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If you love a dash of weirdness and mile-a-minute storytelling, then you've never stopped loving the novels of Brian Aldiss. But anybody who's slept on Aldiss' dizzying writing is going to get a new chance to appreciate the master, who's probably best known for writing the story that became Spielberg and Kubrick's A.I. More »
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Science fiction is the literature of our times, the fuel of our imaginations and the source of our favorite imaginary worlds. But what do we mean when we talk about "science fiction?" Here are some of the many definitions. More »
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Great science fiction and fantasy novels don't just expose us to other worlds and alternate timelines — they expand our minds and give us compass to steer by. Here are our favorite bits of advice and maxims from SF books. More »
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The Islam And Science Fiction website is addictive reading, mostly because it shows how many different ways non-Muslim writers have portrayed Islam in SF works. I already knew that Dune borrows tons of ideas from Islam, but I'd forgotten that Philip K. Dick's Eye In The Sky used a fundamentalist Islamic world to reflect paranoia about McCarthyism and Communist hysteria. (In a few works, Islam seems to be the "safe" other to project an author's fears of oppression onto.) But since 9/11, portrayals of Islam have actually become more sympathetic in novels such as Charles Stross' Accelerando and Brian Aldiss' Harm. [Islam In Science Fiction] More »
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In the title story of Michael Swanwick's demented new collection The Dog Said Bow-Wow, a monstrous genetically engineered Queen Gloriana rules a dark future England. She's the size of a truck and has 36 brains, connected by thick ganglia in a "hypercube configuration." In other words, she's a huge organic computer with no sex life. And she's just the latest in a long line of monster queens of England. Click through for the bizarre details. More »
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Science fiction is doomed! The genre is a toothless wreck, praying to overdose on its pain meds, says a gang of critics. (Actually, they're only talking about the books, and only the books shelved under "science fiction.") The reasons why SF is obsolete or pointless or dead depend on which rant you read. But here are the main ones: More »
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• New production photos of Reposession Mambo tell us absolutely nothing about the more serious of the two organ-repo movies coming next year. You can see allegedly "futuristic" cars and some buildings. Yawn. [ShockTillYouDrop.com]
• The new Justice League movie is being "cast as cheaply as possible," says New York Magazine. It's semi-official that total unknown Armie Hammer will play Batman in the League. That's in addition to the previously leaked cast: Scott Porter as Superman, Megan Gale as Wonder Woman, Common as Green Lantern and Adam Brody as Flash. "In other words, a D-list cast is set to portray the world's oldest, most iconic superhero team," Matthew Perpetua kvetches. [NYMag]
• Newly released clips from I Am Legend reveal no spoilers, but prove the film will live or die depending on how much you enjoy Will Smith talking to himself. [IESB]

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Sounding either like an old man or a writer desperately trying to generate controversy to promote his new novel, scifi author Brian Aldiss has announced that reality has not only caught up with, but potentially outpaced, science fiction as a genre. More »
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