Science Fiction

horrorhead

More Terrifying Than Space is Space Madness

Welcome back to Horrorhead, a biweekly column where we explore the intersection of scifi and horror. If there's one thing more terrible than having a zombie eat the tongue out of your head by breaking your jaw, it's imagining that zombies are eating you when they aren't. That's why one of the best veins to mine in scifi-horror is madness. What makes insanity worse in many ways than giant drooling monsters is that you can't kill the monsters in your head with ice or swords or cold viruses. You want to escape the horror of your own crazy? You've got to drill your own brain out, like the protagonist does in Pi. And that, my friends, is what makes scifi-tinged madness so tragic as well as frightening: there's no way to set things right. Without further ado, let's take a dark psychological tour of most horrifying examples of space madness. More »

11:08 AM on Wed May 14 2008
By Annalee Newitz
827 views, 41 comments

Latest by Bowlactus, Smoker of Worlds: @braak: man, they should ban that gta game for not telling you where to go. I tried to play it and you can go in like three different directions. in mario you always know which way to go, which is more »

architecture

Scifi Movie Locations in the Real World

With movies like Speed Racer and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow creating entire scifi landscapes from CGI, it's easy to forget that some of the most futuristic settings for scifi movies are borrowed from the real world. Today Oobject has a terrific collection of photographs of the architectural marvels (and subtle background buildings) that populate scifi movies. Here you can see the BMW building that appears in Rollerball. Check out a few more below. More »

10:58 AM on Tue May 13 2008
By Annalee Newitz
3,598 views, 30 comments

Latest by zenpoet: @brentbent: I was going to mention the same thing. I love the scene with that four handed woman being put into the bottom of the pool. Isn't that a humane society type building? more »

sci fashion

The Four Styles You'll Wear in the Future, According to Science Fiction

One of the most terrifying parts of any science fiction movie or TV show are the inevitable Future Jumpsuits that everyone seems to wear because somehow every aspect of civilization has advanced except clothing technology. Whether you're in Battlestar Galactica's space fatigues, Star Trek's onesie uniforms, or whatever the hell you call that crap Jean-Paul Gaultier forced upon the hapless actors in The Fifth Element, it still boils down to one thing: The many moods of the jumpsuit. Below, we explore four of the most popular jumpsuits in science fiction for your sartorial edification. More »

2:39 PM on Thu May 1 2008
By Annalee Newitz
22,036 views, 59 comments

Latest by mariospants: Does the "Gwar" look include those post-apocolyptic punky styles such as you'd find in "Mad Max"? more »

international space station

On the International Space Station, You Can Watch Star Wars But Not Star Trek

In a stroke of weird genius, the people at GovernmentAttic.org issued a FOIA (freedom of information act) request to the US government to reveal the contents of the multimedia library on the International Space Station. Probably happy that they weren't being asked about the Patriot Act, the government happily complied, supplying us with a 13-page document containing the titles of every book, movie, and TV show in the ISS library. Not surprisingly there's a lot of science fiction in the mix, plus (of course) The Right Stuff. But there are some shocking choices in terms of what got put in — and what got left out. More »

12:20 PM on Thu May 1 2008
By Annalee Newitz
5,442 views, 59 comments

Latest by null: comment on on the international space station, you can watch star wars but not star trek There is absolutely no need to have any Start Trek up there. Every decent astronaut is supposed to have watched every single Star Trek episode and more »

must read

20 Science Books Every Scifi Fan (and Writer) Should Read

You can't have great science fiction writing without great books about science. Ever since the nineteenth century, when Charles Darwin's classics On the Origin of Species and The Descent of Man took the reading public by storm, popular science writing has been inspiring fictional thought experiments, as well as possibly less-inspiring political debates. What are the science books you should be reading now if you want your brain turned inside-out by weird new ideas that might just change the world for real? We've got 20 brilliant, and brilliantly-written, science books that have already influenced science fiction — or are about to. More »

2:32 PM on Tue Apr 29 2008
By Annalee Newitz
74,652 views, 91 comments

Latest by cure_bdc: personally I LOVED evolutions rainbow. I read it for a class actually hah. what about adding "the genetic code" by Asimov? For people that dont know how that basic stuff works, its an amazing eye opener, and he makes awesome more »

poll

How Do You Find People Who Like Science Fiction?

