As for "Abiogenesis", it is a short story I found in youtube when I was watching a sci-fi movie trailer. This short animated clip plays the scenes of some mechanical insects that landed on a planet where they slurp in greenish substance to their body for a purpose they want to achieve. 

Science fiction is really just about making logical assumption and imagination using the combination or reality and scientific theories. The two sources below pictured a clear image of some good sci-fi imaginations. When trying to imagine things in a sci-fi world, a person shouldn't restrict oneself to a certain border. The more alienated the imaginations are, the better they would be as sci-fi readers would want to find out something new and interesting in the stories they read or the movies they watch. (E.g. mechanical animals in reality are weird, but in the sci-fi world, they are so well-known that author now often used them when making a sci-fi stories/movies.) A good sci-fi movie example is Star Trek (my most favorite sci-fi movie).

Star Trek is a movie set in the future. Most scenes in the movie mostly played in the space and the USS enterprise spaceship. Star trek has so many extra ordinary sci-fi imaginations. From the beginning to end, the movie was accompanied with a lot of advance technological features and future imaginations. 

There was a time when we could see the stars.

There was a time when the sky was more than just an expanse of lonely darkness. There was a time when our star was more than just an unlit circle in a blackened night.

When our ancestors colonized this world, it was gleaming in the radiance of our star, as light as any other untouched planet. It was originally the abundance of precious ores and metals that welcomed our ancestors to this planet, unaware and unafraid of the consequences. Now they are aware of the consequences, now they fear them, they have given this planet a fitting name: Pandora.

After centuries of human inhabitation, much has changed. The ores and metals have gone, the pollution is absolute. We are left in perfect darkness, unable to see our own faces. Scientists have harnessed a mixture of albino genes and ocular implants to allow us to see a vague outline of reality, but apart from that, our minds have to imagine the rest.

Once, a long time ago, the government tried to control the population from outgrowing the food supplies with brutal one-child policies and systematic culling of the decrepit, but now it is not necessary. Now there are more natural controllers. Depression is ubiquitous, statistically shown from the suicide rates. Criminality is rampant, the heart and soul of our society; not through lack of morals, but through necessity. As such, the murder rates are uncontrollably higher than other worlds.

The star that once lit up our world so boldly is fading, and its light can no longer penetrate the fog. Our dying star cannot light up our dying world.

-Extract of The Shadow Planet: A History of Pandora

It is a curse, to be touched by the gods. To see as a god sees, to know as a god knows. This sight, this knowledge, tore him apart. The cybernetic man sat silently with his child on his lap. The scientists, the gods, who had changed him had saved his life, replacing the weak organic, the sick, the living, with the incorruptible steel. He was more robot than flesh now. But it was his enhanced eyes that terrified him the most; he had been granted sight in a blind world, and was now no different from the gods that had made him. Only he, the man touched by the gods, could see. Only he could see his mutilated self. Others could rely on the mundane senses; they could smell the bread in the bakery, trace the outline of their lovers’ face, hear the laughter in another’s voice, and taste the food that they lived off. But he, wounded as he is, has to rely on sight. It was a torture beyond imagination, beyond any other. It was a torture he could not even cry about. The gods had even taken tears away, deeming them useless. They were, of course, aware of the emotional aspects of this; they just did not care. Sometimes he would sit and watch, and try to weep, and wish that the formlessness would come back to him. Like the namesake of the planet, his curiosity for sight had destroyed him.

The cyborg’s daughter looked up at her father’s outline. She cannot see her father’s mutilations, and she never will. Similarly, she cannot see her own face, will never know her lover's eyes, will never have her child’s features ingrained in her heart, as her features are in her father’s. To her, everything is formless, and shall forever remain so. Unlike her father, she has to rely on the outline of a face and the laughter in another’s voice. How she longs, just for a moment, for the fog to lift and for an image to solidify. She yearns for the gift of eyesight that belongs to her father, if only for a moment, so that she could see the world.

