Worlds of Speculative Fiction Selections Set For 2021

After soliciting viewer, subscriber, and supporter suggestions for the final three slots in the monthly Worlds of Speculative Fiction series for this new year, and then having a run-off vote for the final slot, we now have a full line-up for the series.

Each month - usually the second Saturday - we will focus on one specific author, the narrative world of some of their works, and philosophical themes found in their writings. These events we're holding online -until it is completely safe to return to the face to face setting - have two parts.

Part 1 is a video premiere, with live-chat between me and viewers - of me discussing the author, their narrative world, their biography, and some selected philosophical themes.  Those usually run about 90 minutes, and the videos are then added to the series playlist

Part 2, immediately following, is a videoconferencing conversation, carried out by Zoom, where we get to go a bit more into depth about anything that the viewers found particularly interesting. We usually have some great conversations about the works in those sessions.

You don't have to have read the author or the specific works in order to get something out of these sessions.  But obviously, it certainly does help to have done so.  Here's the list of the authors and the recommended books for each session this year.

January - Liu Cixin's Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy

• The Three-Body Problem
• The Dark Forest
• Death's End

February - Philip K. Dick's stories of Colonization and Insanity

• Martian Time-Slip
• Clans of the Alphane Moon
• We Can Build You
• The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
• A Maze of Death

March - R. Scott Bakker's Prince of Nothing trilogy

• The Darkness That Comes Before
• The Warrior-Prophet
• The Thousandfold Thought

April - Margaret Atwood's Gilead dystopia stories

• The Handmaid's Tale
• The Testaments

 
May - Philip Jose Farmer's World of Tiers novels

• The Maker of Universes
• The Gates of Creation
• A Private Cosmos
• Behind the Walls of Terra
• The Lavalite World
• More Than Fire

June - A.E. Van Vogt's Weapon-Makers novels

• The Weapon Shops of Isher
• Weapon Makers

July - Octavia Butler's Parable novels

• Parable of the Sower
• Parable of the Talents

 
August - J.G. Ballard's modern dystopias

• Crash
• Concrete Island
• High Rise

September - Stanislaw Lem's Ijon Tichy stories

• The Star Diaries
• The Futurological Congress
• Peace on Earth
• Observation on the Spot

October - Neal Stephenson's Anathem 

• Anathem

November - Jorge Luis Borges - theme TBD

• selected stories, TBD

December - Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy

• Northern Lights  
• The Subtle Knife 
• The Amber Spyglass