Sci Fi that doesn't suck

Apparently this "Gravity" movie is supposed to be above average. Any thoughts?

And what about Afrofuturism? Ytasha L. Womack has a new book out that explores the topic.

Ian Sales, slumming with the elf-humpers:

http://iansales.com/2013/11/04/so-that-was-a-world-fantasy-convention/

A three-dimensional model of the universe--science fiction geeks should love the accompanying short film:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/map-of-universe-accurate-to-1-offers-i...

Er, actually, this is the link with the short film. But the previous post is a good introduction to this:

http://www.technologyreview.com/view/515746/new-science-of-cosmography-reveals-3...

The one science fiction film in 2014 I might drag myself out to see--Christopher Nolan's "Interstellar":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WzHXI5HizQ

Kids' book on space flight, from the Soviet era:

http://boingboing.net/2014/02/10/wonderfully-weird-1961-russian.html

This video reminds of reading Heinlein, before the first space walk when he described what it was like to be weightless. A short 2 minute film which appeals to the intellectual side of the discriminating futurist palette embodied by this LT area.

http://swimsuit.si.com/swimsuit/models/kate-upton/videos/zero-gravity

#7 I loved the comment: "the good thing is your breasts don't go anywhere when you're upside down".

I just love shit that has to do with space:

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1zcaSM

In the near future, technology will be more pervasive, invisible, discreet.

So says the new Spike Jonze movie and this here article:

http://www.wired.com/design/2014/01/will-influential-ui-design-minority-report/

That's a little frightening to me.

For those of us who are fans of the film "The Thing" or "Who Goes There?", the original John W. Campbell short story:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/giant-virus-revived-from-ancient-permafrost-1....

In the Ocean of Night
Across the Sea of Suns
Great Sky River
Tides of Light
Furious Gulf
Sailing Bright Eternety

These are the titles in Gregory Benford's Galactic Center Series. He is a professor, physicist, and writes good SF novels. A beautiful language in them - even the titles above sort of form a poem together.

I HAVE to see this documentary on Jodorowsky's "Dune":

http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20140313-the-greatest-movie-never-made

More on Jodorowsky--fascinating man:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/16/magazine/the-psychomagical-realism-of-alejandr...

Gord dug up this fun short piece by Terry Bisson--very Robert Sheckley-like (and that's high praise):

http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html

There are (...at least...) two distinct short videos based on that story; here's the one with higher-production-values:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfPdhsP8XjI

#16 & 17 .....Neat stuff!

Love Frank Herbert's "Dune', not bad for a SciFi

~Devine Destinies~

What's wrong with contemporary science fiction? Our chum Ian Sales might have part of the answer:

http://iansales.com/2014/06/05/fables-of-the-deconstruction

Our colleague Ian has a fine new SF tale just published. Read it here:

http://www.perihelionsf.com/1406/fiction_2.htm

See? Some SF doesn't suck...

Jack Chalker's Soul Rider series.

I tried reading Chalker but he didn't work for me at all--amazingly prolific author, I'll give him that.

Recently I had a chance to listen to a Philip K. Dick story, produced by BBC Radio. It was a straight reading of the tale, not an adaptation, and I had to turn it off after five minutes. Dick, like many SF hacks of that generation, was tone deaf. That immediately becomes apparent when you read an author out loud (you don't believe me, try reading a page--any page--from THE DA VINCI CODE out loud and keep a straight face). And you can tell a writer is used to being paid by the word because it takes them so long to get to the point. Padding means higher payment. Dick wrote a few good novels and a few good stories. The vast majority were drek.

>22 Felurian: You're taking the piss, right?

>20 CliffBurns: Best story by Ian I have read so far! {only read a couple}. Nice meld of technical detail and SF "wonderment", reminds me a bit of "golden age" stuff.

>25 DugsBooks: I keep on getting that "golden age" comment - to me, what I write is modern. Ah well :-)

(I think what it is, is that I'm using modern literary techniques on distilled science fiction ideas, and it's the latter that harkens back to sf of earlier decades.)

>26 iansales: Aha ok. The sudden transition in the story got my imagination flowing which is very unusual for a short story {has to be a good one!} which reminded me of some golden age SF I read when very young. I am not sophisticated enough to make constructive comments on literary techniques .

The best SF, regardless of the era, has that "sensawunda" that utterly transports the reader.

Ian's work has that quality and that, I think, sets it apart from so many of his less adventurous, less literary contemporaries.

>27 DugsBooks: I took your remark as a compliment, and it's always good to hear when people like my stories. You're not the first to say it reminds them of reading sf when they were younger and getting that pure hit of wonder... which, I suppose, is one of the aims of good science fiction. And if it happens, I'm grateful - whether I'm trying for that effect or not :-)

But I will say that I try to keep as much of the story off the page as I can, in order to force the reader to work it out for themselves :-)

Making contact with a lost spaceship. Story in here somewhere, Monsieur Sales?

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/15/science/space/calling-back-a-zombie-ship-from-...

