Science Fiction – Xaviar X. Xerexes

Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Stories

by Xaviar XerexesJuly 30, 2018March 8, 2020

So I read a lot of Arthur C. Clarke and Ray Bradbury novels and short stories as a child. I did not read Isaac Asimov — not really sure why to be honest and something I had a nagging sense I should rectify at various points of adulthood. So first things first, I had to figure out in what order I should read the various novels and stories that make up the saga of The Foundation. And luckily for me, Isaac Asimov, included in his Author’s Note to Prelude to Foundation, a chronological guide to his stories: The Robot Series I. Robot (1950) Collection of Short …

The Man in the High Castle

by Xaviar XerexesJanuary 22, 2016

The novel The Man in the High Castle is my favorite novel by Philip K. Dick. (Granted I haven’t read all of them yet so that could change.) I was interested when Amazon did a pilot for a teevee show based on the novel. Mostly I thought it was an interesting adaption. It did a lot of work to recreate the alternate universe. I was a little less excited about the change from a book to a film for the central plot device. (A macguffin or a metaguffin perhaps but important to the story). [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzz_6dmv03I?rel=0&controls=0] I haven’t had a …

Bookmark: Kim Stanley Robinson

by Xaviar XerexesAugust 23, 2015

I just finished Aurora, the latest novel from Kim Stanley Robinson. Kim Stanley Robinson is a writer of hard science fiction who brings logical, methodical extrapolation to any topic he ponders. He is, despite all of that, a fairly poetic fellow who often detours from physics to philosophy and the human condition. But still, hard science. Aurora is a very interesting but ultimately somewhat unsatisfying novel. As the book progresses it becomes apparent that the hero of the story, the true protagonist, isn’t human at all but the very interstellar ship that takes the humans on their long, long journey through …

One Way

by Xaviar XerexesJuly 21, 2014

A few quick thoughts on Christopher Baldwin’s One Way, his newest webcomic project and another story with a large group of characters in a science fiction setting. His last webcomic Spacetrawler had a similar mix of elements and quickly became one of my favorites (and a whole lot of other people too). For me, the biggest difference at the outset between these two comics is the unlikeability of the characters in One Way. Initially I really hated each and every one of them, which does make it hard to identify with the story. However, by now Baldwin has earned a …

Titan is an exciting new science fiction webcomic

by Xaviar XerexesMay 25, 20141

Really enjoyed reading what’s posted so far for Titan by François Vigneault. It’s a bit unfortunate that it doesn’t quite have the standard reader friendly website design we’ve all gotten used to but it isn’t too difficult to read. Vigneault has constructed an immediately interesting world with a tension building scenario. Workers on Titan are genetically engineered for their environment but can no longer survive on Earth. Their livelihood is now at stake and management in the form of João da Silva has arrived to try and accomplish a turnaround of the local factory. Call it a company moon, I guess. It’s not …

Farewell Iain Banks

by Xaviar XerexesJune 9, 2013

Of all the great authors I read in the last decade or so, none seemed to possess the combination of utterly fantastic imagination and optimism in the future of humanity that Iain Banks put into his culture novels. It was startlingly sad news to read his post about his terminal cancer only two months ago; it is less startling but still sad news to see stories of his passing today. A heartfelt post from author Charlie Stross (another favorite of mine) about the passing of Iain Banks. He had a rare career combining success in science fiction and more general …

Bookmark: Steven Gould

by Xaviar XerexesApril 20, 2013

Steven Gould is one of my favorite authors because of the way he takes one impossible idea and then logically delves into a world with this one new impossible idea in it. He has a scientific method feel to how he writes science fiction that I really enjoy and he generally has a nice touch with action and characters as well. He’s probably best known for his Jumper trilogy from which the movie Jumper was made. The movie loses a lot of what makes the novels special, with the movie instead crafting a gigantic mythology of war between jumpers and …

Bookmark: Neal Stephenson

by Xaviar XerexesMarch 4, 2013

These “Bookmark” posts are useful for me; hopefully a few other people get something out of them along the way. I really enjoy Neal Stephenson‘s books. Unlike Stephen King, another novelist where the length of the book increases with each new effort, I never read a Stephenson book and wonder how badly he beat the editors. Stephenson books revel in their research, the density of information jammed into the pages is part of what makes his novels work. You can divide up the novels of Neal Stephenson into maybe three categories. Scholars and critics can tell me why I’m wrong …