Common Themes

I was gently reminded last week that my book reviews and related posts are, as relevant as I might think them, changing the focus of this blog, so I aim to stop after this post. Having recommended some new things last week, I felt it would be leaving this subject incomplete if I didn’t mention some old things, newly compiled, republished or otherwise presented for your review.

Masterpieces: The Best Science Fiction of the Century is an anthology from 2001, edited by Orson Scott Card. I admit, this fact alone was enough for me to pick it up! There’s some terrific classics in here — Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed by Ray Bradbury is one of my favorites. “All You Zombies—” by Robert Heinlein is a mind-twisting time-travel tale that makes what Douglas Adams did to Zaphod Beeblebrox’s family tree look positively amateur.

Another great set of compilations is The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, sharing stories from 1929-1964. Volume One (which I own and love) is pictured here. Volumes Two A and Two B are available in hardback, and were originally published in 1973 “to honor novellas that had come before the institution of the Nebula Awards.”

Volume One’s short stories hail from the same span of years (1929-1964): “Selected by a vote of the membership of the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA), these 26 reprints represent the best, most important, and most influential stories and authors in the field.” Indeed, this volume is full of great stuff — Scanners Live in Vain! by Cordwainer Smith and The Weapon Shop by A. E. van Vogt are fantastic, and Fondly Fahrenheit by Alfred Bester will tie your grey matter into several complex knots. In a good way, I mean.

Classic science fiction is just as enjoyable today as it was when first published, especially the stuff presented in the above anthologies. Do yourself a favor and check them out!

I guess I’ve fallen in love with the idea of personalized space-themed notecards, because they keep catching my eye!

John Harris is an artist with a very recognizable style; the images here are book covers for Ender’s Game and Speaker For The Dead, both by Orson Scott Card. His website states:

John has now spent thirty years illustrating work by some of the best science fiction writers… Isaac Asimov, James Blish, Frederik Pohl, Orson Scott Card, Samuel R Delany, Ben Bova, Allen Steele, and many more.

Odds are, if you’re an avid science-fiction reader, you’ve seen some of John’s work. Check out his website for more information, and this excellent post for many more images!

Possibly the most colorful image of the Orion Nebula I’ve seen… this one takes the cake!

NASA’s Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes teamed up to expose the chaos that baby stars are creating 1,500 light years away in a cosmic cloud called the Orion nebula. This striking composite indicates that four monstrously massive stars, collectively called the “Trapezium,” at the center of the cloud may be the main culprits in the Orion constellation, a familiar sight in the fall and winter night sky in the northern hemisphere. Their community can be identified as the yellow smudge near the center of the image.

Swirls of green in Hubble’s ultraviolet and visible-light view reveal hydrogen and sulfur gas that have been heated and ionized by intense ultraviolet radiation from the Trapezium’s stars. Meanwhile, Spitzer’s infrared view exposes carbon-rich molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the cloud. These organic molecules have been illuminated by the Trapezium’s stars, and are shown in the composite as wisps of red and orange. On Earth, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are found on burnt toast and in automobile exhaust.

Stellar winds from clusters of newborn stars scattered throughout the cloud etched all of the well-defined ridges and cavities in Orion. The large cavity near the right of the image was most likely carved by winds from the Trapezium’s stars. Located 1,500 light-years away from Earth, the Orion nebula is the brightest spot in the sword of the Orion, or the “Hunter” constellation. The cosmic cloud is also our closest massive star-formation factory, and astronomers believe it contains more than 1,000 young stars.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI

The Republic of Upper Volta released these stamps in 1976, commemorating the Viking missions to Mars. (Better images here.)