That's what made money for the big pulp-comics companies: superhero stuff, mostly, but sometimes horror or romance or science fiction or crime comics, each of which has its own familiar codes and formulas.
Set a billion years into the future, the Numenera mythology is not your typical fantasy or science fiction setting, though Cook says the blend of magic and machinery should be familiar to readers of far-future fantasy such as one might encounter reading Gene Wolfe.
Today we turn to the cosmic awe conjured by science fiction, or the outer-space snapshots of the Hubble telescope as it calls forth our ever-deeper, ever-brighter possible selves.
Metamaterials are proving to be quite useful for toying with the electromagnetic spectrum, whether for technology previously thought to be the stuff of science fiction, or for boring real-world applications.
If there is, it's unlikely to look like ET, canal-building aliens, or any other science fiction-type fantasy.
When we hear the word Vortex, we're inclined to think of dodgy eighties nightclubs, or even dodgier science fiction from the same decade.
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To many of us, the Druids sound as if they have walked straight out of a science fiction novel, or perhaps even suggest something sinister akin to a strange cult or weird religious sect.
Soon they could well be joined by lots of other sites devoted to enthusiasts that currently do not sell books but which might offer them as one of a range of products for people interested in science fiction, gardening or whatever.
Or a diehard science fiction movie lover?
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Indeed, it has far more in common with conceptual art or alternate-reality science fiction than with sketch comedy.
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Of course, if we do ever find imaginative and scientific aliens, it'll be interesting to know if they write, or ever wrote, science fiction.
The problem could be that while Internet types are trying to think a year or two into the future, science fiction writers are way beyond that, worrying about the future of the universe rather than the future of stock options.
We can rekindle our foolishness by witnessing the imagination of a young girl, or improve our copywriting skills by reading outlandish science fiction.
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But it isn't likely that science fiction authors are going to envision future scientific breakthroughs or future technology accurately.
If some of this sounds like science fiction, so did manned lunar vehicles in 1950, or self-driving cars in 2000.
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Do you see your science fiction work as the most important of your career, or rather your work in the theater?
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Mr Mawer has fused pure story-telling with complex genetic theory to produce a fable that is accurate and readable a mature marriage of science and fiction in which scientists are no longer Frankensteins, Strangeloves or nerds.
Will it be able to compete with other science fiction third-person shooters like Dead Space and Mass Effect or the upcoming Star Wars: 1313?
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And if it does, scanning our eyes or speaking to ATMs may move out of the realm of science fiction and into our daily lives.
And when Stephen Hawking announced that micro black holes must exist, science fiction writers enthusiastically wrote stories using them as garbage disposal energy generators, or perfect murder weapons.
Not surprisingly, his thinking has been welcomed in film design and science fiction, where the laws of physics and finance can be overcome with CGI or words on a page.
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Dakan had brought in his grad school buddy, a classics scholar named Jack Emmert, to build a game featuring the science fiction of comic-book superheroes-without paying license fees for established characters like Batman or Spider-Man.
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