Editorial Archive > 2004

Sexing up science fiction
01/12/2004. This month, Uncle Geoff wonders where is all the time going and why can't anyone put it back? There's no reset button in our reality and things can progress in either direction, towards individual prosperity or rack and ruin. Never cared for the rack myself. Don't like bashing my head going through doorways. Gives a terrible headache. Should another year passing mean that we're all more than a year older chronologically or just the way we see things?

Is there, in truth, no non-conformists any more
01/11/2004. What is non-conformity? In its most simplest terms, it just means someone not relating to a common or normal way of doing things. In terms of today’s world, there should be far more elements or people that would be described as ‘non-conformist’ depending on how you classify people who’d rather not be part of ‘the system’ of what makes ‘society’ work or have a desire to change the world to their outlook.

Reading without understanding ...
01/10/2004. Reading without understanding Is like looking at an instruction manual and not being able to put things together.

View From The High Castle: September 2004
01/09/2004. Identity crisis! What identity crisis?

Identity crisis! What identity crisis?
01/09/2004. I don’t know if this is true planet-wide but have you noticed how many TV programmes there have been around about old folk reflecting on their lives lately?

Buying into environmental issues
01/08/2004. In the summer months, it’s said that there are fewer people spend time in front of a computer screen and on the Net because the hours are lighter and you’re out in the sun.

Dissent slows progress ...
01/07/2004. But fortunately doesn’t stop it forever.

Reality's reset button
01/05/2004. In our reality, do we have a reset button?

Adolf Hitler: Man or Myth?
01/05/2004. Scots SFF author Ken MacLeod thinks it's time for the British to blush, as a new survey reveals that large swathes of the UK's population think Conan was real and The War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells's fictional account of a Martian invasion, actually happened.

Truth, honesty. And the Internet way of life.
01/04/2004. Sitting here under the Betelgeuse sun, sipping my favourite cocktail, a lovely mixture of hemlock and cyanide - it might sound poisonous to you but it has one hell of a kick for someone of my physiology with a distaste for alcohol, I can leisurely contemplate the human view on the computerised universe.

To thine own self be true ...
01/03/2004. How do you see other people? All right, those waving their arms up in the air shouting, ‘With my eyes’, kindly sit down although it does have some bearing.

The Troubles of Time Travel
01/03/2004. Anne Groell, senior editor at the Bantam Spectra publishing imprint, ruminates on the time in every science fiction editor's life when one has to edit the dread 'Time Travel' novel. Yikes, move over, Terminator ...

Open Letter to an Open Enemy
01/03/2004. Scots SFF author Ken MacLeod has written science fiction novels which make frequent passing reference to the Soviet Union, Lenin, Trotsky, and communism. But he does not regard Lenin as a mass murderer, any more than he regards Cromwell, Napoleon, Lincoln, Roosevelt or Churchill as mass murderers. Read why here ...

Is space the final frontier ... or the distance between a certain president’s ears?
01/02/2004. One of the joys of writing editorials here is I can either get something off my chest or occasionally I can be very topical to show how up-to-date I am and hope the facts that I’m picking up on aren’t suddenly going to become dated or altered by a different revelation, fact or opinion.

The Man Who Sold the Moon
01/02/2004. Scots SF author Ken Macleod reckons that watching George W. Bush's recent speech at NASA felt like science fiction coming true. But reservations ... well, he's got a few.

I dream of genre
01/01/2004. In an odd way, I’m hoping to prove a point with this month’s survey question, namely do SF fans, that’s you reading this by the way, also have an interest in espionage, either real or fictional? We wanted to cover other genres but the survey is only a two option choice.