If science fiction has siblings, one of them would be the labour union movement. Both are children of the We're pleased to be guest editing the fanzine Journey Planet. industrial revolution, when technological progress was creating new types of work and new types of workers, forcing people to confront what that meant. Both are focused on the impacts of change and how we adapt. From William Morris' News From Nowhere to Ursula K. le Guin's The Dispossessed, the genre has played with what work means and how humans collaborate in times of change. We invite people to explore the (sometime ..read more

Even if you haven't read anything that Vernor Vinge wrote, you've likely read something that was inspired by his work. He was a titan in his field and his work spoke to fans around the globe. This blog would likely not exist without Vernor Vinge’s novel A Deepness In The Sky. (Photo by Olav Rokne) When he died yesterday, his influence could be found in almost every corner of science fiction. Vinge began writing science fiction when he was a teenager, penning the story “Bookworm Run!” while a senior in high school in 1962. It’s a story that appeared in print four years later, about ..read more

 The following list will be updated over the next few months as we read, watch, and listen to Hugo-eligible works for 2025. These are not necessarily what we plan to nominate, but rather works that at least one member of the Edmonton Hugo Book Club has enjoyed and believes to be worth consideration. We appreciate any additional suggestions in the comments. Updated on February 4, 2024  Items marked with a “*” are ones for which there was significant disagreement within the book club.  Novel Womb City — Tlotlo Tsamaase Novella The Siege of Burning Grass — Premee Mohamed Novele ..read more

There’s a graveyard in the publishing world that’s full of authorized sequels and companion novels to famous works. Neither Scarlett nor Rhett Butler’s People are talked about decades following their release or in as fond terms as Gone With The Wind. Return to Wuthering Heights seems to have existed just to cash in on Emily Brontë’s original. The less said about the sequel to Catcher In The Rye, the better. (Image via Goodreads) In that context, it seems foolhardy for an author to try and tackle a novel like George Orwell’s 1984, a book that is often ranked among the most important ..read more

French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau famously quipped that “generals are always preparing to fight using the tools of the last war.” Built by France in the wake of the First World War, the Maginot Line was an engineering marvel  completely unsuited to the challenges of the Second World War. (Image via History.com)  At the time of this writing All Fandom Is Plunged Into War, and we are left wondering if some of the tools adopted in the wake of the last conflict are suited to today’s conflict. Is E Pluribus Hugo the Maginot Line of fandom? This is the seventh year that t ..read more

Rice offers an apocalypse from a fresh perspective and with  interesting insights.  (Image via Goodreads) Post-apocalyptic fiction is known for its hopeful restarts, but the subgenre can also include ultimately nefarious elements perhaps best described as fantasies of re-establishing paleoconservative social hierarchies. In the aftermath of societal collapses, readers are encouraged to imagine themselves as a heroic survivor, either uniquely prepared, or uniquely suited for the new world that arises from the ashes of the old. Unshackled from the confines and complexities of ..read more

In 2023, the Campo Grande Treefrog went extinct. There’s a very real chance that in the not-too-distant future, the elephant will trumpet its last. (Image via Goodreads) Its loud and distinctive croaking now exists only in recordings. It was one of hundreds of animals that disappeared from the planet last year as human-driven climate change, pollution, and other forms of habitat destruction ravaged ecosystems. Javan rhinos, orangutans, sea turtles, saolas, pangolins, and elephants are all dying out. Make no mistake: this is a crisis that will have profound downstream consequences f ..read more

As the 1970s drew to a close, science fiction cinema was in transition. The Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation in 1979 reflects this; socially conscious environmental parables of the waning decade were making way for a new era of popcorn cinema. Star Wars producer Gary Kurtz presents the 1979 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation to Superman star Christopher Reeve at Seacon. (Image via Supermania78) For the first time, there were two animated movies nominated in the same year (something that would not happen again until 2002): Watership Down and Ralph Bakshi’s Lord of the ..read more

(Image via Goodreads) There’s a saying in the labour movement: make someone a boss and they’re going to act like a boss. It’s an observation based on a familiar pattern of workers becoming managers and then acting in ways that put them at odds with the needs of the proletariat. The system incentives people to make decisions that serve the few instead of the many. This is, fundamentally, the problem with John Scalzi’s latest novel. Starter Villain is narrated in the first person by Charlie, an underemployed and financially precarious teacher who inherits a megacorporation after ..read more

At the 2023 WSFS Business Meeting, a constitutional amendment was passed that would (if ratified at the 2024 Business Meeting) add two new categories to the already long list of Hugo Awards: Best Independent Short Film and Best Independent Feature Film. Independent Cinema is awesome, but ill-defined. (Photo by Daniel Penfield via Wikipedia)  The beauty and diversity of global cinema and of independent film is something that should be more celebrated at the Hugo Awards. But despite our love of independent SFF cinema, we are firmly opposed to the creation of a secondary award for ..read more