Category Archives: Science

Parable of the Sower

Posted on February 23, 2009 by Claire L. Evans

People throw around words like “dystopia” and “post-apocalyptic” a lot when they talk about modern science fiction novels. I wonder, have those people read Parable of the Sower? Dystopia. Dissed Topia. Apocalytpic and Apocryphal-ictic. Parable of the Sower takes place … Continue reading →

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Sargasso of Space

Posted on February 15, 2009 by Claire L. Evans

Like James Tiptree Jr, Andre Norton was one of science fiction’s false men. Only her pseudonym wasn’t much of a secret, and “Andre” (or Andrew, or Allan, her other noms de plume) was definitely not as acerbic, depressive, epistolary, or … Continue reading →

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Petting The Singularity

Posted on February 11, 2009 by Claire L. Evans

An announcement: an interview I conducted long ago with my friend Mark Von Schlegell, a great modern science fiction writer, a true intellectual of the genre, has been re-edited, supplemented, and posted over on Strange Horizons. As innocuous as this … Continue reading →

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Up The Walls of the World

Posted on February 9, 2009 by Claire L. Evans

When James Tiptree Jr. first sent Up the Walls of the World to his/her editor, Judy-Lynn Del Rey, the latter protested against the novel’s use of the present tense, dismissing it as a “pseudo-literary trick.” Tiptree refused to change it … Continue reading →

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All The Colours of Darkness

Posted on February 3, 2009 by Claire L. Evans

Man meets Aliens, Man hurts Aliens, Man and Aliens play tic-tac-toe and talk about Ethics, Man realizes that Aliens are Human, Man Saves Aliens, Aliens save Man(kind). NEXT BOOK: JAMES TIPTREE JR’S UP THE WALLS OF THE WORLD

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A Choice Of Gods

Posted on January 28, 2009 by Claire L. Evans

Clifford Simak’s A Choice of Gods is one of those science fiction books that dazzles with premise, not style. It also comes from a particular school of early 70s SF (and this is a nebulous designation to say the least) … Continue reading →

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The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon

Posted on January 20, 2009 by Claire L. Evans

As you may remember from a previous Space Canon entry, Alice B. Sheldon was, for a decade, the science-fiction writer James Tiptree Jr. She used the pseudonym because writing science fiction was a guilty pleasure, but also because she was … Continue reading →

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Galaxies Like Grains of Sand

Posted on January 14, 2009 by Claire L. Evans

Galaxies Like Grains of Sand is a short novel comprised of even shorter stories, presented in roughly chronological order, covering a billion year spree of humanity (I have to wonder if Brian Aldiss took a page from Olaf Stapledon’s Last … Continue reading →

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Brightness Falls From The Air

Posted on January 4, 2009 by Claire L. Evans

“Brightness falls from the air” is a line from A Litany in Time of Plague, a death-themed Elizabethan poem by Thomas Nashe: Beauty is but a flower Which wrinkes will devour; Brightness falls from the air, Queens have died young … Continue reading →

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Odd John and Sirius

Posted on December 31, 2008 by Claire L. Evans

Odd John and Sirius are two novels by Olaf Stapledon, paired together in a dual edition. This is not a thoughtless choice, as both novels are explorations of the same idea, manifested slightly differently: what happens when a superhuman intelligence … Continue reading →

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