Monthly Archives: September 2021

Review: R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots) (1920) by Karel Capek

Posted on September 29, 2021 by Jeroen Admiraal

7/10 R.U.R. (1920) is famous in science fiction history for giving us the first instance of the word ‘robot’. It is not the first work ever written to feature an artificial person, but the word ‘robot’ was first coined by … Continue reading →

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Review: Prelude to Foundation (1988) by Isaac Asimov

Posted on September 25, 2021 by Jeroen Admiraal

6/10 Warning: do NOT make this your first Foundation novel. It will not give a good introduction and will spoil later books for you. Please start with the original trilogy from the 1950s. Publication order is best. When Asimov was … Continue reading →

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Four SF/Fantasy works that feature the Tower of Babel

Posted on September 20, 2021 by Jeroen Admiraal

Please tell me underneath which I have forgotten to add to this list. Tower of Babylon (1990) short story by Ted Chiang The only story on this list that shows the tower as being built. In Chiang’s head it is … Continue reading →

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Review: The Dragons of Babel (2008) by Michael Swanwick

Posted on September 19, 2021 by Jeroen Admiraal

8/10 Earlier this year I read Swanwick’s The Iron Dragon’s Daughter (1993) and I was immensely impressed. The weird faerie-cyber-elf-punk-Dickens world with telepathic robot dragons blew my mind. This world combined the strangest opposites: fairy tale and cyberpunk, Harry Potter-like … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Fantasy | Tagged , , , , | 16 Comments

Review: Gnomon (2017) by Nick Harkaway

Posted on September 13, 2021 by Jeroen Admiraal

9/10 gnomon The projecting piece on a sundial that shows the time by the position of its shadow (look at the shark fin on the cover). Inspector Neith of the Witness Programme is quite rattled when the suspected dissident Diana … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Science fiction | Tagged , , , , , | 16 Comments