Science Fiction - Quillette

Vincent Price in a black and white film still, holding a wooden object, with a dining table in the background

Abiding Legends

Richard Matheson, George R. Stewart, and the birth of the Calipocalypse.

Kevin Mims

9 Jul 2024 · 23 min read

Silhouettes on people on a hill, amid flowers, looking towards a futuristic city.

The Problem with Utopias

The history of utopian fiction proves that we can’t even imagine a better world.

Ewan Morrison

23 May 2024 · 16 min read

93 Years of Shatner

A tribute to an irrepressible TV star’s ability to live long and prosper.

Kevin Mims

22 Mar 2024 · 21 min read

An Unlikely Cinematic Triumph

Efforts to produce a worthy film adaptation of Frank Herbert’s ‘Dune’ seemed doomed to failure—until Denis Villeneuve gave us his two-part blockbuster.

Allan Stratton

15 Mar 2024 · 14 min read

China, the West, and The Three-Body Problem

The themes of Liu Cixin’s trilogy undermine his protestations of loyalty to the People’s Republic.

Jason Garshfield

15 Mar 2024 · 17 min read

Robots, Rats and Hoverchairs: Three Dystopian AI Fantasies

Human beings need meaning, and a life in which all one’s needs were met by external agents would fail to provide it.

Stewart Slater

5 Dec 2023 · 9 min read

Strange New Sci Fi

If truth is the first casualty of war, then perhaps good fiction is the first casualty of culture war.

Johnny Schmidt

21 Sep 2023 · 17 min read

The Libertarian History of Science Fiction

The connection between SF and liberty is not simply an accidental byproduct of the colorful history of SF publishing, but a necessary one tied to certain fundamentals of the genre.

Jordan Alexander Hill

12 Jun 2020 · 15 min read

Science Fiction Purges its Problematic Past

Instead, as speculative fiction becomes more diverse, the sense that it must be corrected grows, and author and art are evaluated together.

Craig DeLancey

5 Nov 2019 · 9 min read

Utilitarianism’s Missing Dimensions

According to the ethical theory of utilitarianism, refusing to push the strange man is unethical. In both scenarios, the ethical action is to sacrifice one to save five.

Erik Parens

3 Jan 2018 · 11 min read