Interesting link Cliff, ::Conversation at the drive up::: "I'll I have two egg McMuffins and a tweak of an asteroid orbit".

I had a recent encounter with a fondly-remembered name from my past.

http://robertday154.wordpress.com/2014/06/17/the-light-from-the-bushel/

Really enjoyed that, Robert.

All SF sucks unless it's funny (Pratchett/Fforde/Holt/Rankin) EXCEPT John Wyndham. Most authors think if it's not the real world they can write whatever comes into their heads.

>34 fredsmithx: You probably need to read a little wider in the genre - there's plenty that doesn't suck: Park, Jones, Delany, Russ, Saxton, Shepard, Watson, Priest, Banks, Tiptree, Duchamp... and I've probably forgotten loads of authors...

Terry Pratchett has done more damage to the credibility of fantasy writers than Robert Jordan, Brandon Sanderson and all those other hacks combined. The genre is bad enough without being held up to ridicule with the lamest gags and most basic, juvenile writing. Fforde at least is literate...not sure about the others.

Isn't Pratchett written for kids?

...and the childish at heart.

It's not hard to find science fiction that doesn't suck. For the lay reader, the "literary snob" not familiar with the genre but interested in good writing, I would suggest two names from the past and two more contemporary writers.

First of all, Theodore Sturgeon was a wonderful stylist who wrote mostly short fiction. There are tons of collections of his work, including a wonderful ten-or-so volume of his complete short fiction, and many little paperback collections. I would suggest picking up one of the little collections and reading through the stories. I think at least a few of them will grab you. Two titles for the Literary Snob to look for would be "Largo" and "The Man Who Lost The Sea". Roger Zelazny is best known for his Amber novels - which, if you ask me, start off quite well and slope off asymptotically towards the X axis. However, his other novels and his short fiction work at a really high level. The story called 24 Views of Mt. Fuji, By Hokusai is a lovely piece of work, you'll find it in a collection called Frost and Fire.

Closer to the present day, the recently late Iain M. Banks wrote a slew of wonderful novels in his "Culture" series. This isn't a series in the sense of continuing characters and action, just a set of novels sharing a common backdrop. They need not be read in any particular order, and each novel does its own work. Some of them are pretty grim, all of them have brilliantly funny bits, as far as I can tell there aren't any clinkers in the bunch.
Still among the quick is China Mieville. The first book I read of his was Perdido Street Station, which I don't recommend as a start - his imagination comes up with some very unpleasant images, and he's very good at executing those on the page. It's actually somewhat unpleasant to read, I thought. However, the Literary Snob might well enjoy The City and The City, which uses some nice science fiction devices to tell a pretty contemporary story.

Iain Banks, Alastair Reynolds, Ken Macleod, Vernor Vinge, John Varley, Ian McDonald, James Morrow...

...and I can't believe I neglected to mention my Canuck colleague, Peter Watts. Super writer.

>34 fredsmithx:: That's exactly what science fiction is not: writers who write "whatever comes into their heads". The whole point about science fiction is that whatever change from our everyday life is the focus of the story has to be consistent and based on rationality and firm scientific underpinnings. It has to work in the real world. (There is some debate over whether stories that are based on some of the wilder extrapolations of current science are real science fiction or just science fantasy.) The excuse of "it's just science fiction, you can make up whatever you want" is most often used by cheap tv and film makers, and careless authors of much fame and none. It's when the world of the story is well thought out, the scientific underpinnings rational and consistent, and the writing imaginative but well crafted that you get science fiction that doesn't suck.

At the risk of stirring up a hornet's nest, I'd say that you've described fantasy.

>32 RobertDay: Nice stuff Robert. I thought of the short story by Bob Shaw "The Light of Other Days" when I read an article about scientists using low temps and different materials to slow the speed of light to the extent it is almost light in a bottle. I tried to search out the article again but can't find it.

I'll try your recommendations. I read science stuff and would expect to like SF but usually hate it. I don't need books for the young at heart but the author must have enough sense of humour not to take themselves too seriously - not funny or childish but not anal uptight like many in this genre. Anyway you're right, I mixed it up with fantasy. The danger there is stupidity. Of course all that faux-Tolkien rubbish is usually uptight too. I was impressed that Eragon landed near the top of my unsuggestions page...

...and, as has been pointed out to me here, there's a huge difference between FANTASY and HIGH FANTASY...

Don't know anything about the credibility of the genre. You go into any UK public library - huge fantasy section all adolescent nonsense.
Pratchett/Fforde/Holt/Rankin are all very literate. I'm actually impressed by their writing. Fforde if anything has bad bits. Rankin just gets carried away. Pratchett is a very careful but brilliant writer. His first books were ridiculously juvenile but they improved very fast. Read Nightwatch.
It's fine if you dislike comic fantasy.
And yes, Jordan is the worst author ever published.

what's HIGH FANTASY?

"Fantasy" covers everything from Jonathan Carroll to Jorge Luis Borges. "High fantasy" is anything imitating Tolkien: elves, fairy queens, etc.

