Charlie Jane Anders

Raymond Chandler Mocked Science Fiction, But He Also Inspired It

Raymond Chandler was one of the greatest writers to come out of pulp fiction, but he also had some snobbish tendencies of his own. Notably, in a 1953 letter to his agent, he makes fun of science fiction for being kind of ridiculous. But Chandler also inspired tons of science-fiction writers. In the letter from…

Everything That’s Wrong With Star Wars: The Force Awakens

We pretty much loved Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The things this movie got right were so much more important than the things it got wrong. That said, it did get some things wrong. Allow us to elaborate. So now that Episode VII has become the #1 non-inflation-adjusted domestic movie of all time in North…

Adventure Time‘s Stop Motion Episode Looks Totally Mathematical

Eat your heart out, Anomalisa. Adventure Time is doing its first ever stop-motion-animated episode, as part of a whole week of episodes starting next Monday. PLUS there’s a new Ice King episode! The stop-motion episode airs Thursday, Jan. 14, and “Bad Jubies” is created by stop-motion wizard Kristen Lepore. Here’s the first clip from it:…

All the Science Fiction and Fantasy Books Everyone Will Be Talking About in January

It’s a whole new year, and already the science fiction and fantasy publishers are hitting the ground running. There are tons of great new books in January, including China Miéville, Amber Benson, and Tim Powers! These are all the science fiction and fantasy books that should be on your radar this month. (Plus in addition…

Get some of last year’s best stories for just $1.99! The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015 is a Kindle Daily Deal today. Contact the author at [email protected] and follow her on Twitter @CharlieJane

Sorcerer of the Wildeeps Is an Epic Fantasy Unlike Anything You’ve Read Before

We’re living in an exciting era for fantasy literature, with a lot of really interesting approaches to magical worldbuilding. But I’ve still never read anything quite like Kai Ashante Wilson’s novella Sorcerer of the Wildeeps, which was part the first batch of Tor.com’s new line of short novels recently. [Full disclosure: Tor is also my…

Could a Society Develop Advanced Technology WithOUT Written Language?

It’s a fascinating question. Over at Charles Stross’ blog, he responds to a reader question: What would a technological society look like without written language? And could such a thing even happen? Stross’ answer: probably not. After a certain point, a lot of things that we think of as necessary for an advanced technological civilization…

You Can Watch The One Great Scene From Jane Lynch’s Angel From Hell Pilot Right Now

Jane Lynch is one of our comedy gods, so it’s too bad her new TV show Angel From Hell is kind of a bust. (Although it could get better.) Luckily, there’s one hilarious scene in the first episode, and you can already watch it right now. I was actually planning on posting the above clip…

Game of Thrones Can’t Really Spoil George R.R. Martin’s Books

It’s now official: George R.R. Martin’s next book in the Song of Ice and Fire series, The Winds of Winter, won’t come out before the next season of Game of Thrones. That means we’re going to be living in a world where the TV show is continuing the story beyond where Martin himself has told…

Help the EFF Save the Future, by Reading Some Brand New Science Fiction!

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is out there fighting for civil liberties and privacy on the Internet and the digital world generally. And now, you can help support them—by reading a brand new science fiction book! The EFF just published a new book Pwning Tomorrow, featuring short fiction by Bruce Sterling, Rudy Rucker, Cory Doctorow, Annalee…

The Cat-Kara Relationship Is the Best Love Story on Supergirl

When we caught our first glimpse of Supergirl last spring, Calista Flockhart’s Devil Wears Prada-influenced take on Kara’s boss, Cat Grant, seemed like the biggest potential liability. But nine episodes in, she’s clearly the best part of the show. In fact, we’re fully Cat-Kara shippers at this point. All attempts to get us to care…

Avatar Is a Much Better Movie Than You Remember

Avatar is about to be dethroned. At some point, Star Wars: The Force Awakens will probably unseat James Cameron’s extraterrestrial epic as the movie with the highest (unadjusted) box office of all time. So this is a good time to remind you that Avatar is actually quite a decent movie. It’s kind of bizarre that…

The Director of Attack the Block Made Movie Spoofs Starring Stuffed Animals

Before Joe Cornish directed Attack the Block (and cowrote Ant-Man and Tintin), he was one half of the Adam and Joe Show, which was one of our favorite British comedy shows. And they used to make truly weird movie spoofs with stuffed animals and other toys. Here’s their riff on Se7en. The Adam and Joe…

The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin was one of our favorite books of the past few years. And apparently a lot of influential people agree—it’s being read by President Obama on his vacation. Contact the author at [email protected] and follow her on Twitter @CharlieJane

Taylor Swift’s New Video Is A Better Fairytale Movie Than Maleficent and Mirror Mirror Put Together

Seriously, Hollywood keeps making weird-ass fairytale movies. And they really ought to take a note from this insane new Taylor Swift video for “Out of the Woods,” which does for fairytales what her “Bad Blood” vid did for action movies. I can’t wait to see all of the GIFs that people make from this video.…

The Childhood’s End Miniseries Has Given Us Some Utterly Superb Spaceship Art

Syfy’s ambitious miniseries based on Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End served up some beautiful spaceship visuals. Including the alien mothership, which looks striking and angelic. Concept artist Ben Mauro shared with us some of his beautiful Childhood’s End spaceship designs. First off, Mauro went through an “early design exploration” phase, which was “quick, dirty and…

What Was The Most Tragic Disappointment of 2015?

This was a pretty good year for pop culture, but there were some terrible misfires along the way. Including some stuff that we’d all had high hopes for. But what was the biggest pop-culture letdown of the year for you? Please include a picture, poster, clip, book cover, comics panel or other illustration for your…

The Books About Artificial Intelligence That You MUST Read, According to Ex Machina‘s Alex Garland

Ex Machina remains a strong contender for the best science fiction film of 2015. It’s jam-packed with ideas along with all that psychosexual weirdness. And now at last, writer-director Alex Garland has unpacked where some of those ideas come from. In case you missed it, Ex Machina is a film where Poe Dameron invites General…

Biggest Book Trends: Print Is Back, and Everyone’s Reading Science Fiction

Rumors of the death of the print book were massively exaggerated, it turns out. According to the L.A. Times, 571 million print books were sold in 2015, 17 million more than in 2014. And ebooks, which had been forecast to hit 50 to 60 percent of book sales, were stuck around 25 percent. The L.A.…

This Asian Time Travel Thriller Could Be Next Year’s Breakout Action Movie

Asia is becoming an increasingly important market for science fiction and fantasy movies, but we’re still waiting for countries like China to produce their own worthy competitors to The Avengers and Star Wars. A new movie now in production could help to change that. Reset is a co-production between Chinese and Korean studios, and is…