Starship Fonzie

          Before black history month is over with, I thought I would focus on one of the greatest African American writers: Octavia Butler!     In a niche market dominated until recently by white men, Octavia Estelle Butler (1947 – 2006) was a wonderfully refreshing trailblazer. Born the dyslexic daughter of a housemaid and a shoeshine man who died young, Butler was one of the few black children of her era to discover the delights of science fiction at an early age through the pulps. At the age of twelve, she found herself watching the B movie, Devil Girl From Mars (1957), on television, and thought to herself, “I can write a better story than that!” So she turned off the television and set to work at it. “I’ve been writing science fiction ever since,” she later said.   She graduated with an associate’s degree from Pasadena City College in 1968, and then went on to study at California State, Los Angeles. She later left Cal State, but con...

  Robot stories are not new, nor is a robot working with a police officer a new trope. Yet Burn In , by P.W. Singer and August Cole, dares to tell such a tale in the near future. The setting is Washington, D.C., roughly 20 years from  now. Special Agent Lara Keegan is introduced to us on the hunt. She successfully takes down a terrorist agent despite being told repeatedly that the individual was not flagged by surveillance algorithms, and is even outright ordered to wave off. After the suspect is taken down, a case filled with explosives is discovered on his person, and Keegan is established as the sort of agent whose instincts rise above algorithms, and who can defy orders when she is certain that she is right. Despite this, or perhaps because of this, she is tapped to be partnered with a new, robotic "partner" named TAMS (Tactical Autonomous Mobility System). Keegan regards this newly assigned partner with disdain, as it is her instincts, and their ability to see beyond me...

  This is the first year where I feel read enough, and researched enough, to do a recommendations list for the Hugo Awards. As it happens, I cannot vote for the nominees, because I did not register by Dec 31st of last year. However, I can at least voice my opinion about which works should be nominated. Maybe a few people might even listen to me. In subsequent years, I hope to have various people to meet and discuss nominees with, making this annual posting a product of a true round-table discussion. Until then, however, this is my lone shout into the void, and solely my own opinion. This is, of course, merely my recommendations for nominations. I may change my mind regarding who is the best overall for the year, and I will certainly revise my selections once the finalists are named (in April?). I will start with the lesser awards and move up - going in the tradition of awards ceremonies not announcing the biggest award until the end. As such, those of you who wish to skip straight ...

  Robert J. Sawyer has done it again. Alternative history is not a sub-genre within science fiction which I particularly like. Although it has a rich tradition going back to L. Sprague DeCamp, and even earlier, and it has true masterpieces such as Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle , it is usually a form of "what-if-ism" that is only one tick shy of outright fan-fiction. The overrated novels of Harry S. Turtledove are testament to that. Yet Sawyer rises above that to give us a tale which, I believe, is as good as The Man in the High Castle , and even better. The Oppenheimer Alternative is, as the name suggests, an alternative history which centers around the life and work of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the man behind the development of the atomic bomb. Much of the book is historical - and faithful to a fault regarding that history. Many of the conversations are word-for-word accurate to what actually happened. But it is that historical accuracy which leads to the boo...

  The worlds of jocks and nerds don't often cross-over. But with a strange new set of story novellas, 17776 and its sequel, 20020, written by Jon Bois, that has begun to change somewhat. 17776 tells the story of what the future of football might be like on a planet Earth where humans no longer die, nor have any more children. Huge swaths of North America are underwater due to the effects of global warming. Nanobots repair any serious injuries within minutes. Interest rates eventually end all poverty. With eternity to spare, humans turn to extreme sports to occupy themselves, and football becomes more and more elaborate. Playing fields stretch across entire states. For example, the entire state of Nebraska is the playing field for one particular game, with Wyoming and Iowa the end zones. Some games are even cross-continent. Meanwhile, three satellites, launched long ago by humans, have spent so much time in deep space amassing data that they have grown to consciousness. Pioneer 9, P...

        The main science fiction franchise in Germany is Perry Rhodan, a character who is as much a part of culture in Germany as Doctor Who is in the U.K., or Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock are in the U.S. Perry Rhodan is an American astronaut who encounters aliens on the far side of the moon, and subsequently unites the governments of Earth, and makes Sol part of the intergalactic community. Later, the aliens made him immortal. The character and its story line were invented by two German authors: Walter Ernsting (a.k.a. Clark Darlton), and K.H. Scheer.        Walter Ernsting was an intelligence operative during World War II. He was captured by the Soviets and imprisoned in Siberia until the end of the war. Afterward, he worked for British authorities as a translator. This brought him into contact with British and American science fiction pulp magazines, and he was enthralled with them. He tried writing some science fiction himself...