Reprint: The End

Tags

Alfred Bester, Brian Aldiss, Carolyn See, Clifford D. Simak, Douglas Adams, Edgar Pangborn, Elizabeth Hand, George R. Stewart, Greg Bear, H.G. Wells, Harlan Ellison, Isaac Asimov, Jack London, James Morrow, John Wyndham, Keith Roberts, Lucius Shepard, Mary Shelley, Nevil Shute, Octavia Butler, Peter George, Philip Latham, Piers Anthony, Raymond Briggs, Richard Jefferies, Ronald Wright, Russell Hoban, Stephen Baxter, Thomas Bailey Aldrich

I had great plans for my Cognitive Mapping series that ran in Vector between 1995 and 2001. At one point I envisaged producing 100 of the columns, which could then be gathered together as a decent-sized book. But at some point the project ran out of steam. I had maybe another half-dozen columns started but never completed. Apart from a parody piece (written by another hand, not naming names Mr B****r), the column was over. But at the end of 2005 I produced one last hurrah, appropriately enough on how science fiction deals with the end of things. This last column was published in Vector 244, November-December 2005.

Reprint: Manifest Destiny

Tags

Bruce Sterling, David Brin, E.E. 'Doc' Smith, Hugo Gernsback, Independence Day, John Campbell, John O'Sullivan, Octavia Butler, Robert Heinlein, Star Trek, Thomas M. Disch, William Gibson

This column in my series Cognitive Mapping first appeared in Vector 218 (July-August 2001).

Reprint: Exogamy

Tags

Alex Raymond, Arthur C Clarke, Claude Veillot, E.E. 'Doc' Smith, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Edmond Hamilton, Gardner Dozois, George T. Chesney, Gregory Benford, Gwyneth Jones, H. Beam Piper, H.G. Wells, Harry Turtledove, Ian McDonald, Jack Finney, Jack Williamson, John Clute, John Collier, Octavia Butler, Peter Hoeg, Philip Francis Nowlan, Roger Zelazny, Thomas M. Disch

This column from my Cognitive Mapping series, which first appeared in Vector 202, November-December 1998, might well be seen as a companion to the column on Aliens, looking at another aspect of our enduring fascination with the other.