With science fiction becoming more mainstream all the time, it should be easier and easier to find people who share your interest, right? At least, there are more big SF movies than ever, and literary writers are dipping into the SF well more and more. But there are many kinds of science fiction enthusiasts, from the highbrow George Saunders-ites to the girls who dress up as Optimus Prime. How do you find your own kind of SF lovers? More »

4:30 PM on Thu Apr 17 2008
By Charlie Jane Anders
3,700 views, 72 comments

Latest by tse-tse-fly: I've found the most successful way to make friends with people who like science fiction is to proselytize amongst my current friends. BSG and, surprisingly, SGA have converted many of my friends into Friday night faithful. more »

rant

Future Scenarios that Don't Look Like SciFi Are Wrong

Science fiction is the go-to genre when you're looking for a glimpse of the future. Joel Achenbach makes a persuasive case in the Sunday Washington Post that the best way to stay in front of the dizzying pace of technological progress is to keep up on your Star Trek and take what Arthur C. Clarke wrote to heart. He also quotes Foresight Nanotech Institute President Christine Peterson, who says, "If you look out into the long-term future and what you see looks like science fiction, it might be wrong. But if it doesn't look like science fiction, it's definitely wrong." More »

9:29 AM on Tue Apr 15 2008
By Michael Reilly
2,996 views, 28 comments

Latest by Ubik2501: Even the "soft" SF writers get a lot of things right. For instance, Philip K. Dick predicted that an absurdly high proportion of the internet would be used for porn and cybersex in _Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said_, and more »

must read

Vernor Vinge's Forgotten Novel About Scifi Publishers on Another Planet

Although it's easy to love scifi author Vernor Vinge for his most lauded work, like Rainbows End or Fire Upon the Deep, some of his lesser-known novels are more memorable than the great ones. Such is the case with Tatja Grimm's World, a collection of two novellas Vinge published in the late 1960s, coupled with a mid-1980s short story about the same character. That character is Tatja Grimm, a woman on late-medieval world who mysteriously begins to manifest super-intelligence, super-strength — and a super-ability to edit science fiction manuscripts. That last bit is what makes the novel sheer, strange genius, as well as a fascinating glimpse at the creative coming-of-age of one of today's greatest SF writers. More »

2:00 PM on Fri Apr 4 2008
By Annalee Newitz
1,941 views, 6 comments

Latest by MrProven3: @Annnalee: While I would like to claim Professor Vinge as my own (as a UCSD alum), he was actually at San Diego State University [www-rohan.sdsu.edu] Only if Professor Potts [www.angelfire.com] had brought in him for his Science Fiction more »

horrorhead

The Most Shocking Science Caught on Film

Welcome back to Horrorhead, where we explore the intersection of horror and science fiction. I talk a lot here about "science horror," which I usually mean as the opposite of supernatural horror. Science horror is basically the dark side of science fiction, whereas supernatural horror can be anything from reality TV bunk like Ghosthunters to really excellent spirit flicks like The Ring or dark fantasies by Stephen King. What makes science horror scary is science itself, and the mad doctors who steer it into the crawly places full of reanimated bodies and reality-warping physics. But some kinds of science are more terrifying than others. That's why I've delineated four branches of science most likely to show up in the next science horror movie in your queue. More »

11:20 AM on Wed Apr 2 2008
By Annalee Newitz
9,502 views, 36 comments

Latest by Cacafuego: @Womblebug: Yeah, either Sean Pertwee or Jason Statham. more »

scifi season listings

io9's Complete Guide to Science Fiction Season

It's time for the annual science fiction season to begin. Spring and summer are when giant science fiction flicks hit the screens, and even more giant science fiction conventions open their doors to the hundreds of thousands of light saber-wielding masses. New television series will debut (Clone Wars!), and old ones will restart (Battlestar!) Plus, you'll have a chance to snap up copies of awesome new books from Greg Egan, Karen Joy Fowler, Charles Stross, Ken MacLeod, and Nancy Kress. If you want to know where to go and what to do when you're in a science fictional way from April to August, then look no further than io9's exhaustive, amazing, intensive list of everything scifi this season. More »

8:40 AM on Tue Apr 1 2008
By Annalee Newitz
7,120 views, 49 comments

Latest by DSTRYA: @XMACHINA: don't spoil the magic, XMACHINA. i love Space mountain, but only when the lights are OUT. dig? more »

anathem

Plot of New Neal Stephenson Novel Revealed

We've heard rumors about Neal "Snow Crash" Stephenson's new novel, but nothing more concrete than that it would be called Anathem and it would be a space opera about math and aliens. That would mark a real departure for the novelist, who has dealt only with human histories and futures in his previous works like The Diamond Age, Snow Crash, and Cryptonomicon. Now Lev Grossman, Time magazine's nerd correspondent, has more details about the plot of Anathem. More »