Far away, the cyborg sees a family having a picnic. To him, the scene is clear; two blind parents sit with two blind boys, laughing with such the joy that only blindness can bring. To his daughter, the scene is different. Without sight, all merges into one; she hears the laughter, smells the food, but to her they are neither near nor far. They could be right next to her or a thousand miles away. After all, who can judge a distance without sight to aid them? The only thing she felt for certain was the mechanical murmur and electrical heat of her father's chest, just as he feels her organic one.

In a pitch-black dormitory at the bottom of a mine, a father and a daughter sit, a cyborg and his child. In a momentary silence, they each contemplate the nature of the darkness, and unknown to each other, each one wishes for the others’ life.

ABIOGENESIS

Philip Athans is an American editor and author who had written mostly Fantasy Books. Annihilation, Realms of The Elves, Realms of War and The Water Course Trilogy are some of his popular books. 

Philip Athans: Your own rules you must follow, young Skywalker!

In terms of the SF and fantasy genres in particular, consistently applied internal logic is absolutely essential. Genre readers want to believe, and your readers are happy to suspend their disbelief while your characters travel through hyperspace or battle the twenty-headed liger, but where they’ll start to turn on you and begin to complain that your SF and fantasy is “unrealistic” is when your characters spend three days in hyperspace to travel eight light-years in chapter one then get home again in fifteen minutes in chapter nine. You’ve established that the trip takes three days, how can they suddenly go faster and why didn’t they do that before? Now our entirely created FTL drive is “totally unrealistic.”

And beyond the SF, fantasy, or horror genres, I continue to advise authors of ANY genre to spend real effort learning the CRAFT of writing. I’ve seen some manuscripts come across my desk that have interesting characters, unique settings, and creative original ideas, but the author obviously has no idea how to punctuate a sentence, the manuscript is riddled with run-on sentences and/or sentence fragments, and spelling and style rules are out the window. And honestly, there are very few (read: NO) editors and agents willing to wade through a sea of errors to discover the heart of your story. Read newer published books with an eye toward where the commas go, where the quotation marks come in and out, or better yet, find a good English class either at your current school or at your local college’s continuing education program. A lot of the rules of English grammar and usage are “made to be broken” but there’s a big difference between intentionally bending or even breaking a rule, and just not knowing the rule in the first place.

WD: If given the power to greenlight a summer blockbuster, what unrepresented or “unknown” (to the mainstream, at least) science fiction or fantasy book or series would you love to see on the big screen?

PA: In honor of the great Frederik Pohl, who just recently passed away, I’d love to see a $200 million dollar version of his classic novel Gateway, but that’s hardly “unknown.” In general I think that in the same way that special effects have finally caught up to the vision of the comic book writers and artists, there’s now a huge backlist of classic SF and fantasy novels just begging to be filmed. I could probably rattle off a hundred off the top of my head. But as for the more obscure or older titles, I’d love to see a TV series that mines the classic Ace SF Doubles for Twilight Zone-style episodes. Tonight’s episode… “Gunner Cade”!

Get goin’ Hollywood!

WD: Which speculative theme do you feel is the most played out at this point: zombies, vampires, or superheroes? Or do you think these still have a leg to stand on?

PA: To some degree, every trope is equally played out or fresh. I’ve been saying for almost twenty years that we need a ten-year moratorium on vampires, but then there’s 30 Days of Night and Let Me In, and I think, okay, THOSE were fantastic, but the rest are … whatever. Zombies had lost it for me, too, until The Walking Dead hit AMC. I’m starting to see an awful glut of minimally-creative post-apocalypse stories now, but again, it’s not the fault of the genre or the sub-genre but the author. If all you’re doing is assembling Teen Vampires vs. Zombie Apocalypse in a ‘one from column A, one from column B’ sort of way, then you’re going to end up with a lifeless blob of text. But if you have something original to say and use those archetypes in a fresh, creative way, nothing is ever entirely out of style or off limits.

WD: Who is the greatest science fiction or fantasy villain who has yet to become a household name in mainstream pop culture? Do you think this dog will have its day?