Christopher Priest certainly seems to think this sf sucks: http://arcfinity.tumblr.com/post/89245740023/were-reading-barricade-by-jon-walla...

There's more to Tolkien then elves. There's that awful epic language which everyone tries to copy. Tolkien was a genius. It merely made him boring. It makes his imitators suck.

50: What a nice turn of phrase!

Zazen by Vanessa Veselka was one of my favorite recent post-apocalyptic dystopians. Although, really, it's more pre-apocalyptic. It takes place right on the verge of the end of society. The narrator is struggling with an early 20's freakout but it turns out she's also an unreliable narrator and you don't know how much of what she's recounting is real or in her mind.

John Brunner's STAND ON ZANZIBAR re-examined:

http://www.themillions.com/2013/03/the-weird-1969-new-wave-sci-fi-novel-that-cor...

(Thanks, Gord)

Christopher Nolan's epic "Interstellar" gets mixed initial reviews:

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-29799816

(Personally I prefer his early, smaller efforts like "Memento" and "Following" to his big budget, comic book smut.)

Warts and all feature on "Buzz" Aldrin:

http://www.gq.com/entertainment/celebrities/201501/buzz-aldrin

(Thanks, Gord.)

Wow, that article is a lot to process. It must be so hard to be a certain kind of celebrity like that.

Best "space" photos of 2014:

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-30281334

(Can't help it, I'm a geek.)

I visited Felica Day's website and found a new channel on Youtube that she & others participate in called Geek & Sundry. I like the series I have checked out so far, "Space Janitors"
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7atuZxmT954gRLnOM7sKgRTV3bBR8WdW

More links if interested, in my post at the SF topic of LT
http://www.librarything.com/topic/171073#4971461

>57 CliffBurns: Nice selection of photos, good resolution and cropping.
>55 CliffBurns: Buzz should be cast in the new SyFy series Ascension, write him in a part immediately!!!

Hey, Ian, have you heard about the "Ascension" mini-series (see mention in previous message)? It's alt-history, right up your alley...but something about it sets off my "stink-o-meter". Have a look:

http://www.space.com/28013-ascension-syfy-tv-miniseries-project-orion.html

This series starts playing on CBC here in Canada later in the month.

I watched the first episode last Friday. The twist was bloody obvious from the start, and some of it was your typical telly stupidity, but I'm told it improves so I'll continue watching it. After all, pretty much all series start badly...

A planetary system 11 billion years old. Imagine the number of civilizations that could have risen and fallen during that interval.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/5-rocky-planets-found-in-very-ancient-solar-sy...

...imagine the multi-volume SF series that might inspire, an epic that would put FOUNDATION (dreadful books) in the shade...

>61 CliffBurns: Imagine the number of sequels of Rambo they could have.

(Shudder)

So from Earth's timeline of ...4.5 billion years for our sun? to its cultural level of today, pizza delivered and cold beer with efforts to have the same at a space station. Now imagine a species a billion years sentient......teleporting pizzas?

I was dumb struck for several seconds while reading the article with wonderment imagining what could happen in a period of time so much greater than ours.

I also posted in the SF section of LT. From what I have read; this is in our Milky Way galaxy but some 100 light years away?

::edited for usual reasons::

Richard Dawkins reads some of the "fan mail' he receives from loving, tolerant Christian types:

http://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/richard-dawkins-reads-hate-mail-fans

Elon Musk names his two ocean platform landing ships after Iain M. Banks characters:

http://www.space.com/28445-spacex-elon-musk-drone-ships-names.html?utm_source=fe...

Cool tribute to a great author.

I have a 22 foot sailboat I wanted to name Bora Horza Gobuchul but the rest of the family thought it was too long. We may go with an Arthur Ransome name instead.

Anyone heard of Aleksei German's "Hard to Be a God"?

http://www.avclub.com/review/hard-be-god-will-take-you-world-shit-214434

Medieval sci fi? Grungy? Long, troubled production overseen by obscure genius?

Oh, yes, this sounds like one for me...

A friend tweeted that link to me last week. Definitely one to get when it hits DVD.

Based on the Strugatsky Brothers' novel, I assume?

Yep, same boys that wrote "Stalker".

I note that the Wachowski's "Jupiter Ascending" film is getting critically mauled. Their day is done...

Apollo gear on public display...for hardcore space nerds (Hey, Ian!):

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/a11ReturnedEagleArtifacts.html

(Thanks to Gord)

The Martian death machines are on the way:

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-31491805

Clearly these scientists can't recognize the plume of vehicles launching from the surface...

1970's sci fi films:

http://thedissolve.com/features/laser-age/1039-after-star-wars-science-fiction-t...

Time lapse docking:

https://twitter.com/Space_Station/status/603587911741669376?t=1&cn=cmVjb3Nfb...

NASA has commissioned a series of lovely travel posters, celebrating its space explorations. Free for download and sharing:

http://boingboing.net/2016/02/12/gorgeous-retrofuturistic-space.html

(Thanks, Gord)

Has anyone here read The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber?

