Latest Stories
Most recently published stories in Futurism.
Egg-Shaped Dwarf Planet Haumea Has a Ring, Astronomers Discover
Rings are fairly common in the Solar System—Saturn's are the most famous, of course, but Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune all have rings as well. They have also been discovered around two asteroid-like objects called centaurs, Chariklo and Chiron, between Jupiter and Neptune. Now, another ring system has been found, this time around the dwarf planet Haumea, which orbits the Sun way out past Pluto.
By Paul Scott Anderson8 years ago in Futurism
Above and Beyond Bentwaters
For some, the name Peter Robbins conjures pages from the British-Best Selling book, Left at East Gate: A First-Hand Account of the Rendlesham Forest UFO Incident, Its Cover-up, and Investigation. The controversial book covers the 1980 incident in which there were reported sightings of unexplained lights near Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk, England. There have also been claims of UFO landings and the control of nuclear weapons on the nearby Bentwaters Base by said UFOs. The Rendlesham Forest case has become wrapped in controversy, recently centering around one of the key witnesses.
By Ryan Sprague8 years ago in Futurism
Conversations with an Alien
I came across a video I found on Youtube that caught my attention right away. I am a firm believer that there is another world outside of our world and possibly many more. Does this mean my faith is questioned? No, I still do believe in God very much, but I think that there is life among ours as well.
By Crystal Caraway8 years ago in Futurism
Why Genre Literature Deserves More Respect
Albert Einstein famously said that "imagination is more important than knowledge." What he meant is that if we are ever to discover anything, we first have to elaborate an hypothesis to test out, and that process relies on imagination. Additionally, what we know as a fact may change as soon as evidence shows otherwise, so knowledge is little more than a useful tool to be used as a stepping stone for our abstractions.
By Fabia Scali-Warner8 years ago in Futurism
Swords, Spells, and Serpents, Oh My!
A few years back, I attended a local writer’s conference. We talked about all aspects of writing: grammar, dialogue, character development, punctuation, world building, blah, blah, blah. At the end of the conference, a few of us decided to divulge more subtle problems. Among our issues, someone brought up the difficulties engendered by writing original, fantasy stories.
By Aaron Dennis8 years ago in Futurism
Ad Boosters
RC looked like most other children his age, but he didn’t have a mother or father. He wasn’t an orphan, though. He was decanted from a vat, when he looked to be about six-years-old, fully formed and with all the knowledge most six-year-olds would have and a peculiar bump on the back of his neck containing the latest solid-state biometric chip. As soon as he was cleaned up and dressed, RC was given a plastic lunchbox and backpack both with a Royal Crown Cola logo emblazoned on both. His favorite colors were blue and red, just like colors of his clothes, his lunch box, his backpack, and all the notebooks and pencils in his backpack and the colors seen on the Royal Cola logo.
By Isaac Shapiro8 years ago in Futurism
Review of Outlander 3.5
Outlander 3.5 finally got Claire and Jamie back together — 20 years after they last were together, in the 1700s, with Jamie now in Edinburgh. There were lots of nice touches, including Jamie being located by a literary device — literally — I first noticed in Isaac Asimov's The End of Eternity (still my all-time favorite time travel story) back in the 1950s. The person in the past wanting to let someone in the future know where to find him or her puts an ad in a newspaper with some reference to some event that hasn't happened yet (Asimov's method) or a poem from the future (Jamie's method) as a marker for the future to see. It's a nice, soft touch, and usually does the trick.
By Paul Levinson8 years ago in Futurism
Best Gene Wolfe Books
Gene Wolfe is widely considered to be one of the best living science fiction writers, and many consider him to be the best writer period. Award winning author Michael Swanwick certainly thinks so: "Gene Wolfe is the greatest writer in the English language alive today. Let me repeat that: Gene Wolfe is the greatest writer in the English language alive today."
By Joseph Farley8 years ago in Futurism
What to Avoid When Writing Sci-Fi
It cannot be denied that science fiction is one of the hardest genres to write because you, the author, are creating entire planets from scratch. You are the Creator in the sense that you decide how people travel through space, what alien species exist in your universe, and what sort of scheme will potentially destroy the universe this time.
By Danielle McDougal8 years ago in Futurism
