Isaac Asimov

July 18, 2008 The mobile trash compactor is a symphony of squeaks, thunks and rattles, rolling forward on treads to bring its pivoting eyes to bear on us. Within moments we identify completely, launching "Wall-E," one of the rare films to feature robots...

Arthur C. Clarke, who peered into the heavens with a homemade telescope as a boy and grew up to become a visionary titan of science-fiction writing and collaborated with director Stanley Kubrick on the landmark film "2001: A Space Odyssey," has died. He...

Arthur C. Clarke, who peered into the heavens with a homemade telescope as a boy and grew up to become a visionary titan of science-fiction writing and collaborated with director Stanley Kubrick on the landmark film "2001: A Space Odyssey," has died. He...

Jon Burstein watches anything on television and spends too much time looking for stupid viral videos, according to his wife. He enjoys watching " Frontline", "The Office", "Cheaters" and those half-hour Time-Life music collection advertisements. He has...

Junot Díaz's "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" seems poised to be the hottest debut novel of the year. Arriving after 11 years of expectation following Díaz's celebrated story collection "Drown," the novel's narrative voice evokes both the polyglot...

He is an accountant by training, a science administrator by vocation and a scientist by passion. And now, in this latest tier of his professional evolution, Ben Parris has become a science-fiction novelist by download. "Wade of Aquitaine," the...

Believe it or not, some of the best and most thought-provoking contemporary writing can be found in the science fiction/fantasy section of your local bookstores. Here are books and collections to get you started. J.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings...

Although George Takei is an actor, he really does have a connection with outer space. The "Star Trek" and "Heroes" actor has had an asteroid named in his honor, report news sources. The asteroid, situated between Mars and Jupiter, was previously named...

Of This Fair Proportion by Dr. Dennis Nigro MD, FACS, FICS Beholding beauty with the eye of the mind he will be enabled to bring forth, not images of beauty, but realities (for he has hold not of an image but of a reality), and bringing forth and...

I have a bad habit of annoying Christians. Partly it's because I don't believe in Jesus, and partly it's because Jesus keeps letting me write columns about how I don't believe in Jesus. Last March, after some campaigning, I got Starbucks to put a quote...

THE science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein was born in Missouri, and his fiction was mostly set in the future and on distant planets. But there's no question that Heinlein — born 100 years ago this week — was one of Southern California's...

Screenwriters Michael Arndt ("Little Miss Sunshine"), Guillermo del Toro ("Pan's Labyrinth"), Peter Morgan ("The Queen") and Iris Yamashita ("Letters From Iwo Jima") were splayed across a lounge at the Writers Guild headquarters in Beverly Hills. They had...