fiction

"This is my daughter, who just turned 9. She's amazing, and I want her to grow up to be a mad scientist and to take over the world."

So begins writer Jordan Stratford's Kickstarter pitch video for "Wollstonecraft," the first of what he hopes will be a series of steampunky, historical novels for kids and young adults that will "inspire a generation of girls about imagination and science."

Stratford says he wants to give young girls like his daughter "actual historical role models that show them that math and science and imagination are incredible tools that can shape their world." And he's chosen as his two heroines Mary Shelley, of "Frankenstein" fame -- the world's first science fiction writer, he calls her -- and Ada Byron, whom some regard as the world's first computer programmer.… Read more

A roboticist I know was on a train in Japan when an elderly lady asked him what he did for a living. When he said he builds robots, she smiled and told him she can't wait until she gets a robot nurse.

That isn't how we all hope to live out our final years. Certainly not Frank, a cranky ex-thief who finds himself in the unwanted care of an Asimo-esque robot nurse in the independent movie "Robot & Frank."

The Jake Schreier-helmed feature just premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and won over critics with its quirky charm. It was based on a short-film idea from Christopher D. Ford, who penned the screenplay.

Starring Frank Langella, Susan Sarandon, Liv Tyler, and James Marsden, it's set in the near future and explores the comedic possibilities of mixing the unwilling, curmudgeonly Frank with the irrepressible VGC-60L (voiced by Peter Sarsgaard), which is dedicated to making him exercise and eat healthier breakfasts. … Read more

Strike another one off our list of best movies not on Blu-ray: "Pulp Fiction" is finally available after years of waiting and it's priced pretty reasonably on Amazon for $15.99 right now.

We're happy to report that both the video and sound are stellar (apparently director Quentin Tarantino personally supervised the production of the Blu-ray). And while there isn't a whole lot in the way of new of extras that are different from what you'll find on the two-disc Collector's Edition DVD, you do get a set of new retrospective cast interviews … Read more

Want to boost NASA, inspire a new generation of scientists and engineers, and help humanity explore space? Write a science fiction novel.

That's the idea behind a collaboration between the U.S. space agency and publisher Tor-Forge Books: NASA scientists and engineers will work with Tor-Forge writers to produce NASA-inspired works of fiction that tap concepts from the space agency's missions and operations.

Giving science fiction writers access to NASA brainiacs seems good. But I'm a little queasy about a government agency influencing popular culture to promote itself. And exactly how science fiction-worthy are NASA operations? Still, it could be worthwhile. Many a scientist, engineer, and astronaut credits science fiction with sparking their career.

And it may go further than that. In my case, science fiction was inspiration for writing about science and technology. (Not all of us are called to do the heavy lifting.) I wonder whether science fiction has produced more hacker-coders, wannabe space travelers, or aeronautical engineers. … Read more

Let's just get this out of the way right up front. The best "Star Trek" series was the original. Second-best: "Star Trek: Voyager." Worst by far: "Enterprise."

I say that so you know who you're dealing with: a lifelong Trekkie who has strong feelings about the shows and movies. (I also thought J.J. Abrams' reboot was good, but not great.)

Assuming you're still reading (most people shun me after hearing of my love for "Voyager"), you'll be glad to know there's finally an official Star Trek PADD app for the iPad. And by official, I mean produced by CBS Interactive (which owns both Paramount Pictures and, it should be noted, CNET).

The highly prescient Personal Access Display Device featured prominently in "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and later series. It employed the still-sexy Library Computer Access/Retrieval System, or LCARS, interface, which the app reproduces like never before.… Read more

I am not sure what sorts of people go to libraries these days.

I had always assumed that Google and Amazon had corralled the library system between them, leaving few with the need to go and sit next to the coughing, the chatting, and the lonely.

But it seems that people do still go to libraries and still object to some of the books they see there. It so happens that the American Libraries Association, conscious of its continuing role in monitoring the national mood and culture, issues a list of those books that have been challenged by individuals or … Read more

French author Jules Verne pioneered science fiction in the Victorian age with mind-bending ideas and inventions, but what if he were around in the age of cell phones and PCs?

An ongoing exhibition running through the end of May imagines the world of "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" with steampunk tech.

Nemo's Steampunk Art & Invention Gallery, named after the novel's Captain Nemo, brings together some 40 works and 29 artists from North America, Australia, and Croatia at Patriot Place's North Lifestyle Center in Foxboro, Mass.

Organizers including Bruce Rosenbaum, whose steampunk computer desk blew our minds last year, have imagined an "alternate reality where the Victorian period happened at the same time as the computer or information age."

The show is part of the Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea Interactive Entertainment Experience, which brings to life Nemo's famous Nautilus submarine.

The steampunk exhibition runs through the end of May and includes punked-out bicycles, guitars, and cell phones. Check out the photos in our gallery. … Read more

For a long-lost android, Philip K. Dick looks pretty good--like he's been living it up in Margaritaville.

The acclaimed author of science fiction classics "The Man in the High Castle" and "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" died in 1982, but this is his second resurrection in robot form.

Hardware for the android was completed last year, and software is still being developed. It's the handiwork of Hanson Robotics, led by Texas-based roboticist David Hanson. He and collaborators first showed off the talking robot head at NextFest back in 2005. It later vanished.

"It was tragic when the first robot was lost--it broke my heart," Hanson said in an interview with Crave. "It was a tool for realizing sentient, compassionate machines."

He's embarrassed to admit that he forgot the head on a San Francisco-bound plane. Before it disappeared for good, it was on a flight bound for Orange County, Calif.--Dick's home.

Maybe that wasn't a mere coincidence. After all, the head had some artificial intelligence.

Built at a cost of some $50,000, the new replicant is even smarter. It can carry on conversations with users in a more convincing, complex fashion. Judging by the video below, though, it doesn't look like it could pass a Voight-Kampff test.

Still, it can remember what has been said instead of just responding to words with a quote from Dick's works.

"It has better awareness and it's able to make logical deductions about itself and its internal state," Hanson said. "There are more AI features now." … Read more

If you need proof of the iPad's unmatched acumen as an e-book reader, look no further than Smashing Ideas' smashing version of the H.G. Wells classic, "The War of the Worlds."

The landscape-oriented app presents the full text of Wells' chilling novel, with side-by-side pages that, to me, seem more book-like than if the words stretched from one side of the screen to the other.

Of course, the highlight here is not the presentation of the text, but rather the 27 illustrated, animated, interactive pages interspersed throughout the book. The artwork is dazzling--and occasionally a bit … Read more