This is Sci-Fi, Issue 5: Doris Piserchia, Harry Harrison, and Logan

This is Sci-Fi is a sampling of science fiction news across the mediums. From movies to books, to real life, and any bits in between that I can think of to list. This is by no means a comprehensive list of what’s happening, but it should whet your appetite!

 Science Fiction Movies

Movie Suggestion of the Week:

Inception was released in 2010 and really was a surprisingly great movie. From beginning to end it was well shot and well acted, and that ending is still debatable 7 years later.  If you’re in the mood to have your head screwed with, then this is definitely a movie to pop on and try out. Be forewarned: heated debates may follow.

Synopsis: A thief, who steals corporate secrets through use of dream-sharing technology, is given the inverse task of planting an idea into the mind of a CEO.

Watch the Inception trailer.

Opening this Week (March 3rd): 

Synopsis: In the near future, a weary Logan cares for an ailing Professor X in a hide out on the Mexican border. But Logan’s attempts to hide from the world and his legacy are up-ended when a young mutant arrives, being pursued by dark forces.

Starring: Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Dafne Keen

Watch the Logan trailer here.

Featured Science Fiction Art

Robby The Robot by sidothello on DeviantArt

I just love this piece. It’s got a classic look that you could just see on an aged movie poster hanging up in your living room.

Science Fiction Books

Science Fiction New Releases

The Collapsing Empire is the first novel of a new space-opera sequence set in an all-new universe.

Our universe is ruled by physics and faster than light travel is not possible — until the discovery of The Flow, an extra-dimensional field we can access at certain points in space-time that transport us to other worlds, around other stars.

Humanity flows away from Earth, into space, and in time forgets our home world and creates a new empire, the Interdependency, whose ethos requires that no one human outpost can survive without the others. It’s a hedge against interstellar war — and a system of control for the rulers of the empire.

The Flow is eternal — but it is not static. Just as a river changes course, The Flow changes as well, cutting off worlds from the rest of humanity. When it’s discovered that The Flow is moving, possibly cutting off all human worlds from faster than light travel forever, three individuals — a scientist, a starship captain and the Empress of the Interdependency — are in a race against time to discover what, if anything, can be salvaged from an interstellar empire on the brink of collapse. – Goodreads

Agents of Dreamland A government special agent known only as the Signalman gets off a train on a stunningly hot morning in Winslow, Arizona. Later that day he meets a woman in a diner to exchange information about an event that happened a week earlier for which neither has an explanation, but which haunts the Signalman.

In a ranch house near the shore of the Salton Sea, a cult leader gathers up the weak and susceptible—the Children of the Next Level—and offers them something to believe in and a chance for transcendence. The future is coming and they will help to usher it in.

A day after the events at the ranch house which disturbed the Signalman so deeply that he and his government sought out help from ‘other’ sources, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory abruptly loses contact with NASA’s interplanetary probe New Horizons. Something out beyond the orbit of Pluto has made contact.

And a woman floating outside of time looks to the future and the past for answers to what can save humanity. – Goodreads

Coming Soon: Spaceman of Bohemia, Little Green Men – Attack!, Hunger Makes the Wolf, The Song Rising, Archangel, Alone

Zeroing in on Doris Piserchia:

The Sci-Fi Zone: Harry Harrison

Harry Harrison began writing science fiction in the 1950s and is considered one of the science fiction masters.  I recently read Deathworld by him and loved it so I decided to give a few fun facts about him.

1. The movie Soylent Green was based on Harry Harrison’s Make Room! Make Room! novel that was published in 1966.
2. His first forays into science fiction had nothing to do with writing. Instead, he worked as an illustrator with EC Comics.
3. He served as the primary writer for the Flash Gordon newspaper strip during the 50s/60s.
4. Harrison has won 9 science fiction awards, including European Grand Master and Damon Knight Grand Master.
5. Harrison was a self-confessed atheist.

Science Fiction on the Web

• Writing for The Independent, Amy C Chambers talks about Why Near-Future Science Fiction Like Westworld and Black Mirror is So Terrifying
• Atlanta Black Star has a good article about Science Fiction, Afrofuturism, and How African-Americans Are Creating Their Own Deep Space.
• Kyle Smith, writing for NY Post says that ‘Logan’ is a return to science fiction’s glory days. (We’re looking forward to seeing it. How about you?)
• Lavie Tidhar, for New Scientist, discusses China’s Science Fiction Golden Age (hint: It’s now.)
• Kameron Hurley – yes, that Kameron Hurley – has an article on The Mary Sue that had me nodding my head the entire time I read it about Let’s Build More Hopeful Futures: A Call to Arms 
• Here’s an article from The Verge talking about How Sci-Fi Imagines Inhabitable Solar Systems like Trappist-1.
• Inverse takes the stance that Science Fiction Awards are Basically Bullsh*t. (I’m a bit inclined to agree.)
• And finally, here’s an article from Patheos about the Grand Dame of Science Fiction Fantasy, Andre Norton.