Sci-Friday Review January 3, 2025
Science fiction is a fascinating genre. For one thing, because it includes so many sub-genres, and so much mixing of the sub-genres. Time travel, Lit-RPG, aliens, cultures, advanced tech, a time after advanced tech, utopias, dystopias, utopias which are really dystopias, hard sci-fi, soft sci-fi, space opera… it is a big list.
And lots of these are here on Substack. And you can find some of them. But not easily. So I have decided to try to make a list, check it twice (not really, I suffer from whatever the opposite of OCD is), and post it here. In two parts: static lists of authors and sources, and recent publications that have crossed by desk.
I am completely open to having people comment and adding their works to my list. This list is not moderated, in the sense I haven’t read a tithe of it. It is moderated, in the sense that there are things I will not link to.
The Library
“The Library” is a great place to go to find Substack books to read. They even have a specifically Science Fiction section. “The Writings” also has a list of authors and editors.
Sci-Friday
Sci-Friday is a great group to join to find science fiction. I have tried to list below some of the authors who participate. Again, I am perfectly willing to add authors to this list.
, , , , , ,, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,Classic Sci-Fi
Midshipman’s Hope, by David Feintuch
My review as originally published by Jennifer Hallmark
It was the best of books, it was the worst of books.
I know. Plagiarism. And this story wasn’t obviously either the best or worst of books. But the book Midshipman’s Hope is a powerful story, with some powerful flaws.
First of all, this is not a kid’s book. By any means. A mature YA, sure. A well-trained YA who understands how to read difficult themes and navigate a moral jungle. But not a kid’s book.
And it isn’t a Christian book, by any means. The main character believes in religion, and the religion he believes in bears some resemblance to certain forms of historical Christianity. But the essence of Christianity is stripped from it.
But that is one of the reasons to read this book. To read how a man who attempts to do ‘right’, but is confused and confounded as to what ‘right’ is, might navigate life. Doing good for himself and others and often confused about what that good is. He reminds me of several Old Testament characters, out of the main line, who had strict standards and lived by them, but who were missing the truth and grace of God’s actual Word.
This is a coming-of-age story in part and a powerful one. It is made more powerful because the main character goes from a normal, slow, coming-of-age to an overnight one. He is forced to step up into a difficult situation, in the face of all opposition.
Doing good, in the face of all opposition, and on a foundation of false doctrine– this is a powerful book. But read this story knowing that the main character is not redeemed, nor is his religion.
This Week in Sci-Fi
Science fiction is something that could happen - but usually you wouldn't want it to.
Fantasy is something that couldn't happen - though often you only wish that it could.
― Arthur C. Clarke
Especially because I’m part of ‘Sci-Friday’ I get sent a variety of posts about science and science fiction. Full confession, I’m so busy writing that I haven’t read them all. If you wish your post to be included, make sure you tag me. I do not limit myself to a ‘recent’ post, if you have one from two years ago that you want included, DM or tag me. If I missed you, DM me.
We are going to try #tags. We’ll see how they work :) Let me know if your book was misclassified. If you don’t tag it yourself, well, just let me know.
#Tagging
#HardSciFi
(Which I define as stories where the Science in the Science Fiction seems very interesting to the author, and hopefully to his audience :) )
#CulturalSciFi
(Which I define as stories where the culture of the story is very different from our modern culture, and plays a vital and interesting role in the story.)
#MilSciFi
(When its all about the battle :) )
#Unclassified
(Which I define as stories where the author didn’t put a tag on it or I either didn’t have time or couldn’t figure it out.)
My Works
I love writing science fiction. I find it a marvellous vehicle for exploring culture and morality. We live in an era of shifting cultures and shades of grey. Well done science fiction (along with well-done fantasy) allows the author to paint in different colours, bringing out an evil tyrant, or a loving step-mother. To take the rules of inheritance and turn them on their head, or to explore what a society would like like with different sexual ethics and marriage rules.
I am currently posting three different Science Fiction stories, two of which seem like science fiction. In all of them I explore different cultures, aided by different physical environments. A spaceship doesn’t make the man, but we can see something of the man by how he lives on the spaceship.
I’m going to try to start separating these into categories. Right now I have: Essays (ie talking about sci-fi), hard sci-fi, space opera, cultural sci-fi… and am trying to think of more.
