MetaFilter posts tagged with speculativefiction

R.I.P. Philip Jose Farmer

Guy_Inamonkeysuit — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 08:40:07 -0800

Pioneering science fiction writer Philip Jose Farmer, who won a Hugo in 1953 for Most Promising New Talent for his disturbing story, The Lovers, died today at age 91. Best known perhaps for his Riverworld series (winning the Hugo in '72 for the first volume, To Your Scattered Bodies Go), he's also known for his World of Tiers stories and for the Wold Newton sequence (previously), in which he tied together pulp heroes such as Tarzan and Doc Savage and even Sherlock Holmes to the same genealogy. His exploration of sexuality helped elevate the field above its pulp origins. Good entry about him at Wikipedia.

A Web of Geeks, Every One of Which Knows a Lot about Something

Navelgazer — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 18:32:38 -0800

Vegging Out vs. Geeking Out. Romance as the MSG of film. The bifurcated careers of Lucy lawless, Sigourney Weaver, and Hugo Weaving. Characters making smart decisions vs. stupid decisions. Neal Stephenson discusses Sci-Fi/Speculative Fiction as a literary genre at Gresham College. (Warning: requires Flash 9)

Database of free speculative fiction online

Kattullus — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 13:52:07 -0800

Free Speculative Fiction Online is a database of free science fiction and fantasy stories online by published authors (no fan-fiction or stories by unpublished writers). Among the authors that FSFO links to are Paul Di Filippo (14 stories), James Tiptree, Jr. (4 stories), Connie Willis (3 stories), Eleanor Arnason (3 stories), Bruce Sterling (5 stories), Robert Heinlein (7 stories), Ursula K. LeGuin (3 stories), Jonathan Lethem (5 stories), Michael Moorcock (6 stories), Chine Miéville (2 stories), Samuel R. Delany (3 stories), Robert Sheckley (8 stories), MeFite Charles Stross (33 stories) and hundreds of other authors. If you don't know where to start, there's a list of recommended stories.

"We're space explorers, and we need space!"

Eideteker — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 10:40:32 -0800

Where did you want to live when you grew up? If you're like me, you read Clarke's SF classic, Rendezvous with Rama (soon to be a major motion picture?). Donald E. Davis took what we dreamed about and illustrated it, for NASA. His depictions of O'Neill Cylinders, Stanford Tori, and Bernal Spheres are in the public domain (and make excellent desktop wallpaper).