Science shows us how the world is built. Can science fiction help us build a better world? Follow @damiengwalter on Twitter The Blue Marble Astronaut Jack Schmitt released the shutter on the 70 millimeter Hasselblad camera at 5:39 AM on 7th December 1972. The Apollo 17 mission to the moon was 45,000 kilometers from Earth.Continue reading “RE: Worldbuilding – can sci-fi help build a better world?”
Tag Archives: Guardian
Does God have a place in science fiction?
If SF is grounded in hard scientific fact, and science is killing God, then what place does that leave for divine intervention in the pages of SF literature? When I tweeted this question, @MirabilisDave gave Arthur C Clarke’s famous dictum a twist, quipping that “Any sufficiently advanced technocrat will be indistinguishable from God.” Read moreContinue reading “Does God have a place in science fiction?”
Fantasy must be a struggle with life
The more experienced I become as a writer, the more I realise I was closer to the soul of the art when I started out than after a decade and some lose change years studying its craft. Jonathan Franzen is a writer I discovered through The Corrections some time in the last year or so.Continue reading “Fantasy must be a struggle with life”
The Unspecified Reader
[pullquote]I felt that the indispensable relationship I should build in my life was not with a specific person, but with an unspecified number of readers. Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I talk About Running [/pullquote] So a captain is married to her ship, and a novelist is married to her readers. Earlier thisContinue reading “The Unspecified Reader”
Weird Things
I’ve been dying to talk about this for weeks but have had to wait until the right time…which is now! Weird Things is my new column for The Guardian which I will be writing fortnightly. It’s all about the weird ideas in SF and Fantasy novels or any book with a weird idea at itsContinue reading “Weird Things”
Star Trek II – The Wrath of Khan
Originally published on Fantasy Matters. In my regular blog for The Guardian, I’m on record as saying that there are only two truly great science fiction movies. These are, of course, 2001 and Bladerunner. And if I think about science fiction as a ‘genre of ideas’ then I stand by that statement. No otherContinue reading “Star Trek II – The Wrath of Khan”
Your chance to argue with Damo
So. This coming Saturday I will be talking about Speculative Fiction, and why it deserves the broadest possible respect and recognition, as part of the States of Independence publishers fair at De Montfort University in Leicester. I’ve been shooting my mouth off about this subject for some time, and now I’m going to do thatContinue reading “Your chance to argue with Damo”
Damien Walter 