Note: I’m going to be out of town on Friday, so I hope to be able to put some of the offerings in the post. If I miss yours, please, put it in the comments!!
Contract Marriage
#CultureSci-Fi, #HardSci-fi
Contract marriage is an adult dystopia examining the issues of marriage. Like 1984 and Brave New World, Contract Marriage treats the relations between the sexes as a fundamental aspect of how a society is formed and, thus, how a society can go wrong.
Unlike those dystopias, Contract Marriage isn’t all horrible all of the time. The characters for the most part have a good time and get along in their society. But the issues of sexuality, of marriage or not, monogamy or not, faithfulness or not, and gender roles… keep coming up and causing tension and conflict and joy and pain.
My desire is that my readers would be thinking along with my characters about these issues and perhaps even arrive at the same place (minus the flying cars).
Article 17
#CultureSciFi, #SpaceOpera
She was pretty, popular, snobby, and a planetary governor’s daughter. He was the son of shopkeepers, a social misfit, and a decorated hero. She thought she was there to dance. He had other ideas.
Article 17 is a military science fiction story with aliens and romance. It is set in a future reminiscent of Napoleon era Britain. The war was going very poorly until the military installed a dictator. This story follows one of the dictator’s great men: Cladin Tomirosh, Leader, and thrice decorated hero.
Island Peoples
#SciFantasy
Island People is a young adult fantasy (but really science fiction) series centring on a young prince. The book starts with his kidnapping and follows his adventures as he not only escapes from his kidnapper but gains critical allies and friends.
Our current story, the third story in the series, concerns a young Dwarf headed out to a new colony, making friends.
Two For
Not being published yet, in the queue after some of the current books, is my story ‘Two For’. A colony that has gone just a bit primitive. High tech is allowed, but heavily taxed. And there are these aliens…
But for this scene the young couple are just starting their honeymoon. Or, as they say, ‘Honey Trip’. On which they are expected to do a good deal of ‘Honey Business’ ;)
“Now isn’t this better?”Andreina asked her husband as, hand in hand, they went back down the stairs. “We can go out and have some dessert firm in the knowledge that we have at least begun our duty to God and to the clan. And don’t tell me thou didst not enjoy it full well!
He blushed, but gripped her hand tighter and she had to be content with that. He had been nervous and eager indeed! Imagine suggesting they go to a dessert house first! As if she would! She had been so nervous that she was afraid she had come across as angry.
Well, she would have to make up for that. And it was her job to direct them toward dessert!
“Now, I am unused to such things,” she said, “so thou will have to aid me. On our budget, what kind of dessert would be appropriate?”
“Father gave me a Keshef a day, seven total, which is running very high class for me,” he said. “I have rarely had fifty pence in my pocket before.”
“Well, that is far more than I have had. Well, except when I was on business. So… does that include the hotel?”
“No… well, tips and things.”
“I tipped the lad a half-pence, which I think might have been high for his station, but he did do a good job. So… maybe spend a nickel for dessert, and another to bring something to drink back to our room? A bit of soft cider?”
“I like soft cider,” he admitted. “And it would go well with the cheese and things in the room.”
“Excellent,” she said. “I will hang onto thee and thou canst find us a dessert house.”
Her husband almost glowed as he reached the front steps of the hotel and turned them to the right. She was thrilled. She had been afraid that he would stay all nervous and shy, the way he had on the way to the hotel. But now he was parading down the street as he wanted everyone to look at him, with her. As if she was the most beautiful thing in the world. Which, of course, he had said she was a dozen or so times already. She would have to give that hotel boy another tip. He had obviously got her husband very much in the mood.
And this street was so beautiful! Small enough so that only five or so people could walk abreast down it, lit by torches, quiet musicians playing on various corners, and the moon shining on the rock the buildings were made of…
“Ketzat to celebrate!” a lass asked, dancing up and holding out her hand. Soon the embarrassed young couple had a dozen or so lads and lasses dancing around them and they handed out the small coins traditional for honey business.
“Did that lad list a dessert house?” her husband asked her and she fished in her pocket and passed it over to him. Then she pulled herself closer and leaned up against him. She could not believe she was married, and to such a husband. Shop class, not at all tall and fat as her confidante had warned. Off to the army but, then, she had known for years this was coming. Sufficient unto the day, she would rejoice in her new husband while she had the liberty to do so.
