It’s the most speculative time of the year – SciFiMonth lifts off today for a month exploring the realms of what if. The SciFiMonth crew will be adventuring across the multiverse to read, watch, play and celebrate tales of possible futures and alternate nows, survive first contact or enjoy being part of a thriving galactic community. Expect 30 days of chat and geekery – you’re welcome to join us!
first contact
November is here, which means the good ship SciFiMonth is blasting off with a crew full of SFnal-loving geeks to spend 30 days celebrating the joys and horrors of but what if? We’ll be reading, watching, listening, playing and above all chattering our way through all forms of science fiction all month long.
99.5% of humanity were wiped out in 3 short years after They arrived. 50 years later, a team of researchers sift through the ruins of a siege city to better understand the catastrophe. When Emerson finds a survivor’s journal, it feels like the jackpot. But can Eva’s account be taken at face value?
It’s that time! SciFiMonth, when we set off on our 30-day mission to explore strange new worlds and alternate dimensions; to seek out new books and unfamiliar media; to boldly geek out like… well, like we do every year, joyfully and without restraint. BRING IT.
Better late than never, I’m tackling the final week of The Sparrow read-along. When the wheels come off on Rakhat, they take everyone out. At last we know exactly what happened – but how do we feel about it?
On Rakhat, Emilio dances God, transported by the beauty of the alien world and the challenge of learning to communicate with the Runa. On Earth, Vincenzo Giuliani is determined to save the priest who fell from grace.
Blessed with impressive funding and free from the concerns of global politics or corporate profit, a mission to another planet becomes far more feasible. But the Jesuits believe they have another advantage in their corner: Deus vult.
30 years ago, the Society of Jesus sent a ship to Alpha Centauri to make first contact with alien singers. Only one man survived, rescued and returned to Earth a physical and emotional wreck amidst rumours of murder and sin. But what really happened to Father Emilio Sandoz on Rakhat?
When SETI decode a mysterious signal to hear gorgeous singing, the world’s governments bicker over how to respond. The Jesuits don’t hesitate. They have the means and the will to build a spacecraft and send a team to make contact. After all, surely only children of God could make such beautiful music… right?
They fled Earth to make a fresh start. They called their new home Pax to reflect their hopes for the future they planned to build. But they are not alone. And their new neighbours do not see the world the same way…
A tide-locked world of endless day and night. A young woman banished into the freezing dark to die. A slim chance to forge an unlikely alliance. As the planet of January slides into a climate apocalypse, is it possible to turn away from the past and embrace a new future?
This year saw lots of travelling and some intense deadlines that got in the way of me writing reviews in a timely fashion for everything I read. Still, it’s never too late for a quick look back at the ones that got away!
Daniel Dann doesn’t believe in ESP, but he’s monitoring telepaths on a top secret Navy project. The Navy wants to talk securely to submarines, but across the galaxy a desperate race on a dying planet latch on to the little group’s signals as their last best hope to save their children. Whatever the cost.
I always intended to occasionally blog about movies in between the books, but my cinema-going has taken a battering from insane London ticket prices and an avalanche of lazy and uninspiring Hollywood movie (re-)making. But Arrival tempted me to invest my pennies on a rainy day to celebrate cerebral scifi for SciFi Month.
NASA has known about the alien ship in the asteroid belt since Roswell. But now they’re ready to send a small team to investigate it, including linguist Jane Holloway. When they find an empty ship, the military assume command: but someone – or something – still lives in the empty corridors. And it wants to talk.
onemore.org 