CBS All Access
Gene Roddenberry’s vision has been upheld by diverse casting, but storylines remain within mainstream 20th-century ideas of gender and identity.
Blade Runner 2049: a different world.
Allstar/Warner Bros
They’re more than windows into the soul – they’re a portal into our possible future.
The floor scrubber of the year 2000, as seen from the 19th century, complete with attendant human.
Wikimedia Commons
A common theme from science fiction is a vision of a world where humans do less work and machines do more. Why have we not yet reached that point?
A banana on the salt lake plain at Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia, hints at themes of genetics, food and human journeys in three books recommended by fly scientist Thomas Merritt.
Shutterstock
A fly scientist ponders the genetics of bananas and dwarves, women and love in reviews of his favourite fiction and non-fiction books.
Shows like Cleverman and Tidelands are showing how Australia can work as a sci-fi setting, but where has it been until now?
Goalpost Pictures
Australian TV has been slow to enter the sci-fi genre, but the success of series like Cleverman shows we could have our own distinct brand of local sci-fi.
Terminator’s killer robots can help in the real debate on lethal autonomous weapons.
Flickr/Edwin Montufar
He’s back! Any mention of the killer robots debate brings images of the Terminator film. But science fiction can be a useful tool to get people interested in the real issues in science.
(Shutterstock)
The future and the past, money, technology and politics documented and imagined in fact and fiction, in an economist’s recommended reading.
Former Globe and Mail newspaper reporter turned novelist Omar El Akkad contemplates his debut book American War in his publisher’s Toronto office in this 2017 file photo.
(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young)
Astronomer Bryan Gaensler picks five speculative and science fiction novels worth reading, including Omar El Akkad’s American War.
The Whovian Life via Twitter
Doctor Who author Una McCormack has long envisaged a day when a woman was cast as Doctor Who.
Happy birthday, RDM.
Wikimedia
Robert Duncan Milne made HG Wells struggle to keep up.
Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker in Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope.
20th Century Fox
As it turns 40, it’s worth remembering that Star Wars was more than just a space film, it reframed America’s troubled history.
Twentieth Century Fox
Ripley beat the patriarchy and a rampaging xenomorph - but Daniels isn’t even given the chance.
What’s going to happen next in Alien: Covenant?
Twentieth Century Fox
The latest outing of the Alien film franchise pits another human crew against a terrifying enemy. But how does the science stack up?
Will flying cars ever really take off?
Shutterstock/Pavel Chagochkin
Flying cars have been the stuff of science fiction for years, and now companies are now starting to look at such options. But what will it take to get our cars off the ground?
Lucius Kwok/flickr
The Star Wars saga is interlinked with its merchandising success.
They’re back: Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Nebula (Karen Gillan), Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), Drax (Dave Bautista) and Rocket voice by Bradley Cooper).
Walt Disney/Marvel Studios
The Guardians of the Galaxy team are rocking the universe again in the latest volume of the science fiction blockbuster. But how does the science stand up to some number crunching?
Otra Nation
We need to imagine new types of borders in this era of fervent fence building.
Women dressed as handmaids promoting the TV series The Handmaid’s Tale.
Brian Snyder, Reuters
With a new TV series based on the novel - and its bleak vision of women’s rights - The Handmaid’s Tale is riding a new wave of popularity.
‘So, you’ve run out of lentils, eh?’
Ray Burmiston/BBC
If Doctor Who is supposed to respect members of other species, not all of his incarnations see eye to eye when it comes to dinner.
The TARDIS.
Babbel1996/wikipedia
Disappointed about Doctor Who’s TARDIS ending up at the wrong place at the wrong time? Don’t be – it’s incredibly precise.