And in her honey trip. She had spent plenteous time in the Old City, but always before on business, and always wary of thieves and muggers. Now she was able to lean on her husband and take in the beautiful tall buildings a tourist. At least four stories tall, most of them, tightly built together, and the street was hardly larger than an alley, and crammed with people.
And everything was clean, with no smells to speak of. She knew of the sewers, indeed she had been down in one once with her gang when they had had a larger than usual some of money and one of the lads had suggested them as a way around the crowded streets. But she also knew that the lasses here rose early to wash the front of their building and the street in front of their shops, competing with each other for custom and, indeed, pride of cleanliness.
Her husband, holding the list in front of him, looked up at the street names on the buildings at the corner and, looking at the list again, and turned them to the right. Three blocks down he turned them into a small shop on the right.
The shop he led her into was beautiful. Each table had a lantern over it, with a cover that directed the light on the table, making for a very cozy atmosphere. The walls were illustrated tile, with images of the landing and early colony. The floor… she stared down… the floor was some sort of flat tile, cool on her feet, with pictures of fish on a blue speckled background.
The shop was more than half full, mostly with couples, some eating, some perusing the menu, and a couple enjoying each other.
There was only the one set of tables along the right wall, and a skinny aisle along the left, and Lorcan walked them almost to the door to the kitchen before stopping at a table. They sat down across from each other and he picked up the small chalkboard propped up at the end of the table. “What would you like to have?” he asked. “There isn’t anything on here for more than tuppence.”
He laid it down and they bent their heads over it. “I think I want the carmel nut fudge,” he said.
“That sounds delicious,” she said, but kept looking.
“Hast thou decided, Ma’am?” she heard and looked up to see a lad standing there, a grin on his face, and a shop class shirt the same blue as the floor.
“I think I’d like the raspberry fudge,” she said. “And my husband would like the caramel nut fudge.”
“Whipped cream for both, only a penny,” the lad said, nodding and grinning.
She smiled, “How lucky. That is just what we planned to spend. You don’t have a bottle of chilled soft cider, do you?”
“With the fudge, or to go? We keep a stock, but you’ll have to return the bottle.”
“To go,” she said. “But… how much?”
“Honey trip?” he asked, grinning at them. “Whole thing, including coin for me, make it nine pence and a kiss.”
She grinned and leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “Thou art very fresh! Now scamper, we wish to be alone.”
He grinned and scampered, and she looked back to Lorcan, who was blushing. “How do you do that so easily?” he asked.
“Oh, its a class thing,” she said. “And this is his business, he spends all day talking up the lasses. He can tell from my frock and my speech that I’m lower, so knows just what he can say and what will be pleasing. He would be more distant if he had to deal directly with thee. And if thou wert crystal they might have sent his sister out so thou couldst flirt with her.”
“In front of you?”
“Don’t ask me to explain high class,” she said. “Those lasses almost boast of how their husbands like to flirt, when they aren’t going on about how cold they are to him in bed. Disgusting, if thou ask me, and hardly Christian.”
He leaned forward, “Can I ask you something?” he said.
She grinned over toward him, “Our contract is fully fertile,” she said, moving her toes on top of his and watching him squirm. “Thou canst always freely ask.”
“Not that. I mean a personal question.”
“Oh,” she said, sitting back. She was silent for a few minutes, thinking. The contract didn’t include personal questions, that was true. And her lass friends had not at all agreed as to how far thou shouldst allow thine husband into thy personal life.
“Turnabout’s fair trade?” she asked.
“That means… you get to ask, too?” he asked.
“Yes. One extra on either side.”
“So… neither of us can fall behind by more than one or…”
“Or we stop until the other can catch up,” she said.
“For today…?”
“No. For our honey trip… and longer if we both like the way it goes. Both of us.”
“That’s fair.”
“Well, thou hast begun the game, what question has thou?”
“Why…” he started, but just then the lad came in with their fudge and cream.
“Scamper now,” she said to the lad, when he looked like he was going to comment on the meat, and the lad left.
“Well?” she asked, ladeling some cream on her fudge.
“Why… why did you choose fully fertile?” he asked.
She ladled some more, and then took a bite. “This is good,” she said, and looked him in the eye.
