Science Fiction

To my Gen-X compatriots, to the Boomers and Millenials, and to Gen-Z who will have to clean up this mess we all made… …can we agree that Star Trek is the future we would all like? A future in which poverty is eradicated, disease is a mere curiosity of the past, humanity has put asideContinue reading "2026 : the year World War 3 begins"

There is a single narrative technique that connects almost every multi-billion dollar science fiction franchise ever made. It is the invisible engine powering the most successful stories of the last century. And yet, if you ask ten working Hollywood screenwriters what it is, nine of them will give you a blank stare—and the tenth willContinue reading "You don’t understand science fiction"

We by Yevgeny Zamyatin is a novel written at the beginning of the future. It’s hard to remember today, after Logan’s Run, The Handmaid’s Tale and Hunger Games made “dystopia” an entertainment genre, but when Yevgeny Zamyatin was writing in the early 1920s, it was only beginning to dawn on humanity just how bad the future might be. OrContinue reading "The First Dystopia"

Terminator is an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie Arnold’s physique is the star of the film The progressive decay of the Body into the Machine is his co-star With the special effects that animated the Terminator as best supporting actor Or watch on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfbNARASn9Y Imagine if Ron Perlman had passed his audition for Terminator? You can’t.Continue reading "Terminator 2 isn’t only the greatest action movie"

The year is 1920.  The Empires of Europe have spent the last half decade blowing each other up with bombs, guns and heavy artillery. As World War 1 burns itself out, men who survived the fighting begin to wonder if a better world, a world without empires and wars, is possible. These working class menContinue reading "HG Wells vs Vladimir Lenin"