Hello. Welcome to the new home of Futures Past and Present. I’m glad you’re here, whether you’ve followed me over from the old site or have found me since the move.

This is my science fiction blog. I started reading science fiction long before I began reading fantasy. Adventures Fantastic was started as a reaction to Leo Grin shutting down The Cimmerian. I couldn’t find a blog that dealt with the topics covered there. While I hold no illusions that my scribblings have ever reached the level of the content found there, I wanted to deal with many of those same topics.

The result was that I didn’t read as much science fiction, although I still read some. Reviewing science fiction at Adventures Fantastic was somewhat problematic, since it was outside the scope of the blog. While you can argue science fiction is a subset of fantasy, in the minds of many people, they are two distinct (albeit related) forms of literature. Since I want the people who follow my blog to know what they’re getting, I decided to spin off a science fiction blog, and Futures Past and Present was born.

In other words, I wanted to establish distinct brands, one for fantasy and historic adventure and one for science fiction. I’ve expanded that with the addition of the two new blogs, Gumshoes, Gats, and Gams for detective fiction and Dispatches from the Lone Star Front for Texas and Southwest history.

For this blog, I’m going to focus on several areas of the science fiction field. Those are classic works from previous eras, space opera, hard science, and short fiction of all varieties. At least as far as reviews are concerned. I’ll stray into other subgenres of the field, especially if a publisher sends me a review copy that looks interesting. There will also be the occasional rant commentary, news item, obituary, or tribute.

One of the things I’ve got planned is to read through all the Heinlein juveniles in order of publication. I read most of them in middle school or high school, but not all of them. It’ll be interesting to view them through the eyes of a middle aged adult rather than a teenager. I’ll try to cover one every month or every other month.

Another project is to do a reread (mostly) of Asimov’s Great SF series that was published in the 80s.  I’ve not read the last couple of volumes, but I’d like to take another look at them.  There are a number of gems contained within their pages.  They’ve been out of print for a while, but they’re worth remembering.