Ghost in the Shell is one of those classic anime movies that seasoned fans recommend to newcomers. Like most anime, it began life as a manga. Ghost’s progenitor was the cyberpunk-themed series by Masamune Shirow which ran from 1989-1990. Its original Japanese name was Kōkaku Kidōtai which means “Mobile Armored Riot Police.” This was the […]
I met Saul Garnell at a sci-fi convention in Phoenix a few years ago. We had lunch and an interesting discussion. Shortly thereafter, I bought his newly published e-book Freedom Club, but as I had a lot on my reading list, I didn’t get to it until several years later. I should have gotten to […]
I discovered Neal Stephenson’s novel The Diamond Age, or a Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer shortly after it was published in 1995. I’d read his preceding book Snow Crash and loved its anarchic spirit. By contrast, Diamond Age seemed stodgy at first as it centered on the prim and proper Neo-Victorians. As I read on, however, […]
Never trust a “best of steampunk” list (unless it’s one of mine.) The genre is so eclectic and quirky that there are bound to be entries that aren’t steampunk at all. I found Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl in “10 Best Steampunk Novels 2019” on bookconsumers.com. The title sounds right and the cover hints at […]
When I heard Netflix was doing a cyberpunk television series, I was excited to try it. I was not aware of the 2002 book by Richard K. Morgan on which it was based. The show followed some familiar themes: a technologically advanced future in which medicine has made it possible to live forever. However, only […]
Technology fads come and go as they vie for the attention of our fickle media. One such fad was nanotechnology, the branch of engineering which operates at or near the molecular scale, around 1-100 nanometers in size. In the 1990’s it was the darling of the science media here in America. When the most outrageous […]
In our second post in our steampunk classics series, we review Morlock Night by American science fiction writer Kevin Wayne (K. W.) Jeter. It has the distinction of being the first steampunk novel. It’s a fast-paced book written as a modern-day sequel to HG Wells’ “The Time Machine.” The premise is an intriguing one: […]
