Keith Stevenson's Blog, page 7
August 1, 2017
Silent Running
The 1972 film Silent Running imagines a future where Earth is so polluted that the last forests have been blasted into space in environmental domes to preserve them. Freeman Lowell, played by Bruce Dern, is forced to kill his fellow crew members to save the forests when the order comes through to destroy the domes and return the space fleet to commercial operation. Like most science fiction,
July 18, 2017
Towards a Practical Utopia
If you’re a regular reader of Beyond you’ll know that AI is quickly becoming smarter than we are, beating our best players of games like Go and chess; and that robots in the workplace will be here sooner than most governments anticipate (especially the current US administration). Studies show that 46% of all American jobs and 54% of jobs in the UK are at high risk of being usurped by machines
July 14, 2017
Review - The Stars Are Legion - Kameron Hurley
The Stars Are Legion by Kameron Hurley My rating: 4 of 5 stars The Stars Are Legion is refreshing on so many fronts. Firstly it's a stand-alone, so not weighed down with all that entails. Secondly the world building and technology is visceral - literally: bio-organic spray-on spacesuits,walls and floors on the 'spaceship/worlds' of the Legion that feel moist to the touch, petal-like doors that
June 7, 2017
Big Data has you
As the World Wide Web turned 28 years old on 12 March, Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the internet while working at CERN in 1989, warned that the rise of fake news, political advertising and misuse of personal data threatens to damage the potential of the internet to be a tool that ‘serves all of humanity’. ‘Targeted advertising allows a campaign to say completely different, possibly conflicting
May 11, 2017
The strange future of robots is almost here
US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin dismissed the idea that robots may soon take over our jobs, saying it wasn’t even on his radar screen for the next 50 to 100 years. But experts say between 20 and 40 per cent of jobs worldwide are at risk of automation by the early 2030s. The majority of robots today are glorified mechanical arms working in motor vehicle and other assembly plants. And it
May 6, 2017
The dying art of book autographs
I love ebooks. I love their convenience, price and virtual indestructibility. But the one thing they can't give you is that personal author autograph experience. I've been lucky to collect quite a few autographs over the years. You can see some of my favourites in my Google Album
April 24, 2017
Review - The Silent Invasion - James Bradley
The Silent Invasion by James Bradley My rating: 4 of 5 stars There are books you just fall in love with when you read them as a young person. For me they included Alan Garner’s The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, Susan Cooper’s Under Sea, Over Stone and Ursula K Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea. Others come to mind that I enjoyed as an adult because they gave me that same kind of feeling: John
April 17, 2017
Review - Lotus Blue - Cat Sparks
Lotus Blue by Cat Sparks My rating: 3 of 5 stars World building is the real star of Lotus Blue, the debut science fiction novel for Australian author Cat Sparks. Very quickly in this novel Sparks creates a vision of a future Australia – an already ancient land – that’s further weighed down by centuries of environmental disaster, turmoil and wars so that the ‘present’ of the novel feels old and
March 25, 2017
Free copy of Horizon
Get a free copy of Horizon when you sign up to Beyond, my bi-monthly Mailchimp newsletter for lovers of science and science fiction. Get your free copy from BookFunnel. You can see past issues of Beyond here and learn more about the book on the Horizon page.
March 23, 2017
Ultraviolet - Blast from the Past
I’m not talking about Ultraviolet, the decidedly B-grade movie with Milla Jovovich, which is currently sitting at 9% on Rotten Tomatoes, but the rather excellent UK TV series from 1998. Here’s the teaser: CJD. AIDS. Global warming. For the first time in history, mankind has the ability to destroy itself. So now vampires need to take control of their food source. Against this enemy, religion
