An alternate cover edition can be found here.Many hundreds of years ago, the city of Ember was created by the Builders to contain everything needed for human survival. It worked…but now the storerooms are almost out of food, crops are blighted, corruption is spreading through the city and worst of all—the lights are failing. Soon Ember could be engulfed by darkness…But when two children, Lina and Doon, discover fragments of an ancient parchment, they begin to wonder if there could be a way out of Ember. Can they decipher the words from long ago and find a new future for everyone? Will the people of Ember listen to them?

You can find an alternative cover edition for this ISBN here and here.A rich selection of background and source materials is provided in three areas: Contexts includes probable inspirations for Dracula in the earlier works of James Malcolm Rymer and Emily Gerard. Also included are a discussion of Stoker's working notes for the novel and "Dracula's Guest," the original opening chapter to Dracula. Reviews and Reactions reprints five early reviews of the novel. "Dramatic and Film Variations" focuses on theater and film adaptations of Dracula, two indications of the novel's unwavering appeal. David J. Skal, Gregory A. Waller, and Nina Auerbach offer their varied perspectives. Checklists of both dramatic and film adaptations are included.Criticism collects seven theoretical interpretations of Dracula by Phyllis A. Roth, Carol A. Senf, Franco Moretti, Christopher Craft, Bram Dijkstra, Stephen D. Arata, and Talia Schaffer.A Chronology and a Selected Bibliography are included.

When Kris Kelvin arrives at the planet Solaris to study the ocean that covers its surface he is forced to confront a painful, hitherto unconscious memory embodied in the physical likeness of a long-dead lover. Others suffer from the same affliction and speculation rises among scientists that the Solaris ocean may be a massive brain that creates incarnate memories, but its purpose in doing so remains a mystery . . .Solaris raises a question that has been at the heart of human experience and literature for centuries: can we truly understand the universe around us without first understanding what lies within?

The Man Who Fell to Earth is my second Walter Tevis novel and unfortunately I didn’t like it anywhere near as much as I did The Queen’s Gambit. Superficially it’s a sci-fi novel: the protagonist is Thomas Jerome Newton, an alien from the planet Anthea (Venus?), who comes to Earth to make enough money to build a rocketship to send back home and bring his people over to water-rich Earth. Alright, fine, that’s the premise and, very loosely, the plot. What it is in actuality? About a sad and lonely alcoholic who happens to be an alien. What frustrated me the most was how little happened. Newton gets rich patenting alien tech. Then he continues to amass wealth. And he continues to amass wealth. He meets a couple people along the way. And he continues to amass wealth. He starts drinking. And he continues to amass wealth. And he continues to amass wealth. And… zzz… It’s not a long novel (just under 200 pages) but it felt way longer because there’s almost nothing here to engage the reader. Knowing what little I do about Tevis’ life, I get that it’s basically about his lifelong battle with alcoholism and how having been a sickly child kept him weak and away from school so he couldn’t make friends which must’ve felt lonely and depressing. Loneliness and depression lead to substance abuse - as an explanation for addiction, that’s totally believable if hardly revelatory. Except overstating this without exploring any deeper isn’t just unsatisfying but it’s also immensely tedious to read. I wonder if the phrase “feeling like an alien” as a way of describing having trouble relating to others/social isolation originated with this book. Tevis also takes a dim view of the US government but that feature’s par for the course when it comes to alien stories. It’s well-written and parts of it are mildly interesting - when Newton is interrogated by Federal agents at the end - but The Man Who Fell to Earth was mostly repetitive and very, very boring!

There's Lone, the simpleton who can hear other people's thoughts and make a man blow his brains out just by looking at him. There's Janie, who moves things without touching them, and there are the teleporting twins, who can travel ten feet or ten miles. There's Baby, who invented an antigravity engine while still in the cradle, and Gerry, who has everything it takes to run the world except for a conscience. Separately, they are talented freaks. Together, they compose a single organism that may represent the next step in evolution, and the final chapter in the history of the human race.In this genre-bending novel - among the first to have launched scifi into the arena of literature - one of the great imaginers of the twentieth century tells a story as mind-blowing as any controlled substance and as affecting as a glimpse into a stranger's soul. For as the protagonists of More Than Human struggle to find who they are and whether they are meant to help humanity or destroy it. Theodore Sturgeon explores questions of power and morality, individuality and belonging, with suspense, pathos, and a lyricism rarely seen in science fiction.

