Thrones” (yes, some culture critics argue the presence of cli-fi themes in George R.R. Martin’s fantasy series) check out the article I just wrote for The Atlantic about the growing popularity of cli-fi and its … More “Can books save the planet?”: my article for The Atlantic
Wild Type 