Steampunk is a much-overlooked literary form of science fiction that many science fiction fans find themselves drawn into. It’s often presented as a look at what-might-have-been through the eyes of technological progress if Tesla and Volt had instead been workers of mechanics and steam instead of electricity and magnetism. In […]

I imagine most of you haven’t heard of L.M. Preston.  With the deluge of young adult science fiction being written right now, new authors seem to be popping onto the scene every day.  However, during my time running Luke Reviews, I had the distinct opportunity to wade through a bunch […]

Some science fiction not only speaks to the effect of technology on people, but also the epic sweep of character and the overall character of humanity in the face of the unknown. In this way, Dan Simmons’s Hyperion Cantos series approaches a sort of soft science fiction poetry by propelling […]

As the title implies, this is the third part of our look at the works of Keith Laumer, an author sadly being forgotten in the wave of modern science fiction.  In “Keith Laumer, Part 1,” we explored the first three books in the Baen re-issue of Laumer’s work (Retief!, Odyssey, […]

When it comes to the science fiction genre, Glasshouse initially struck me as a little bit of an oddity. At it’s core, it’s a powerful self-examination of society style of speculative fiction with deep science fiction elements; but it also seemed to twist itself away from the science fiction and […]

Last week, in the first part of our detailed look into Keith Laumer and the Baen reissues of his work, we explored the first three volumes released by Baen (Retief!, Odyssey, and Keith Laumer: The Lighter Side) as well as William H. Keith, Jr.’s continuation of the Retief saga in […]

For people who were huge fans of Stephenson’s seminal cyberpunk work, Snow Crash, then you’ll want to move right onto The Diamond Age because it’s essentially the same world, with new people and a bit of a weirder plot to engender a sense of wonder and terror about where the […]

I had never heard of Keith Laumer when I saw a copy of A Plague of Demons & Other Stories, written by Laumer with compilation and editing credits going to Eric Flint of 1632 fame, sitting on the shelves of my local bookstore’s science fiction section.  With a cover and […]

Video games stand out as possibly the best model for UI design and how virtual reality will function in the future—point-in-fact, the entire MMO community shows us that virtual worlds are already a reality and that they can promote cooperation, leadership, and education. As a result, the fact that Halting […]

Last time, we discussed “Thrillers with a Science Fiction Edge.”  Continuing our trip along the outskirts of the genre, today we will explore the region where science fiction overlaps with the realm of horror.  While the subgenre has inspired a number of successful works, including the film series that began […]