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Old-school cosplayers were fucking rad. They'd spend hours constructing costumes, sometimes with zero guarantee that anybody would know who the hell they were. In this day and age, everyone's got the internet hooked up to their earmuffs. Imagine trying to explain who the Dirty Pair were when a hearty portion of the population still communicated via two tin cans and twine. More »
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Not only is Iain M. Banks very generous with his time, he's also the author that British fans most want to see on the big screen. More »
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Larry Niven is best known as author of Ringworld novels and creator of the Known Space universe — but did you know he also helped to reinvent the Green Lantern Corps and their masters, the Guardians? More »
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Over at Shelfari, they're discussing "the worst books of the good authors" in science fiction. Including lone clunkers by Asimov, Heinlein and Niven. What are your least favorite books by your favorite authors? [Shelfari] More »
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Here are some gorgeous illustrations from the French science fiction compilation Club Du Livre D'Anticipation. Check out the works of Robert Heinlein and Philip K. Dick depicted by French artists like Moebius. 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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Scientists now believe there's a supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy. But back in the day, we dreamed the galactic center held God's home planet. Or a super-civilization. What else did science-fiction authors think we'd find there? More »
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Larry Niven's Hugo-winning novel from 1971 has a surprising amount in common with network television's biggest sci-fi hit. But what's really interesting is how Ringworld differs from Lost. More »
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Dennis Antinori's guide to Larry Niven's Ringworld teems with information about its specs, but that's not all. There's also the equivalent of Google maps for Ringworld — it even lets you zoom in on key locations. Awesome. [Ringworld, via Metafilter] More »
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A defining thread of modern scientific thought is skepticism, the tendency to question accepted ideas until evidence is found to confirm or reject them. But what do skeptics do in worlds of magic, aliens, and other matters fantastic? More »
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Kurt Vonnegut was still alive when Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle consigned him to the sixth circle of Hell, in their 1976 novel Dante-inspired novel Inferno, which just had a follow-up, Escape From Hell. More »
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We all complain every time Brian Herbert or Eoin Colfer takes over a beloved book saga. Why can't they just leave it alone? But which book series do you secretly fantasize about taking over and totally rocking out with? More »
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The idea of an arcology, a single hyper-structure that houses an entire town or city, has haunted science-fiction stories like H.G. Wells' The Sleeper Awakes, Judge Dredd comics and Larry Niven novels. But now they're building one in the desert. More »
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They swagger, they fight, they laugh in the face of danger. Science-fiction books have given us some of the greatest swashbuckling heroes, cutting a swathe through space and countless alternate timelines. Here are some of our favorite book heroes. More »
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When you're a brain in a tank, you've got a lot of time to think about stuff. And one of the things you ponder is: how many kinds of disembodied brains does science fiction have? The answer: six! More »
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Ringworld author Larry Niven didn't just pioneer the "cool massive object in space" genre — he also helped predict today's world, including flashmobs, cochlear implants and planets orbiting Epsilon Eridani. NASA even found a possible ringworld, in 2004. [USA Today] More »
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When he's not serving as science advisor on Land Of The Lost, Larry Niven is reinventing African politics of the future, with the help of frequent contributor Steven Barnes. The duo are writing a new book, The Moon Maze Game. More »
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Planet Earth might be home sweet home, but is it really humanity's birthplace? We explore science fiction stories where humans come from everywhere but Earth, be it by colonization, alien experiments, or good old-fashioned panspermia. More »
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How can you predict future technologies? You can't, according to five great science fiction authors quoted in the new CIO Magazine. But at least you can predict what types of problems will crop up. More »
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When you think about the archetypal science fiction story, chances are you think of the bold explorer, setting foot on a newfound planet in the name of a secure homeworld. But possibly the most pervasive narrative in science fiction is actually the story of refugees. They flee from planetary destruction, war, or just from overcrowding and ecological crappitude. The refugee story is the flipside of the gung-ho explorer story, but it might actually be the most uniquely science fictional story of all. More »
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The greatest alien visitors in science fiction are totally invulnerable — except for one crucial weakness. And the best almost-unstoppable aliens have a weakness that is more poetic than Sylvia Plath and William Blake put together. Just look at our video compilation of aliens encountering their most poetic Achilles heels, and then check out our complete round-up. More »
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After a long week of conquering the stars — which may seem like decades to a stationary observer — you deserve a stiff drink. Luckily, science fiction has a huge selection of bizarre cocktails, from the Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster to the Flaming Rum Monkey. Sure, some of them may be poisonous to humans, but that's just part of the fun. Here's our round-up of the awesomest cocktails from SF. Just make sure to strap your drinks tray down, and away we go. More »
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There's a small group of science fiction authors who call themselves SIGMA and offer the U.S. government advice on futuristic scenarios. Many of them are invited to conferences and events where they dispense wisdom to security types, and just recently one of them — Larry "Ringworld" Niven — offered the Department of Homeland Security some of the creepiest advice we've ever heard about how to handle problems with overcrowding in hospitals. More »
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Our promiscuous, body-swapping descendants will hit the skids in the third book in John Varley's Steel Beach trilogy — if he ever gets around to finishing it. Varley's Irontown Blues is one of the most long overdue books in science fiction according to SF Signal. Varley told Locus the book would be a futuristic detective story, and things would be "looking kind of bad for the human race" by the end of it. Other authors who should crank out those delayed works, according to SF Signal. More »
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What would weather be like if you lived in a planet-sized bag of oxygen? What would reproduction be like if there were a third sex who combined the genetic material of two other sexes by linking them at the neurological level and giving them braingasms? What would scientific progress be like in an anarchist-feminist society? One of the ingredients in many great science fiction novel is world-building, the practice of creating an entire unfamiliar (yet familiar) world whose strange permutations allow us to explore how unfathomable environments can dramatically reshape events that happen all the time in our own lives. Here are five cool world-building novels to suck your attention away from the misery of cooling weather and impending turkey day doom. More »
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Must-read graphic novels are futuristic classics that shouldn't be missed. Of course, not every must-see is perfect. That's why we've rated them 1-5 on the patented "crunchy goodness" scale. More »
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