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Essential reading for Science Fiction class

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20 Jan 2016 20:09 #220382 by RobertB
lala wrote:

No, its really Kubricks exposition on the impact of movies, and specifically cinema on our lives. Check out some of the great stuff like "The Monolith explained" (used to be on youtube. Some guy in Liverpool did an awesome Phd just on this. The fact that it still works in parallel with Clarkes book vision which fits your description only makes it more mind bogglingly good. But rest assured, almost every single scene in 2001 is full of visual clues that leave little room for doubt about what the movie is about, and how we as human beings as an audience are being awakened by our exposure to film.


I have a tough time swallowing that; it's like a backwards allegory. The movie is using the story of the development of mankind, from protohuman to superhuman, to tell a hidden story of how movies are changing our lives? That's like telling the story of the Resurrection of Christ as an allegory for how DirecTV fixed my cable on Super Bowl Sunday.

Erik Twice wrote:

I'm kind of surprised nobody has mentioned any Jules Verne novels. Are they not considered science fiction? I could see the argument either way.


Totally SF. An excerpt from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea would be a good choice.
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20 Jan 2016 23:43 #220390 by stoic
Many fine books have been mentioned so far. Here are a few more.

Bill the Galactic Hero by Harry Harrison

The Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison

Dying Earth by Jack Vance

Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons
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21 Jan 2016 17:44 #220440 by Cranberries
A discussion of Dune broke out on Reddit. I wish I could justify including it in a 7-week term.

www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/...uote_power_tends_to/

It's so funny that if you stop reading Dune after the first book you miss out on the actual intended message of the series. The first book ends with the all-powerful Muad'dib overthrowing a corrupt Emperor and defeating the unmistakably evil Harkonnens - which is to say, absolute power being wielded beneficently. And then it gets worse from there.

"Dune was set up to imprint on you, the reader, a superhero. I wanted you so totally involved with that superhero in all his really fine qualities. And then I wanted to show what happens, in a natural, evolutionary process. And not betray reason or process."

"The bottom line of the Dune trilogy is: beware of heroes. Much better rely on your own judgment, and your own mistakes."

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21 Jan 2016 19:05 - 21 Jan 2016 19:07 #220451 by RobertB
@craniac - I read the first three books, back in the dawn of time, and thought that Dune Messiah and Children of Dune were pretty much a waste of time. One of my cowokers, though, has done a really good sales job for those two, pointing out what you've quoted. I think I'll have to give them another read.
Last edit: 21 Jan 2016 19:07 by RobertB.
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22 Jan 2016 14:51 #220627 by Columbob
One of the problems with Messiah and Children is that they spend a lot of time talking about the characters' special or super powers, but you don't actually really see them in action. Something about "Show don't Tell"...
Also with later Dune books there's a lot of philosophical ramblings and sexing, I mean the BG were always competent in the matter, but IIRC there was this faction, Honored Matrons or something, who were devilishly "good" at it.

metalface13 wrote: Anybody have any recently published recommendations? I'm curious as I haven't read any new science fiction in quite a while.


I've been reading quite a lot of Kim Stanley Robinson lately. If you like the idea of "The Scientist as Hero", and a generally pretty optimistic outlook on space exploration and colonization, the Mars trilogy is a classic, if dated considering updated knowledge on the matter, set of books (watch out for a tv series soon), 2312 is its quasi-sequel with lots of quirkiness and some brilliant way to info-dump to get the reader up to speed with the era, while last year's Aurora offers a considerably bleaker, if fascinating, perspective about deep space travel, and the author gives his answer to Fermi's Paradox.

I also read Charles Robert Wilson's Hugo-award winning Spin and it's pretty mind-blowing. Sequels Axis and Vortex, while not as compelling (or necessary - Spin could have been a self-contained novel), do a good job of concluding this story.
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22 Jan 2016 15:26 #220628 by Joebot

Columbob wrote: One of the problems with Messiah and Children is that they spend a lot of time talking about the characters' special or super powers, but you don't actually really see them in action. Something about "Show don't Tell"...


That was exactly my response to the second book. I felt like all the best stuff happened "off-screen." There MIGHT be some interesting thematic material in there, but the book was SOOOO poorly written. It'd be like if Tolkien cut away from Helm's Deep just as the orcs showed up .... then came back right after it was all over. "Whew, that was was some battle, huh, guys?"
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23 Jan 2016 21:45 #220694 by Shellhead

Cambyses wrote: Side note: Speaking of cyberpunk, stay away from Efinger's When Gravity Falls, unless you want to have a conversation about how future-looking Sci-Fi can end up feeing really dated due to real-world historical events since publication. Apart form being a poor imitation of cyberpunk, It's set in a future Arabian peninsula, only his descriptions of Islamic culture are sort of ridiculous in light of the West's heightened awareness of the Near East.


I agreed with almost your entire post, except for this egregious paragraph. When Gravity Fails is an excellent book, and you seem to have a big political grudge that has fucking zero to do with a science fiction story.
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23 Jan 2016 22:13 #220695 by DukeofChutney
I love when Gravity Fails, yes it has about as much to with authentic Arabic culture as William Gibson novels have to do with real computers but that never mattered. Cyberpunk has always been ridiculous but its still awesome.
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25 Jan 2016 11:18 #220754 by Cranberries
Remember, I only have seven weeks to teach the class. I think I will have them read 100 pages of Dune, when we talk about world building.

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25 Jan 2016 11:24 #220755 by Black Barney
oh boy when talking about world-building, give a shout-out to John Wick! (even though that's more fantasy than Sci-fi)
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24 Feb 2016 15:53 #223180 by Black Barney
what a garbage article.

NYC was getting wrecked by sci-fi well before 9/11. Godzilla, Armageddon, Day After Tomorrow, Independance Day....this is nothing new. Cloverfield has nothing to do with 9/11.

On the surveillance stuff, I don't think 1984 is after 2001.

BSG got its suicide bomber idea from 9/11 terrorist-flown airplanes?! Where did Japan get the idea from 75 years ago?

THE MIST?!?! STEPHEN KING WROTE THAT DECADES AGO.

Man, this article is the WORST.


...lol, the comments are pretty funny. The author is super defensive. "are you even reading past the headline?!"

anyway, that was terrible. I hope the author isn't anyone here.
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24 Feb 2016 16:45 #223188 by Cranberries
Yeah, I really like the idea of the article more than the execution. That said, SF nerds are the most brutal critics.
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24 Feb 2016 17:14 #223195 by Black Barney
but that's cuz they're smart! Like this person can't possibly be saying that The Mist MOVIE is based on 9/11 when the King novella was written when Osama was in the discotheques (how the hell do you spell that word?!).

The only sci-fi thing changed by 9/11 is that Spiderman movie that had to delay release to take out all the shots of the WTC. That's it.

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25 Feb 2016 09:56 - 25 Feb 2016 10:00 #223254 by Columbob
Not really SF (although the story told by the album could be viewed as, more paranormal than SF), but Dream Theater released this album on the very day the planes crashed in the towers:


Talk about a bad coincidence. Those copies were pulled rather fast and a different cover was released some time later.

Last edit: 25 Feb 2016 10:00 by Columbob.

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