Yes, interesting book about first contact. Not completely successful but not irretrievably stupid either.

Did you like it?

It was disappointing as compared with The Crimson Petal and the White, in the light of good scifi and in a few other ways, but I liked enough about it to give it 3 stars.

Send your name to the outer reaches of our solar system:

https://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/january/nasa-invites-public-to-send-names-on-an-...

A piece on sci fi's "difficult genius", Gene Wolfe:

http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/sci-fis-difficult-genius

(Thanks, Gord)

He's certainly "difficult" - a friend of mine interviewed him for Interzone, and all he got was yes and no replies.

Mars panorama--file this under "cool shit":

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/mars-panorama-1.3557612

>82 CliffBurns:, thanks for that. I read The Book of the New Sun years ago and still I parse every article, interview or essay to see what else I can glean from it.

When asked "1984 or Brave New World?" Chomsky replies "neither actually"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=62&v=Q9PqnWSlt9E

>86 anna_in_pdx: But he likes We which influenced both and which is an expressionist, as opposed to realist, novel. 1984 always conjures up for me the grimmness of post war Britain something that was tapped into by Alan More's V for Vendetta. Huxley's novel was based on the latest theories of biology which he kept up with as one can see in his reference to neoteny in After Many a Summer Dies the Swan.

Gimme 1984 over BRAVE NEW WORLD any day. No contest.

>88 CliffBurns: I agree even though I love Huxley.

>86 anna_in_pdx: I say neither to 1984 vs Brave New World, as well.

Anyone wish to send a few $$$ to support a Canadian science fiction magazine?

https://www.gofundme.com/jwj3dzgc

Version Control, Dexter Palmer

An overview of space concept art:

https://howwegettonext.com/the-improbable-bold-history-of-space-concept-art-42c1...

(Thanks, Gord)

Cool short sci fi film that will convince you once and for all why virtual reality means the end of the human experiment:

https://vimeo.com/147365861?ref=em-share

Anathem by Neal Stephenson. Real science. Real fiction. Probably best snobby speculative fiction I've ever read. But I'm not a sci-fi fan.

Pictures of Mars:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/multimedia/want-to-go-to-mars-here-s-what-it-looks-like-t...

Don't die, upload:

https://howwegettonext.com/would-you-like-to-be-uploaded-to-a-computer-when-you-...

New Jack Womack book, reviewed by John Crowley:

https://bostonreview.net/literature-culture/john-crowley-stranger-things-rise-an...

(Thanks, Gord)

>98 CliffBurns: I wondered what Womack, one of the most gloriously gonzo sf writers of recent years, had been up to recently.

One of the reasons that most science fiction fans don't believe in UFOs is that most UFO stories sound like really bad science fiction. Perhaps more pertinently, sf fans wouldn't mind if the aliens turn out NOT to be little grey men who go around in disc-shaped craft; whereas the arrival of a bona fide alien who resembled a perambulating tree and who arrived in something resembling a flying concrete mixer would nonetheless probably not satisfy UFO believers for whom they did not fit the myth.

Let's hope he has another novel in the pipeline as well...

>99 RobertDay: a bona fide alien who resembled a perambulating tree

I am Groot!

>100 CliffBurns: - he's been working on a non-sf novel called Ashland for years. You can see if reading from it in 2009 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDWER1rPF8o

Binibon, the opera Womack collaborated on with composer Elliott Sharp, was recently performed in New York. Not SF, but interesting nonetheless.

A lot of people on twitter have been recommending Random Acts of Senseless Violence lately.

The new SF epic "Arrival" is getting a lot of buzz--included in the roster of films to watch in November:

https://filmschoolrejects.com/must-see-movies-theaters-november-2016-ranked-2672...

>105 CliffBurns: It's a wonderful story. I just hope they haven't screwed it up.

Seems like there's been some really big-budget SF extravaganzas in recent years. 'Constantine'? 'Prometheus'? 'Elysium'? 'Inception'. All that kind of thing? Mixes of mysticism and SF blended together?

Frankly --no matter the actual quality of the flicks (which I hear is as 'variable' as it ever was) I'm turned off by it. The frenzy of promotion and advance hoopla always have a bludgeoning effect. Like being sucked into quicksand. There's almost nothing one can do to escape these ad blitzes.

Everyone is free to do as they please of course, and I hope other theater-goers enjoy themselves. But me, I literally never attend any more movies based on their advertising. Been burned too many times. I shrink from the feeling that some marketing team has once again manipulated me into a theater seat. The West Coast media vortex has long ago lost my trust.

Completely understandable--films these days are hyped like the second coming of Christ.

It's pathetic...

Eight books about alien contact:

https://electricliterature.com/8-books-about-first-contacts-and-alien-encounters...

Ralph McQuarrie, great fantasy artist. This image brings back some fond memories of that first theatrical release, back in 1977. I'd seen some of McQuarrie's artwork for the movie in various science fiction fanzines before the film was released and it definitely caught my eye:

http://70sscifiart.tumblr.com/post/157014248981/matt-furguson

A nice piece on rediscovering Jack Womack:

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/theres-too-much-reality-on-jack-womacks-rand...