PA: The bigger mainstream audience has yet to be really effectively introduced to the drow of the Forgotten Realms world. With Hasbro now a force in the movie business post-Transformers, there’s more reason to hope for a Drizzt movie now more than ever, and I think that’ll be what it takes to make the drow, and in particular characters like Matron Baenre and Malice Do’Urden, into pop culture icons beyond the Salvatore/Forgotten Realms/D&D fan communities. These are smart, sexy, powerful, and Evil (with a capital E) women that, if portrayed correctly, will knock people’s socks off.

WD: What is the first book you read that made you think, “I have got to write something like this someday!”

PA: I had this great illustrated SF anthology when I was a kid and in it was a short story by Harlan Ellison called “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream” that literally made my head spin. That single short story took me from a kid who loved space opera entertainment and wrote and drew his own comic books to someone absolutely obsessed with the full spectrum of the genre. Harlan Ellison didn’t just raise the bar for writers of speculative fiction, he stole the bar, used it to beat people up, then jammed it into the genre sideways to permanently prop it open.

WD: Are there any new books or authors in science fiction or fantasy (or both!) have you excited? What are you reading right now?

PA: I’m always reading multiple books, jumping back and forth from five or six, and one of them tends to be some classic, golden age SF novel like Edgar Rice Burroughs’s John Carter of Mars, which I’m reading, and loving all over again right now. On the other end of the spectrum, I think Paolo Bacigalupi might save science fiction. If you haven’t read The Windup Girl, consider this an assignment. On the fantasy side, I’m eagerly awaiting the third book in J.M. McDermott’s Dogsland Trilogy and I will read anything by Catherynne M. Valente.

WD: Any new projects of your own around the corner?

Do you enjoy writing science fiction story, or perhaps reading sic-fi books? Because I, myself is a fan of sci-fi writings. One of my favorite sci-fi book is The Maze Runner, and I am sure that if you are a sci-fi fans, you have heard of this book. The Maze Runner - followed by "The Scorch Trials" - is a trilogy written by James Dashner. The movie had came out a two months ago in the cinema on September 19. In this post, I will be reviewing the The Maze Runner book. 














Be careful for spoilers. 

I read 'The Maze Runner' book two years ago when I was in my early senior high year. This is one of the books that I enjoyed reading. The Maze Runner is under the genre of "sci-fi", dystopia and young-adults fiction. The story tells about the life in a world where diseases had come to kill many people on earth and some of the people who survives were put into trial by a department called WICKED. The trials basically involve the survivals to be put in a big maze where they have to find ways to survive and answers regarding the maze. 

The book began with a male teenager named Thomas who lost his memories and found himself in a big box that brought him to a place called  'The Glade' located in the middle of a giant maze populated by young male teenagers. Thomas met new friend there, including Alby - the first person who lived there, Newt - the person in command after Alby, Minho - a runner, 12 years old Chuck - the youngest boy who lived there, Gally - a Glader who didn't trust Thomas, etc. Everyone in the glade has a role/work. The roles there range from being a runner to a cook. (Runners are basically people who explore around the maze.)

As the day continued, Thomas learnt about the Maze and how things work there. The box will come once a month to deliver new kid and once a week to bring the Glader supplies such as clothes and foods. In the next morning, Thomas also learnt about the "Grievers
" - how their stings would sometimes help in bringing back memories during the process of the "Changing". So, everything was fine and great, until the next afternoon (after Thomas came) when the box came up, delivering another newbie. A girl. 

Everyone was confused the moment the girl arrived. In that moment, she as well called "Thomas" although Thomas didn't remember anything about her at all (after his memories are erased.)

It was since Teresa (the girl) came that everything changed. Teresa had been saying that she knew Thomas and that They were the one who did all this, did all the cruel things to the Gladers, that they were once part of WICKED.   

As days passed by, Thomas was able to achieved his goal in becoming a runner. This happened after the case when Alby and Minho are left outside in the maze for the whole night with Thomas - who actually violated the Glade's rules. During the days when Thomas run, he was able to learn lots of things about the maze. One day, Minho and him as well found a way into a Griever's hole after seeing some dead griever going not hat direction and never coming back. 

