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For the second year in a row, I have done a simple analysis of the Goodread’s Choice Awards for science fiction novels. The awards are voted on by members of the Goodreads website. Fifteen of the books are nominated based on their review ratings on Amazon and five more are nominated by readers. The concept part of my analysis is an interpretation of the Goodreads blurb for the novel, which then led me, correctly or not, to allocating the novel a sub-genre (Note: I have changed some of the sub-genre categories since the intial post).   1. The Martian, Andy Weir (30561 votes) Concept: An astronaut tries to survive on Mars. Apollo 13 meets Castaway.   Sub-genre: Thriller   Series: No   Debut novel: It appears to be his first novel   Nationality of Author: American.   2. Locked In, John Scalzi (14835) Concept: A virus sweeps the world “locking in” one per cent of the population, they are awake and fully aware, but unable to respond. Some of t...

I wrote a bit this year, but nowhere near enough. My Fiction Writing. I began the year by finally finishing the first draft of my 215,000 word epic , Jack Logan: Astronaut. I then spent a lot of time redrafting an 8,000 word short story and 23,000 word novella. It wasn’t until November that I got stuck into writing when I did National Novel Writing Month for the third time, just making it over 50,000 words for the month. My output then dropped off again in December. I wrote on every day of the year except one, when I had computer problems.   My Non-fiction Writing I continued to amaze myself by coming up with ideas for new articles for Divine. The articles need to have a disability angle. I wrote ten articles for them, nine of which have now gone up on the website. I also had one article written at the end of 2013 that went up in early 2014. My favourite of the articles I wrote last year was Petitioning for Change , about petitions started by people with dis...

Last year would have to be my worst book-reading year for a long time. I reckon I would have to go back to well before I arrived in Wang, about 15 years ago, to a year when I read less. I only read five books last year. Pretty pathetic really, even if I was tired for just about all of the year. I do most of my reading at night, just before bed. A few months ago I started to read The Swan Book , by Alexis Wright, and found the first few pages almost impossible to comprehend – it didn’t help that I kept on falling asleep. I tried to get into the novel over the next week or so, but had the same problem. Not the fault of the writer I am sure, just me being too tired. Of the five books, three were very good science fiction novels, one was an insightful book of poetry – yes I actually read a book of poetry all the way through, so it must have been good – and a western. The three science fiction novels were Maddaddam by Margaret Atwood, Ancillary Justice by Anne Leckie and Le...

Many science fiction movies were released this year. Here’s what I thought of some of them. The Very Good.   1) Interstellar . A voyage of discovery. Written and directed by a master of science fiction in Christopher Nolan ( Inception , Rise of the Planet of the Apes ) and staring Mathew Mc Conaughey . The movie is about humanity’s search for a new home to escape the environmental disasters ravaging earth. The story explores the imagined effects of a blackhole on the timeline of an astronaut searching for a habitable planet. The movie is very impressive to look at and listen to, with my seat vibrating in semi-sense-around when a rocket took off. I left the cinema full of wonder about space exploration and what other planets might be like. Interstellar was easily the best science fiction movie of the year. 2) Predestination . A very clever Australian time-travel adventure film. Written and directed by the Speirig brothers and starting unknown Sarah Snook ...