Book Review: THE OUTSIDE by Ada Hoffman
With a boffo combination of hard science fiction, cosmic Lovecraftian horror, both cyber- and god-punk, some ridiculously charismatic aliens, and a fascinating female protagonist somewhere on the autism spectrum, Ada Hoffman’s The Outside feels like it was made to order for us here at Skiffy and Fanty! But this isn’t just another space adventure, and its protagonist’s uniqueness, however refreshing, is not the most interesting thing about it. The Outside is a work of near-maddening subtlety that plays with an interesting set of conundra: given that we perceive the universe via kluged-together sense organs with very limited range, how much of what is actually Outside can we comprehend? Say we try to do something about it and invent machines to augment our senses. And then we let them evolve into godlike self-aware entities. The better to expand our horizons?
Book Review: Infinite Detail, by Tim Maughan
“It’s not enough to just take power away from those in charge. If we don’t use it ourselves, they’ll just take it back.” — “Anika” in Tim Maughan’s Infinite Detail “Be careful what you wish for; you may get it.” — Everybody since the 2001 ape threw a jawbone into the air Let’s think awhile about tools and how we use them, and how they end up using us when we’re not careful. Like how the human-engineered maize plant has basically turned us into a slave race frantically devoted to propagating it, defending it, etc. Let’s think about revolutions and why they tend to fail.
Book Review: The Apex Book of World SF, Volume Five
“Imagination,” says Cristina Jurado, editor of this fifth edition of The Apex Book of World SF, “recognizes any language while walking on the paths of all nations.” In no genre is this more evident than in science fiction, and in no anthology series is it so vividly realized as in this ongoing project, originally developed by Lavie Tidhar, showcasing short fiction from authors around the world.
Book Review: The Red Men by Matthew de Abaitua
About a third of the way through The Red Men, Matthew de Abaitua’s ravishing new-old (I’ll explain in a moment) cyberpunk nightmare, is very likely the creepiest scene I’ve ever encountered in literature. Not just in genre fiction. In literature. I’m not going to spoil it for you. You’ll know it when you hit it. And your brain will leap out of your skull and try to escape the building, flopping and squelching across the floor until it’s stuck hurling itself ineffectually against a door or gate or other obstacle. Help me. You’ll want to chase after it so you can read the rest of the book. Probably.
Netflix Showdown: C.H.O.M.P.S. Vs. Paws
Netflix Showdown checks out the relative merits and flaws of two ostensibly comparable things seen on Netflix streaming. This time we have two SFnal dog films, C.H.O.M.P.S. and Paws.
Adventures in SF Parenting: The Cell Phone Dilemma
Parents are continuously struggling to keep up with the technology that their children are using. We’re rather like the federal government in that our policies are often decades behind the technological curve (hence the NSA communications debacle). As such, we tend to treat things like cell phones the same way we would, say, a personal diary. If we’re the type of parent who fundamentally doesn’t trust how our children will interact with the world, then we are perfectly willing to violate trust by reading a diary, right? So, therefore, we should also be able to monitor text messages and other interactions that our children might have using their cell phones. Here’s the thing though… We’ve spent decades letting our teenagers talk on the phone without listening in on the other line or hovering over their shoulder, haven’t we? The only difference between a phone call and a text message is that the latter makes it EASIER for us to keep tabs on our children. However, I’ve always been uncomfortable with what these actions (reading texts, instant messages, facebook conversations, reading diaries, etc) teach our children. Particularly given broader questions of privacy in modern society.
