A planet is about to be destroyed by the collapse of a binary star system in Slow Gods, Claire North's first venture into classic science fiction. It's bad luck for those living on Adjumir, which is set to be obliterated Claire North is a successful and prolific novelist, writing under three separate names, but this is their first shift into classic science fiction, i.e. a novel with spaceships in it. I loved the title of this book, Slow Gods, and I loved the cover art. All of which is to say that I went in with high hopes. It begins: "My name is Mawukana na-Vdnaze, and I am a very poor copy of myself."

June's new science fiction includes a space opera from Megan E. O'Keefe Do you like your world ravaged by unstoppable and deadly viruses or technologies? If so, then June is your month, because we have everything from a contagion that makes people lustful to a neural chip that lets us turn off sleep. We've also got an environmental apocalypse from Inga Simpson in The Thinning, and I'm definitely in the mood for a slice of feminist body horror from E.K. Sathue pitched as American Psycho meets The Substance. Elsewhere, we have Megan E. O'Keefe's new space opera, which sounds intriguing, and Taylor Jenkins Reid's look at the 1980s space shuttle programme, Atmosphere. Those dastardly scientists are at it again, this time developing a neural chip that allows you to turn off sleep.

Lovecraftian-overtones. Ada Hoffman's debut novel The Outside seemingly has it all! We asked her about writing autistic characters and why the development of AI's is causing so much fear in society today. Why did you want to include an autistic character in your novel and how did you approach accurately and sensitively tackling this? For THE OUTSIDE, I was hesitant to make Yasira autistic, given how dark of some of the story's elements are, but once I had a first draft I knew that autism was integral to the story I was telling. It was a story that came from a surprisingly personal place and it revolved around the idea of perceiving reality differently than others, of being overwhelmed by one's perceptions, and of whose perceptions are considered real or true and why.

Kameron Hurley's science fiction novel The Stars Are Legion almost never saw the inside of a book store. She came up with the idea in 2012, but she and her agent didn't think anyone would buy it. But two years later, Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice swept the major science fiction awards, Guardians of the Galaxy became a surprise box office smash, and Syfy announced plans to make The Expanse into a TV show. Hurley's book soon found a home at Saga Press. "Publishers started snapping up space operas, leading to a huge demand that needed to be filled," she says.

Sci-fi and tech movies have been around for a surprisingly long time. They frequently tackle similar themes of exploring consciousness or over-dependence on technology which almost everytime leads to disastrous results. But, which movies are the essential ones to watch? You might be asking "What is your selection criteria?". Well, that is a good question. We may not be able to give you a definitive answer for each movie but for most of the list; it is self-evident.

CBS passed on the show during the pitch process. NBC saw the first pilot, an episode called "The Cage" starring Jeffrey Hunter as Captain Christopher Pike, and rejected it. The network asked for another pilot, but creator Gene Roddenberry was already working on other projects, including a cop show called Police Story. And even though NBC asked for a second pilot, the show's studio, Desilu Productions, didn't want to pony up any cash to make it. Star Trek, it seemed, would never make it to air.