Showing results by author "Scott Robinson" in All Categories

What's it like, growing up in a Fundamentalist church, a Fundamentalist home, with a Fundamentalist preacher for a dad? It's a worldview like no other, especially for a Seventies kid reaching for the stars. This warm and humorous memoir explains what it's like to love the Beatles from afar; to experience Rapture Terror and a sex talk about Debby Boone; to long to play rock and roll in an ecclesiastical home, to be drawn to science while in a Young Earth Creationist church, and to live and breathe Star Trek for all the wrong reasons. The Smell of the Lord is a journey through a very ...

"Three great forces rule the world: Stupidity, Fear, and Greed," Albert Einstein told us - and it's easy to see he nailed it. We see all three, all around us, all the time. The first of these, stupidity, enables the others: if not for personal and institutional stupidity, the greedy couldn't leverage the fear that allow the greedy to do the harm they do. Stupidity - and functional stupidity, in particular - is a serious problem in the world, not just today but throughout history. This short read summarizes that history, explores the nature of stupidity, and seeks to explain how it gets out ...

"Three great forces rule the world: Stupidity, Fear, and Greed," Albert Einstein told us - and it's easy to see he nailed it. We see all three, all around us, all the time. The second of these, fear, is a natural feature of the human mind - and a valuable survival time, in our Paleolithic past. Today, however, it is the weapon most often wielded by those with the insatiable desire to control others. It is the cornerstone of tyranny, and has held humanity back from achieving our real potential. This short read surveys fear's role in humankind's development from our distant origins to the ...

It was a killer year for horror fiction of the harder kind. Authors, editors, and publishers presented readers with some startling works of horrific imagination, stories graphic in the extreme yet with subtleties suggesting larger meanings, tales that explore humanity by plumbing depths of soulless inhumanity and, in some cases, outright depravity. The stories here represent the best of them, disturbing tales that dig deep and take you into the dark heart of horror itself, unrelenting and unapologetic.

Pluribus, the new Apple TV science fiction series by Vince Gilligan (Breaking Bad, The X-Files), takes us into strange new psychological and philosophical territory - a landscape of quiet horror in which an alien virus takes away all of humankind's troubles and suffering, leaving only joy, happiness, and total cooperation. Romance writer Carol Sturka, a chronically miserable woman who can't even enjoy her great success, is unaffected by the virus - and makes it her mission to reverse the benign change that has given the world the peace it has always been seeking. Pluribus is provocative, ...

It’s nearly impossible to think of the Beatles in the context of their times without thinking of their politics: their positions on the Establishment, the counterculture, the Vietnam War, the Feminist Movement, the class struggle – we remember it all. And yet… the fact is, they were constrained from sharing their political opinions either in songs or in interviews by their manager, Brian Epstein. He sharply discouraged them from speaking out, lest they alienate some of their fan base. They mostly held true to that admonition, from 1962 to 1967; when their political views did creep ...

I remember, as a kid, reading Ray Bradbury in study hall, at Darlington Junior High School, one of those old brick fortresses with high ceilings and long windows and thick dark oak stair banisters, like something out of Hoosiers. It was in Indiana, not much different from the small-town Illinois that Bradbury grew up in. But I digress: in study hall, if we’d finished our work, we could raise our hand – and with the teacher’s nod, vanish into the adjacent library stacks, there to slip out one of the Bradbury short story collections. R is for Rocket. S is for Space. I Sing the Body ...

In the beginning, there was Heavy Metal. Well, really, in the beginning, there were the Beatles, but Heavy Metal soon followed - and peaked fairly quickly. In the land of its birth, a new form of hard rock emerged in the working-class towns of the north: the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, which blended the intense, riff-driven blues rock of Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple and Black Sabbath with the glam of Queen and T. Rex, throwing in the twin guitar glory of Thin Lizzy for good measure. Judas Priest led the way, ushering in a new era of heavy metal with Iron Maiden, Saxon, Raven and other ...

Millennial nerds and Gen Z nerds don't know how good they've got it, with more Star Wars and Star Trek movies and TV series than they can count. It wasn't always this easy to be a nerd! This memoir from a decorated veteran details the glory days of nerd-dom, when all we had was bad TV sci-fi and only the occasional silver screen gem, just after the first great in-print sci-fi works had awakened us all to new possibilities. This warm-hearted history maps the transition of nerd culture from fringe to mainstream, with shout-outs to fanboys and fangirls of all ages.

It’s nearly impossible to think of the Beatles in the context of their times without thinking of their politics: their positions on the Establishment, the counterculture, the Vietnam War, the Feminist Movement, the class struggle – we remember at all. During their eight years recording together as a band, they delivered 14 songs that had political content. In the first few years after that, they did many more. John was the pacesetter, before and after; no surprise, he was always the most politically outspoken with the press. George came in second, Paul a largely apolitical third. Within...

