Happy New Year Sci Fi fans!

I hope all you wonderful Science Fiction fans had a superb 2011 and will have an even more superb 2012. I won’t do a write up of what has happened over the past year because it was all pretty miserable and I have already done that on my other website here. I prefer to look to the future.

I’m talking about the future of science fiction obviously, not the future of humanity. When I was little I thought the year 2000 was far off and imagined myself possibly living on the moon – the year 2011 seemed impossibly far away but here we are at its end. No flying cars, some unconvincing robots, no colonies on the moon, even jetpacks are the same as the 70s. It is all a bit disappointing really. We do have cool gadgets though, and games are pretty awesome. Thanks to things like my iPad, I can now watch ‘The Walking Dead’ on the toilet. That’s a big step forward.

What will next year bring? As a society, I’m hoping shiny spandex will finally come into fashion. Mmmmm… Spandex… I haven’t though much beyond that, to be honest. Otherwise I am just going to be excited about upcoming movies and even better gadgets. Over the next few weeks I will look at a ton of new Science Fiction movies that are due to come out and will patiently explain why they could be awesome but could also possibly be crap. Sounds exciting doesn’t it? There’s certainly a lot to get our hopes up: The Dark Knight Rises, The Amazing Spiderman, John Carter, The Avengers, Battleship, Prometheus, The Hobbit, Dredd, World War Z, Total Recall. There are even some weird ones that might prove brilliant too like the Wachowski’s Cloud Atlas, or two independent movies: Iron Sky is a finnish movie about Nazis on the moon, and El Cosmonauta is about a Russian cosmonaut who comes back to Earth to find everyone has buggered off and he’s all alone.

As always there are bound to be awesome books to review and enjoy. I’m currently reading The Forge of God by Greg Bear and finishing World War Z by Max Brooks. Both of which are great. I will probably read Kraken by China Mieville after that, or The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi. Or even Terry Pratchett, if I feel like a laugh and want to play it safe with something I know I will like. Ahhh, so many books…

Game-wise there are a few things to get excited about too. I recently beta-tested Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic MMOG and it was damn good fun. It’s actually just come out, so I will give that a go at some point. There is also Mass Effect 3 (which has to be awesome), Final Fantasy XIII-2 (might be good, I still miss the genius of VII and XII was fun), there’s a new Resident Evil (better be good). And, well, tons more.

I intend to read more comics this coming year (I got the Ballad of Halo Jones for Christmas) and will generally be slightly more cool and revel in Scifi goodness than in 2011. It is going to be an great year. As well as all the above I also intend to write more fiction on Kindle. I have just released a trilogy of short Science Fiction stories (in case you missed it) called The Uneven Passage of Time by Jason Ward (that’s me). I suggest you buy it so I can write more, review more, and just generally enhance this site. It’s win win and you may even like the stories. Consider it a donation to the arts. The blurb and links are here or click above on My Books.

Anyway, I am off to the pub for New Year drinks. I hope you are all as excited as I am. Have a great 2012! Scifi Ward out.