“That question really was out of bounds,” she said, and then held up her hand when he started to speak. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t answer it, but thou must give a lass a space to answer.”
There was a long pause while they both ate. “Two answers,” she said. “Firstly, and thou must never tell my parents this, but I heard them arguing one time. I won’t tell thee what caused it, but my mother was upset, and my father said, “Well, thou shouldst have gone for fully fertile, then!”
“And she yelled back, ‘Like thou wouldst agree to that!’”
“And he said, ‘Like thou wouldst!’ And then there was this really long silence, and then, well, they kissed and all. And then the next day there was this bit of fuss, with one of my uncles coming over, on my mother’s side, and then one of my father’s brothers and… well.. .thou truly must not tell anyone this, but I snuck down when they were all in the kitchen and I found that they had written a new marriage contract, look thee, which was written as fully fertile.”
She sat back and there was another long pause, “And their marriage got a lot better after that, and we were all a lot happier. So I decided that when my turn came that was what I would seek.”
“I didn’t even know about such things when I was that age.”
“Well, I’m a lass and they tell us a lot earlier. And we were street class, especially back then, and we lived on top of each other. There was very little I didn’t know.”
There was a long pause, and then she said, “Well, my turn to ask a question.”
“But, you didn’t finish your answer!”
“I said I had two answers,” she retorted, and stared at him.
“Very well,” he said. “What is your question?”
She put her spoon back in her fudge. “I think I will wait until we are back in our room,” she said. “I want to make sure I ask a good one.”
He stared at her, but she just grinned and dug into her fudge.
Feel free to DM me if you want more info about this story, or to start reading it:
These entire books are scheduled on Substack. All of them are in a bit of a rough form, I am posting them as I write them, or I am posting from old copies. Critiques and comments are more than welcome, they are requested. When these are posted I have a dozen more stories to post.
Beta Reading
I love beta reading. I won’t read just anything, but I am a very harsh critic. So if that’s what you’re looking for, feel free to DM me, or comment below, and maybe we can arrange something.
Science and Science Fiction
In this sub-species [of science fiction] the author leaps forward into an imagined future when planetary, sidereal, or even galactic travel has become common. Against this huge backcloth he then proceeds to develop an ordinary love-story, spy-story, wreck-story, or crime-story. This seems to me tasteless. Whatever in a work of art is not used is doing harm. The faintly imagined, and sometimes strictly unimagineable, scene and properties, only blur the real theme and distract us from any interest it might have had.
…
A leap into the future, a rapid assumption of all the changes which are feigned to have occurred, is a legitimate 'machine' if it enables the author to develop a story of real value which could not have been told (or not so economically) in any other way.
― C.S. Lewis, On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature
Science, properly done, can be a fascinating study. Science Fiction can be a fascinating vehicle for a story. It isn’t all good, some of it is drivel, some of it nonsense, and some of it flat out evil. But Science Fiction can be, used right, a fascinating vehicle for promoting truth.
As I said above, please feel free to comment and add current works or good resources. I won’t guarantee to add everything, but I’ll give it a look.
#Sci-Friday, #ScienceFiction, #Sci-Fi
Thank you for reading Von’s Substack. I would love it if you commented! I love hearing from readers, especially critical comments. I would love to start more letter exchanges, so if there’s a subject you’re interested in, get writing and tag me!
Being ‘restacked’ and mentioned in ‘notes’ is very important for lesser-known stacks so… feel free! I’m semi-retired and write as a ministry (and for fun) so you don’t need to feel guilty you aren’t paying for anything, but if you enjoy my writing (even if you dramatically disagree with it), then restack, please! Or mention me in one of your own posts.
If I don’t write you back it is almost certain that I didn’t see it, so please feel free to comment and link to your post. Or if you just think I would be interested in your post!
If you get lost, check out my ‘Table of Contents’ which I try to keep up to date.
Von also writes as ‘Arthur Yeomans’. Under that name he writes children’s, YA, and adult fiction from a Christian perspective. His books include:
The Bobtails meet the Preacher’s Kid
and
Arthur also has a substack, and a website.
Thanks again, God Bless, Soli Deo gloria,
Von
I Also Do
Revised Tag List
Thanks for Mentioning my Note! That was a great selection of work to kick off 2025. Well done everyone... 😎
Thank you the inclusion Von.