Alien April – Speculating Canada: Canadian Horror, Science Fiction, and Fantasy

May 1, 2013

Blood on the Starscape

A review of Peter Watts’ Blindsight (Tor, 2006) By Derek Newman-Stille Life itself is strange, odd, and unordinary. We try to create ideas of normalcy to impose order on the world around us and end up limiting our perception and understanding of that world. We categorise, we cut things that we don’t think should belong, and we butcher reality to...

Fiction Book Reviews Comments: 0

April 24, 2013

Fear and Conquest

A review of Duane Burry’s Numbered (In Here Be Monsters: Tongues and Teeth: Issue Seven, 2012) Duane Burry’s Numbered presents humanity with an opportunity for interplanetary communication, a way of bridging the dark, silence of space. For a planet that has not discovered space travel, this is an incredible opportunity to speak to civilisations older and far distant than our...

Fiction Book Reviews Comments: 0

April 17, 2013

The Disabled and Disfigured Have Become the “Red Shirt” Class

A review of James Alan Gardner’s Expendable (Avon Books, 1997) By Derek Newman-Stille Fans of Star Trek will recognise the term “Red Shirt”, but for those who haven’t seen Star Trek, “Red Shirt” is the term for people on away missions who die to provide plot fodder for the main characters to grow and develop. Generally these plot victims are...

Fiction Book Reviews Comments: 0

April 10, 2013

Depths

A Review of A.E. Van Vogt’s The Silkie By Derek Newman-Stille Van Vogt’s creation, the silkie is both human and fundamentally alien, integrating elements of “us” with the “Other”. Possessing senses beyond human understanding -enough to reframe the entire sensory network – the silkie sees the world through different eyes, yet it is forced to take a human mate and...

Fiction Book Reviews Comments: 0

April 9, 2013

April Aliens – Wednesdays throughout April

Throughout the month of April, Speculating Canada will be bringing you discussions of aliens every Wednesday. Aliens in Canadian SF can be used to explore Canadian multiculturalism, the feeling of alienation, diaspora (being without a home), ethnicity, the clash of cultures, and the extents and limits of the human. Aliens are often created as a foil, an opposite, an other...

News Comments: 0

Tag: Alien April

Blood on the Starscape

Fear and Conquest

The Disabled and Disfigured Have Become the “Red Shirt” Class

Depths

April Aliens – Wednesdays throughout April