I have a bee in my bonnet that I would like to deal with first. I tend to feel annoyed (even though I shouldn’t) when people ask for sci-fi recommendations with the caveat that the book being recommended must not be more than 10 years old. The reason given for this clause is usually because the science is “wrong”, there is no internet or history did not turn out the way the author depicted in the book. WUT? I would like to reiterate that it is not a sci-fi author’s job to predict the future, the whole point is to speculate. Anybody who want to get into reading sci-fi but steadfastly refuse to read the classics from the 50s, 60s etc. is really doing themselves a disfavor and missing out on some of the greatest sf stories and ideas ever written in the history of mankind.Which brings us to Alfred’s Bester’s The Demolished Man, first published in 1953. Read this or his other classic The Stars My Destination and you will understand why I insist sci-fi readers should never neglect older science fiction. These are two terrific stories that stand the test of time. 1953 coverIn The Stars My Destination Bester posits a strange future society where everybody can teleport using the power of their mind. In The Demolished Man not everybody is a telepath but they are quite commonplace and can be found in all kinds of profession. Boy, did he get the future “wrong”! In lesser hands, this conceit would never work but Alfred’s Bester was able to spin a great yarn from this fairly simple premise.The Demolished Man is an “inverted detective story” in that the reader is immediately told who the murderer is, but the difficulty for our hero is how to catch the devious bastard. The murderer Ben Reich is a “normal”, non-telepathic person, but he is extremely smart and is able to foil even mind reading policemen. For example to avoid his mind being read by telepathic police he goes to a commercial jingle writer to play him a jingle that lodges in his brain after just one listening and bounces around it in an incessant looping playback. The hero policeman Lincoln Powell can barely keep up with him even with all the telepathic power (and manpower) at his disposal. The climax of the book is wonderfully surreal and reminds me of Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Lathe of Heaven and PKD’s Flow My Tears the Policeman Said. A friend recently told me that I sometimes inadvertently put spoilers in my reviews so I’d better not elaborate any more on this point.The awesome edition I had (lost it now!)Bester’s writing style reminds me of noir detective fiction by the likes of Raymond Chandler, with the clipped dialogue and witty banter. The book is quite short so there is not a lot of room for character development, but the protagonist and antagonist are quite complex and believable characters.All in all a gripping, entertaining and very readable sci-fi classic that should please all sci-fi fans.

In this pulse-quickening novel, Alfred Bester imagines a future in which people "jaunte" a thousand miles with a single thought, where the rich barricade themselves in labyrinths and protect themselves with radioactive hit men — and where an inarticulate outcast is the most valuable and dangerous man alive. The Stars My Destination is a classic of technological prophecy and timeless narrative enchantment by an acknowledged master of science fiction.

Part of the Soviet Science Fiction Series, with an introduction by Theodore Sturgeon.Red Schuhart is a stalker, one of those strange misfits compelled to venture illegally into the Zone and collect the strange artefacts that the alien visitors left scattered there. His whole life, even the nature of his daughter, is determined by the Zone.En la Unión Soviética, como en los Estados Unidos, la fascinación por las posibilidades de la ciencia y la tecnología produjo una larga y rica tradición de ciencia ficción. Los hermanos Strugatsky son sin duda las primeras figuras del género en su pais. Las dos novelas cortas que integran este volumen tienen una introducción de Theodore Sturgeon. "Picnic extraterrestre" trata de una fugaz visita de seres de otro planeta, que dejan en la Tierra algunos desperdicios, algo así como los restos de un picnic. Estos productos son de una tecnología extraña ponen en juego toda suerte de ambiciones humanas."Leyendas de la Troika" es una sátira sobre un futuro lejano en el que el mundo se divide en innumerables pisos conectados por ascensores que nunca funcionan. Clara denuncia a la irracionalidad burocrática, "Leyendas de la Troika" es absolutamente diferente de "Picnic Extraterrestre", lo que prueba la extraordinaria versatilidad de los hermanos Strugatsky.

It is a tale of revolution, of the rebellion of a former penal colony on the Moon against its masters on the Earth. It is a tale of a culture whose family structures are based on the presence of two men for every woman, leading to novel forms of marriage and family. It is the story of the disparate people, a computer technician, a vigorous young female agitator, and an elderly academic who become the movement's leaders, and of Mike, the supercomputer whose sentience is known only to the revolt's inner circle, who for reasons of his own is committed to the revolution's ultimate success.

