I’ve wanted to spotlight Jason Chan for many months – he’s one of my absolute favorite living artists – but something keeps coming up that is more pressing so for now, enjoy his Servant of the Panther Queen as the...
While the media steals the spotlight from groundbreaking inventions and incredible technologies, scientists continue to plow through new challenges with a vengeance. What’s new? Hmm. What’s not new? Groundbreaking research in epigenetics is opening the door to understanding latent or “junk”...
Science Fiction has inspired many innovations over the past few decades. Cloaking devices, chameleon-esque camouflage, memory manipulations (including erasures and implants), suspended animation, artificial intelligence, underwater breathing without tanks, Jedi mind control (almost), total immersion gaming, mind controlled prosthetics, personal...
Too often in SFF, the arts are blandly portrayed, as if the arts will never flourish in the future – or in fantasy cultures. Occasionally, in quasi-visionary movies, we see glimpses of creative new ideas for the arts but they...
At FantasyCon 2014, an astute panelist brought up an idea that I’ve thought about from time to time but haven’t given serious consideration to … at least not in terms of writing a new book. The idea is to pit...
One of the things that regularly grabs my attention when reading fantasy books/magazines/articles/pitches/short stories is the utter lack of creativity that I see from magicians/wizards/mages/witches when casting spells. Okay, I admit, when I played D&D as a kid, fireballs were...
One of my lease favorite composers (Arnold Schoenberg) penned these words: “Well borrowed is well composed.” He is indisputably right. Modern viewers almost undoubtedly prefer the Matrix to Plato’s Cave despite the fact that Plato came along much earlier than...