I’ve always considered Dune and its many sequels more science fantasy than science fiction. Sure, there’s starships and other planets, not to mention sandworm biology, but there’s also a Catholic-like sisterhood with sinister mind powers, swordfights, a Chosen One trope, and a feudal society with emperors, princesses, and dukes. Herbert cribbed a lot from human …
Exotic mammalian carnivores are heavily featured in SFF literature. William Rice Burroughs had his eight-legged, lion-like banth in his Barsoom series, and more recently Tomi Adeyemi took up the trope with her lionaires and leopardaires in Children of Blood and Bone and Children of Virtue and Vengeance. Prehistoric carnivores like the sabre-toothed tiger and short-faced …
The structure of Transformers names not only opens them up to parody, but also to a certain form of sexual parody. Let’s say somewhere fanfic, artwork and videos most certainly exist with these robots getting it on, or “Knockin’ pistons” as they might say, with all sorts of extraneous apparatus attached to their normally sexless …
For the first few years of its existence Transformers was strictly an all-male universe. By universe, I mean the line of toys, comics and cartoons in the US; there may have been some distaff members in the Japanese lines, which are traditionally more accepting of females in action roles. It was not until the mid-1980s …
As the picture above ** suggests, some Transformers just never made the grade. Since part of the fun of them are those oh-so-easily parodied names, here’s a list of those Autobots and Decepticons who never should have been born. I’ll call them Aborticons. Aborticons Cosmiclutter Dirtbag Lumplizard Dinofart Kittenstrike Hysteridemic Crunkbrawl Skysnort Menhonk Hypimple …
Do you know American President Ronald Reagan is to thank for the success of the Transformers franchise? In the early 1980s Hasbro executives noticed a line of Japanese toys called the Diaclones, which were robots that transformed into vehicles. They thought the concept had merit, so the company licensed them to be sold in the …
The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson Random House, 2004 [Challenge # 6: An alternate history] Kim Stanley Robinson’s alternate history novel The Years of Rice and Salt caused a sensation in the SF world when it came out in 2004. In this timeline, the Black Plague kills off the entire population …
The Silver Metal Lover by Tanith Lee DAW, 1981 The Silver Metal Lover is perhaps Tanith Lee’s best known novel after her three Flat Earth books. It may be the most beloved. Though an abiding Lee fan I was immune to its charms for many years until finally deciding to read it last summer. The …
I’ve looked at alternate U.S. states before on this site here and here, but frankly, where things really start to get whacky is on the West Coast. But you knew that, didn’t you? Being the most populous state in the union California tends to get divided up a lot. It seems fresh proposals come down …
The gruff private eye who investigated crimes with a world-weary cynicism had his start with author Dashiell Hammett amidst the throes of Prohibition when organized crime ran amok. Paperbook books began to be widely available in the decade after, and the two combined for masterpieces of vintage kitsch like the above (actual) novel by Fredric …