Mirage
{4.5/5} “This conference was supposed to start a process of… well, of demystification between us. A start at debunking some of the erroneous beliefs and tearing down prejudices. Without that process, controlling the illegalities that proliferate between us will never be possible and one of these days we will go to war.” Mirage by Mark […]
Utopia
{4.5/5} “But I do not worship humans, friend Prospero. I do, however, respect them. I respect their power, their abilities, and their capabilities. I understand that, like it or not, we survive at their sufferance. They can destroy us. We cannot destroy them. That is reality.” Utopia by Roger MacBride Allen, published in 1996 Roboticist […]
Inferno
{4.5/5} “Revolutions made for complicated politics, caused fortunes to be made and lost, changed friends to enemies, enemies to friends. Shared assumptions turned into points of controversy during the night. The invaluable turned worthless, and what had been common became rare — and priceless. New ways of making a living, new ways of committing a […]
Caliban
{4.5/5} “We believe in robots. We have faith in them — firm, unquestioned faith in them… And yet we Spacers despise the thing we worship. We love robotics and yet hold robots themselves in the lowest of regard. Who among us has not felt contempt toward a robot?” Caliban by Roger MacBride Allen, published in […]
The Downloaded
{4.5/5} “The harsh reality of any advanced civilization is this: privacy can’t be tolerated, lest, in some dark recess, a malcontent plots to unleash atomic or biological weapons, computer viruses, antimatter, or any other technology that poses an existential threat.” The Downloaded by Robert J. Sawyer, published in 2023 Roscoe killed a guy who’d bullied […]
Star Trek: Discovery — Somewhere to Belong
{4.5/5} “We have survived as a civilization because each of us understands our commitment to the whole… Thanks to uncounted severe lessons, we have come to understand we can rely on no one but ourselves. In the end, we are the only ones who have never disappointed us — or betrayed us.” Star Trek: Discovery […]
Robots and Empire
{4.5/5} “There will, however, be a period of time during which the Spacers will remain stronger than Earth and its Settlers, though by a steadily diminishing margin. Eventually, the Spacers will inevitably become aware of Earthpeople as a growing danger. At that time the Spacer worlds will surely decide that Earth and the Settlers must […]
The Robots of Dawn
{4.5/5} “It was a wasteful and inefficient procedure and there are now no Earthpeople that we will allow to serve as further settlers. We have become Spacers, long-lived and healthy, and we have robots who are infinitely more versatile and flexible than those available to the human beings who originally settled our worlds. Times and […]
The Naked Sun
{4.5/5} “His teeth chattered when he tried to talk and he had to force his words out in little bits. It hurt his eyes to look so far at a horizon so hazy green and blue and there was only limited relief when he looked at the pathway immediately before his toes. Above all, he […]
The Caves of Steel
{4.5/5} “Before the Cities, human life on Earth wasn’t so specialized that they couldn’t break loose and start all over on a raw world. They did it thirty times. But now, Earthmen are all so coddled, so enwombed in their imprisoning caves of steel, that they are caught forever.” The Caves of Steel by Isaac […]