A Far Out Fantastic Site

Credit: Pixabay Why since 1970? Because that was the year of the first Earth Day and next Friday the 22nd will mark its 51st anniversary! Born out of the 1960s/’70s counter culture, it’s a day that both celebrates our planet and raises awareness of the need to care for it. And because of the rise in climate change, it needs a lot of caring for. Science fiction is loaded with works that warn of the fate of the planet if we go on abusing it and also ones that offer the hope of environmentally sustainable futures. So, yours truly has compiled a list of twelve of the best eco sci-fi books (sometimes referred to as ecopunk or solarpunk ) since the year of the first Earth Day!  The basis for the selection of these works were a combination of the awards they received, their occurrence on the best sellers list, and notable critical praise. Although the list is numbered, the books are not ordered from best to worst but, instead, chronologically by their publication year. I'll admit, I’ve o...

I didn’t get as much done on The Fool’s Illusion as I wanted to even over the Memorial Day weekend. My parents were in town for my two cousins’ college graduation and I had a friend’s National Towel Day party to attend. For those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s a fan celebration day for Douglas Adams’ sci fi satire series of novels, The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy . In the third novel of the trilogy, Life the Universe and Everything, there are scenes that involve a towel which is one of the major symbols of this hilarious (mock) space epic. I actually started reading the third installment just for the party (I’ve read the first two already). As funny as it is, it all centres around the destruction of the Earth (by aliens) and the rest of the universe. But the great thing about this series is that it dares to laugh in the face of death, even death of the entire universe. With so much crap destroying our world--crap such as war, crime, social injustice including fa...