How Octavia E. Butler Became a Legend
The early inspiration and experiences that shaped the visionary science fiction storyteller.
How Early Sci-Fi Authors Imagined Climate Change
A century before the modern “cli-fi” genre, many authors envisioned unsettling worlds shaped by man-made climate chaos.
The Self-Styled Sci-Fi Supermen of the 1940s
Way before there were stans, there were slans. Too bad about their fascist utopian daydreams!
From La Jetée to Twelve Monkeys to COVID-19
If the pandemic has you wishing for yesteryear, watching 12 Monkeys—and the time travel art film that inspired it—is just the thing.
“To Reach the Pure Realm of the Imaginary:” A Conversation with Cixin Liu
The science fiction author Cixin Liu is best known for his mind-bending trilogy The Three Body Problem.
The Fear That Synthesizers Would Ruin Music
A German musicologist complained in 1954 that they reminded him of "barking hell-hounds."
On the History of the Artificial Womb
Will outside-the-womb gestation, increasingly viable for animal embryos, lead to a feminist utopia? Or to something like Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World?
Will Reanimating Dead Brains Inspire the Next Frankenstein?
In recent experiments, scientists brought back cellular functions to the brains of dead pigs, recalling early galvanism.
Can Science Fiction Predict the Future of Technology?
Science fiction isn’t limited to predicting tech developments: It’s more broadly concerned with imagining possible futures, or alternative presents.