Free Republic

Intolerant social media hall monitors are trying to enforce groupthink. ======================================================================= On Star Wars-based TV series The Mandalorian, actress Gina Carano portrays Cara Dune, a former shock trooper. And it seems that she is very comfortable “playing” a similar role on social media, where she continues to stand her ground against outrage mobs who keep going up against her in a bid to get her fired and “canceled.” And it’s not just about something Carano posted herself – now her dogged detractors are going through her Twitter likes to prove their point against the actress. The need not only to...

Science fiction and horror author Andrew Fox’s first novel was Fat White Vampire Blues. He’s continued to put out a steady stream of science fiction and fantasy that’s equally edgy and entertaining. For example, he recently released a short story collection titled Hazardous Imaginings: The Mondo Book of Politically Incorrect Science Fiction. And I had the opportunity to interview him. Tamara Wilhite: Hazardous Imaginings seems to be modeled off of Harlan Ellison’s Dangerous Visions. Is that intentional?

Fly me to the Moon, let me swim among the starsWater molecules have been detected in soil in one of the Moon's largest sunlit craters, NASA announced on Monday, which means permanent bases on the natural satellite may be potentially a lot easier to support. The discovery was made using a telescope onboard NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) – a modified Boeing 747 capable of flying 45,000 feet above our planet. The airborne 'scope spied what may well be water in the Clavius crater, which is visible from Earth, located in the southern hemisphere, and, coincidentally, the site...

“The Perihelion” is a book by D.M. Wozniak. “The Perihelion Complete Duology”. It presents a United States several decades after the Second American Civil War. The United States is divided between the blue core cities and the "redlands", each with their own laws and culture. But the legacy of genetic engineering and systemic oppression mean tensions are slowly simmering in the blue cities themselves ...

The Sandman and American Gods author Neil Gaiman recently pointed out the obvious that franchises risk alienating their fans if they don’t stick to the source material.

“The Perihelion” is a book by D.M. Wozniak. “The Perihelion Complete Duology”. It presents a United States several decades after the Second American Civil War. The United States is divided between the blue core cities and the "redlands", each with their own laws and culture. But the legacy of genetic engineering and systemic oppression mean tensions are slowly simmering in the blue cities themselves ...

The movie Phaze 7 (Phase 7 in English) is a Spanish movie with English subtitles. A twist on the pandemic horror genre, it is filled with twists and turns and, surprisingly, character development. It is also a perfect tie in to today's Wuhan virus shutdown.

The original Star Wars trilogy stands as one of the greatest cinematic trilogies ever made. It spawned a franchise that consists of additional movies, novels, comic books, video games, and even radio dramas. The genius of the Star Wars franchise is in how it created something that feels entirely original, but is deeply indebted to millennia of stories that came before it. Star Wars contains influences from not only space adventure serials and Westerns, but also Arthurian tales, Greek Myth, and even religion. That being said, the Star Wars movies have not always lived up to their original standard. For...

As civilization crumbles around us, Bradbury and his fiction offer several primordial lessons we would be prudent to reconsider. In 2013, British writer Neil Gaiman wrote a story entitled “The Man Who Forgot Ray Bradbury.” It was about exactly what the title says: A man, losing his memory, tells the audience that he can only vaguely remember a writer who hailed from Waukegan, Illinois, who wrote wonderful and macabre fairytales of space and the otherworldly. Gaiman’s story is closer to home than what we might care to remember because, on the century of his birth, the world at large has...

It was illuminating reading how science fiction author John Scalzi talks about the classics with zero reverence this morning.

Ihad the opportunity to interview author J.P. Redding (a pseudonym) shortly after his first book “Off Grid” came out. Initially, I thought it was a survivalist book. The subtitle “Is there anywhere to hide from the surveillance state?” suggested that. It turns out that it is a science fiction book, as well.

I had the opportunity to interview author J.P. Redding (a pseudonym) shortly after his first book “Off Grid” came out. Initially, I thought it was a survivalist book. The subtitle “Is there anywhere to hide from the surveillance state?” suggested that. It turns out that it is a science fiction book, as well.

In the fall of 1951, Galaxy Science Fiction serialized one of Robert A. Heinlein’s tales, which was eventually published as The Puppet Masters. The story concerned an invasion of earth by small, flat, incredibly-fast-breeding aliens that could attach themselves to a human’s back and take over his mind completely. Though humanity eventually eradicates the threat, the book closes with the decision that life will never be the same. Due to the risk that these creatures might return, mankind must change the way it lives. We must forever change the way we dress and greet each other; clothing must expose the...

The Lancet is one of the oldest and most respected medical journals in the world. Recently, they published an article on Covid patients receiving hydroxychloroquine with a dire conclusion: the drug increases heartbeat irregularities and decreases hospital survival rates. This result was treated as authoritative, and major drug trials were immediately halted – because why treat anyone with an unsafe drug? Now, that Lancet study has been retracted, withdrawn from the literature entirely, at the request of three of its authors who “can no longer vouch for the veracity of the primary data sources”. Given the seriousness of the topic...

Uncle Hugo's and Uncle Edgar's were legendary among the community of science fiction, fantasy, and mystery readers—and now they're gone. Venerable Minneapolis science fiction and fantasy bookstore Uncle Hugo’s and its sister store in the same building, Uncle Edgar’s, which specialized in mysteries, were both burned to ruins last Friday night by rioters. The store took its name from two major awards in the genre fields, science fiction’s Hugo awards, and mysteries Edgar’s. Independent bookstores are a threatened American institution, and Uncle Hugo’s was considered a flagship operation. Owner Don Blyly was noted for his ability to adapt to modern...

For billions of years, the moon has been the Earth's visible companion - and source of intrigue. It is considered to be our planet's only natural satellite and widely accepted to have been created by "The Big Whack" - from debris left over after a huge impact between Earth and an asteroid. But what if the moon is not as natural as we believe and is actually man made? Researchers Christopher Knight and Alan Butler have spent years writing and compiling scientific theories that the moon may have been created by us or even aliens. They claim there are a...

NASA scientists working on an experiment in Antarctica have detected evidence of a parallel universe — where the rules of physics are the opposite of our own, according to a report. The concept of a parallel universe has been around since the early 1960s, mostly in the minds of fans of sci-fi TV shows and comics, but now a cosmic ray detection experiment has found particles that could be from a parallel realm that also was born in the Big Bang, the Daily Star reported. The experts used a giant balloon to carry NASA’s Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna, or ANITA,...

PHOENIX — Arizona State University professor Lawrence Krauss, internationally known as an outspoken atheist and for his work on the symbolic "Doomsday Clock," has been put on paid leave by university officials after allegations of sexual misconduct were published in a recent BuzzFeed article. The university, in a statement issued late Tuesday, said it began a review of the professor's conduct after it was contacted for the article. (please see link for full article)

Since 1991, the James Tiptree Junior Award has been given annually to a work of “science fiction or fantasy that expands or explores our understanding of gender.” The award was founded by two women science fiction writers, Pat Murphy and Karen Jay Fowler. From next year, it will be called the Otherwise Award. Because social justice warriors decided to find it problematic.

With bugs, algae and other resource-efficient foods we could feed one million people on Mars within a century of arriving there. Scientists even invented a martian diet. Cannon and colleagues modeled the food needs of a human population on Mars that grows to one million over about a hundred Earth years through a combination of immigration and reproduction. Though the settlement would need to import a lot of food at the start, it could transition to an entirely Martian-grown diet in about a century with the right food choices, they found. The major limiting factor is space — or rather,...