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The Varied Life of Jack Vance
There’s one thing I’ve learned from researching our founding SFF authors: writers used to be a hell of a lot cooler. Not to insult any of our modern masters—far from it! They’re doing their best with...
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George R. R. Martin: The Rock Star of Genre Fiction
On this day 68 years ago, George Raymond Martin (the second R, for Richard, was added by him at his Confirmation) was born in Bayonne, New Jersey. As a child, between writing monster stories for the...
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H.G. Wells Invented Everything You Love
H.G. Wells is considered one of the fathers of science fiction, and if you look at a brief timeline you’ll see why he’s so extraordinary: 1895: The Time Machine 1896: The Island of Doctor Moreau 1897:...
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L’Esprit d’Escalier: A Tribute to Robert Jordan on his Birthday
When Tor.com asked me to write up a thing celebrating what would have been the 66th birthday of Robert Jordan*, I was initially at something of a loss. Firstly, because I’ve been writing about Mr....
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Imaginative Anthropology: In Celebration of Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula K. Le Guin was raised by an anthropologist and a writer. Not just any anthropologist: her father Alfred L. Kroeber, was the first person to earn a Ph.D. in anthropology in the United States, and...
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Wonder Woman, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Princess Leia Have the Same Birthday...
On this very day, Wonder Woman turns 75 years old! Which is an amazing landmark all in itself, for all that she means to the superhero genre, and to women the world over. In fact, the United Nations...
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Neil Gaiman Created a Pocket Universe For Each of Us
Over the course of his decades-long career, Neil Gaiman has redefined what it means to be a comics writer. He has blurred the lines between “genre” work and “literary” work, and he has broken down the...
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Asimov Reads Again
Isaac Asimov would have been 97 today. In fact, this statement is somewhat speculative, since he moved to the U.S. at a young age without a birth certificate, and wasn’t able to locate such a record...
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Edgar Allan Poe and the Cult of the Unusual
Edgar Allan Poe gave American writers permission to plumb the subterranean depths of human depravity and transform it into art. This may sound obvious, but it’s worth remembering—on his 208th...
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Lloyd Alexander’s Parents Never Read Books
On January 30th in 1924 Lloyd Chudley Alexander was born in Pennsylvania to two parents who read newspapers… but never books. Though his family was hit hard by the Great Depression (his father was a...
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Jules Verne’s Love of Adventure Took Us From the Center of the Earth to the...
Jules Verne, born today in 1828, is often called one of the “Fathers of Science Fiction.” But what was more impressive about him, as a person, was his inability to let anyone or anything stop him from...
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Rereading The Handmaid’s Tale: Parts VII-VIII
Ofwarren fulfills her purpose on the Birth Day, the kind of day that is hoped for by all of Gilead and that brings the Handmaids together to help bring new life into the Republic. Later, Offred finds...
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Hard Concepts, Passionate Things: The Sublime Art of Maurice Sendak
On June 10, 1928, Maurice Sendak was born in Brooklyn, New York, and the world of children’s literature gained one of its greatest artists (although it would take a few more years before that fact...
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Octavia Butler Will Change the Way You Look at Genre Fiction
The first Octavia Butler novel I ever read was Fledgling, and it was a revelation. While I had been taught by early exposure to Ursula Le Guin that genre fiction could be political, could comment on...
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A Sober and Verbose Reflection on Robert A. Heinlein
Today we commemorate Robert A. Heinlein, who was born on this day in 1907. He is a giant in the science fiction genre, but like most giants, his path to literary greatness was tangled and circuitous....
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A Very Happy Birthday to J. K. Rowling… Whose Real Life is More Incredible...
There’s an odd fairy tale out there in the world that is one of my favorites. Almost everyone knows it, or has heard some version of it. But it doesn’t have any of the usual trappings of a fairy tale;...
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Lois McMaster Bujold on Fanzines, Cover Art, and the Best Vorkosigan Planet
When I first started discussing the Vorkosigan reread with Tor.com editor Bridget McGovern, I suggested that I could interview author Lois McMaster Bujold. I was pretty sure that was not going to fly....
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Bram Stoker’s Horror Classic is Steeped in the Anxieties of his Age
Bram Stoker’s interest in the macabre seems to have been with him from his youth. While at Trinity College, Dublin, he became a member of the University’s Philosophical Society, and the first paper he...
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Carl Sagan Believed Science Belonged to All of Us
It’s difficult to put into words the kind of impact Carl Sagan has had on fans of genre fiction. The combination of his enthusiasm for science education, his patience, and his outreach made him the...
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Read Neil Gaiman’s Poem “House”
In honor of Neil Gaiman’s birthday, we’re pleased to reprint his poem “House,” acquired for Tor.com by consulting editor Ellen Datlow and originally published on the site in April 2013. “House”...
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Octavia Butler Will Change the Way You Look at Genre Fiction
The first Octavia Butler novel I ever read was Fledgling, and it was a revelation. While I had been taught by early exposure to Ursula Le Guin that genre fiction could be political, could comment on...
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5 Excellent Ray Bradbury Short Stories
If you’re here on Tor.com, you’ve probably read some of Bradbury’s work. Scratch that. If you’re breathing and attended school in the last 50 years you’ve probably read some of Bradbury’s work. But, as...
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Why You Should Read Robert Jordan’s The Eye of the World
Fate, I observe somewhat unoriginally, is a funny thing—in both the strange and the ha-ha flavors. This is just as true in real life as it is in stories, though the dialogue in the stories generally...
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Bram Stoker’s Classic Continues to Inspire
I’ve never had a reading list; if I created one I would have a list of 500 books before I’d even started in, and I don’t like having my reading patterns pared down to a queue. So I have a general idea...
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Asimov Reads Again: The Favorite Books of An SF Luminary
Isaac Asimov would have been 98-years-old today. In fact, this statement is somewhat speculative, since he moved to the U.S. at a young age without a birth certificate, and wasn’t able to locate such a...
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Backwards and in Heels: Russian Doll, Happy Death Day, and How Women Survive...
If Nadia Vulvokov and Theresa “Tree” Gelbman met in the women’s bathroom at a party, they would see little in common, standing side-by-side looking into the mirror: 36-year-old redheaded game designer...
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Happy Birthday to Tor.com! We Turn 11 Today and…Hey, What’s This?
Stubby the Rocket launched Tor.com 11 years ago today, on July 20, 2008! And after last year’s raucous 10 year birthday party we’re really looking forward to a cupcake or six and a nice quiet year...
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Celebrating Five Favourite Works by Poul Anderson
Poul Anderson was born on this day in 1926. Anderson’s career spanned over sixty years, from the 1940s to the early 2000s. He wrote fiction and non-fiction. He published in many genres: fantasy,...
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Celebrating Frederik Pohl’s 100th Birthday with Five Overlooked Classics
Today would have been Frederik Pohl’s one-hundredth birthday. Pohl played many key roles in science fiction: big-name fan, editor, agent, and of course, author. Among his works are several frequently...
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Hal Clement at 100: Five Favorites From a Master of SF
Harry Clement Stubbs was born May 30, 1922, a century ago, more or less (or exactly, if you’re reading this on May 30th). Readers of a certain age know him as the science fiction author Hal Clement....
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