12:30 PM on Mon Mar 31 2008
By Annalee Newitz
4,119 views, 34 comments

Latest by IlyaP: The cover for Anathem has been officially released: [ecx.images-amazon.com] more »

flurb

New Issue of Rudy Rucker's FLURB Hits the Interwebs

Science fiction writer Rudy "Postsingular" Rucker has just posted issue #5 of his speculative fiction webzine FLURB, which is always full of bizarro delights. In this issue, Terry Bisson writes about a superhero called Captain Ordinary who teleports around the world via hidden portals in Starbucks outlets, triggered if you order the right kind of soy latte. John Shirley gives us a tasty excerpt from his dark new cyberpunk novel Black Glass Samples, and Nathaniel Hellerstein takes on the persona of the entire Web to humbly request that people stop accusing it of trying to end the world. Plus, there's a lot more, including a new story from Rucker and plenty of Rucker's art too. [FLURB]

11:20 AM on Mon Mar 31 2008
By Annalee Newitz
468 views, 5 comments

Latest by bluewyvern: Captain Ordinary kind of reminded me of a Superheroes skit on Whose Line Is It Anyway. "Thank God you're here, uh...Quantum Gal!" more »

triviagasm

The Greatest Science Fiction Pinball Machines Of All Time

Long before the current obsession with console processing power and how many billions of polygons can be display onscreen at the same time, the only way to get your game on was via pinball machines. There have been tons of scifi pinball machines, with some amazingly garish artwork. Besides all of the Star Trek, Star Wars, and other licensed games, take a look at some of the forgotten scifi pinball machines of yesteryear. We'd give our eyeteeth for one of those The Machine: Bride of Pin-Bot games. More »

5:30 PM on Fri Mar 28 2008
By Kevin Kelly
5,884 views, 37 comments

Latest by null: Comment on The Greatest Science Fiction Pinball Machines Of All Time @Kevin Kelly - Not according to the Designers who created the game... see http://www.ipdb.org/ more »

dragons

Six Bite-Your-Head Brilliant Dragons from Science Fiction

Although the flying, fire-breathing, lizard-esque creature known as a dragon usually appears in fantasy stories full of elves and magic, the scaly beasts show up in scifi too. Sometimes they're apocalyptic killing machines, like the "ancient species unearthed by subway digging" in that Christian Bale flick Reign of Fire, and sometimes they're more like a psychic alien version of the horse from Black Beauty. And frankly, they are always freaking awesome. Check out our list of six brilliant dragons from science fiction — all of whom are ready to bite your head. More »

9:30 AM on Wed Mar 26 2008
By Annalee Newitz
6,318 views, 94 comments

Latest by Chiper: @femto: It's unlikely we'll see any good movies from her books after she's dead either. more »

advertising

Creepy Corporate Data-Sucking Machines of the Future

It's time to monetize your datastream. You're generating all this data while you surf the web: what you buy, what you read, where you work, where you vacation, your current favorite music/video, where you bank, and of course what you're talking about in email. Shouldn't there be some way to commoditize all that? I mean, shouldn't you be putting all your personal web data together into a handy UDP, or unified data profile, and selling it to the highest bidder? Absolutely. And in the year 2024, a nice company called Datapoints wants to help you to do just that. The Datapoints site, written in hilarious biz-speak, is one of the only deliberately science fictional corporate websites I've ever seen. More »

2:40 PM on Mon Mar 24 2008
By Annalee Newitz
1,131 views, 7 comments

Latest by Annalee Newitz: @noncornbatant: Yeah, and for a while there was even a real company that tried to get you to sell them your "clickstream." It was called Attention Trust. If only this website were fake: [attentiontrust.org] more »

mad linguistics

All the Best Alien Languages in One Place

If you're fascinated by alien languages and futuristic human slang, you're in luck. Eastern Michigan University, with the help of linguistics-loving scifi author Suzette Haden Elgin, has put together an exhaustive list of scifi novels that feature every flavor of strange, imaginary language. A couple of weeks ago we posted a beautiful diagram showing the lineage of most Western languages, and now with this list you can move forward into the possible future of those languages. More »

8:40 AM on Mon Mar 24 2008
By Annalee Newitz
2,538 views, 17 comments

Latest by ideaman2020: @Rusty626: Here, here. Pakuni, anyone? more »

larry niven

Larry Niven Tells DHS to Spread Organ Harvesting Rumors

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 »

10:06 AM on Fri Mar 21 2008
By Annalee Newitz
5,449 views, 58 comments

More Terrifying Than Space is Space Madness

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