Gunn Control
James Gunn’s Superman gives his film’s Man of Tomorrow three notable speeches—one about kindness, one about respect, and one about honor—that, in any normal year, would make every eyeball in the theatre roll back into its socket.
Jason P. Vest
The Ten Most Notable Science-Fiction Novels of the Past Ten Years
Given how busy we all are, particularly as the pandemic recedes, perhaps we should thank these lists (and their makers) for not wasting our time or abusing our goodwill, but instead helping us hack our way through that ever-growing thicket of anime, books, films, podcasts, manga, radio shows, stage plays, television series, video games, and the endless number of other cultural productions we feel honor-bound to track despite this impulse being a forever-frustrated wish that, to switch metaphors, cultural capital’s always-hungry maw ensures will never be satisfied.
The Re-Possessed
Ursula K. Le Guin created an alternate history for our wayward species so suitably epic in scope, theme, and detail that it rivals anything Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, and Robert Heinlein conjured during the so-called Golden Age of Science Fiction.
Now Appearing, the Great Cicely Tyson
The woman who began her career as a fashion model for Ebony and Jet magazines, who married (and divorced) jazz trumpeter Miles Davis, and whose love of Black people, especially Black women, made her into an activist for most of her long, long life developed her craft so exactingly that she reigns as one of the greatest artists America has ever produced (or ever will produce).
Remembering Octavia E. Butler
Make no mistake, Octavia E. Butler was among the greatest American authors of the twentieth century. The intervening years have seen Butler’s work reclaimed by literary critics, scholars, and the reading public at large, but the fact remains: She was always terrific, even when too few people affirmed this judgment in the public square.
How Our New Electronic Dog Still Does Old Tricks
Rejoice, we are told: Television has never been better. And all that is old becomes new again.