Science Fiction Site

New Post At https://sciencefiction.site/review-two-shows-about-the-rise-of-pop-art-culture/ - At Lake Macquarie: Joan Ross, Colonial Grab (still), 2014, digital animation, 7:38 mins. Courtesy the artist and Michael Reid Gallery. The pair of exhibitions at Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery involve popular media and the move from the 1950s onwards to blunt the distinction between high and popular art. The 1950s and ’60s seem remote. While abstraction was the prevailing language of many artists, there were others actively concerned with ephemeral images of the increasingly prominent mass media of the time, the Pop Art movement. This was both a reaction against abstraction and a democratic means of ready-made communication with the newly minted culture of youth. From the collection of the Art Gallery of NSW comes a series of collage-based graphics compiled by Britons Eduardo Paolozzi, better known as a junk sculptor, and Joe Tilson, the avid theorist of Pop. The show is calle...

New Post At https://sciencefiction.site/with-q-microsoft-is-throwing-programmers-the-keys-to-quantum/ - Microsoft Computers are about to get weird. After decades as theory, the first quantum computers now sit in a select few labs across the globe. They’re rudimentary, and arguably less practical than early electronic computers like the 50-ton ENIAC. Yet researchers are making headway. IBM, Google, and Intel are making progress  on quantum hardware, and a practical quantum computer finally feels like a near-future reality instead of a subject for science fiction. That’s an opportunity. It’s also a problem. Quantum physics is a weird realm of teleportation and probability that doesn’t follow the rules we’re familiar with. Most people don’t understand quantum mechanics, and that includes programmers, the people who will need to put quantum computers to practical use. Microsoft has a plan to educate them. Making the mystery approachable Any develope...

New Post At https://sciencefiction.site/drones-market-in-energy-industry-2018-global-industry-size-share-trends-segments-and-geographic-overview-with/ - This press release was orginally distributed by SBWire Pune, India — ( SBWIRE ) — 08/30/2018 — Drones for Energy Industry Global Market – Overview An Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), or drone is an aircraft devoid of human pilot and which is flown and controlled by a ground-based controller using wireless communications or may be autonomous by onboard computers. The global drones for energy industry market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 25.53% during the review period of 2017 to 2023. Get Sample Report on Drones for Energy Industry Research -Forecast to 2023 @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/3847 Drivers A surge in application expansion such as line-of-sight applications such as aerial photography, offshore oil and wind energy platforms inspection, logistics, security, disaster control etc. ...

New Post At https://sciencefiction.site/muse-announce-new-album-share-science-fiction-themed-video-for-new-song-the-dark-side/ - Muse Announce New Album, Share Science Fiction-Themed Video for New Song “The Dark Side” Simulation Theory Due Out November 9 via Warner Bros. Aug 30, 2018 By Christopher Roberts British trio Muse have announced a new album, Simulation Theory , and has shared another song from it, the Muse-meets-Daft-Punk-sounding “The Dark Side,” via a 1980s-styled video for the song directed by Lance Drake. Simulation Theory is due out November 9 via Warner Bros. Below is “The Dark Side” video, followed by the album’s tracklist and cover art. Muse worked with several producers on the album, including Rich Costey, Mike Elizondo, Shellback and Timbaland. The album will be released in three formats: Standard (11 tracks), Deluxe (16 tracks), and Super Deluxe (21 tracks). Kyle Lambert did the cover artwork for the Standard a...

New Post At https://sciencefiction.site/the-importance-of-worldbuilding-in-sci-fi-and-fantasy-romance/ - As a genre, romance is expansive and wide-ranging. This particular category of fiction is home to a number of different subgenres, from historical to contemporary to sci-fi to fantasy to steampunk to paranormal to monster/alien, and the list goes on. Yet in spite of the variances, romance, on the whole, is also fairly universal, and a large part of that is due to the authorial commitment to crafting an HEA (Happily Ever After) for the story’s characters. While an HEA is part and parcel — it’s actually a mandatory requirement — for any romance novel, another facet of storytelling in genre romance that doesn’t often get much well-deserved notice is worldbuilding. In non-romantic genre fiction, worldbuilding is an aspect that gets frequently critiqued and subsequently praised, depending on whether or not the author has successfully crafted a memorable univ...

New Post At https://sciencefiction.site/william-shatner-regrets-directing-star-trek-v-the-final-frontier/ - Star Trek V: The Final Frontier was directed by Captain Kirk star William Shatner and is regarded as one of the worst movies in the franchise. The film currently sits with a 22 percent Fresh Rating on Rotten Tomatoes and even the most hardcore fans agree that it’s really bad. In Shatner’s new memoir Live Long and… What I Might Have Learned Along the Way, which is due out next week, the actor admits that he should not have directed the film and regrets the decision. William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy had their lawyers draft up a “favored nations clause” back when the original Star Trek series was still on the air. The clause stated that each actor would be paid the same and that they would receive the same raises in the future. Later, Nimoy directed Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home , which meant that it was time...

New Post At https://sciencefiction.site/first-man-blasts-off-awards-season-in-venice-gets-three-minute-ovation/ - Damien Chazelle ’s taut space epic  First Man was greeted with warm applause following its world premiere on the Lido tonight. Venice Film Festival guests and jurors, including Guillermo del Toro, Naomi Watts, Christoph Waltz and Taika Waititi, gave the Universal-backed film a three-minute standing ovation. It wasn’t a rapturous reception, but it was respectful (as it was at the film’s press screening earlier in the day), perhaps fitting for such a skilled, clear-sighted and, at times, solemn film, whose reserve matches that of its lead character. Early notices out of the Lido have been strong, with positive reviews across the trades and a 92% Rotten Tomatoes score from 12 writeups. The response to the pic has been highly promising in major foreign markets too. There are enthusiastic reviews from leading UK, Italian and French newspapers/websites, wi...