Hundreds of years in the future, after the collapse of the Western world, young Menelaus Illation Montrose grows up in what was once Texas as a gunslinging duelist for hire. But Montrose is also a mathematical genius—and a romantic who dreams of a future in which humanity rises from the ashes to take its place among the stars. The chance to help usher in that future comes when Montrose is recruited for a manned interstellar mission to investigate an artifact of alien origin. Known as the Monument, the artifact is inscribed with data so complex, only a posthuman mind can decipher it. So Montrose does the unthinkable: he injects himself with a dangerous biochemical drug designed to boost his already formidable intellect to superhuman intelligence. It drives him mad.Nearly two centuries later, his sanity restored, Montrose is awakened from cryo-suspension with no memory of his posthuman actions, to find Earth transformed in strange and disturbing ways, and learns that the Monument still carries a secret he must decode—one that will define humanity’s true future in the universe.

The Overlords appeared suddenly over every city--intellectually, technologically, and militarily superior to humankind. Benevolent, they made few demands: unify earth, eliminate poverty, and end war. With little rebellion, humankind agreed, and a golden age began.But at what cost? With the advent of peace, man ceases to strive for creative greatness, and a malaise settles over the human race. To those who resist, it becomes evident that the Overlords have an agenda of their own. As civilization approaches the crossroads, will the Overlords spell the end for humankind . . . or the beginning?

For hundreds of years, Earth has suffered under the yoke of alien conquerors: the dreaded Tyr, a reptilian race in which all individuality is submerged into a single, overarching consciousness. Determined to keep humanity cowed, the Tyr have culled from the captive population the most intelligent, the most curious, the most likely to foment rebellion, and banished them from Earth. As the memory of freedom recedes, humanity sinks into a lethargic subservience. Daetrin, the hero of this tale, is a vampire--not a monster, however, but a man, nearly immortal, who embodies the vanished virtues of a once-sovereign Earth. When his existence is exposed by the Tyr, who are appalled to find a human who witnessed the Conquest, they immediately ship him offworld. Thus begins a journey of self-discovery as Daetrin is forced by adversity to come to grips with the long-suppressed side of his nature and to confront the ancient horror of a bloody heritage.

An alternate cover edition can be found here.An astonishing technique for recovering and cloning dinosaur DNA has been discovered. Now humankind’s most thrilling fantasies have come true. Creatures extinct for eons roam Jurassic Park with their awesome presence and profound mystery, and all the world can visit them—for a price. Until something goes wrong. . . .--back cover

The Fellowship was scattered. Some were bracing hopelessly for war against the ancient evil of Sauron. Some were contending with the treachery of the wizard Saruman. Only Frodo and Sam were left to take the accursed Ring of Power to be destroyed in Mordor–the dark Kingdom where Sauron was supreme. Their guide was Gollum, deceitful and lust-filled, slave to the corruption of the Ring. Thus continues the magnificent, bestselling tale of adventure begun in The Fellowship of the Ring, which reaches its soul-stirring climax in The Return of the King.

Troy Meyers

To Read

book

Bosque

Movies with nice cinematography or just plain look pretty.

Pretty Movies

American–Canadian science fiction television series from 1997–2007

American science fiction television series from 1993-1999

American science fiction television series from 1995–2001

Favorite TV Shows

To Finish Watching

Synth music that is perfect for a nice nighttime drive. Most of these artists have a great selection of instrumental music.

Synthwave/Retrowave/Outrun Music

To Watch - Movies

Stuff I had to put on a list to remember to watch. I seem to forget everything I ever wanted to watch the second I sit down to watch something.

2004–2009 American science fiction television series, reimagining of a 1970s series

Australian/American television science fiction series

To Watch

An impressive list compiled by my sister(@vai) of some of the best/influential sci-fi movies of the decades. The list is still in progress as she typically tries watching another movie every weekend with a group of her friends on Discord. As this is the first pass through, some worthy movies will be missed and sequels are skipped for now, but it is still a good primer for sci-fi movie history!

The group is currently in 1987, so now I just need to catch up...

1984 science fiction film by James Cameron