Displaying posts tagged with

“science fiction”

The Yoda are an Extreme K Species

  Eric Spitznagel has recently asked me to provide my opinion on the mysterious Baby Yoda for an article in Popular Mechanics. The really cool piece was published today,  but obviously Eric had to remove some bits for brevity, since he was trying to get the opinion of many different scientists. You should really read the […]

Wool / Omnibus: Make your Choice

I finished reading Wool / Omnibus a few days ago. If you want one captivating book (or rather pentalogy) to read by the end of the year, then this is it. The five books  grew from a short story, Wool, published electronically. The author, Hugh Howey, continued to publish Wool 2-5, and then compiled all […]

Music: Dr. Who / Mankind

One of the more bizarre outcomes of the series. They had me with the keyboard player dressed like Tom Baker with a mustache.

What do you mean “Flash Gordon approaching”?

Just saw Flash Gordon (1980 movie) with my kids. I was about the same age when I saw it first. Being a child lacking any humor, and professing myself to be an avid and serious science fiction fan, I considered watching this campy over-the-top self-parodying science fiction movie a complete waste of time. OhOne and […]

The Science(?) in Avatar

Saw Avatar with OhOne last weekend. Awesome cinematography, cool effects, great work. A few random observations, with no particular theme in mind. Note that James Cameron says that “Avatar [is not] science fiction, it is an action/adventure/science fantasy film”. So, I might just being too sciency here. 1. All of Pandora’s animals are hexapods, except […]

Book: Thirteen / Black Man. Richard K. Morgan

To say that Thirteen is a futuristic Chandlerian hardboiled-detective-fiction meets Gibson cyberpunk in a Swiftian satire of contemporary USA would be a cumbersomely loaded one-liner describing a no less loaded but sleekly streamlined novel. Saying that would also do injustice to Gibson, Chandler, Swift, the English language and especially Richard Morgan. This book has it […]