New Post At https://sciencefiction.site/the-guardian-view-on-science-fiction-the-broken-earth-deserves-its-hugo/ - T he divide between high and low culture, or between what readers love and what the critics think they ought to love, is not at all clear in science fiction. The prestigious Hugo awards are conferred on the basis of what most readers have loved most. The franchise is not restrictive, although there is a fee. Such openness can be construed as an invitation to game the system, but the Hugos have a defence mechanism: if the shortlists have been swamped by an organised voting campaign, it is possible for ordinary voters to reject all the nominees in a particular category and vote for “no award”. This defence has had to be used a couple of times in recent years to fight off attempts by rightwing trolls to impose their views on the majority. For the last three years the winning novelist has been the American NK Jemisin , for the successive volumes of her tr...

New Post At https://sciencefiction.site/new-series-of-doctor-who-will-feature-more-cgi-than-ever-before/ - The eleventh season of long-running sci-fi series ‘Doctor Who’ will bring several new elements that the show has never featured. Not only is the Doctor a female for the first time in 55 years, the new season will feature more CGI special effects than ever before. ‘Doctor Who’ has come a long way with visual effects since the time of using cardboard boxes and papier-mâché to create alien races and landscapes. And while the show has tried to make itself more cutting edge in recent seasons, there is always room for improvement. The new series director Jennifer Perrott spoke to ‘Doctor Who’ magazine about the new effects, saying: “I did have a zany action sequence in studio where we just had the actors, green screen and fans blowing their hair – the entire world around them will be created with visual effects. I can’...

New Post At https://sciencefiction.site/is-the-future-female-fixing-sci-fis-women-problem/ - R ecently, I was asked if I could write a short story for a science fiction collection about “women inventing the future”. Could I write it in four weeks? I considered it. I have three day jobs, a two-year-old and was then knee deep in promotion for my debut novel. Out of those four weeks, I figured I’d have three days to write the thing – if granny could step up. “No problem,” I said breezily, and hung up. Then I panicked. What on earth did “women inventing the future” mean? Was I supposed to write some sort of feminist space opera, full of menstruating aliens? A utopian version of the singularity, with robots who liked to talk about their feelings? A vision of a social media platform so woke and teeming with empathy that Zuckerberg would jack in Facebook and invest? Then there was the issue of my credentials. Who am I to invent the future? I am n...

New Post At https://sciencefiction.site/books-for-everyone-including-police-detainees/ - By Bob Audette, Brattleboro Reformer BRATTLEBORO — For most people, there could be nothing worse than having to spend the night in a holding cell in your local police department, staring at the grey walls, wondering how your life got so off-track. “When we pick someone up before 10 a.m., the court will see them the same day,” said Brattleboro Police Officer Ryan Washburn. “But if it’s after 10 a.m., the court won’t see them until the next day. And if we arrest someone on a Friday or over the weekend, they sit in the cell until Monday. There are no windows there. It can be pretty dreary to just sit there.” The Brattleboro Police Department keeps reading material on hand for those who are detained overnight, said Washburn. “Recently, I arrested a woman on an outstanding arrest warrant and she asked if we had any books to read,” he said. “We ...

New Post At https://sciencefiction.site/is-the-future-female-fixing-sci-fis-women-problem/ - R ecently, I was asked if I could write a short story for a science fiction collection about “women inventing the future”. Could I write it in four weeks? I considered it. I have three day jobs, a two-year-old and was then knee deep in promotion for my debut novel. Out of those four weeks, I figured I’d have three days to write the thing – if granny could step up. “No problem,” I said breezily, and hung up. Then I panicked. What on earth did “women inventing the future” mean? Was I supposed to write some sort of feminist space opera, full of menstruating aliens? A utopian version of the singularity, with robots who liked to talk about their feelings? A vision of a social media platform so woke and teeming with empathy that Zuckerberg would jack in Facebook and invest? Then there was the issue of my credentials. Who am I to invent the future? I am n...

New Post At https://sciencefiction.site/mr-movie-review-kin-is-science-fiction-sort-of/ - While poking around in an old abandoned building in Detroit, 14-year old Eli finds some strange beings in futuristic suits. They’re dead. It freaks him out and he runs off. Later he returns and finds them gone. A weird object that appears to be a futuristic, rifle-like weapon is left behind. Eli is adopted. He’s black. His brother Jimmy isn’t black and is fresh out of prison. The ne’er-do-well Jimmy does some things that cause the two to have to go on the run. He is trying to escape a gang leader done by James Franco. Eli doesn’t know this, or how Jimmy happens to have wads of cash. Telling you the why of both is a spoiler, so we’ll leave it there. “Kin” says it is science fiction. But in a way the science fiction gets in the way of the brother-bonding story. The chemistry between Miles Truitt and Jack Reynor, and Zoe Kravitz who ends up involved mid-...

New Post At https://sciencefiction.site/kids-books-provide-a-break-from-adult-life/ - The book, “ Charlotte’s Web, ” – the beloved children’s classic detailing how a pig bound for slaughter was saved by the witty words in a spider’s web – is actually a really dark piece of literature. That’s the conclusion a book club consisting of grown-ups reading kids books came to at last month’s meeting in July. The group meets again tonight at The Book Shelf in Eagle River to discuss its August selection, “ A Wrinkle in Time. ” More inside New members are always welcome, Cindy Montgomery, owner of The Book Shelf, said. Most of the time, Montgomery has plenty of copies of the monthly selection in stock. Her hosting of the book club of adults reading children’s literature is part of a national trend being documented in the past year in which leading literary journals such as The Atlantic and Book Riot are analyzing why adult...