The Cosmic World of CS Lewis, the other Inkling CS Lewis's Cosmic Trilogy comprises three science fiction novels for adults, Out of the Silent Planet, Voyage to Venus (Perelandra) and That Hideous Strength, written and published between 1938 and 1945. Its hero - if the Cosmic Trilogy can be said to have a hero at …
Category: Writing and Publishing
The Final Frontier
To Boldly Go (5) So what is the future for space opera? With modern developments in cinematography and CGI, movies and television seem to have become the favoured media for science fiction. More people are hooked on visual fantasy than ever before. Film series like Alien, Star Wars and Star Trek, singles like ET, The …
10 Famous Quotations That Are Literary Misquotations
We just love misquotations!
We are not alone … yet!
"How would you feel if a Martian vomited stale liquor on the White House floor?" Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles is a novel that should be read at least twice. Read it first as the quaint, inventive work of fantasy that it is. The Red Planet of Bradbury's imagination is peopled with small, light brown, …
To Boldly Go
The Magic of Space Opera - when Science Fiction came of age Seventy years have passed since Isaac Asimov penned the first of his Foundation stories. Tens of thousands of years in the future, humanity has colonised far beyond the Solar System and has established a galaxy-wide empire, dependant for trade and communications on faster-than-light …
Not all universes are the same (part three)
The Amber Spyglass "While the beasts of prey, Come from caverns deep, View'd the maid asleep." These three lines by William Blake from his poem The Little Girl Lost preface the first chapter of The Amber Spyglass, the final volume of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. Aficiandos of Blake will know that his maid …
Continue reading Not all universes are the same (part three)
Not all universes are the same (part two)
The Subtle Knife A Review The Subtle Knife is the second book of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. At the end of Northern Lights, we left Lyra on the bridge from her universe to another. Now the author leaves us in suspense to introduce a new protagonist. Will Parry is a twelve-year-old boy who …
Not all universes are the same
A Review of Northern Lights The first book in Philip Pullman's fantasy trilogy for young adults The main protagonist in Northern Lights is Lyra, a twelve-year-old girl who lives in one of Oxford University's many colleges. Only Lyra's Oxford is a different Oxford. It lies in an alternate universe, an upside-down world with zeppelins, witches …
Shall we eat the cabin boy?
Jamrach's Menagerie by Carol Birch A Review Long-listed for the 2011 Man Booker Prize, Jamrach's Menagerie is an absorbing story of the sea, a sort of cross between The Life of Pi and The Ancient Mariner; at any rate it has a tiger and a cursed ship. Jaffy Brown is eight years old. He runs …
Anything for a Good Story
The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson By naming his protagonist Jun Do, Adam Johnson sets both scene and tone for his 2013 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. All the chief characters are North Korean and most of the action takes place in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea which, on the face of it, makes the …
Magda Green Books 