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National Space Society members have voted the 2016 Robert A. Heinlein Memorial Award to Dr. Jerry Pournelle... (This award is distinguished from the Heinlein Award given by the Baltimore Science Fiction Society and co-funded by The Heinlein Society, and the Heinlein Prize for Accomplishments in Commercial Space Activities administered by The Heinlein Trust.)

The Martian was one of the biggest hits of 2015, and was nominated for tons of year-end awards. But being as it's set in space and in the near future, we thought it best to bring back Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson to help us separate this movie's sins from its wins.

Nicholas Meyer, who directed one of Star Trek’s most-popular films “The Wrath of Khan”, has announced that the film will receive a 4K/Ultra HD release.

The Stainless Steel Rat is James Bolivar DiGriz, who goes by many aliases, including "Slippery Jim" and "The Stainless Steel Rat". He is a futuristic con man, thief, and all-round rascal. He is charming and quick-witted. He is also a master of disguise and martial arts, an accomplished bank robber, a criminal mastermind, an expert on breaking and entering, and (perhaps most usefully) a skilled liar. Master of self-rationalization, the Rat frequently justifies his crimes by arguing that he is providing society with entertainment; and besides which, he only steals from institutions that have insurance coverage. He displays a strong...

There were some surprising science fiction nods among the major Oscar nominations this year. Despite complaints about STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS not getting a nomination for Best Picture (and in my opinion, it didn't deserve one), both MAD MAX: FURY ROAD and THE MARTIAN managed to secure Best Picture nominations. I only caught the last fifteen minutes of FURY ROAD on cable, so I can't really judge it beyond that, but THE MARTIAN while not perfect, was one of the better movies in a mediocre year for movies, and so I have no problem with its nomination. Ridley Scott...

With Star Wars, liberal Hollywood got it all wrong. They get everything wrong, of course, but this movie franchise really takes the biscuit. They turned the heroes into villains, and the villains into shining beacons of virtue. With a new film on the horizon, I feel duty-bound to warn you about the desperate shortcomings of this particular entertainment phenomenon. If we are honest with ourselves, the real wretched hive of scum and villainy is Skywalker Ranch, where George Lucas and his band of morally dissolute bastards created the Star Wars universe, a blight on western civilisation and culture.

I launched a book this week and I went Indie with it. Indie means I released it on Amazon via Kindle Direct Publishing. I had to. My Publisher, HarperVoyager, refused to publish it because of some of the ideas I wrote about in it. In other words, they were attempting to effectively ban a book because they felt the ideas and concepts I was writing about were dangerous and more importantly, not in keeping with their philosophical ideals. They felt my ideas weren’t socially acceptable and were “guaranteed to lose fifty percent of my audience” as related back to me...

... I launched a book this week and I went Indie with it. Indie means I released it on Amazon via Kindle Direct Publishing. I had to. My Publisher, HarperVoyager, refused to publish it because of some of the ideas I wrote about in it. In other words, they were attempting to effectively ban a book because they felt the ideas and concepts I was writing about were dangerous and more importantly, not in keeping with their philosophical ideals. They felt my ideas weren't socially acceptable and were "guaranteed to lose fifty percent of my audience" as related back to...

I was a big fan in the early 80's. I had a week long correspondence with him in the mid 90's. I loved reading his Chaos Manner column in Byte magazine along with Garcia s circuit cellar. It was a great mag. I've been rereading some of his works lately and just reminiscing. Jerry Pournelle s Iron law: ...in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach...

WAR OF THE WORLDS JEFF WAYNE`S MUSICAL VERSION OF THIS SCIENCE FICTION CLASSIC FROM 1978.

The truth has never been more out there. Fox’s upcoming and eagerly awaited revival of The X-Files is updating its conspiracy theories — only this time, the sci-fi series might cause more controversy than when the show told tales of government-aided UFO cover-ups during its initial 1990s run.RELATED: X-Files Returns: EW Exclusive PhotosIn the first return episode screened for reporters (trailer below), paranormal investigators Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) team up with a charming web-series host named Tad O’Malley (played by the usually comedic Joel McHale, here in a dramatic role). The character, loosely based on conservative online personalities Alex Jones and...

