All posts tagged: Science Fiction

Content in the genre of science-fiction.

Neutrino

Proxies, Orca: A Literary Journal

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Happy to have a new short story out in a special literary-speculative issue of Orca: A Literary Journal: “We champion language that is erudite, beautiful, and thought-provoking and stories that are engaging and rich in their depth. We are NOT interested in polemics or stories that tell a reader how he/she/they should think. Instead, we appreciate work that is high concept, imaginative, thoughtful, even speculative, and open to possibilities. The world is shades of gray and our written word should reflect that.” – An interview with Orca co-founder Zachary Kellian “Proxies” is a Donald Barthelme-inspired epistolary tale about someone who reluctantly agrees to go on a date with a neutrino, that most elusive and mysterious of elementary particles. An excerpt: “…I think it happened when she brought up Calvino. I had never met anyone who wanted to chat Calvino. I guess when you’re drifting through space and don’t have to worry about bumping into things you have time to mull over invisible cities and people living their entire lives in trees without ever coming down. …

Dear Ursula…

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When I first began writing seriously a few years back, I enrolled in a local creative writing intensive program. During one of the workshop sessions, we were asked to read something we loved in order to figure out how great writing sounds. Naturally I settled on your writing and found a passage in my battered Ace trade paperback edition of The Left Hand of Darkness. Chapter 18 begins: “Sometimes, as I’m falling asleep in a dark and quiet room, I have for a moment a great and treasurable illusion of the past. The wall of the tent leans up against my face, not visible but audible, a slanting plane of faint sound. The susurrus of blown snow, nothing can be seen. The light emission of the Chabe stove is cut off, and it exists only as a sphere of heat, a heart of warmth. The faint dampness and confining cling of my sleeping bag, the sound of the snow. Barely audible, Estraven’s breathing as he sleeps. Darkness. Nothing else. We are inside, the two of …

Deep Space Nine Station Artwork

The Cost of Change: Star Trek Deep Space Nine’s Progress

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“This may be the last time we’re all together. But no matter what the future holds, no matter how far we travel, a part of us – a very important part – will always remain here, on Deep Space Nine.” – DS9’s finale, What You Leave Behind  Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s finale aired 17 years ago, and as much as the new films have brought the public back to the classic science fiction franchise, Star Trek always worked best for me on the small screen, telling human stories through actors with rubber prostheses attached to their faces. I miss that type of Trek, the tales it told. Deep Space Nine is my favourite Trek. While other shows in the franchise featured starships flying around the galaxy in search of new life and civilizations, DS9 stayed put, concerning itself with the day-to-day happenings of its sprawling cast living within its constructed universe. Onboard this ramshackle space station situated near Bajor, an alien world emerging from decades of brutal occupation, actions have weight, carry short and long-term consequences. …

Happy Birthday, Ursula K. Le Guin

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Today is the 86th birthday of author Ursula K. Le Guin, without whom I would have never wrote all the words on this blog, or any words in general, because I would have missed out on visiting worlds of wizards, dragons, aliens, Italians, anarchists, and ants. In light of this happy occasion, I’ve compiled the pieces I’ve written about her work over the years on Ekostories. To steal a passage from the introduction she did for James Tiptree Jr.’s Star Songs of an Old Primate: “Here are Some real stories.”

BBC Radio’s Adaptation of The Left Hand of Darkness

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So this came into my feed: Adaptations to beloved stories are always risky. But having listened to the preview of what is undoubtedly the most moving passage in what is arguably my favourite book, I think they will do justice to the work. The words have changed compared to the first paragraphs of Chapter 18, but the haunting beauty of the scene is as I remembered it, back when I first lingered on each sentence, back when I first read it aloud in my writer’s group, and now as I recite it again in my mind. From memory (pardon the punctuation mistakes): “Sometimes, as I’m falling asleep in a dark and quiet room, I have for a moment a great and treasurable illusion of the past. The wall of the tent leans up against my face, not visible but audible, a slanting plane of faint sound. The susurrus of blown snow, nothing can be seen. The light emission of the Chabe stove is cut off, and it exists only as a sphere of heat, a …