It’s August, which means we’re almost done with summer, but it is not too late to steer your teen away from screens and toward reading. I have a soft heart for parents of teens. I have two kids and know well the battle parents wage relentlessly to engage their teens with anything other than their…

I rewatched BLADE RUNNER last night in a friend’s home-theater with a group of folks in their 20s and 30s. For some, it was their first time viewing the film. I consider myself one of the lucky ones to have seen the original BLADE RUNNER on the big screen during its first weekend release. I…

The List…Quick and Clean. FEED, by MT Anderson. This is still one of my favorite YA books. Anderson writes what I think is one of the best first lines in YA literature. We went to the moon to have fun, but the moon turned out to completely suck. Click here to read my review of the novel. It…

BINTI, by Nnedi Okorafor, is a novella about a young woman from a desert tribe on Earth. Her people are called the Himba people and they make a vital piece of technology on Earth called an astrolabe. Binti is the name of the main character. The story, told in first person, begins with Binti climbing…

The Hive Brain Alien (Spoilers Galore) Writing non-humanoid aliens who don’t speak a human language is no easy task. This post is preceded by three others. If you want the earlier insights, link to to Part 1,  Part 2, and Part 3. It occurs to me that I ought to define dynamic. That word is in…

Caution: A few spoilers in this post… Non-humanoid aliens are a challenge for writers…hopefully, established in my previous post on writing dynamic non-humanoid aliens  If the alien doesn’t look or act like a human, it will be difficult for the audience to comprehend its character and motivation If it doesn’t speak in plain human lingo, along…

A REVIEW OF THE 2019 FILM AND A FEW OTHER OBSERVATIONS In the last ten years, the urging of audiences around the globe have pushed the film industry to re-think the way it portrays people of color and women, folks who might not have been featured in stories (especially superhero stories) as headliners. A number…

A Study of Non-Humanoid Characters (Beware. A Few Spoilers Below. For a no-spoiler review of the film, ANNIHILATION click here, for a review of the novel, click here ) Since my second viewing of the film, ANNIHILATION, I have been musing on my own sci-fi writing, thinking about how difficult it is to portray non-humanoid aliens…

This is a review without spoilers.   Don’t miss this film. It’s easy to watch. Right now ANNIHILATION is free for Amazon Prime members.   Five Reasons to Watch this Film   It puts forward a non-humanoid portrayal of an alien species invading our planet–always a welcome change in sci-fi land. Watch it for the…