I started this blog over two years ago with the idea of contributing something each month. Now I find I’ve only written three this year. The trouble is I really don’t know how best to deploy my time. …

Yes. Sort of. I’ll explain myself, before even more Star Trek gets issued. With a new season four launching in September, Lower Decks is set for at least another comeback some time in 2024. But what about the show. Well, its pacing is quite different from other Star Trek shows…

So Roald Dahl is under attack now—this time by the publishers at Puffin House. Pausing to be fair and unbiased, I can see the argument publishers are making. Children are impressionable, and we must ensure they’re given every chance to take an optimistic, tolerant viewpoint. …

It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything. I’ll admit, part of it is cynicism and disgust at my inability to form ideas (as a lover of fiction, I find my work, while often a joy once I’ve begun hitting keys, a thing of horror to review). I’ve been…

I was reading Little Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper recently, a novel written in 1961 about a far-flung future set in the atomic age where human beings fly in anti-gravity spacecraft and have conquered the galaxy, yet still have to develop film. Which beggars the point that’s been made time…

I’ve just been reading this book by Anne McCaffrey.

This week I try something new — interviewing the most intelligent people I can find who have their Saturdays free. My first self-styled conversation is with Adam Carter. Adam lives in Wellington, where he has been a policy advisor for almost three years. …

The Universe just got a little smaller. The release of another Star Wars saga, centred around Ben or Obi-Wan Kenobi, is perhaps another example of the inversion effect of space opera. With all of the universe to play in and all the fathomless depths of space, we’re continually redrawn to…

These authors are renowned for their more serious works tackling issues of race, religion, environment, politics, sociology and, in the case of two, ‘the not so serious but equally entertaining’ murder mystery genre. Of course, I say this with a heavy dose of irony — because science fiction authors (at…