Category: Articles

A-Z Blogging challenge: U is for… Utopia

Utopian Society A Utopia is a perfect, idealistic society, the opposition to a dystopian environment. A world where ‘inhabitants exist under seemingly perfect conditions […] utopian and utopianism are words used to denote visionary reform that tends to be impossibly idealistic’ (britannica). More’s Utopia (1516) The termed was first penned by Sir Thomas Moore in […]


A-Z Blogging Challenge: T is for… Time travel

I am a massive – massive – fan of time travel. Forwards or backwards, it matters not. I love the whole concept of time travel, whether this is achieved through self-hypnosis, a machine, an object, a portal, an accident or a slip through time itself is irrelevant.  Time travel and it’s various devices and consequences is […]


A-Z Blogging challenge: S is for… Spaceships

Spaceships With all the discussion on this blog about asteroids, space and futurology, I thought it might be wise to take a look at how we’re going to travel to all these wonderful places within the universe – be it through choice or necessity The wonderful thing about science fiction is that we can envision […]


A-Z Blogging challenge: R is for… Robotics

Robotics Advancement in science and technology in our present day lives makes robotics within science fiction all the more real – whether it’s a child toy, an android or an evil legion of robots taking over the planet (think Terminator). For this blog post I shall concentrate on robots in the ‘human’ form. On  25th […]


A-Z Blogging Challenge: Q is for… Quasars

Quasars Quasars are defined as ‘an astronomical entity that emits incredibly high levels of electromagnetic radiation (including light). The amount of energy emitted by a quasar dwarfs even the brightest stars,’ (About.com) Believed to have formed when matter drawn into a super-sized blackhole is thrown back out creating superextreme beams of energy. Quasars have a short […]


A-Z Blogging Challenge: P is for… Planets.

Planets I’ve written a blog post on Asteroids, and briefly touched on Jupiter,  so  now it’s time to stretch a little further afield and talk about the multitude of planets existing within and beyond our solar syste Planets, both real and imagined, are of huge thematic importance in science fiction. Mankind’s exploration of space, whether physical or […]


A to Z Blogging: O is for… Online Worlds

Online Worlds O was a tricky letter to find a theme for and I swear I’m not cheating. ‘Online Worlds’ is a theme in its own right according to the Encyclopedia of Science fiction, not only that, but I’ve had the pleasure of reading a couple of books using this very theme. So what are […]


A to Z Blogging challenge: N is for… Nuclear War

Nuclear War (and the ensuing ‘winter’) I was watching a program a while back about adverts that used to appear on our television screens during the nineteen-seventies. One advert was produced by the UK government and carried the slogan ‘Protect and Survive.’ I had absolutely no recollection of this, but my mum informed me that […]


Blogging A-Z: M is for… Military Scifi

Military Sci-Fi  As far as I can gather (as this is one of my least favourite sub-genres of science-fiction) Military Sci-Fi uses futuristic technology and weapons, often to negotiate fights with alien civilisations, or conduct battles in space, although I’ve read many a book where the military is used in a present day setting, usually […]


Blogging A-Z: L is for… Life

Life Or more specifically, Life on other planets. I do not, for one moment, believe we are ‘alone’ in this universe. Life came into being on our own planet, albeit with a specific set of criteria, but just because we haven’t found proof of other lifeforms, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist… somewhere. Alien Life […]


Blogging A-Z: K is for… Keep

Keep And yes, this really is the best I can do for K. I’ve spent ages trying to come up with a theme, and besides talking about Klingons or Kyptonite, I didn’t see what else I could talk about. So, a keep, according to The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction is the scifi equivalent of a […]


Blogging A-Z: J is for… Jupiter

Jupiter Which is another non-theme, but trying to find a theme for J proved quite impossible (though the odds are I’ll think of something after hitting the publish button… Anyhow… Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system with a mass two and half times that of all the other planets combined (according to […]


Blogging A-Z: I is for… Invasion

Invasion An invasion of our home planet is another regular theme in science fiction – Independence day, War of the Worlds and the Day the Earth still to name but a few. As with the other themes mentioned through the A-Z blogging challenge, different writers have different ideas of what an invasion might entail, although […]


Blogging A-Z: H is for… Hyperspace

Hyperspace While this isn’t theoretically a theme, it does play an important role in some science fiction books, especially those with established planets, colonies, and spaceships. Characters need a way to get from planet A to planet B and transverse thousands, if not millions of miles, quickly. Hyperspace is the process whereby a ship takes […]


Blogging A-Z: G is for… Global Warming

Global warming Another popular theme in science fiction. I have read numerous books and watched countless films with Global Warming at the fore, be it snow, rain, ice, wind, tornados, tsunamis, or an all out end of the world as we know it… they all arise from this theme. I’ve learned about the effect of […]


Blogging A-Z: F is for… Futurology

Futurology Now this is a very popular theme in science fiction. We all have our own perception of how the future might look, whether it’s ten years, fifty, a hundred or a millennium: Flying cars, elite cities, devastated cities, super-advanced technology, back to a stone age lifestyle… the details regarding what our future might look like […]


Blogging A-Z: E is for… End of Time

End of Time I was watching one of Morgan Freeman’s Through the Wormhole episodes the other day, and the subject of the documentary was time, or to be more specific, if ‘time’ existed. It discussed a series of concepts, including the theory of relativity, an experiment which manipulated light, slowing it down by a nano-second […]


Blogging A-Z: D is for… Dystopia

Dystopia Dystopia is yet another theme of science fiction that intrigues me (and if you’ve been following along with the posts so far, you may have guessed – and quite rightly guessed – that there aren’t many themes I don’t like). According to the Oxford dictionary, a dystopia is ‘An imagined place or state in […]


Blogging A-Z: C is for…Colonisation

Colonisation There’s something about colonisation that fascinates me. I’m not sure what is exactly, but I just cannot get enough of it. I love seeing different writers perspective on what it means to survive within the confines of a colony, and I’m not all that fussed about the location either, be it underground, on land […]


Blogging A-Z: B is for… Biometrics

Biometrics Biometrics combines technology with human features, such as fingerprints, DNA and eye retinas, as a means of developing secure systems for authentication purposes, while also having the potential to track and monitor individuals. Much of what was once deemed science fiction has become a reality, but as our understanding of science and technology increases, so […]


Blogging A-Z: A is for… Asteroids

Asteroids. I have quite a fascination for them actually. Not the type travelling harmlessly around the asteroid belt though, oh no, I like the concept of one hurtling towards Earth and threatening to wipe us all out, and more importantly, what we would – and could – do about it. We’re making advances in space […]


Blogging from A-Z Challenge (April 2015)

Against my better judgement I have decided to have a go at the Blogging A-Z (April, 2015) challenge, not that I needed much encouragement – a simple ‘Michelle, are you doing this?’ from a writing acquaintance was enough to send me flying across to the website to check it out (and sign up). As I’m […]