Let’s get straight to the point: Sony managed to deliver their best comic book related movie to date. Venom delivers pure fun and is more rewatchable than anything else in Sony’s Marvel catalog. So don’t believe the low critic reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, pay attention to the much higher viewer score and go see it.
In my opinion, Neuromancer is the most influential science fiction novel published to date. It’s been revolutionary, it predicted technologies and concepts better than some of the older classics (most notably Stand on Zanzibar, which is often praised for its predictive powers), and it influenced an entire slew of books and movies, as well as computer and Internet development.
When it comes to classic science fiction, you have two kinds of people: those who call the monster “Frankenstein”, and those who smugly point out that Frankenstein was its maker; the monster was never named in the book. Let me assert a third category: those who read the book and realized that Victor Frankenstein was the real monster.
The Predator franchise spans six movies so far. And while none of the movies can be considered a masterpiece, some were better than others, and some even achieved cult status. But I won’t comment on the qualities of the film titles. In this essay, I want to focus on the predator as a species. In particular, how it devolved from a truly terrible force of nature to a bumbling idiot.
Spanning 17 books in 12 years so far, The Lost Fleet and its offshoots are a monumental undertaking for its author, the retired US Navy officer writing under the pen name Jack Campbell. And even though the books are lacking the depth, character development and finesse of great science fiction novels, I found them strangely compelling, and they quickly became one of the guilty pleasures in my library.
Hotel Artemis is a quirky little movie, which was sadly overlooked by audiences. I wouldn’t be surprised, though, if it reached cult status in the future. The movie’s simple structure and amazing performances made it a joy to watch. Even though the science fiction elements are light and just serve as shortcuts for the story, Hotel Artemis has become one of my favorite sci-fi movies of 2018.
From the realm of hard and dark science fiction comes a book about … space vampires? Well, not exactly, but I had to get it out of the way. This book does include vampires, but that’s just a small part of this very densely written first-contact adventure between aliens and a crew of psychopaths. Watts spins a dark story of a depressing future world, incomprehensible and terrible aliens, and the exploration of human consciousness. Had Blindsight been a little better paced, it would have been an instant classic.
The Dispossessed is one of the most awarded science fiction novels. It won the Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards, and has been widely recognized even outside its sci-fi genre. With a good reason, I may add: the book crosses over genres and at times feels more like a philosophical diatribe than a science fiction novel. However, it can also be confusing and difficult to read, especially for people not prepared to deal with such a radical departure from traditional sci-fi. I was one of such readers, and I can unequivocally state that I did not like this book.
The notion of “uplift”, intelligent species genetically modifying animals to sentience, has been tossed around science fiction for quite some time, but never gained much prominence. Save for the first work credited with uplift, The Island of Doctor Moerau by H. G. Wells and the Uplift series by David Brin, written science fiction has had fledgling success with the concept. Children of Time has revived uplift with its great worldbuilding, awe inspiring scope and brilliant writing.
The Left Hand of Darkness is considered one of the most important works of modern science fiction. Published in 1969, it opened up the world of sci-fi to the concepts of gender fluidity, and is widely considered one of the first feminist sci-fi works. Since then, the book had been studied by academics and feminists alike and is often prescribed as required literature in schools. Maybe that’s why I was never compelled to pick it up until now, nearly 50 years after its original publication. Even from a modern perspective, I found this book superb. It is descriptive to a poetic level, it’s got strong characters and excellent worldbuilding. I was able to thoroughly enjoy it even though I failed to detect any of the feminist elements people talk about.
