Non Fiction

So what happens after first contact?

Second Contacts

BY J.J.S. Boyce

So what happens after first contact? Leaving aside War of the Worlds scenarios where one race is completely destroyed, after the initial shock, what’s it like five or fifty years into a universe where we know we’re not alone? Human history provides several possible outcomes, ranging from genocide to colonization to occupation to friendship and political alliance to the innocuous missionary outposts or even lone, Marco Polo-like figure, venturing into the unknown.

You can stop reading the news, but you can’t escape politics. Certainly, Aristotle didn’t think so (in his opus, Politics), nor would, I expect, any poli-sci professor you’re likely to meet. And neither does Hayden Trenholm, the editor and publisher of this anthology, who acknowledges those who “[don’t] believe they hold strong political views” only to wryly counter that “acceptance of the status quo ... is as strong a political stance as anything more overt and polemical in nature.”

STRANGE BEDFELLOWS ANTHOLOGY

BY J.J.S. Boyce

An extraordinary collection from Hayden Trenholm

Sometimes, the movies get it right.

Top 5 Film Adaptations which Equal or Surpass the Original

BY J.J.S. Boyce

“It wasn’t as good as the book.” How often do we hear these words from at least one of our fellow movie-goers as we are exiting the theatre? It seems to be taken as a given that any film based on a book is sure to fall short, particularly when the written version already has an established cult following. We went through it with Harry Potter, Ender’s Game, and now The Hobbit.

Bleeding genres in myth, legend, and science fiction

Bleeding of Genres: Myth and Legend

BY J.J.S. Boyce

We’re all swimming in culture, all of the time. Humans are natural story-tellers. Even on an individual level we have those defining stories of the time we did X or saw Y. And any fictional world that is expected to be taken seriously, whose inhabitants are to be accepted as real people, must have its own stories and art and culture and political views. It’s not enough to make a passing mention of it. We need to see some of it.

Funny Thing About the Hugos

Funny Thing About the Hugos

BY AE

The 59th annual Hugo Awards were presented last week at LoneStarCon in San Antonio Texas. The award for Best Novel went to former SFWA President John Scalzi’s Redshirts and the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer went to Mur Lafferty, presumably on the weight of The Shambling Guide to New York City. Now, the Hugos are decided by public vote, so there is a certain shift in the base of judges every year but, nonetheless, these selections are noteworthy.