For years science fiction has been making us consider what it might be like to travel through space, visit other planets and colonise them. But with the Mars One mission and Virgin Galactic space tourism, the question has become more personal. People can apply to join a one-way mission to Mars, agreeing to leave everything behind in the hope of becoming one of the first human colonists on another planet. Continue reading
I’m a big fan of audiobooks. I’ve previously told the story of how I fell in love with them on this blog. I still read hard copy books, but I like the flexibility audiobooks allow me to do other things while “reading” and how the story really comes to life when narrated by a great voice actor. I have an Audible subscription and I listen to between 1 and 2 audiobooks a month, which may not sound like a lot, but when each one can last for between 8 and 30 hours (most being around the 10-18hr mark) it equates to a lot of time spent listening.
Amidst all of this listening, I find particular books stand out. Continue reading
It’s 2016!! And to celebrate in proper fantasy-nerd style, I’m doing my annual round up of the best fantasy and science fiction books I read last year. These are not books published in 2015, just books I happened to read last year, thus you’ll notice some are ones I took a bit longer to discover than other people might have. Continue reading
I recently saw The Martian at the cinema, after having thoroughly enjoyed the book. For me, the film didn’t disappoint, and afterwards I was eager to discuss it with friends. And of course, amidst the discussions of what was and wasn’t the same as in the book, and what we liked and didn’t like, came a topic that always arises when discussing a science fiction book or film these days: plausibility. Continue reading
Ever since I was a kid, I’ve loved reading fantasy novels. I can read and enjoy books outside of the genre, but it’s always been much harder for me to love a book – to become completely engrossed – if it’s not fantasy (that said, I recently read The Help, and it turned out to be one of the exceptions to the rule). Sure, I’ve dabbled in a few other genres, but fantasy is where my heart has always been.
Up until a couple of years ago, however, the spread of other genres I’d sampled had a glaring omission. Continue reading
Thoughts on Fantasy 