New releases in fiction, nonfiction and comics that caught our attention. Hum by Helen Phillips Robots have become a regular fixture of the workforce, and humans are losing their jobs to AI. Climate change is wreaking havoc on the planet. It’s getting harder and harder for the average person to make ends meet. Facial recognition technology is being used for surveillance. Sound familiar? In her new novel, Hum, author Helen Phillips paints a picture of what our near-future could look like. Its main character, May, has lost her job after technology made her role obsolete, and, desperate for money to support her family, she agrees to participate in an experiment that alters her face to make her undetectable to facial recognition. With the extra cushion from the payment, she takes her husband and children on a short, technology-free vacation to the Botanical Garden — but things go dangerously awry. Hum is a captivating, unsettling work of dystopian fiction that makes it impossible not to draw parallels with our current reality. Life as No One Knows It: The Physics of Life's Emergence by Sara Imari Walker There’s so much we don’t know about the origins of life on Earth, and how it could appear on other worlds. Arizona State University theoretical physicist and astrobiologist Sara Imari Walker tackles the enduring question, “What is life?” and so much more in her book, Life as No One Knows It: The Physics of Life's Emergence. It explores assembly theory, which, as Walker... Continue reading at 'Engadget'
[ Engadget | 2024-08-10 19:43:55 UTC ]
Halo’s TV adaptation doesn't waste any time differentiating itself from the popular game franchise. We open in a rebel village bar, where patrons are discussing the evil UNSC (United Nations Space Command) and boogey-man like Spartans. It could easily be a scene from Firefly, the short-lived... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2022-03-25 17:17:05 UTC ]
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'Lessons from the Edge' by Marie Yovanovitch, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, debuts and #6 on our hardcover nonfiction list. Plus a pair of science fiction titles land on our hardcover fiction list, and comedian Seth Meyers makes his picture book debut. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2022-03-25 04:00:00 UTC ]
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In today’s world of Twitch and Zoom a good headset is becoming a must-have item for their comfort and audio quality. But there are two major stopping blocks toward them being an everyday item: their high cost and unfriendly designs. No one wants to look like an air traffic controller or call... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2022-03-22 14:30:19 UTC ]
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The producers of Until Dawn are returning to their roots after years of Dark Pictures Anthology games. Supermassive Games and 2K have unveiledThe Quarry, a teen horror title that has you once again deciding the fates of frightened youth. You control nine camp counselors as a night of celebrating... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2022-03-17 20:15:57 UTC ]
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How’s this for fun? Take 27 incredible writers—including winners of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, PEN Awards, Women’s Prize for Fiction, Edgar Award, and more—and invite each of them to write an erotic short story. Then publish the collection in one steamy anthology with the... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2022-03-17 08:50:16 UTC ]
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From sci fi horror like Parasite by Mira Grant to science fantasy like Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao, those genre-blending science fiction books have something for every reader. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2022-03-10 11:35:00 UTC ]
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Essay Para on Lake Baikal in southern Siberia / Photo courtesy of the author Editorial note: “Siberian Romance,” a suite of Para’s poems, accompanies this introductory essay. Born in 1956, Jean-Baptiste Para is a poet, art critic, essayist,... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2022-03-08 19:30:36 UTC ]
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Essay “Literature was a vast minefield occupied by enemies,” Roberto Bolaño, who enjoyed accruing enemies in the pantheon of Latin American letters, writes in the short story “Meeting with Enrique Lihn” (New Yorker, December 22, 2008): except for a few... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2022-02-28 21:05:10 UTC ]
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Book Reviews Photo by Chris Wood / Flickr Houston’s Second Poet Laureate (2015–2017) and a member of the Texas Institute of Letters since 2019, Robin Davidson is the author of three books of poetry: Kneeling in the Dojo (2013), City That Ripens... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2022-02-22 21:17:17 UTC ]
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Book Reviews Photo by Chris Wood / Flickr Houston’s Second Poet Laureate (2015–2017) and a member of the Texas Institute of Letters since 2019, Robin Davidson is the author of three books of poetry: Kneeling in the Dojo (2013), City That Ripens... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2022-02-22 21:17:17 UTC ]
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As he releases the latest fruits of his new megabucks deal with Netflix – an interactive cartoon about a cat – the Black Mirror creator discusses gaming, nuclear war, and why his generation has wrecked the UKCharlie Brooker is sitting at a desk, a big cardboard box in the background, miscellany... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2022-02-21 06:00:24 UTC ]
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Take a look into our present and future with these near-future science fiction books that are eerily prescient, including Firebreak by Nicole Kornher-Stace6. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2022-02-17 11:35:00 UTC ]
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A few months back, Blade Runner director Ridley Scott said a live-action series set in that universe is in the works. The project looks to be a step closer to reality, as Amazon Studios has reportedly put it in development. Amazon's TV and film production arm is said to be fast tracking scripts... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2022-02-11 18:28:55 UTC ]
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An anthology of erotic short fiction keeps the award-winning writers a dirty secret. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2022-02-09 20:55:35 UTC ]
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An anthology of erotic short fiction keeps the award-winning writers a dirty secret. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2022-02-09 14:43:51 UTC ]
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The online virtual reality experience that almost every tech giant today wishes to commercially exploit may not catch onIn the 1992 sci-fi dystopia Snow Crash, the author Neal Stephenson imagined a bleak 21st century where the collapse of the global economy had seen governments fall and their... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2022-02-07 19:11:48 UTC ]
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A late baby-boomer, I spent my tweens and adolescence in the 1970s under the Tolkien-woven spell of heroic fantasy, immersed in the imagined worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea trilogy (1968-72), Patricia A. McKillip’s Riddlemaster trilogy (1976-79), and Evangeline Walton’s Welsh-myth-remix... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2022-01-26 09:55:39 UTC ]
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Comma Press is to publish The Cuckoo Cage, the latest anthology in its History-into-Fiction series, featuring stories by British authors including Courttia Newland, Luan Goldie and Irfan Master. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2022-01-25 11:00:43 UTC ]
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Gina Miller and Theresa May are happy to be in Bloody Difficult Women, but the Mail man wanted his lawyers to vet the scriptThe Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday have been banging on a lot lately about freedom of expression. An editorial declared it to be a “dark day” when the newspaper group... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2022-01-25 08:00:39 UTC ]
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Kim Stanley Robinson’s novels envision the dire problems of the future—but also their solutions. Continue reading at New Yorker
[ New Yorker | 2022-01-24 11:00:00 UTC ]
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