The Illustrated Man By Ray Bradbury ‘Sixteen illustrations, sixteen tales. I counted them one by one. Primarily my eyes focussed upon a scene, a large house with two people in it. I saw a flight of vultures on a blazing flesh sky, I saw yellow lions, and I heard voices.’ Ray Bradbury was one of …
Tag: space opera
My body is not my own!
Female 22 by David Hulett Wilson A Review What would it be like to live part of your life in a body of the opposite sex? How would you cope with the little everyday details of being a woman, or a man, as the case may be? Not only would the anatomy be strange but …
Going Boldly
Asimov and the Foundations of Fantasy 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 established a galaxy-wide empire, dependant for trade and communications on faster-than-light travel. One single planet, Terminus, is beginning …
Sex and Politics in Winter
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K le Guin Published in 1969, The Left Hand of Darkness is surely one of the best sci-fi novels ever written. I read it first in the seventies and now, about four decades later, it comes across as inventive and fresh as on that first reading. "Consider:" writes …
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 …
To Boldly Go (3)
Sci-fi finds new inspiration and a new audience The film collaboration between Arthur C Clarke and Stanley Kubrick in 1968 was a landmark in the history of science fiction cinema. 2001, A Space Odyssey did indeed go boldly into new sci-fi territory. Yet, though it won an Academy Award for special visual effects and BAFTAs …
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 (2)
Asimov and the Golden Age of Science Fiction The mid 20th century ushered in a golden age for science fiction writing and space opera. Drawing from new scientific discoveries and aided by advances in cinematography, the settings for the stories became more exotic and more colourful. Science fiction began to lose its pulp image. Now …
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 …
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