(From Gord, natch.)

Canada's Denis Villeneuve: king of sci fi cinema:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/denis-villeneuve-arrival-oscars-1.3984761

I've just started Kim Stanley Robinson's 2002 short story collection Vinland the Dream, which appears to have alternate histories as a sort of broad theme (and it seems to be interpreted quite generously). The title story, and the second in the collection, "A History of the Twentieth Century, with illustrations", take a broad view of the sweep of events; indeed, they might only be considered 'science fiction' if you think of history as a science. That second story in particular dates from 1991 but is only set in 1996, and its central character is a historian.

For a limited time, buy a "story bundle" of recent science fiction:

https://storybundle.com/scifi?platform=hootsuite

Authors pick their favorite Philip K. Dick books:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/aug/27/philip-k-dick-best-novels-blade-ru...

Mine has to be A SCANNER DARKLY.

The prescient fiction of J.G. Ballard:

https://www.guernicamag.com/drain-the-swamp

New Philip K. Dick-themed TV series:

https://io9.gizmodo.com/holy-crap-the-philip-k-dick-electric-dreams-tv-series-18...

Samuel Delany interview:

http://lithub.com/dont-romanticize-science-fiction-an-interview-with-samuel-dela...

Does spec fiction really work on the small screen:

http://lithub.com/can-speculative-short-fiction-really-work-on-tv

Damon Knight, Why Do Birds

Mark E. Smith was a sci fi geek:

http://www.factmag.com/2018/01/25/mark-e-smith-the-fall-tribute

SF titles to watch for this month:

https://bookmarks.reviews/5-sci-fi-and-fantasy-books-to-brighten-your-february

Watching "First Man", the Neil Armstrong biopic, in the next couple of days.

We'll see how it goes--I read the book and liked it very much.

Neil wasn't a very demonstrative guy so a cypher like Ryan Gosling should be a good fit in terms of casting.

>123 CliffBurns: Tried to check that out tonight but it was not in the “Redbox” which is near me. I didn’t know there was a book - fictionalized biography or just journalistic view?

No, it's a legitimate biography by James Hansen and very good:

https://www.amazon.ca/First-Man-Life-Neil-Armstrong/dp/1982110473/ref=sr_1_1?qid...

Five upcoming SF books:

https://bookmarks.reviews/5-sci-fi-and-fantasy-books-to-watch-for-in-august

>126 CliffBurns: "an escape hatch for the Earthlings they’re leaving behind". Earthlings. FFS.

Gotta love those publicists, no?

So adept with words...

This one looks interesting, space geeks:

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/600406/first-cosmic-velocity-by-zach-po...

Palestinian science fiction:

https://lithub.com/the-surreal-virtual-worlds-of-palestinian-science-fiction

...and a profile of Samuel Delany:

https://www.publicbooks.org/samuel-delany-on-capitalism-racism-and-science-ficti...

Gibson interview excerpted:

https://locusmag.com/2019/08/william-gibson-one-tough-zeitgeist

>132 CliffBurns: I did not {know - how the hell did that happen?} any of Gibson’s background. He was born on a route we used to take frequently to the beach and moved to Canada at a time we were all waiting for draft numbers and buying maps of Canada. The more recent books sound interesting {having read the earlier ones}

Philip K. Dick's archives:

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2019-08-15/philip-k-dick-...

5 new SF releases in October:

https://bookmarks.reviews/5-sci-fi-and-fantasy-books-to-watch-for-in-october

Renaming the Tiptree Award (and other SF prizes):

https://locusmag.com/2019/10/tiptree-award-to-be-renamed

Epilogue to "2001":

https://vimeo.com/364782830

The date is November, 2019:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Tz5ykjis2k

>138 CliffBurns: Yes, we are in the month when Bladerunner becomes current affairs and then enters the realm of Historical Documents.

We are living in he future.

>139 pgmcc: So where's my silver suit and flying car, then?

...and pleasure model replicants that look like Darryl Hannah. Let's not forget that.

The book, IIRC, is set in 1992.

Was everyone as bored and disenchanted with Denis Villeneuve's sequel as i was?

Jesus, that one was as slow-moving as a unicycle in a passing lane. As pointless as a broken arrow. Duller than a Bela Tarr film.

Etc.

I hated it. Villeneuve is massively over-rated as a director.

I agree.

I thought it was alright, but I agree that at that pace it's not hard to see why he's splitting Dune into two movies.

