Tony Travis

All Summer in a Day by Ray Bradbury is a short but powerful piece of science fiction about childhood, jealousy, cruelty, and regret. Like much of Bradbury's best work, the science fiction setting is important, but the story is ultimately about human nature. The story takes place on Venus, where it rains constantly and the sun appears for only a brief time every seven years. We obviously know today that Venus is nothing like this, but at the time the story was written, much about the planet...

Bloodchild by Octavia E. Butler is a most thought provoking piece of science fiction. It is also, in many important ways, kind of gross. It challenges expectations from the very first page, forcing the reader to question ideas about family, power, sacrifice, and survival. What initially appears to be a tale of alien domination gradually reveals itself to be something far more complex. What impressed me most was Butler's ability to make the truly alien feel believable. The Tlic are not simply...

Isaac Asimov's The Weapon Too Dreadful to Use is a short story that demonstrates one of his greatest strengths as a writer: the ability to build an engaging science fiction tale around a single compelling idea. The story feels remarkably forward looking. Asimov was exploring how technological superiority can be used to justify oppression. The plot centers on the discovery of a weapon so devastating that its very existence changes the balance of power. As with much of Asimov's fiction, the...