science-fiction

Science fiction, as a genre is fundamentally about ideas. It's about asking an impossible question, "What if...?" and building a story out of the answer.Romance on the other hand, is fundamentally about relationships. The hypothetical romance transposed to the past could be rewritten without the futuristic elements and still work as a story, which is something that can't happen with SF. It works in romance, because the story is the relationship and that depends on character, not setting.Lots of books take elements from multiple genres, and there are elements that put them into one genre or another, but setting isn't a key determinant.

Despite centuries of English literature, the most famous split infinitive in all of history comes from Star Trek.

This isn't about simple morality. Not anymore. The world is too big, and there are worlds in worlds. They were always there, in everyone's heads, but now we can see them. We're starting to bleed into each other.

Well, don't stand about like that, man; if you're no use you're certainly no ornament. Bring that in and tell me what it says.

Help!" he yelled and he lifted one leg, trying to run. But you can't outrun the membrane _ he was soon gone.

A moment later the scowling face of Admiral Jellico appeared on the screen. He looked as ill-humored as ever. Privately, Calhoun felt that somebody should send an away team into Jellico's ass, to determine just what had crawled up there and died years ago.

A twisted, pale figure writhing in agony, chest bare and hideous. Tight, rigid cords of sickly green veins webbed across the boy__ body and limbs, like ropes under his skin. Purplish bruises covered the kid, red hives, bloody scratches. His bloodshot eyes bulged, darting back and forth.

I catch movement from the corner of my eye. A tell slender boy stands near us, just a few feet away. Adrenaline bangs through my system. I shove Abel behind me and whip my knife from where I__ hidden it in my boot. __ho the hell are you?

If we accept the premise that we__e always wrong, it really removes the incentive to spend a lot of time trying to make good guesses because even the good guesses turn out to be wrong. So, make plausible guesses_ and tell a good story.

Mortal has not been a habitable place for a long time. We have been trying to survive patching it but one day it will break completely. Twinmortal is the future for all of us. You will achieve that future for us by learning has much as you can.

He did not have time to wallow, to give a moment__ thought to what may have happened to her or whether she was alive.Turn into the punch, grab hold of the gun, leap into the arena. Attack.He had to move. Now.

I was never sure what possessed Guy and Teo, 2 alien princelings to land in Paris that day.

Howling duststorms of nuclear ashes. Human and animal bone powder. Flakes and fragments of the destroyed world. Filthy tempests of death. I am in Hell, he said.

When mankind ascended to the stars, he came no closer to God.

You hunt and catch your own food. Am I correct?""We are fierce predators of the night," DeChevue said proudly.Edwin tried again, "You hunt and gather your own food?"DeChevue still didn't get it. "Yes, M'sieur. We hunt, proudly.""You know, there is a special name for people who have to catch and kill everything they eat.""And that name has been the terror of the night from the dawn of man. Which name would you like? I can supply many. Nosferatu? Das Vampire?""Peasant," Edwin said. "A person who has to provide all his own food is a peasant. How is it that you have lived all this time and are still ignorant of the division of labor?"DeChevue's mouth opened and closed several times. Each time he seemed on the verge of saying something, yet each time words failed him.

Speaking of boxes...Do you know that thought experiment with the cat in the box with the poison? Theory requires the cat to be both alive and dead until observed.Well, I actually performed the experiment. Dozens of times. The bad news is reality doesn't exist. The good news is we have a new cat graveyard.

Technology won__ protect you from being attacked for fresh water. A badass blade will. Back in Eden where I grew up, the closest thing to knifework I__ experienced was cutting up a loaf of warm bread. Last night, I__ gutted a wild prairie chicken after scaling a rock face to find its nest and slit its throat. What a difference a year makes.

I can understand that people want to feel special and important and so on, but that self-obsession seems a bit pathetic somehow. Not being able to accept that you're just this collection of cells, intelligent to whatever degree, capable of feeling emotion to whatever degree, for a limited amount of time and so on, on this tiny little rock orbiting this not particularly important sun in one of just 400m galaxies, and whatever other levels of reality there might be via something like brane-theory [of multiple dimensions] _ really, it's not about you. It's what religion does with this drive for acknowledgement of self-importance that really gets up my nose. 'Yeah, yeah, your individual consciousness is so important to the universe that it must be preserved at all costs' _ oh, please. Do try to get a grip of something other than your self-obsession. How Californian. The idea that at all costs, no matter what, it always has to be all about you. Well, I think not.