On the other side, days after Teresa came, the box stopped sending supplies. The maze's wall stopped closing and one night, grievers were all over the Glade - the night when Alby got stung. It was also around these days when Thomas found out about his telepathy skills/power that allowed him to talk to Teresa in his mind. 

As Alby went through the "changing", he had been developing a bit of hatred for Thomas through the some bit of memories that he could have back. By this, the next night when the griever are back to the Maze, Thomas purposely stung himself to one of the griever so that he could as well have some of his memories back. 

During the Changing, Thomas was able to grab some of his lost memories back although, still not much were there in his mind. Using his memories and Minho's findings from what he did everyday (exploring around the maze), Minho, Newt and Thomas led half of the gladers out of the Glade while half - who is in Gally's side, stayed in the Glade. Thomas believed that their exits lied on the Griever's hole. 

Along the journey, some of the gladers didn't survive when fighting with the griever and less than half made it throughout the deadly beginning. As the gladers went deeper into the Griever's hole, they finally found a machine that allowed them to input a code into a screen, which turns out to be useless as they could just press on a button that allows them to stop the maze (if I am not mistaken). 

After pressing the button, the griever's hole opened them an exit that leads to a quite large room filled with people. As the gladers stood silently, a woman and a man then walked towards them, which later the gladers found out to be Gally. Under the control of the creators (as what Gally said), Gally aimed to shoot Thomas but Chuck was the one hit instead as he moved in front of Thomas, protecting him from the deadly bullet. 

Soon after Chuck's death, a group of rescuers came to bring the Gladers to another place where the world seemed to be more colorful. There, everything seemed fine almost perfect. 




The Maze Runner is a book I read two years ago. I would recommend this book to people who loved Science-fiction, dystopia and mystery. Along the story, tension are in most part of the plots and the story made you wonder a lot about the ending. When reading the book, it took me quite long to finish the first half of it as the book's opening and introductions are not that catchy to me (perhaps because the introduction is too long and not much actions took place). 

My favorite characters in the story are Minho and Newt. I find Minho really cool since the first time he was introduced. Among all the many reasons I liked Minho, the most distinct one would be his straightforward nature and the aloof (but in a friendly way) behavior he possessed, which impressed me the most. Personally, I really don't like Thomas the first time he was introduced because he reminds a bit of a "whiner".

Overall, The Maze Runner is a great book to read. There are lots of scientific imaginations that will draw your interest further to the science-fiction world. Elements of sci-fi are also used well throughout the story. This was probably the book that draws me first to the science fiction world before The Hunger Games series. I like how the author includes lots of imaginative ideas esp. about the maze and grievers. 






Below is a map of the Glade. 

These are words discovered by Minho and Thomas after seeing the patterning changes that the Maze walls made. 

Written as follows are Clarke's Three Laws:

Dissociation can be classified to many more specific categories. It could be technological, fantastical, mystical, horrific, etc. Technological include spaceship, nano-techs, robots, etc. Fantastical would be like dragons, magic, supernatural power, etc. As for mystical, relating to believe and some mystery, Airbender, demons, etc are some good examples from them. Lastly, dragons, flying horse and gryphons are part of the fantastical elements. 

The door opened to reveal a giant, circular room. Floors black, walls black. In the center there was a pulsing light that illuminated the tiles of the floor. He stepped inside the threshold.

"Chris Arlen." He calmly directed his voice at the floor.

The tiles on the floor flickered until their glow was consistent and growing. In front of him the three-dimensional image of a young man materialized. He was all there, digitally.

As he stared at the hologram of Chris, slowly turning with animated chest movements, he saw that the re-creation hadn’t missed a thing. His brown hair slightly too long for his face, the sneakers he should have thrown out, the hole in his neck below the ear that put him here.

He paused a moment, looking at that hole, and suddenly felt the weight of the gun in his holster. Guilt and shame rushed from his finger tips to his temples. It smoldered there. “I’m done in here,” he shouted to the attendant outside the room.

"You have another thirty minutes before this reflection period is over, officer," a synthesized voice returned.