This is by no means the first book to focus on Trek’s lessons for living; it’s not even my first book on the achievability of Trek’s vision for the future. But in an era as uncertain as this one, where Rules-for-Life books seem like a pretty good idea, why not turn to Trek for some inspiration? Certainly the hundreds of stories are packed with insights and diverse perspective; certainly our beloved characters, from Kirk, Spock and McCoy to Picard, Riker, Data, Sisko, Janeway, Seven of Nine, Archer, T’Pol – and the NuTrek heroes we’re still getting to know – have provided us ...

When Gene Roddenberry conceived Star Trek, he imagined a future very different from what was typically put forth in science fiction - a future where humanity has overcome greed, bigotry, misogyny, materialism, conflict and war. Star Trek's fans embraced that vision. But many consider it unattainable, if admirable, even those who wrote and produced Star Trek after Roddenberry. Is Star Trek's vision of the human future achievable? Can humanity overcome its darkest impulses and attain a new level of social cooperation and progress? The answer, per "Chasing the Enterprise", is Yes - we can do ...

Talking with Teens About Sexuality will help you understand your teen's world and give you effective strategies in the midst of cultural pressures. Drs. Robinson and Scott provide scientifically reliable and biblically based information about gender fluidity, types of intimacy, online dangers, setting boundaries, and much more. Along the way, the book provides useful conversation starters and insightful guidance.

Are you raising a nerd? If so, this indispensible guide is just what you need! Bringing up a young nerd and preparing them for a nerd's life in these complicated times is no small challenge - and Scott Robinson's new book will equip you with everything you need to nurture your nerd kids in all the right ways! A nerd, by definition, is intelligent, obsessive, and socially inept - and all three of these traits require considerable fine-tuning, if you want your progeny to stand out! This handy guide confronts the challenges of nerding in the modern era, while respecting the hallowed history of...

In this, his first collection of all-original short fiction since Shadows of Shadows (2014), Scott Robinson ventures across the stars, back to the Upper Paleolithic, into the mind of an artificial superintelligence, and beyond the edge of madness: The Only * Solipsist * Skeleton 17 * Selene, Receding * Medallion * The Calling * The Keeper of the Castle at the End of Time * Spelunker * Mandarin's Redux * The Dawning * Delivery Boy * The Waves * Gilded * Sisters * A Little Light Reading * When I Waked, I Cried to Dream Again * Joy to the World * Forest Glen Sonata

Scott Robinson's latest collection travels to the far ends of time and space, in pursuit of questions as old as humanity itself: THE LOCAL GODS - A team of time travelers, stranded in the Paleolithic past, establish themselves as the resident idols of the Cro-Magnons on the African veldt; MOONLIGHT IN PARIS - An apartment at the top of the Eiffel Tower, once the residence of Gustave Eiffel himself, becomes a way station for travelers from the future; THE WIRE - The pilot of a space elevator gondola, intent on diverting a terrorist disaster on a space station 40,000 miles above the earth, ...

There have been few darker days in American history than January 6, 2021. There have been few darker periods than the eight years following June 15, 2015, when Donald Trump descended the golden escalator in Trump Tower to announce his candidacy for the presidency of the United States. There have been few periods as precarious, as the nation’s internal stability and international standing took hit after hit; few as demoralizing, as our national and international response to a deadly pandemic was bungled and hundreds of thousands died; few as divisive, as an already deeply polarized ...

"Star Trek was explicitly crafted by its creator, Gene Roddenberry, into a humanist manifesto; the stories Trek told were humanist parables, putting forth the core philosophies to which he was devoted: equality, reason, integrity, fairness, opportunity, community. I was soaking them up before I even really understood what they were. I didn’t know it way back in 1972, but Star Trek had already made a humanist of me. It just took me a while to discover that there was a word for it. "This book is a celebration of both the stories and the values they inculcated in me. It is a humanism primer,...

Even good parents often underestimate the dangers their children face. Research indicates that one in four females and one in six males are sexually abused before age 18. In most cases, the enemy is not a faceless stranger; it's someone you know and trust. This book provides practical steps to ensure you're doing all you can to reduce the risks of abuse. But since you cannot be with your children 24/7, it goes beyond what you can do as a parent to teach you how to increase your child's own awareness and strategies in the face of potential dangers - without making them fearful.

A cabin in the woods hides a deadly secret from a pair of criminals on the run. Play time takes a demonic turn when a child discovers a hellish portal in the snow-covered playground. And a satanic cult turns a family vacation into a living nightmare.... Take a trip into the netherworld with Scare Street’s latest collection of diabolical horror. Fourteen terrifying tales lurk within this new volume - more than enough to keep you occupied as you voyage deep into the shadows.