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 ]
Back in 2021, the New York Police Department (NYPD) cancelled a planned deployment of the Spot robot dog [aka "Digidog"] following a public backlash. Now, New York City's current law and order mayor Eric Adams has brought the robot dog back for use in "hazardous situations," The New York Times... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2023-04-12 06:19:27 UTC ]
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The best science fiction and fantasy book deals of the day, curated by Book Riot. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2023-04-10 13:54:15 UTC ]
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Science fiction has always been good at predicting distant futures and now governments are turning to them to ward off possible threats. Continue reading at The Conversation
[ The Conversation | 2023-04-10 13:17:28 UTC ]
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Pollack, who created the first mainstream transgender superhero, Kate Godwin, had been fighting Hodgkin’s lymphomaRachel Pollack, award-winning author, leading authority on tarot and the occult, trans activist and comic-book writer who created the first mainstream transgender superhero, has died... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2023-04-08 10:45:56 UTC ]
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The best science fiction and fantasy book deals of the day, curated by Book Riot. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2023-04-03 14:22:26 UTC ]
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By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) Of all the writers of science fiction and speculative fiction writing in the twentieth century, a few names spring to mind as candidates for the most ‘prophetic’ writers in the field: William Gibson, who popularised the term ‘cyberspace’ and the idea... Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2023-04-03 14:00:15 UTC ]
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By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) Of all the writers of science fiction and speculative fiction writing in the twentieth century, a few names spring to mind as candidates for the most ‘prophetic’ writers in the field: William Gibson, who popularised the term ‘cyberspace’ and the idea... Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2023-04-03 14:00:15 UTC ]
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The best science fiction and fantasy book deals of the day, curated by Book Riot. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2023-03-27 13:20:56 UTC ]
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Red your way into the best realistic science fiction, ranging from well-known classics to lesser known gems. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2023-03-24 10:35:00 UTC ]
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Writers, publishers and agents pay tribute to a warm, generous figure, author of more than 50 books ranging from SFF to crime to children’s literatureEric Brown, a prolific, award-winning author who published more than 50 novels, children’s books and short story collections, and who was the... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2023-03-23 13:58:10 UTC ]
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The best science fiction and fantasy book deals of the day, curated by Book Riot. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2023-03-20 13:42:08 UTC ]
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The best science fiction and fantasy book deals of the day, curated by Book Riot. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2023-03-13 13:58:47 UTC ]
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Want a glimpse into the future of SFF? We look at some of the weird and wonderful standouts from The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2022. Continue reading at Wired
[ Wired | 2023-03-10 17:00:00 UTC ]
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The 2023 Nebula Award Finalists were announced by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association this week. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2023-03-09 15:15:00 UTC ]
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This exciting mix of new science fiction and fantasy novels out in March 2023 will help you finish off the worst of the winter. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2023-03-09 11:34:00 UTC ]
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The best science fiction and fantasy book deals of the day, curated by Book Riot. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2023-03-06 14:26:01 UTC ]
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It is one thing to treat AI as a tool when it has no scope for emotion. It is quite another when AI has a full suite of emotional responses. Continue reading at The Conversation
[ The Conversation | 2023-03-05 19:19:51 UTC ]
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It often feels like the buzziest things to come out of CES every year are fascinating hardware, new applications of AI, and things that feel right out of science fiction movies. But, sometimes, the coolest things you find at CES are the most useful. Take, for instance, Deepstash... Continue reading at PC World
[ PC World | 2023-03-04 08:00:00 UTC ]
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The science fiction writer imagined artificial intelligence—and what it might want—long before this uncanny reality ever became our own. Continue reading at The Atlantic
[ The Atlantic | 2023-03-03 12:19:04 UTC ]
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The idea of growing organs or tissues for medical use still sounds like science fiction — and indeed, it's an incredibly difficult thing to do. 3D-printing technology has shown some promise in the field of biofabrication, but the process is too slow, and often damages the tissue it's working... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2023-03-02 21:40:40 UTC ]
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