By Alyssa Williamson, Social Media Co-Coordinator ~
At the very beginning of the semester, our staff discovered that many of us had a shared love for science fiction and fantasy. One of our first assignments in the class was to pick an online literary magazine and review it for the class. Many of us chose science fiction literary mags, and we even kicked off KLIO’s newest genre, in which students can submit specifically science fiction and fantasy work.
Some of the literary magazines the class reviewed had new and interesting works of science fiction and nuanced graphic designs that were surprising and unique. For example, I myself reviewed an online literary magazine called “Visions.” The website on which this literary magazine is run is beyond what we have ever seen before in terms of graphics and interactive aspects that it contains for its readers. Visions is a literary science fiction magazine that combines essays and short stories from a wide range of authors, from newbies to published, more well-known authors. Their mission statement outlines their goal is to blend the works of “designers and researchers of the past and present” in order to create an issue that “paints a provocative landscape of the future that anyone can enjoy and reflect on.” Some of the most interesting graphics contained on their website are sliders, which take you through the works in each issue, including a real book you can flip the pages on, graphics that move with you as you navigate the website and so much more.
The online magazine even features a unique story that has been published for the very first time in English within the first two issues of “Visions.” “Quinzinzinzany” is a novel originally written by Regis Messac in 1935 following a group of children through the second world war, their hypothetical survival and their lives afterwards.
Courtesy of Visions
Another notable science fiction literary magazine that was reviewed in class by Dana Lynch, our 2022 KLIO webmaster, was “Daily Sience Fiction. ” This magazine’s mission statement is to publish original science fiction and fantasy every weekday. They publish a plethora of short stories with a wide range of topics, which are also available in monthly digests on Kindle. A really interesting element which stuck out to me about this literary magazine in particular is the search engine, called Transporter, in which you can ask to be taken to a random story of the site’s choosing.
Courtesy of Daily Science Fiction
Our music editor, Maggie Dickinson-Sherry, also reviewed a unique online science fiction literary magazine called “Utopia.” This magazine features science fiction short stories, science articles and poetry. The staff of Utopia highlights that they look for work that is character rich, with diverse settings, based in explained science and engaging plots to publish in their issues. The home page of this site features their most recent issue, and highlights a piece called “The Princess of the People, Told by Starlight” by L.P. Melling. The piece is a compelling story in which a woman on her deathbed listens to her fifteen-year old son as he tells her one final story.
Courtesy of Utopia
More recently, I asked Penn State students about their favorite books, movies, TV shows and characters in the science fiction world. I received an interesting range of responses.
Movie
Courtesy of Film Art Gallery
“Star Wars,” specifically “The Empire Strikes Back” is a super popular film amongst Penn State students. The 5th episode (released second) following “A New Hope,” centers around beloved characters such as Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia, C3PO, R2D2 and most importantly (in my opinion) Chewbacca, as they face an attack from the Imperial Forces. After escaping the attack, Luke travels with R2D2 in search of Yoda (a Master Jedi), while Han Solo, Princess Leia, Chewbacca, and C3PO escape on the Millenium Falcon. Later, Han Solo and the rest of the gang are caught by Darth Vader and interrogated for information. Luke receives Jedi training from Master Yoda and is able to subdue Darth Vader long enough to help his friends escape. Unfortunately, Luke was not able to stop Vader from freezing Solo in Carbonite, which is what we see the gang try to figure out in the following episode.
Courtesy of The Fandomentals
One student emphasized Han Solo as their favorite character in the “Star Wars” saga. This individual found his character arc to be the most fascinating throughout the entire series and also loved the storyline between Han Solo and Princess Leia. I have to agree with the latter sentiment. One of the main reasons I loved “Star Wars” growing up was the anticipation of what might happen between them, furthermore translating into the relationship between Ben Solo and Rey Palpatine in the later adaptations.
Book
The Lunar Chronicles
Courtesy of Amazon
“The Lunar Chronicles” is a set of five young adult novels in which the author reimagines fairy tales in a futuristic setting with humans, androids, and cyborgs. The first book in the “Chronicles” titled, “Cinder,” which is loosely based on the “Cinderella” story. The book follows a young cyborg (half human/half android) girl named Cinder with an evil stepmother, who falls in love with a prince and hides her cyborg identity from him. The second book titled, “Scarlet,” follows a young girl living on her grandmother’s farm, whose adventure begins when she realizes her grandmother has gone missing. This second addition to the Chronicles is loosely based on “Little Red Riding Hood.” The third book in the Chronicles is titled, “Cress,” which is loosely based on the Evil Queen in Snow White. Then lastly there are, “Winter and Fairest,” the fourth and fifth books which are also loosely based on “Snow White.”
TV Show
Loki
Courtesy of Digital Spy
Lastly, multiple students named “Loki” as their favorite science fiction TV show. The 2021 Marvel Studios TV series “Loki” is a spin off following the Marvel “Avengers: Endgame” movie released in 2019. The TV show is centered around the character “Loki,” who is the brother of “Thor: The God of Thunder.” The First season of the TV show debuts The Time Variance Authority, an organization in which monitors and regulates all timelines and realities within the universe. They act as judge, jury, and executioner when it comes to disturbances in the timeline. In this case, Loki has just escaped the grip of the Avengers but is led to an untimely demise when he is caught by the TVA (Time Variance Authority). Instead of erasing Loki from the timeline, due to his own disturbances and chaos he caused, they enlist his help in finding an alternative version of himself who is causing much more trouble within the timelines. When he discovers who this person is, it leads him on an unexpected adventure and we see sides of the character, Loki, that have not been so obvious to us before.
What are your favorite examples of science fiction in media? Let us know in the comments!
Alyssa is a sophomore psychology major and is also doubling with the accelerated nursing program. Her interests/hobbies are social media, drinking coffee, reading, writing, online shopping, and going to the gym. She is one of our social media coordinators and is also on the science fiction committee. She has always had a passion for English literature and writing, working on the KLIO staff has been such an amazing experience for her.