Islam and Science Fiction

A Website on Islam, Muslims and Science Fiction

Archives for the ‘English SF’ Category

Stephen Baxtor’s Navigator

By admin • Dec 26th, 2008 • Category: Alternative History, English SF, Islam in SF Literature

Here is the book description from Amazon.
As William the Conqueror’s men attempt to stamp out the flames of rebellion, a prophecy is uttered. A bedraggled woman in a ruined chapel speaks of civilizations in conflict, armed by the engines of God…
And that prophecy proves to be true as the fearsome war between Christianity and Islam [...]



Short Stories

By admin • Sep 17th, 2008 • Category: English SF, Islam in SF Literature

Short stories by Bruce Sterling
Green Days in Brunei - from the Crystal Express collection and Dinner in Audoghast - from the Crystal Express collection, Islands in the Net - the freedom fighters definitely draw from Bedouin culture. Thanks to Michael H. for the references]
Other Short Stories
Gwyneth Jones’s Bold As Love (Arthur C Clarke Award winner), [...]



Blemmey’s Stratagem

By admin • Sep 17th, 2008 • Category: English SF, Islam in SF Literature

In Blemmey’s Stratagem one of the characters who is an assassin in this crusader era lovecroftian story is a Muslim.
[Thanks Michael H. for the references]



Sarah Zettel’s Fool’s War

By admin • Sep 17th, 2008 • Category: English SF, Islam in SF Literature

The following description from the Publishers Weekly:
In “alien contact” science fiction, the aliens come from far off, light-years away. But what if the aliens were closer to home? What if the next great life-form with which we must contend isn’t from the stars but from our hard drives? In Zettel’s second novel (after Reclamation), Katmer [...]



N Lee Wood’s Looking for the Mahdi

By admin • Sep 17th, 2008 • Category: English SF, Islam in SF Literature

The story is set in the fictional Middle Eastern poor country of Khuruchabja. We see the event unfold through the eyes of a female correspondent of a news agency who has disguised herself as a man to roam freely in this strict country. Ten years later when the protagonist is still working in a news [...]



Ian Watson’s The Emir’s Clock

By admin • Sep 17th, 2008 • Category: English SF, Islam in SF Literature

The Emir’s Clock in The Year’s Best Science Fiction, Fifth Annual Collection: A remarkable clock flashes a message of seemingly divine origin to a young Arab, charging him with the task of creating a new race of intelligent machines. [Synopsis from Fictionwise]



Katie Waitman’s The Divided

By admin • Sep 17th, 2008 • Category: English SF, Islam in SF Literature

Two races live on a colonized world in a perpetual state of war. One of the races has a very traditional sort of stereotypical Islamic culture, the other is more western, thought not completely. In the end, they find out they are really tribes that once came from the same desert — an analogy for [...]



Pamela Taylor’s The Cathedral

By admin • Sep 17th, 2008 • Category: English SF, Islam in SF Literature, SF by Muslims

Published in Citizen Culture Magazine, Feb 2005. A futuristic look at a world where seminaries encourage multiculturalism and the quest for tolerance is taken a step too far.
[Entry thanks to Pamela Taylor]



Charles Stross’ Accelerando

By admin • Sep 17th, 2008 • Category: English SF, Featured, Islam in SF Literature

The story is set in a post singularity future. Sadeq is a Muslim character and is a prominent secondary character, an imam on a small ship in orbit around Jupiter and asked to adjudicate a very complicated dispute according to Islamic law and is later tempted in a virtual reality universe with a false version [...]



Bruce Sterling’s Globalhead

By admin • Sep 17th, 2008 • Category: English SF, Islam in SF Literature

Globalhead is a collection of stories by the famous Science Fiction writer Brice Sterling. Here are a few stories from the collection which have Islamic themes.
The Compassionate, the Digital: Written as a speech given by a firebrand Islamic leader; their nation has developed an artificial intelligence named FIRDAUSI, which is sent out to attack the [...]