There is one thing you can be sure of, modern science fiction gives us plenty of choice to choose from when it comes to sub-genres. Of course, it all depends on who you speak to about what may, or may not, make it onto the list but, for arguments sake, here are a few of what makes it onto my list:

• Alien Invasion
• A. I. (Artificial Intelligence | Nano Tech | Virtual)
• Colonisation (also: Terraforming)
• Dystopian
• First Contact
• Galactic Empire
• Generational Ships
• Military SF
• Near Future
• Parallel Universes
• Post Apocalypse
• Robots & Androids (see also AI above)
• Space Exploration
• Space Opera
• Time Travel
• Utopian

Of these, I think I dislike time travel the most, while on the flip side, one of my favourites is military SF. But what is it about one that I dislike, and what is it about the other, that I like? Well, I thought you would never ask.

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Or, all the futuristic stuff I’ve always dreamed of owning.

And who hasn’t dreamed of owning items we see in a movie, or on TV. I remember my friend Linda and I desperately wanting to join the USS Enterprise so we could each have a phaser, not realising till much later on, that this meant we might end up being an Infamous Red Shirt — usually the first characters to get shot at or die a grisly death in nearly every episode of Trek! But that didn’t stop us dreaming or pretending during lunch break that our bananas were communicators. Flipping them open, and then, talking to them. 

No wonder I was considered a weird kid at school. 

It didn’t stop with Trek, I lusted after the tech in most SF TV shows I’ve watched over the years. From light sabres to magnetic boots, to the TARDIS and Firefly’s ‘Serenity’. I wanted it all and, when I found out I needed H. G. Wells’ Time Machine to travel into the future, I started creating my own fictitious hardware and tech by writing it into existence. Hey, why not? I have a very vivid imagination.

Funny thing these days is technology is catching up fast. There was a time when I dreamed of a Dick Tracey watch, and now, I owe an Apple iWatch. Like the flip phone inspired by Star Trek, and the diagnostic beds now in existence, to a version of the tricorder being used on the ISSN — The Lab-On-a-Chip Application Development Portable Test System (LOCAD-PTS) is used by astronauts and is designed specifically to biochemical molecules with the purpose of “identifying microbes on space station services” through use of the Gram Staining Method. 

We even have a sort of hover bike now on sale based on drone tech, but scaled up considerably. 

Hover boards are not that far away! 

Let’s just hope that sentient Toasters (a.k.a. the Cylons) are a long way off in the far future. I also wonder when we’ll get memory crystals, or crystal storage technology? 

Maybe that’s not so far off as we think. Whatever the tech, we know that science fiction can inspire real-life technologies and, if we live long enough, might even be witness to some incredible breakthroughs in the decades to come.

Meanwhile, if you are interested in checking out a great listing of future tech featured in SFF books going back to 1899, check out the Glossary of SF Ideas, Technology and Inventions. Which, I might add, is an amazing resource—never assume you came up with the idea first, you’ll probably find out H. G. Wells, Verne, Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke, to some SF fanatical TV scribe beat you to it. 

See you in the future!

What is your favourite genre?

Ha! As if readers stopping by my blog don’t already now, but in case you didn’t, it’s science fiction. And the even broader umbrella: speculative fiction.

Who is your favourite author in this genre?

One? Only one? You’re kidding me … I’d have to say, as a child, maybe Robert A. Heinlein, but in my teenage years it was probably Anne McCaffrey and C. J. Cherryh I read the most. It’s hard to choose only one because recently, I’d have to go with Michael Mammay and Megan E. O’Keefe as my picks, or maybe Cally Black. 

What is it about the genre that keeps pulling you back?

I’ve said it before, it’s the sheer scope and range of the genre that’s epic: from space opera, to military SF, climate SF, near future, dystopian, far-flung futures, colonisation, gadgets and tech, the possibilities are as endless as “what-if”.

What is the book that started your love of this genre?

I think I posted earlier about the books that got me hooked into reading SF. Most of those earlier books were Robert Heinlein’s juveniles: Red Planet, Podkyne of Mars, and Have Space Suit Will Travel. All fun adventure stories featuring young teenagers. 

If you had to recommend at least one book from your favourite genre to a non-reader/someone looking to start reading that genre, what book would you choose and why?

You only have to read through most of my posts to find me recommending this book or that author. But try Velocity Weapon by Megan O’Keefe as a fun place to start or Planetside by Michael Mammay.

Why do you read?

That’s like asking me, ‘Why do you breath?’ It’s an automatic response I have no control over. I have to read, just as I have to breath. 

Okay, now I’d love to know what your favourite genre is, let me know in the comments.

Community Echoes:

• This is my genre: SF by Joel
• This is my genre: Horror by Syl
• This is my genre: Fantasy by Thomas
• This is my genre: Golden Age Detectives by David
• This is my genre: Fantasy by Sylvia

Following on from a recent post I read in which readers create a chain of six books leading from a monthly title, The Tipping Point (2002) by Malcolm Gladwell — I thought I would join in, but, of course, having never read this  title, nor knowing the author, I hit my first hurdle.

Then I gave it a moment’s thought and wondered about the title, ‘tipping point,’ which brought me of all places to physics. Yes, that kind of tipping point—the point where there is no turning back, where a thing will go from being balanced, to being unbalanced. Which in turn reminded me of a book I read, The Missing Informant by Anders de la Motte. Where David Sarac the main character and, in fact, a number of characters in this fast-paced thriller face their own ‘tipping points,’ and, as the various story threads weave and intertwine, we’re pulled toward the story’s gripping and climactic ending.

Informants and tipping points brought me then to Secrets of State by Matthew Palmer, another thrilling read in which tensions between Pakistan and India are at a critical point. And where one piece of planted intel could lead to all out nuclear war. A thoroughly plausible scenario with the focus on two countries more likely to bring us to the brink of destruction than the Middle East, fractured and fighting amongst themselves.

Thinking about secrets and nuclear tensions reminded me of another recent read, Sarah Paretsky’s Fallout in which V.I. Warshawski finds herself leaving behind her beloved Chicago on route to Kansas in the hunt of a missing film student. But as readers of Paretsky know by now, northing is ever straight forward for Vic, who finds herself mixed up in a mystery from the past and a Cold War-era missile silo. Great fun.

Book five, again written by Parestky, and tied in with nuclear war and buried secrets, is Critical Mass (yes, another physics term—critical mass, like tipping point, being a point of no return). Critical Mass is one of my all-time favourite books and not because of Paretsky’s writing or her long time character V.I. but because of the subject matter she chose to focus on: Physics. Moving seamlessly between past and present, Paretsky ties in several threads that connect Warshawski’s closest friend, Viennese-born Lotty Herschel, to events that took place in Vienna and Germany in WWII. Lies, secrets and silence.

Book six in the chain was a little less obvious, it’s The Nature of the Beast by Louise Penny. Which, in it self, is book eleven in the series focused on the fictional village of Three Pines. And features the now retired head of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec, Armand Gamache. What opens to be a straight forward murder-mystery when 9 year-old Laurent Lapage goes missing turns out to be anything but. And the further Gamache delves, the further down the rabbit hole we all go in the search for answers. The connection here, weapons of mass destruction. While not nuclear, still, nonetheless, are at the centre of this cleverly written mystery. And who writes it better than Louise Penny, no one!

Tipping points and critical mass were key in every one of these well-plotted and thrilling reads that share six-degrees of separation to each other. Whatever your tipping point, I hope you find time to check out one or two of these novels and authors, and give them a try.

𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