In a recent interview, Buzz Aldrin said that science fiction was partially responsible for public apathy toward the space program (saying, in essence, if you see enough fictional tricorders, advances in CAT scan technology don’t seem very interesting any more). io9–which does love its lists–has responded with SF books and movies that particularly inspire (or…

Here’s an SF subgenre of which I was previously unaware, although it certainly fits into my “FTL ain’t gonna happen, get over it” philosophy. The central idea of Mundane Science Fiction is that we’re stuck here: Warp drives, wormholes, and other forms of interstellar travel are unlikely at best. There may be habitable worlds outside…

Theresa Nielsen Hayden reports that author Thomas Disch committed suicide on July 4. How terribly sad. Link

io9 has a list of six “Pre-Potter” novels that might hook young readers on science fiction. It’s a nice sampling of classic authors, and it’s hard to fault their choices. They mention one Heinlein juvie (The Rolling Stones), although I think I’d probably choose something like Have Space Suit, Will Travel or Red Mars Planet…

Over at the Futurismic blog, Blasphemous Geometries has an essay exploring the arbitrariness of defining a work as “science fiction” (and also of defining an SF work as belonging to a particular subgenre). His argument is that we shouldn’t try to do either: If somebody points to something and calls it science fiction, then by…

io9 makes a good point: Many lists of books that claim to be “hard” SF–in the sense of being rigorously scientific–either include works that are only hard if you squint (like Dune, where you’ve got people folding space with their minds) or don’t explore new technologies. As they put it, “It’s as if most definitions…

Inspired by the listverse list Top 10 Obscure but Superb Science Fiction Novels, It Doesn’t Have to be Right has produced his own list of overlooked classics. Part 1 Part 2 I’d say they’re mighty overlooked, indeed. Not only have I never heard of any of these titles, I’ve never heard of any of the…

On May 22, 2008, Bob passed away quietly in his home in New Orleans, LA. He had been in good spirits and working on several new projects, and was set to be the Guest of Honor at a major science fiction convention that very weekend. He is survived by his mother, his sister, his daughter…