I'm broadly in agreement with >146 Cecrow: but agree that the Blade Runner sequel will never be considered as good as the original. Visually it was stunning, but it wasn't very - well, human. Very little evidence of any sense of humour in any of the characters; in particular, K's reaction to Deckard's dog ("Is it real?") was the ideal point where a gentle joke of some sort could have been effortlessly slipped in. "You can never go wrong with a bit with a dog", as one character said in Shakespeare in Love…

As for splitting Dune into two films; well, don't forget that it was first published as two separate serials in Analog. Having come across the serialisation of Children of Dune is some old Analogs I picked up, I can understand this to some extent: read on their own they are turgid and impenetrable. There's a lot in the original texts to deal with, and reducing any novel to a screenplay with a 160-minute running time is always going to be a problem, even when adapting a short story. The David Lynch film always felt to me like a trailer for the Dune film we ought to have had; even the miniseries came over as slightly rushed in places, and the first one cut the first couple of chapters and opened with the Atreides family already on the Heighliner.

The rediscovery of John M. Ford:

https://slate.com/culture/2019/11/john-ford-science-fiction-fantasy-books.html

>148 CliffBurns: John Ford's work was never easy to find in the UK; Gollancz reprinted The Dragon Waiting in their Fantasy Masterworks series some time back (the 'dragon' in the title is a metaphorical one, mostly, and seems to represent Welsh nationalism); my review here: https://deepwatersreading.wordpress.com/2016/10/25/the-dragon-waiting-by-john-m-...

I have Web of Angels on the TBR pile, and I read Growing up Weightless quite some time back.

And I have a copy of How much for just the planet?, which is the only Star Trek novel I possess. If you're only going to have one, this is probably the one to have. It was recommended to me by a friend who described it as "A fine comic novel that just happens to be set in the Star Trek universe", which is pretty accurate. It is laugh-out-loud funny in places, though it has to be said that British readers of A Certain Age will read the last few chapters and think of a Brian Rix farce. My review is here: https://deepwatersreading.wordpress.com/2015/01/28/how-much-for-just-the-planet-...

I saw one interesting SF film of late, Claire Denis' "High Life".

Not a perfect film, but weird and unique and intelligent.

Far better than "Ad Astra", for instance...

Kim Stanley Robinson on dystopias:

https://communemag.com/dystopias-now

Excellent BBC feature on J.G. Ballard:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oURQJqJC520

>149 RobertDay: ...a Brian Rix farce.

That is a blast from the past. I haven't thought of Brian Rix in a long time.

Best science fiction and fantasy books of 2019:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/nov/30/best-science-fiction-and-fantasy-b...

The Tim Maughan book mentioned in the above article, INFINITE DETAIL, is the best SF offering I read this year.

>154 CliffBurns: Not "best", "most brilliant". FFS.

>154 CliffBurns:, I'm still vouching for Black Leopard, Red Wolf, although it can be oppressive on the sex-and-violence front for some readers.

William Gibson, profiled in THE NEW YORKER:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/12/16/how-william-gibson-keeps-his-scien...

SF novels in the 1960s mostly got the future wrong...but who cares?

https://newrepublic.com/article/155978/science-fictions-wonderful-mistakes?utm_c...

The essential novels of Ursula K. LeGuin:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2018/jan/24/essential-novels-ursula-...

Roundup of new science fiction and fantasy releases:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/10/best-recent-science-fiction-fantas...

Excerpt from new William Gibson novel:

https://onezero.medium.com/william-gibson-takes-aim-at-the-silicon-valley-he-hel...

This book by Simon Jimenez looks interesting:

https://locusmag.com/2020/01/paul-di-filippo-reviews-the-vanished-birds-by-simon...

>163 CliffBurns: The excerpt doesn't look too bad but a lot of current sf is wildly over-written so it would be interesting to see if that's sustained for the entire book.

I'm a fan of Paul Di Filippo's and trust his taste.

I've added VANISHED BIRDS to my library list so I should be able to let you know in a couple of weeks.

>162 CliffBurns: Think I will check that one out and the prequel- sounds Interesting.

Gibson says "we're all science fiction writers now":

https://www.thedailybeast.com/agency-author-william-gibson-says-we-are-all-scien...

>167 CliffBurns: from the article linked;

“Asked about the fact that the opening line of his 1984 breakthrough Neuromancer—“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.”—is now widely regarded as one of the best opening lines in the history of the novel”

I am really out of the loop, I would have never made any such assertion {not having the street cred to do so} and have never heard of anyone proposing the same. Guess it justifies my opinion of the level of academic expertise I function at ;-)

I've just added a review of Warhoon 28, Richard Bergeron's 1978 tribute to Belfast sf fan Walt Willis - all 600+ hardbacked pages of it.

https://www.librarything.com/work/24146927/reviews/177990295

>168 DugsBooks: Agreed: ridiculously hyperbolic over-statement. Fanboy exuberance.

On the other hand, it's a great fucking opening sentence.

>169 RobertDay: That one looks interesting, Robert.

>168 DugsBooks: It's a sentence that on first read sounds really cool, until you realise there was never any such thing as a "dead channel" - you'd either get a test card or snow. It's like a lot of descriptive phrases you find in sf novels - supposedly set in the future, but referencing something from the author's own formative years and so decades earlier than the book was written. Like when every music artist mentioned in a sf novel set in the future was famous before 1960...

