I'm reading Ben Bova's "The Alien Within", Book 2 in the Voyagers series, and it's been years since I read the first one. Bova writes interesting complex characters*, with layers upon layers of deception, sometimes including self-deception as well. His women however are always described in terms of their sexuality - their appearances are ( Read more... )

Am I the only one who is severely bothered by the seasons in "A Game of Thrones"? A big premise of the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series is that seasons last multiple years. But, at least in the first book, there isn't any explanation of this given, not even a supernatural/fantasy one.

( Cut for people who don't care about why this bothers me. )

Is it a common stale sci-fi trope to have a supposedly sentient alien race actually have only males be sentient and females are bestial breeding stock, or is it only Orson Scott Card (the Piggies in Speaker for the Dead) and Larry Niven (Kzin and Puppeteers in the Ringworld/Man-Kzin Wars universe) who are guilty of it? This sort of things is ( Read more... )

I just started the audiobook of "The Giver" by Lois Lowry, and I'm nearly done, it's a short and enthralling read. It's aimed at young adult readers, but it's really secretly hard Sci-Fi / speculative fiction in the grand style of old: it proposes a future setting and explores how people (in this case an 11-year-old boy) would react within that ( Read more... )

I was recently talking with calzephyr77 about how so few SF pieces include people with disabilities. The only book/series I could come up with, The Ship Who Sang by Anne McCaffrey has the same problem with disability as her other novels have with feminism, in that although she puts the disenfranchised individuals in the limelight, she does nothing to ( Read more... )

Your results:
You are Malcolm Reynolds (Captain)
Malcolm Reynolds (Captain)
90%
Kaylee Frye (Ship Mechanic)
80%
Zoe Washburne (Second-in-command)
70%
Dr. Simon Tam (Ship Medic)
60%
Wash (Ship Pilot)
50%
River (Stowaway)
45%
Inara Serra (Companion)
45%
Derrial Book (Shepherd)
40%
Alliance
5%
Jayne Cobb (Mercenary)
5%
A Reaver (Cannibal)
5% ( Read more... )