<p>Editor David G. Hartwell, 74, died January 20, 2016. He suffered head trauma in a fall, was hospitalized, and did not recover from a massive brain bleed. Hartwell was one of the genre’s most accomplished editors, and was equally known for his encyclopedic knowledge of the field and his memorable personal style.</p>

Did you know that the Millennium Falcon's cockpit was inspired by the WWII B-29 Superfortress bomber? Did you know that the Star Wars saga most famous spacecraft featured a cockpit clearly inspired to a World War II heavy bomber? Well, the iconic greenhouse-style window of the Millennium Falcon was designed with the style of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress, a strategic bomber flying 30 years before Han Solo and Chewbacca first appeared driving the iconic spacecraft into the hyperspace, in mind.

George Clayton Johnson, the celebrated science fiction and fantasy writer who wrote the first aired episode of Star Trek, seven episodes of The Twilight Zone and the novel on which Logan's Run is based, has died. He was 86.Johnson, who also co-wrote the story that became the 1960 heist movie Ocean's Eleven, died Christmas Day of bladder and prostate cancer at a veteran’s hospital in North Hills, Calif., his son, Paul Johnson, told The Hollywood Reporter.

The illuminating, exoterical, astronomical George Clayton Johnson has died. The genius science-fiction writer behind so much of what we’ve all watched and enjoyed has passed on to his next adventure. George Clayton Johnson wrote the very first episode of Star Trek, The Man Trap; he wrote eight original Twilight Zone episodes for series creator Rod Serling including "Nothing in the Dark", "Kick the Can", "A Game of Pool", and "A Penny for Your Thoughts". In 1960, while he was one of the proprietors of Cafe Frankenstein (seen as sort of a "den of iniquity" by the uptight) in Laguna Beach,...

The Star Trek film franchise, which first took flight with 1979’s The Motion Picture, is something many of us hold near and dear to our hearts. For some of us, these are the DVDs, Blu-Rays and even VHS tapes we reach for when we want to spend time with our old friends -- Kirk, Spock, Scotty, Bones, Sulu, Uhura and Chekov.With the recent release of the first trailer for Star Trek Beyond, I thought it was a good a time as any to revisit some of those classic big screen moments. Nick Bosworth over at JoBlo edited and compiled a...

The new space-based adventure series "The Expanse" debuts on Syfy tonight, and it's packed with high-flying action, interplanetary politics and intriguing locations. Based on the book by James S. A. Corey (a pen name for co-authors Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham), "The Expanse" takes place 200 years in the future, when humans have settled Mars and the asteroid belt. The two-night premiere event begins at 10 p.m. EST tonight (Dec. 14) and continues at the same time tomorrow (Dec. 15), but if you just can't wait, you can also watch the series' first episode online on Syfy's website, Hulu, YouTube,...

Arthur C. Clarke's science fiction classic "Childhood's End" has been reimagined for the 21st century, and brought to the small screen, in a new TV miniseries debuting tonight (Dec. 14). When a fleet of spaceships appears in the sky above Earth's largest cities, the alien beings onboard insist that they have arrived to help the human race. The visitors slowly begin to eliminate war, disease and poverty -- but what will be the cost of building heaven on Earth?

From director Justin Lin comes STAR TREK BEYOND starring Idris Elba, Chris Pine, Simon Pegg, Zach Quinto, Zoe Saldana, John Cho, Anton Yelchin and Karl Urban. In theaters July 22nd.

The legendary leading man of Akira Kurosawa turned down offers from George Lucas, said his daughter at an event with Steve Wozniak to announce Tokyo Comic Con. Toshiro Mifune, the legendary actor and star of numerous Akira Kurosawa films including Seven Samurai, Yojimbo and Rashomon, turned down the roles of Obi Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader, worried that Star Wars was going to look cheap, according to his daughter Mika.