There's your Eurocentrism showing through again, Sales.

In Canada, we have a dead channel.

It's called the CBC.

>172 CliffBurns:, oh! that hurt.

How about a "high five" for that one?

I'm feeling pretty sharp this morning...

1970s science fiction films (okay, admittedly most of them did actually suck):

https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/6773-the-labyrinth-and-the-plague

>175 CliffBurns: Quote from the article:

"...the jarring prologue of George Lucas’s 1971 debut, THX 1138"

THX 1138, was a great flick. Scenes & themes from it are still being copied in films today - the car chase scene in a closed tunnel & the suppression of emotions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/THX_1138

>168 DugsBooks: Aha I see i was confusing Neuromancer with Johnny Mnemonic - when that flick was in production the, at that time nascent compared to today, internet was all abuzz about the movie in every newsgroup it seemed. After reviewing Neuromancer at wiki I might need to read it again, fascinating plot.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Mnemonic_(film)

I have a soft spot for "THX 1138" as well. A positively frigid movie, made with detachment and, as a result, utterly lacking sentimentality. Lucas channeling Kubrick.

Glad you recall it with affection. And may I also cite..."Silent Running"?

Agree or disagree?
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/something-is-broken-in-our-science-fiction?ut...

>177 CliffBurns: "Silent Running" is one of my favourites, as is "Dark Star".

And let's toss "Phase IV" in there as well. That's a little gem.

#178 I'm not as plugged into science fiction as I used to be but I think it's developed far beyond cyberpunk (which I always considered a rather small tributary). The field boasts some excellent authors who are offering original visions and ideas. I dunno about another "Golden Age" but it's definitely worth exploring these days.

Alastair Reynolds is fantastic and I'm sure Ian, who knows far more about the state of the art than i do, could offer even more examples.

>178 jldarden: I've been saying that for years :-)

Unfortunately, most articles about cyberpunk - including that one - get their history wrong. The term was coined by Bethke, but the writers who became associated with it were part of The Movement, which was a reaction to the bloated best-selling sf of the 1970s. There have been several actual movements since - anyone remember Mundane SF? - but pretty much every subgenre mentioned in that article is just someone throwing out a label, which then gets either ignored or lost in the noise, and has next to zero impact. Science fiction is fundamentally broken because it won't interrogate its own politics, and only now is it beginning to clear house of all the scumbags of earlier years.

Good piece on Joanna Russ:

https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/joanna-russ-the-science-fiction-wri...

>180 CliffBurns: I have not seen "Phase IV".

A new mission for me. Track it down. Watch it.

Chabon on working in the "Star Trek" universe:

https://www.gq.com/story/michael-chabon-star-trek-picard-interview

Kim Stanley Robinson on climate change:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-sci-fi-authors-boldest-vision-of-climate-change-s...

The origins of "blade runner":

http://www.openculture.com/2020/02/ridley-scotts-movie-has-origins-in-william-s-...

Just what the hell is science fiction anyway?

https://www.asimovs.com/current-issue/editorial

Tarkovsky and Lem:

https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/why-stanislaw-lem-hated-andrei-tarkovsky-solaris-ad...

Thanks Cliff, >188 CliffBurns:. A very interesting "potted history" of SF. I was surprised how many of the '20's authors, I own works of (now you can see why I'm Not an Author :-) )

>189 CliffBurns: One of my Polish colleagues boggled somewhat on finding my reading an online article on Lem in the office one lunch-time. Apparently, Lem is taught in Polish schools the way Shakespeare was in British schools (i.e. badly).

William Gibson interview:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jan/01/william-gibson-i-read-naked-lunch-...

>192 CliffBurns:
"My earliest reading memory
Pogo comic strips by Walt Kelly. My mother had to teach me to read, as I wasn’t doing well at it in school."

I remember understanding the satire in Pogo all of a sudden while a kid reading at the kitchen table and it was like a new world in comics and a new world in general opened up. I think it was the J. Edgar Hoover FBI dog character that I finally linked to the real world and I was facinated. I believe Walt Kelly got some heat from the FBI because of this and I noticed the satire cooled off a good bit.

:: edited some terrible writing, learned to read ok but my writing kind of drags behind::

Maybe...

https://neglectedbooks.com/?p=7501

>194 Crypto-Willobie: Bit of a trip down Memory Lane there. ('Trip' may be used in any way you want.)

#194 Fascinating little compilation of lost "classics".

I've read three of them and can vouch for their strangeness and literary merit. I also own two of the others and if my TBR pile wasn't teetering already, I'd move them five or six feet closer to the top.

Science fiction and fantasy books to watch for in 2021:

https://bookmarks.reviews/the-most-anticipated-sci-fi-and-fantasy-books-of-2021

I'm about to pitch myself into a re-read - the first in possibly fifty years! - of E.E. 'Doc' Smith's Galactic Patrol. I'm under few illusions as to what I'll find; after all, I find myself sometimes taking a sharp breath at how my reactions have changed to something I last read three, four or five years ago. But for all that Smith's fiction is held up as now representing the worst of science fiction, I'm struck by how often people refer back to him within the context of the history of the genre. We should occasionally go down to the genre's cellars to remind ourselves about what's down there.

