Science Fiction & Fantasy

Red Rising (Pierce Brown)

“I would have lived in peace, but my enemies brought me war.” This is the attention-grabbing opening line of Red Rising, the first book in a popular young-adult science fiction trilogy, published between 2014...

Fitzpatrick’s War (Theodore Judson)

Fitzpatrick’s War, a prophetic 2004 work of fiction, which I read on a whim, has, somewhat to my surprise, stuck deeply in my mind. Not only does the book echo events that have happened...

We (Yevgeny Zamyatin)

Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We, written in 1921, is the ur-dystopia of all modern dystopias. True, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and George Orwell’s 1984, both of which this book influenced, get more attention today. In...

Neuromancer (William Gibson)

When I first read Neuromancer, a science fiction classic of the modern age, twenty-some years ago, serious people believed that our certain technological future was one of accelerating, boundless plenty. The Singularity was near....

Starship Troopers (Robert Heinlein)

Starship Troopers, sixty years old, is a famous work of science fiction. As with most Robert Heinlein novels, the point is more the ideas than plot or character. Heinlein therefore often swerves dangerously close...

Invisible Planets (Hannu Rajaniemi)

I have always loathed the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen. Bleak, unhappy, and cold, they depressed me as a child, and I’m not a depressive person. True, that is painting with a broad...

On Space

I am often asked to define my political program, Foundationalism. In essence, this is a request to state its core principles. The ultimate, first-level principle of Foundationalism, is that it is a politics of...

Eumeswil (Ernst Jünger)

Ernst Jünger’s Eumeswil, one of the famous German’s last works, published when he was eighty-two years old, is often regarded as an exposition of libertarian thought. This is understandable, but completely wrong. Such a...

The Pastel City (M. John Harrison)

As can be seen from a casual glance at my book reviews, while I read little fiction, I am keenly interested in science fiction.  Sadly, almost all contemporary science fiction is mere social justice...

Leviathan Wakes (James S. A. Corey)

Leviathan Wakes is extremely well written, with a tight plot and carefully chosen prose.  This alone separates it from the vast majority of today’s science fiction.  Nor is it tendentious message fiction, further separating...