Book Reviews Photo by Aideal Hwa / Unsplash If reading Adam Wiśniewski-Snerg’s Robot (Penguin Classics, 2021), translated by Tomasz Mirkowicz, makes you think about Stanislaw Lem’s work, you’re not alone. Indeed, both Robot and Lem’s His Master’s Voice (published in Polish just a few years apart) take up the fascinating but insoluble problem of whether or not we’re alone in the universe. One might even call Robot surrealist science fiction and liken it to Kafka’s work, or even Lem’s Memoirs Found in a Bathtub, since the main character spends most of his time wandering around the halls of an underground shelter, unsure of his own identity and his place in the community that has formed following an apocalyptic event on the surface. His identity confusion derives from his “birth” on an assembly line under a kind of bell jar. Given instructions by a mysterious Mechanism to study the people living in the shelter, the protagonist proceeds as if he is a living machine given a modicum of free will (as explained by the Mechanism). Much of the novel focuses on the protagonist figuring out why those around him are living underground and why many of them believe that he is a physicist named Poreyra. Encountering strange “statues” that weigh several tons in one of the shelter’s rooms, he eventually moves through a mirror there into a replica of the stricken city, where time moves at a fraction of the speed experienced in the shelter.... Continue reading at 'World Literature Today'
[ World Literature Today | 2021-11-10 20:14:00 UTC ]
Mysterious tarot + a missing person, an action-packed science fiction thriller, an ancient guide to modern life, and more of today's best book deals Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2025-01-21 16:18:42 UTC ]
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Unfortunately, there are two crucial flaws with the idea that the show’s severance procedure could involve a simple snip to the hippocampus. Severance, which imagines a world where a person’s work and personal lives are surgically separated, will soon return to Apple TV+ for a second season.... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2025-01-20 17:00:00 UTC ]
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These genre-defying science fiction books dissect, critique, and upend the genre, forging a whole new approach to sci-fi. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2025-01-16 11:00:00 UTC ]
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After winning just about every major science fiction and fantasy award, Nnedi Okorafor explores a traumatic event in her own history in her most autobiographical novel yet. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2025-01-12 10:01:14 UTC ]
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Prolific science fiction writer who conceived alternative lives for figures including Emily Dickinson and Sigmund FreudIn 1965, Barry N Malzberg, who has died aged 85, decided that the career he sought as a literary writer was closed to him – the magazines were impenetrable, the control of... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2025-01-09 17:38:28 UTC ]
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The aircraft—known as “electric vertical take-off and landing vehicle, or eVTOL—lift off the ground like a helicopter. When he was still a boy making long, tedious trips between his school and his woodsy home in the mountains during the 1980s, JoeBen Bevirt began fantasizing about flying cars... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2025-01-08 15:38:34 UTC ]
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From angry spirits and parallel universes to alien abductions and epic folklore, African writers are offering fresh new horizons for the world’s science fiction landscape. Continue reading at The Conversation
[ The Conversation | 2024-12-19 08:05:22 UTC ]
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From angry spirits and parallel universes to alien abductions and epic folklore, African writers are offering fresh new horizons for the world’s science fiction landscape. Continue reading at The Conversation
[ The Conversation | 2024-12-19 08:05:22 UTC ]
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From cyberpunk to space to climate fiction, novels and novellas, here are the 10 best science fiction books of 2024. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2024-12-17 11:00:00 UTC ]
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The year’s best speculative fiction includes a fantasy novel by Kelly Link, alien epics and promising starts to series. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2024-12-06 10:02:13 UTC ]
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On the day of the release of ChatGPT 4.0, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman tweeted "her"--a reference to the 2013 science fiction film in which an AI chatbot named Samantha, voiced by Scarlett Johansson, develops an intimate relationship with her human user. The tweet called... Continue reading at AdWeek
[ AdWeek | 2024-12-04 17:25:13 UTC ]
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In an era of exponentially advancing technology, staying ahead of the curve can feel like a full-time job. This fairly describes the career of acclaimed science fiction author Neal Stephenson, who invented the term “metaverse,” cemented the notion of a digital “avatar,” and received oblique... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-11-08 09:56:48 UTC ]
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While it is fair to say that Warhammer 40k has so far been underrepresented in science fiction circles, it seems the tide is finally starting to turn. Continue reading at The Conversation
[ The Conversation | 2024-10-28 17:36:58 UTC ]
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This audiovisual installation feels like being in the middle of a science fiction film. Continue reading at The Conversation
[ The Conversation | 2024-10-24 12:27:45 UTC ]
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If you’re worried about artificial intelligence taking your job, you might want to sit down for this one. AI startup Anthropic has demonstrated a new “Claude” model called that can look at a computer screen and operate a virtual mouse and keyboard, “the way people do,” according to... Continue reading at PC World
[ PC World | 2024-10-23 19:56:07 UTC ]
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Cherie Dimaline Wins NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s and Young Adult Literature News and Events [email protected] Tue, 10/22/2024 - 17:01 World Literature Today, the University of Oklahoma’s award-winning magazine of international literature and... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2024-10-22 22:01:04 UTC ]
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A film production company that helped make “Blade Runner 2049” has sued Tesla and its CEO Elon Musk for using an AI-generated image resembling a scene from the science fiction movie to market Tesla’s new robotaxis Continue reading at ABC News
[ ABC News | 2024-10-22 14:38:37 UTC ]
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A new trailer dropped on the opening day of the New York Comic Con for the new six-episode spinoff series Dune: Prophecy, a prequel to the recent films directed by Denis Villeneuve. The new series will premiere November 17 at 9PM on HBO. Each episode will be available to stream on Max on... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2024-10-17 21:23:47 UTC ]
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