But in parallel with my book reading, I also sometimes plough through a huge TBR pile of specialist magazines and journals. I've just finished a 1993 issue of the journal of the UK's academic Science Fiction Foundation, Foundation 59. Apart from finding some remarkably apposite comments in reviews of books set in the impossibly distant future year of 2021, I came across this in an article by Czech fan/academic Cyril Simsa on the probably little-remembered US author Henry Slesar, and it put me in an interesting frame of mind for tackling one of Edward E. Smith's galaxy-smashing space operas:

"A lot of his (Slesar's) stories are perfectly respectable examples of the way sf was written in the '50s, and may even have seemed well above average for their day. But so much has changed in the genre in the interim: plot-lines which may once have seemed agreeably adventurous now seem trite and melodramatic, ideas which were part of sf's stock-in-trade are now unbearable clichés, the little philosophical homilies with which so many '50s sf writers liked to finish off their stories (the "moral", if you like) seem dated and prevent the story reaching a proper conclusion. In a world where fascism and civil war have come back to the streets of Europe, where naked manipulation of the political process by the mass media has become the norm, where rival drug gangs regularly shoot at one another with Uzi machine-pistols in the ruins of Los Angeles and computer networks will soon be offering us sex in cyberspace for real, it's difficult to read a story about a mad scientist with a beautiful blond daughter, or a solitary genius who invents a new variety of domestic robot, or indeed any story in which the moral turns out to be (in the words of the '50s B-feature) that "there are things man isn't meant to know", without disguising a smirk behind the palm of one's hand. (Then again, in fairness to Slesar, one has to ask whether the second-generation cyberpunks like Walter Jon Williams will seem any less ridiculous in 2022, and whether we won't perhaps be just as incapable of taking seriously anything with voguish references to "ice", "jacks", designer drugs, artificial intelligence, multinational corporations, computer voodo, banghramuffin orbital rave platforms, elephants in mirrorshades and so on, in an age no doubt as unimaginably different from where we are now, as the '80s were to the writers of the '50s.)"

>197 CliffBurns: Anyone who has an Andy Weir novel on their "most anticipated" books list has forfeited their right to have their opinion taken seriously.

Agree 100%.

Some sci fi tomes to watch out for:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jan/15/the-best-recent-science-fiction-an...

This year's Philip K. Dick Award nominees have been announced:

https://www.norwescon.org/2021/01/20/2021-philip-k-dick-award-nominees-announced

Jack Womack, reflecting on science fiction:

https://compendiumofcool.com/essays/womack

LOCUS MAGAZINE's 2020 recommended reading list:

https://locusmag.com/2021/02/2020-locus-recommended-reading-list

>203 CliffBurns: Womack is always worth reading, even though I think of him as a very Nineties writer.

I'm currently on a break from the sf genre, reading Ian Rankin's Fleshmarket Close, though this was inspired by a recent read of Ken MacLeod's The Night Sessions. My background reading for that book revealed something I'd previously not known - that Rankin was in the same coterie of friends as Macleod and Iain Banks. 'The Night Sessions' had something of Rankin about it, so I thought I ought to make his literary acquaintance.

Philip K. Dick, author & mystic:

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-exegete/

(Older article, can't remember if it's been previously posted.)

>205 RobertDay: That is interesting about the links between Ian Rankin, Ken MacLeod and Iain Banks. Having read, and loved, The Night Sessions, I can see a link with the police procedural style. I have not read any Rankin so will be interested to see how you get on with him.

While I have not read any of his books I have bought about ten of his books for my wife.

A book about when SF got radical:

https://www.pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=1201

Remembering J.G. Ballard at his very, very best:

https://bookmarks.reviews/from-climate-change-to-car-crash-sex5-classic-j-g-ball...

Science fiction and fantasy to watch for in June:

https://bookmarks.reviews/6-sci-fi-and-fantasy-books-to-light-up-your-june/?utm_...

Philip K. Dick is alive and well:

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20220301-philip-k-dick-the-writer-who-witnes...DN-_-culture_june22

Jonathan Lethem on Stanislaw Lem:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bx7umZ8aRI

Bruce Sterling gifted us with a science fiction tale this Christmas:

https://bruces.medium.com/balkan-cosmology-by-bruce-sterling-2022-9a06b9b28bc0

Can't recall if this was posted previously:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/apr/25/jg-ballard-martin-amis

I can never get enough of that Ballard guy:

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2023/09/22/j-g-ballards-brilliant-not-good-w...

>215 CliffBurns: Oh dear. The poor little souls, being exposed to something original instead of coming out of their creative writing classes with a toolkit that enables them to join the mainstream of formulaic fiction writing. However will they sell something so off-the-wall to Oprah?

>216 RobertDay: Couldn't have said it better myself, Robert. That section stood out to me, as well.