Month: November 2021
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Ecological SF
I've been re-reading Frank Herbert's Dune after seeing the stunning new film version by Denis Villeneuve, and I noticed something which I found hilarious, in my usual contrarian way. Consider the two factions struggling for control of the desert planet Arrakis: On one side you have the villainous Harkonnens, fortified in the spaceport city of…
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A Curious Omission
Dr. Kelly and I went to see Denis Villeneuve's new version of Dune a couple of weeks ago. It was good — the director has shown himself in the past to be a skilled and faithful adapter of science fiction stories to the screen. Good acting, beautiful visuals, a good score . . . But…
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Building A New World
My first foray into teaching worldbuilding went so well I'm doing it again — only more so. This Saturday (November 6) the Pioneer Valley Writers Workshop is offering the first of a two-part online course I'm teaching. It's called "Building the Iceberg," and is all about science fiction worldbuilding. In session 1 we'll be looking…
The Cambias Digression 