Take Me to Cuba

By Richard C.

Even with tourism to Cuba increasing and relations warming, my bank account says I’ll still be getting my taste of Cuban food, fiction, and history the vicarious way. My favorite lately is the instant documentary – Spanish or English anytime, right!?

After that it’s fiction. Crime fiction. In Havana Blue, it’s a troubled past catching up to Lieutenant Mario Conde when an investigation leads to the disappearance of an old friend. A sense of emotional authenticity and a detailed setting make this a quick and worthy summer read!

The Science Fiction Checklist Challenge: Hard SF

By Richard C.

Start your Hard Science Fiction Checklist Challenge with a just-published and aptly-titled short story collection, Carbide Tipped Pens. Number 1 is called The Blue Afternoon that Lasted Forever, and there’s more intensity in its 13 pages than you’ve ever had before. Yes indeed, you’ll find it a work of Hard SF that’s quickly read but never forgotten.

For a classic route, try Fredrick Pohl’s story Day Million in Digital Rapture, or either James Blish’s Surface Tension or Tom Godwin’s The Cold Equation in a book called Science Fiction Hall of Fame. Solaris Rising, Solaris Rising 2, Edge of Infinity, and Beyond the Sun carve out even more rock solid SF.

The Science Fiction Checklist Challenge: Military SF part III

By Richard C.

It’s Military SF part III! And for those of you following along at home, I know what you’re thinking — how did it take two whole posts to get to Joe W. Haldeman and Orson Scott Card? Just who does this Richard C. guy think he is, anyway?

Well, here we go!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Science Fiction Checklist Challenge: Military SF Part II

By Richard C.

It’s Military SF part II, and important questions remain. Like what about the role of women here, both as authors and characters? If you made it to Seattle’s February Potlatch convention – a small, literary speculative fiction event – you might have seen a session called Women Ruin War – The Gendering of Military Science Fiction. Their question? “What do women bring to telling stories of war and soldiering?”

Their answer and mine? A lot.

The Science Fiction Checklist Challenge: Military SF Part I

By Richard C.

This week let’s mobilize your imagination for the military themes in Science Fiction. In fact, I have so much to say about it that we’re starting early with the first of three installments. Diverse opinions on the issue of war notwithstanding, Military SF can launch a reading experience altogether exhilarating, touching, educational, and dangerous — one of near and far-reaching futures where the technology and experience of military training may change, but the pressure on soldiers, veterans, and civilians does not. Military SF is more than merely action and explosions. If we agree with astronaut Mae Jemison, that…

“Science fiction helps us think about possibilities, to speculate – it helps us look at our society from a different perspective…”

… then Military SF, too, can challenge and entertain us, can help us to look at possible science and military futures in different ways. So let’s check this checklist out!