[bookshare-discuss] Re: To All Science Fiction Lovers.
- From: "Chela Robles" <cdrobles693@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 08:48:57 -0700
You should see 2001: A Space Odyssey, Chela
----- Original Message -----
From: Rogerbailey81@xxxxxxx
To: bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2009 7:07 AM
Subject: [bookshare-discuss] Re: To All Science Fiction Lovers.
I never saw that movie, but I did have some movie that I had heard of in mind
when I used that example and I suppose it might very well have been The Matrix.
"If you tremble
with indignation at every injustice then you are a comrade of mine." Che
Guevara
The Militant: http://www.themilitant.com/txtindex.shtml
Pathfinder Press: http://www.pathfinderpress.com
Granma International: http://granma.cu/ingles/index.html
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Subj:
[bookshare-discuss] Re: To All Science Fiction Lovers.
Date:
7/14/2009 12:45:20 AM Eastern Daylight Time
From:
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Kind of like the movies, the matrix, right Roger?
block quote
----- Original Message -----
From:
Rogerbailey81@xxxxxxx
To:
bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Monday, July 13, 2009 8:07 PM
Subject: [bookshare-discuss] Re: To All Science Fiction Lovers.
This is an argument that has been going on in science fiction circles ever
since the inception of science fiction. What may be included in science fiction
for it to really be science fiction? In point of fact, many of the generally
aclaimed best sf stories have contained precepts that, not only is there
no known way to accomplish them, but there is no known way, even
theoretically, to accomplish them. Also, watch a Star Trek episode. You will
see very
little science there. However, it provides the sense, the aura of science.
Through my life I have held various of the varying opinions of what must be
present for the story to be a science fiction story, so I cannot say that my
current opinion will not change in the future, but for what it's worth, it
seems that what is really necessary is for the feel of science to be present;
for some kind of real science to be in the background; for the science to
be essential to the story, even though it is in the background; and, most
importantly of all, verisimilitude. I will repeat that last point,
verisimilitude,
verisimilitude, verisimilitude! If it does not have verisimilitude it is not
science fiction. It is either fantasy or sci-fi. If you have a story in which
unspacesuited people are swimming the backstroke in interstellar space and
conversing with one another in the vacuum and there is no attempt to explain
or make this believable you have sci-fi. If a video gamer trips and falls
into his video screen and becomes a part of the game then you have sci-fi.
Sci-fi
is something that makes the barely scientifically literate person groan in
exasperation and throw his book against the wall.
"If you tremble
with indignation at every injustice then you are a comrade of mine." Che
Guevara
The Militant:
http://www.themilitant.com/txtindex.shtml
Pathfinder Press:
http://www.pathfinderpress.com
Granma International:
http://granma.cu/ingles/index.html
_
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Subj:
[bookshare-discuss] To All Science Fiction Lovers.
Date:
7/13/2009 9:50:02 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From:
diverson@xxxxxxxxxx
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Good Hard Science Fiction often depends on the "mugguffen" That is you get
one
new unexplainable technology like, say warp drive or time travel and
everything
else has to follow known or extrapolated science. A marvelous story
demonstrating what I mean is Poul Anderson's story Hiding place found in The
Vanreign Method which is available from Baen Books. Anderson postulates one
"muguffen" Gravity Generators which make faster then light possible.
Vanreign's
ship crippled comes upon an alien ship and Vanreign has to figure out where
the
alien crew went in order to save himself and his crew.
Someone mentioned the Mote in God's Eye by pournelle and Niven. The Mote is a
continuance of the universe created by J. E. Pournelle staring soldier John
Christian
Falkenberg. There is a lot more depth here then just shoot-um-up. If the
stories
in The Prince by Pournelle and
Sterling especially the events on Hadley or the novel West of Honor
anthologized
in that book don't bring tears to your eyes You need remedial therapy.
You are, I think, to young to have lived aware during the Cold War. The
universe
that Pournelle builds from that period. By the time you get to the Mote in
God's
Eye the universe has changed enough so you don't have to have had a feel for
the
cold war to enjoy the book. The Prince, however, depends upon a Rivalry that
no
longer exists.
If you want a good taste of that Rivalry, before diving in to the prince,
download the book 2020 vision by Pournelle which is an anthology scanned by
your
Humble Correspondent.. Read the story The Pugilist by Poul Anderson. Read it
in
one sitting!
But The Stories the thing.
Tell a good story and it won't matter much that the trope has been used
before.
Someone invented the Warp Drive about 1932 and a thousand science fiction
writers have used it since.
Here are ten stories I would recommend. Remember I am an old-dood
1. The Pugilist by Anderson, I think it's one of his two best stories. The
other
is
two The Man who Came Early.
three The Mennas from Earth. By Robert A. Heinlein.
Four A Pail of Air by Fritz Leiber.
Five. It's a good Life. (don't know the author) but it's the scariest story I
ever read. Even more frightening then Who Goes There by John W. Campbell
AKA Don A. Stewart.
Six. Nightfall by Asimov. Ya, it's a classic and you can only read it once,
but
if no one tells you the ending?
Seven Dodkin's Job by Jack Williamson (In The Survival of Freedom by
Pournelle
on bookshare)
Eight the Man who Learned the Loving by Theodore Sturgeon. (And if anyone
knows
where I can find that story I'd be obliged.
Nine The Sheriff of Canyon Gulch by Anderson and Dixon
Ten The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C. Clark.
Sincerely Yours:
Duane Iverson
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims
may
be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than
under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes
sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us
for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval
of
their own conscience."
C.S. Lewis
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