Author Archives: Claire L. Evans

Count Zero

Posted on May 20, 2010 by Claire L. Evans

An almost certainly incomplete glossary of fictional concepts in William Gibson’s Count Zero that are never explained and that you are supposed to understand by context, which is inscrutable since all these future-terms are neologisms and none could even remotely … Continue reading →

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Martian Time-Slip

Posted on May 17, 2010 by Claire L. Evans

Martian Time-Slip, a sonnet: Canals lie void of water in the dust, This is the dream…to stand here and see this: See old men die wrapped up in tubes and rust. A home on Mars. Beyond it, space, abyss. Reality … Continue reading →

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The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch

Posted on April 30, 2010 by Claire L. Evans

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch is one of Dick’s great psychedelic-Gnostic novels. It takes place in a future where global warming has made living on Earth an impossible, expensive experiment in air-conditioning (people vacation in Antarctica, etc); space colonies, … Continue reading →

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Destination: Void

Posted on April 19, 2010 by Claire L. Evans

“Consciousness must dream, it must have a dreaming ground — and, in dreaming, evoke ever new dreams.” –Frank Herbert, from Destination: Void Let’s talk about consciousness. Exhibit A: Frank Herbert’s Destination: Void. Destination: Void is a claustrophobic parlor drama that … Continue reading →

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Waldo & Magic, Inc.

Posted on April 9, 2010 by Claire L. Evans

Arthur C. Clarke, among other things, is famous for a set of axioms known as “Clarke’s Laws.” The most quoted of these is undoubtedly Clarke’s Third Law, which states that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” This idea … Continue reading →

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The Lathe of Heaven

Posted on March 9, 2010 by Claire L. Evans

In his essay Man, Android and Machine, Philip K. Dick expounds at length on a vintage neurological point, the so-called “appositional mind” (what we now call the left and right brains). Dick loved the idea of a mind divided into … Continue reading →

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Search the Sky

Posted on February 6, 2010 by Claire L. Evans

On a future and much-decayed Earth, Of babies there’s long been a dearth — But everyone cheers When a spaceship appears packed with goods of immeasurable worth. Something has gone wrong with mankind: evolution has gone deaf and blind. One … Continue reading →

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Transformations: Understanding World History Through Science Fiction

Posted on February 3, 2010 by Claire L. Evans

Transformations: Understanding World History Through Science Fiction is a book that pairs a range of science fiction stories with elementary “review sections” about world events, ostensibly to lure teenagers into being interested in history. Whether it achieves this goal is … Continue reading →

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Farmer In The Sky

Posted on January 26, 2010 by Claire L. Evans

Before we begin: I don’t know why I love the “juvenile” Robert Heinlein books so much. They’re a dime-a-dozen at used book stores. I can tear through them in a day, and I know that I should be reading something … Continue reading →

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When Science Asks, “What If?”

Posted on January 18, 2010 by Claire L. Evans

I’m very excited to announce the latest fruit of my ongoing collaboration with SEED Magazine — a web-only article justifying the cultural and scientific import of science fiction. Being written for a primarily scientific audience, there are large sections of … Continue reading →

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