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Hi all, This is my annual best of the previous years science fiction and new year’s resolutions post. 2011’s Science Fiction Books. The best science fiction book I read last year was The Year of the Flood , by Margaret Atwood, a prequel to her equally as good Oryx and Crake . It’s not about global warming, the flood is a genetically engineered plague. I also enjoyed Stephen King’s Under the Dome – which did sag a bit in the middle - and Dave Kitson’s self-published ebook Turing Evolved , which had a great story, it just needed a good edit. Overall, I made very good choices for reading in 2011, except for the very much overrated Perdido Street Station , by China Mieville. Its story took way too long to develop into anything interesting. It should have been cut to half its 600 pages.  2011’s Science Fiction Movies. Apart from the excellent Rise of the Apes , was any other science fiction movie released in 2011? At least that’s the question I asked myself....

Hi all, If I Had Written Terra Nova… I am still watching the American made in Australia science-fiction dinosaur series Terra Nova . The last couple of episodes have shown promise, but have only just passed being mediocre. In the last episode a virus caused memory lose and the scientists trying to stop it forget what they were doing. This is not exactly an original plot for science-fiction. I quickly worked out that the main character’s cold virus would kill the amnesia virus, but unfortunately it took the supposedly brilliant doctor a lot longer. I still don’t like the main characters. They are too selfish. The main family has no hesitation putting their comforts ahead of the survival of the settlement; they are a bit like apprentice Doctor Smiths from Lost in Space . Terra Nova’s real problem is it is trying to be a family drama set in a world of dinosaurs, rather than a science-fiction series. If I had written Terra Nova , I would have started with the mai...

Hi from Grumpy Graham, I felt so tired last week, moody too. I also worried about pains? strains? in the lower back. But I still managed to write a little every day. I have nearly finished the second draft of a short story that has grown from the nice size of 5,000 words to an awkward 6,600 words. Perhaps I am enjoying the voice I have created for its main character, a curious dog, too much.       I also got into critiquing a novel. I have previously critiqued a now published novel from the same author. Terra Nova I am one of the few people in the world who wasn’t a producer or writer of the new science fiction series Terra Nova. It premiered on Australian TV last night. I think there must have been at least ten producers as well as four writers for the first episode. The series is set near the end of this century in a grimy and overpopulated world. A porthole is discovered that can take people back 85 million years. It is a different ti...