No god in the machine: the pitfalls of AI worship – podcast
The rise of artificial intelligence has sparked a panic about computers gaining power over humankind. But the real threat comes from falling for the hype. By Navneet Alang
August 2024
The long read
No god in the machine: the pitfalls of AI worship
The long read: The rise of artificial intelligence has sparked a panic about computers gaining power over humankind. But the real threat comes from falling for the hype
July 2021
Brief letters
New words for those stuck in a viral spiral
Brief letters: Handwashing | Old OS maps | Tory sausages | Sci-fi prequel | Covid neologisms
June 2020
Top 10s
Top 10 books about remaking the future
The urgent need to reorganise life on Earth is clear to almost everyone, how we do it less so. Fortunately science fiction has drawn up some good plans
May 2020
NK Jemisin: 'It’s easier to get a book set in black Africa published if you're white'
The three-time Hugo award winner is one of the biggest names in modern scifi. She talks about overcoming racism to rewrite the future
January 2020
Inside the odyssey: taking a closer look at Stanley Kubrick's 2001
At an expansive new exhibition in New York, the director’s defining science fiction opus is explored in detail with help from those who made it with him
July 2018
Arthur C Clarke award goes to 'classic' novel exploring the limits of pregnancy
Anne Charnock’s novel Dreams Before the Start of Time, which focuses on changing reproductive science, hailed as ‘rich but unshowy’ by judges
June 2018
Brief letters
When the Kop worshipped a saint
Brief letters: Arthur C Clarke | Vegan tropes | Hadrian’s Wall | Honoured Liverpool FC players | Morris Minors
May 2018
From the Guardian archive
2001: A Space Odyssey review: 'an interstellar shaggy dog story' - archive, 1968
3 May 1968 While beautiful to look at, a Guardian reviewer finds Stanley Kubrick’s film little more than a series of gorgeous images
April 2018
Kubrick’s 2001: the film that haunts our dreams of space
50 years of 2001: A Space Odyssey – how Kubrick's sci-fi 'changed the very form of cinema'
March 2018
Brief letters
‘Britain has become a sordid, cruel and lawless country’
Brief letters: Deportation flights | Belfast weather | 2001’s HAL computer | Elephant mnemonic | A village Waitrose
December 2017
Arthur C Clarke at 100: still the king of science fiction
2001: A Space Odyssey, Childhood’s End, Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious World … one hundred years after his birth, the British writer is the undisputed master
July 2017
Colson Whitehead adds Arthur C Clarke award to growing prize haul
The Underground Railroad, a fantastic reimagining of US slavery, takes the UK’s pre-eminent science fiction prize a day after being longlisted for the Man Booker
July 2016
Damien Walter's weird things
Big Dumb Objects: science fiction's most mysterious MacGuffins
From 2001 to the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, these awesome structures loom large over the genre, loaded with inscrutable significance
April 2016
Science fiction’s future: where next for the Arthur C Clarke award?
Tom Hunter
As the prize celebrates its 30th anniversary, its director looks forward to fresh challenges and opportunities in an ever-changing genre
February 2016
Children's books
Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C Clarke – review
BookieCookie: ‘Something I enjoyed very much about this book is that it is one of few in which you are as clueless as the characters in the story, as you never know what the author’s imagination will come up with next!’
December 2015
Children's books
Niel Bushnell: 'you only live one life if you don't read'
Author and animator Niel Bushnell talks to site members Charlotte and Eva from the Millennium Riot reading group about being a writer, the power of reading, and Benedict Cumberbatch as a bad guy
November 2015
Damien Walter's weird things
The awesome power of science fiction's alien megastructures
The imaginary constructions of science fiction fill us with awe at their alien vastness. Which have you explored, and what was the most overwhelming?
September 2015
Film blog
The Martian and Nasa – a coincidence too good to be true?
The announcement that water has been found on the Red Planet just happens to have emerged at the same time as the Matt Damon film, with Nasa branding all over it, is released. Spooky, or what?
