Short Film: "Refuge" by Mohammad Gorjestani and starring Nikohl Boosheri

“A brewing war with Iran, xenophobic sentiments towards immigrants, an exploitative tech industry—these things seemed farfetched in 2014, but time has made this thoughtful sci-fi short film seem prophetic. We revisit REFUGE on https://t.co/YlCPZggs8h today.” pic.twitter.com/Sa5gBvztQ8

— Kadena Source 💔 (@KadenaSource) May 15, 2019

The movie Refuge, directed by Mohammad Gorjestani (Twitter & IMDB) and starring Nikohl Boosheri, was the featured short film on May 14, 2019 at shortfilmoftheweek.com.

Islamicates Volume I: Anthology of Science Fiction Short Stories Inspired from Muslim Cultures

Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad has completed editing of a collection of science fiction short stories. It can be downloaded for free in various formats at the Islam and Science Fiction blog.

Free (English) eBooks from Yatakhayyaloon - Arabic Language Science Fiction - Nov 15 & 16 Only

To get our free eBooks go to your local Amazon site and search for Yatakhayaloon. They are free all day 15th & 16th. @SindbadSciFi
— يتخيلون (@yatakhayaloon) November 15, 2014

Quotes from Dune by Frank Herbert

United States National Public Radio's Science Friday Book Club in 2014 read Dune by Frank Herbert.

Readers were asked to record their favorite quotes and submit it to the show. The whole series is incredible. Here are a few quotes I recorded. You can listen to the ones NPR selected from all listeners.

The text is available on line at archive.org. But buy the book. Also, check out the Calvin and Mu'addib Tumblr.

Prescience

The prescience, he realized, was an illumination that incorporated the limits of what it revealed — at once a source of accuracy and meaningful error. A kind of Heisenberg indeterminacy intervened: the expenditure of energy that revealed what he saw, changed what he saw. And what he saw was a time nexus within this cave, a boiling of possibilities focused here, wherein the most minute action — the wink of an eye, a careless word, a misplaced grain of sand — moved a gigantic lever across the known universe. He saw violence with the outcome subject to so many variables that his slightest movement created vast shiftings in the pattern. The vision made him want to freeze into immobility, but this, too, was action with its consequences . The countless consequences — lines fanned out from this cave, and along most of these consequence-lines he saw his own dead body with blood flowing from a gaping knife wound.

 Kynes's Father on the Masses and the Leavings

"Arrakis is a one-crop planet," his father said. "One crop. It supports a ruling class that lives as ruling classes have lived in all times while, beneath them, a semihuman mass of semislaves exists on the leavings. It's the masses and the leavings that occupy our attention. These are far more valuable than has ever been suspected."

Keynes's Last Thought

Then, as his planet killed him, it occurred to Kynes that his father and all the other scientists were wrong, that the most persistent principles of the universe were accident and error . Even the hawks could appreciate these facts.

SciFi Writing from Tunisia & UAE

Tunisian Hedi Thabet and Science Fiction Writing: An Article Written by Kamel Riahi and Translated by Ali Znaidi

Why Arab Readers Need Sci Fi: 5 Questions with SF Author Noura Noman

Irtiqa: A Science and Religion Blog

It's appropriate with the goals of this blog to point out new media which are important for North American Muslims. Hampshire College Professor Salman Hameed writes Irtiqa: A Science and Religion Blog.

Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson

The New York Times reviewed Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson (Twitter). I have not read the book.

Fantasy Academy in Iran

Fantasy Academy is an Iranian science fiction and fantasy club devoted to promoting SF/F.  Read more at The World SF blog.

Matt Ruff's The Mirage Sounds Like a Good Read

If you amalgamated the methodical, punctilious, world-building skills of Ian McDonald (“The Dervish House”) with the reality-distortion powers of Philip K. Dick (“The Man in the High Castle”) and then folded in the satirical, take-no-prisoners savagery of Norman Spinrad (“The Iron Dream”), you might very well be able to produce a book approximating Matt Ruff’s “The Mirage” — God willing, as Ruff’s characters are continually cautioning.

Read more ...

Sophia Al-Maria (Sci-Fi Wahabi)

Profile appeared at the Islam and Science Fiction blog.

Islam and Science Fiction Blog

Readers of this blog may be interested in the Islam and Science Fiction Blog. It has published interviews with authors, and the site has links to the works of Muslim science fiction authors.

Review: Shadow Speaker

Read the review of Shadow Speaker at Muslima Media Watch. I have not read the book.