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Tine looping, where a character is doomed to repeat the same day (or hour, or longer period) is a sci-fi trope dating back more than a century, but really entered American consciousness with the 1993 Bill Murray film Groundhog Day. Since then, and especially in the last five years, there have been numerous iterations of […] Do We Need Yet More Films About Time...

Everybody knows that UFO stands for “unidentified flying object.” Coined by the United States Air Force in 1953, the term has come to stand for a wide range of phenomena that suggest we’ve been contacted by alien civilizations — and in fact has even spawned the field of ufology, dedicated to the investigation of such […] The CIA Has Declassified 2,780 Pages of UFO-Related...

Image by Nikolas Coukouma, via Wikimedia Commons If you, like me, often turn to science fiction to get more clarity about the present, past, and future, then you know you’re in good company with multiple-award-winning sci-fi author Octavia Butler. The novelist cast her gaze over it all, looking into the dark corners of American life […] Octavia Butler’s Four Rules for Predicting the Future...

Like so many major motion pictures slated for a 2020 release, Denis Villeneuve’s Dune has been bumped into 2021. But fans of Frank Herbert’s epic science-fiction saga haven’t had to go entirely without adaptations this year, since last month saw the release of the first Dune graphic novel. Written by Kevin J. Anderson and Frank Herbert’s son […] The <i>Dune</i> Graphic Novel: Experience Frank Herbert’s Epic...

It takes a fearless filmmaker indeed to adapt Dune. Atop its rich linguistic, political, philosophical, religious, and ecological foundations, Frank Herbert's saga-launching 1965 novel also happens to have a plot "convoluted to the point of pain." So writes David Foster Wallace in his essay on David Lynch, who directed the first cinematic version of Dune […] Watch the First Trailer for <i>Dune</i>, Denis Villeneuve’s...

Today, the world celebrates the 100th anniversary of Ray Bradbury's birthday. And, to mark the occasion, Neil Gaiman, William Shatner, Susan Orlean & many others will host a reading of Bradbury's classic book, Fahrenheit 451. The online special, like the book, is separated into three parts, each introduced by Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden. The […] Ray Bradbury’s <i>Fahrenheit 451</i>: A Free Reading by...

When Jeanette Ng gave her acceptance speech at the 2019 Joseph W. Campbell awards (now called the Astounding Award for Best New Writer), she described “Golden Age” editor Campbell as “a fascist” who “set a tone of science fiction that still haunts the genre to this day. Sterile. Male. White.” The list of Hugo winners this […] Every Possible Kind of Science Fiction Story: An...

The Interim Executive Producer of The Second City joins your hosts Mark Linsenmayer, Erica Spyres, and Brian Hirt to discuss the scope of black nerd-dom: what nerdy properties provide to those who feel "othered," using sci-fi to talk about race, Black Panther and other heroes, afrofuturism, black anime fans, Star Trek, Key & Peele, Get […] What Is a “Blerd?” Pretty Much Pop: A...

Mark Linsenmayer, Erica Spyres, and Brian Hirt address the 4-season 2013 Adult Swim show, which currently has a 94% critics' rating on Rotten Tomatoes. What kind of humor is it, and how are we supposed to take its sci-fi and family drama elements? While its concepts start as parody, with an anything-goes style of animation, […] <em>Rick and Morty</em> as Absurdist Humor, Yet Legitimate...

The point at which we date the birth of any genre is apt to shift depending on how we define it. When did science fiction begin? Many cite early masters of the form like Jules Verne and H.G. Wells as its progenitors. Others reach back to Mary Shelley’s 1818 Frankenstein as the genesis of the […] When Astronomer Johannes Kepler Wrote the First Work...

Something's strange... Is it a dream? If it's a morality tale with a twist ending, you're probably in the Twilight Zone. Your hosts Brian Hirt, Erica Spyres, and Mark Linsenmayer, plus guest Ken Gerber (Brian's brother) are in it this week, discussing the thrice revived TV series. Does the 1959-1963 show hold up? What makes […] Twilight Zone Morality Tales: A Pretty Much Pop...

Five years ago we told you about the plans to create a mini-series out of Isaac Asimov’s classic sci-fi series Foundation, while also pointing you in the direction of the 1973 BBC radio dramatization. Back in 2015, Jonathan Nolan, brother of Christopher, was attached and HBO was set to produce. And then we all forgot […] Get a First Glimpse of <i>Foundation</i>, the New...

Those of us who saw the The Matrix in the theater felt we were witness to the beginning of a new era of cinematically and philosophically ambitious action movies. Whether that era delivered on its promise — and indeed, whether The Matrix's own sequels delivered on the franchise's promise — remains a matter of debate. More […] This Is What <i>The Matrix</i> Looks Like Without...

When it opened in 1977, Star Wars revived the old-fashioned swashbuckling adventure film. Within a few years, National Public Radio made a bet that it could do the same for the radio drama. Though still well within living memory, the "golden age of radio" in America had ended decades earlier, and with it the shows […] The Original <i>Star Wars</i> Trilogy Adapted into a...

The world-wide Tribble infestation and Star Trek: Picard dropping make this an apt time to address our most philosophical sci-fi franchise. 44 years of thought experiments (with photon torpedoes!) about what it is to be human should have taught us something, and Brian Hirt, Erica Spyres, and Mark Linsenmayer along with Drew Jackson (Erica's husband) […] Star Trek: World-Building Over Generations—Pretty Much Pop: A...

Not many readers of the 21st century seek out the work of popular writers of the 19th century, but when they do, they often seek out the work of Jules Verne. Journey to the Center of the Earth, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Around the World in Eighty Days: fair to say that we […] Jules Verne’s Most Famous Books Were Part of...

Back in 2009, the musician who goes by the name "Cheesy Nirvosa" began experimenting with ambient music, before eventually launching a YouTube channel where he "composes longform space and scifi ambience." Or what he otherwise calls "ambient geek sleep aids." Click on the video above, and you can get lulled to sleep listening to the […] 42 Hours of Ambient Sounds from <i>Blade Runner,</i>...

As least since H.G. Wells' 1895 novel The Time Machine, time travel has been a promising storytelling concept. Alas, it has seldom delivered on that promise: whether their characters jump forward into the future, backward into the past, or both, the past 125 years of time-travel stories have too often suffered from inelegance, inconsistency, and implausibility. Well, […] How Time-Travel Works in Fiction: A Concise Breakdown...