AbeBooks' Reading Copy

Presented annually since 1955 the Hugo Awards are among the most prestigious prizes given to science fiction authors (I, myself, would give the Hugo’s equal billing with The Nebula awards); and are voted on by members of the World Science Fiction Convention (aka “Worldcon”) and are presented in several categories which include, but are not [...]

If you’ve never heard the name Frank Frazetta, that doesn’t mean you’ve never seen his work. In the latter 20th century, Frazetta was a prolific artist in the fields of fantasy, science fiction and comic art. As comfortable with swords, sorcery and unnaturally curvaceous space heroines as he was with caricature and parody, his work [...]

It will be no surprise to regular readers of our blog that I am a big fan of Edward Gorey – I have written many a blog post about him, including the Edward Gorey Google doodle, The Letters of Edward Gorey and Peter F. Neumeyer, and 11 Book Covers by Edward Gorey. You may notice [...]

Sometimes I find a book which won’t work for a feature, but is too great not to share. A science fiction novel featuring a velociraptor riding a porpoise, with a saddle, through a desert?  This must be shared.  My hat goes off to Peter Goodfellow, the illustrator. You can find more of his illustrations here

Happy birthday to Jules Verne, born 185 years ago today, on February 8th, 1828. Verne was a French science fiction author, most famous for Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. His imagination ran just as deep, and throughout his career he contributed immeasurably to the genre of science fiction. He is often called the father [...]

This was  a virtually impossible task. Put together a list of 50 must-read science fiction books  and don’t make anyone angry. Science fiction is the most discussed and argued  over genre in literature but it actually goes way beyond books and into film,  TV, video games and even toys. Here are the criteria we used. One [...]

While putting together a piece on the best science fiction books (stay tuned…) I came across these two great non-English-language covers for the sci-fi classic The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells – the first is a Spanish language edition of the book, the second is a Danish program for the play. Gorgeous.

Interesting news – according to science-fiction and fantasy site Tor.com, a graphic novel adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle is going to be available soon. In fact, it’s slated for publication on October 2nd, just shy of three weeks from the writing of this post. How did I not hear of it [...]

Carl Sagan brought the heavens a little closer to Earth through his books. A scientist of such repute that he advised NASA, Sagan popularised science for ordinary folks by writing about the cosmos and the possibility of extraterrestrial life. Innumerable folks all over the world discovered that opening one of Sagan’s books was opening the [...]

Nasa announced yesterday that The Mars Curiosity landing site has been named Bradbury after literary legend Ray Bradbury who passed away in June of this year. Henceforth known as Bradbury landing, the site unnamed until its official dedication and naming yesterday, which would have been Bradbury’s 92nd birthday. All of this points, to me, to [...]