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A pixellated landscape of buildings, spaceships, and the moon form the background of the coverpage for this article, titled "How Sci-Fi Worlds Have Changed WIth Us"

Who Killed the World?

Explore science fiction worlds from the last few decades – and what these fictional settings tell us about ourselves.
by Alvin Chang via The Pudding on July 12, 2024
Man and woman testing buttons on machine at Duke University Parapsychology Laboratory

Tomorrow People

For the entire 20th century, it had felt like telepathy was just around the corner. Why is that especially true now?
by Roger Luckhurst via Aeon on June 3, 2024
Female costars in "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" next to a picture of Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins.

The Pioneering Black Sci-Fi Writer Behind the Original Wakanda

Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins invented the setting that eventually became Wakanda in her science fiction, but her name isn't widely known.
by Alison Lanier via Ms. Magazine on November 23, 2022
Octavia E. Butler.

The Spectacular Life of Octavia E. Butler

The story of the girl who grew up in Pasadena, took the bus, loved her mom and grandmother, and wrote herself into the world.
by E. Alex Jung via Vulture on November 21, 2022
"Washington Crossing The Delaware" superimposed on NASA image of the Pillars of Creation in space

The Age of Planetary Revolution: Remembering the Future in Science Fiction

Nothing dates our vision of the future like how we remember the past.
by Carl Abbott via Perspectives on History on November 14, 2022
Picture of two early cosplayers at a convention.

How Costumes and Conventions Brought Sci-Fi Fans Together in the Early 20th Century

Andrew Liptak on the origins of cosplay.
by Andrew Liptak via Literary Hub on June 29, 2022

How Sci-Fi Shaped Socialism

Sci-fi has long provided an outlet for socialist thinkers — offering readers a break from capitalist realism and allowing us to imagine a different world.
by Nick Hubble via Jacobin on December 18, 2020

A Universe of One’s Own

Only in the science fiction genre can one compare an alien to a woman.
by Nicole Rudick via New York Review of Books on July 8, 2019

The Nuclear Fail

Physicist and writer Leo Szilard was vital to the creation of the atomic bomb. He also did everything he could to prevent its use.
by Emily Harnett via Hazlitt on July 30, 2018
A man demonstrating television to another.

This Futuristic Color TV Set Concept From 1922 Was Way Ahead of Its Time

Back in the earliest days of imagining what TV looked like, the appliance was a magic technology.
by Matt Novak via Paleofuture on May 4, 2018
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A Nice, Provocative Silence

The author of "Cahokia Jazz" reflects on the similarities between historical fiction and science fiction, and the imaginative space opened by archival silences.
by Francis Spufford, Devin Thomas O’Shea via HNN on August 13, 2024
A gem tintype album of Elizabeth (Almy) Cobb Hall, with portraits of the Almy family and friends

Past Lives

Who wants to watch a show whose characters never make real moral choices?
by Adina M. Yoffie via Contingent on December 14, 2023
A man scuba diving.

Filming the Deep: Underwater Film Technologies

The author of a new book, The Underwater Eye, discusses how film enables audiences "to connect to the most remote environment on the planet: the ocean."
by John Plotz, Margaret Cohen via Public Books on March 23, 2023
Comic strip: Bungleton Green and the Mystic Commandos: "Jon Smythe has escaped being lynched by Green Men but is captured by the "Dark Mystery!".

Jay Jackson’s Audacious Comics

Written during World War II, Bungleton Green and the Mystic Commandos imagined a future liberated from racism and inequality.
by Jeet Heer via The Nation on February 23, 2023
Colorful lithograph showing the "Department of Electricity," a building with electrical lights positioned along the water, with a crowd of people entering

Colonizing the Cosmos: Astor’s Electrical Future

John Jacob Astor’s "A Journey in Other Worlds" is a high-voltage scientific romance in which visions of imperialism haunt a supposedly “perfect” future.
by Iwan Rhys Morus via The Public Domain Review on September 14, 2022
Sketched portrait of Kim Stanley Robinson in front of a line drawing of the Sierra Navada landscape

Seeing Mars on Earth

Kim Stanley Robinson on how the High Sierra has influenced his science fiction.
by Kim Stanley Robinson, Jon Christensen via High Country News on May 24, 2022
Picture of Amazing Fantasy #15, the first appearance of the superhero known as Spider-Man.

The Subversive Spider-Man: How Spidey Broke the Superhero Mold

Once Peter Parker received his miraculous spider powers, the last thing he wanted to do was go out and get a colorful costume and fight crime.
by Ralph Macchio via Literary Hub on January 3, 2022
Drawing of Stranger Things main characters on bikes

Historicizing Dystopia: Suburban Fantastic Media and White Millennial Childhood

On the nostalgic and technophobic motives of the recent boom in suburban fantastic media.
by Angus McFadzean via Los Angeles Review of Books on August 30, 2021
A diagram of the phases of the Moon.

Man-Bat and Raven: Poe on the Moon

A new book recovers the reputation Poe had in his own lifetime of being a cross between a science writer, a poet, and a man of letters.
by Mike Jay via London Review of Books on June 24, 2021
Edgar Allan Poe.

Edgar Allan Poe’s Other Obsession

Known as a master of horror, he also understood the power—and the limits—of science.
by Daniel Engber via The Atlantic on June 11, 2021
Illustration from Percival Lowell's Mars as the Abode of Life, 1908.

Alien Aqueducts: The Maps of Martian Canals

Observing the visible features of Martian landscapes, Giovanni Schiaparelli began seeing things almost immediately.
by Hunter Dukes via The Public Domain Review on June 8, 2021
Political cartoon depicting the menace of monopolies and trusts (1899)

Degeneration Nation

How a Gilded Age best seller shaped American race discourse.
by Adam Morris via Lapham’s Quarterly on December 14, 2020
An illustration of a kid imagining going to space.

Selling the American Space Dream

The cosmic delusions of Elon Musk and Wernher von Braun.
by David Beers via The New Republic on December 7, 2020
A black and white artistic photo

A Quest to Discover America’s First Science-Fiction Writer

It’s been two hundred years since America’s first sci-fi novel was published. But who wrote it?
by Paul Collins via The New Yorker on November 28, 2020
Overhead image of suburban houses from Levittown, Pennsylvania

The Origins of Sprawl

On William Gibson, Sonic Youth, and the genesis of the American suburb.
by Jason Diamond via The Paris Review on August 26, 2020

What to Make of Isaac Asimov, Sci-Fi Giant and Dirty Old Man?

Despite calling himself a feminist, the author of the Foundation stories was a serial harasser.
by Jay Gabler via Literary Hub on May 14, 2020
Superman comic illustration

Why Superheroes Are the Shape of Tech Things to Come

Superman et al were invented amid feverish eugenic speculation: what does the superhero craze say about our own times?
by Iwan Rhys Morus via Aeon on March 5, 2020
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How Local TV Made “Bad” Movies a Thing

Weekly shows on local TV stations helped make the ironic viewing of bad movies into a national pastime.
by John B. King, Kristin Hunt via JSTOR Daily on November 21, 2019
Lost World movie poster
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The 1925 Dinosaur Movie That Paved the Way for King Kong

During a slow day at work, a young marble cutter named Willis O’Brien began sculpting tiny T-Rex figurines.
by Kristin Hunt via JSTOR Daily on October 10, 2019

‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’ is a Science Fiction Film

Far from wallowing in nostalgia, Tarantino is using alternative history to critique conventional Hollywood endings.
by Jeet Heer via The Nation on August 23, 2019
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