Author Archives: Claire L. Evans

Photos: De Profundis Ad Astra

Posted on January 13, 2010 by Claire L. Evans

In my opinion, the 1960s were the best time to be a sci-fi buff. Everything was new: the unfolding space race was not only beginning to justify decades of literary speculation about space travel, but it was also ratcheting astronauts … Continue reading →

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Dying Inside

Posted on January 6, 2010 by Claire L. Evans

Dying Inside is one of science fiction’s great genre classics, although hopefully the edition currently in handsome reprinting will hip the mainstream to the fact that it’s also a great American novel. The story of an aging telepath gradually losing … Continue reading →

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The World of Null-A

Posted on December 22, 2009 by Claire L. Evans

Actual Reading Notes: Whoa, this book is deceptively complex: a wildly convoluted and impossible story told very plainly, with an almost maddening lack of detail — lacking the atmospheric fuzz and hypertext of more contemporary sci-fi — we’re told very … Continue reading →

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Mercury Station

Posted on December 3, 2009 by Claire L. Evans

I first met Mark von Schlegell in 2004, an eternity ago, on a blurry, neon-tonic night in Los Angeles, probably one of the banner nights for my endless (and this, I admit, is personal) migratory-birdlike longing for a return to … Continue reading →

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The Handmaid’s Tale

Posted on October 15, 2009 by Claire L. Evans

Is The Handmaid’s Tale sci-fi? It’s not marketed as such, nor does the book cover pronounce it to be so, but that’s how it was sold to me. Now that I’ve finished it, I feel like the question might be … Continue reading →

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Not What If: What If Not

Posted on September 6, 2009 by Claire L. Evans

This isn’t a novel, but the second volume of a contemporary annual design publication called the Task Newsletter, a project by Emmet Byrne, Alex DeArmond, and Jon Sueda. I include it here because Issue #2 is devoted to “Mundane Science … Continue reading →

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Citizen of the Galaxy

Posted on September 3, 2009 by Claire L. Evans

Part of Bob Heinlein’s storied “Juvenile” series for Scribner’s, Citizen of the Galaxy is a Grade-A galactic bildungsroman. By virtue of it nominally being a book for kids, it skirts some of the more roguish Heinlein themes (fawning speculation over … Continue reading →

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The Reefs of Space

Posted on August 19, 2009 by Claire L. Evans

Not in the wildest stoner prognostications of Carl Sagan, nor the fetid dreams of any sci-fi writer ever before or since, has there been anything like the The Reefs of Space. Not the book, which is fairly standard, but the … Continue reading →

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Again, Dangerous Visions

Posted on July 2, 2009 by Claire L. Evans

One thing that hasn’t been discussed yet on this blog is the major role that editors have historically played in the sci-fi scene. Since the genre was shaped by decades of magazine publishing, the editors of those magazines — rags … Continue reading →

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Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said

Posted on June 13, 2009 by Claire L. Evans

Inventing a future reality is easy. Anyone can say, “in the year 10,000 AD humans will have evolved into telepathic knights,” but to populate that reality with the names of TV shows is much more difficult. I think the particular … Continue reading →

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