Monthly Archives: February 2015
Science Fiction — or rather Speculative Fiction — has the general quality that it contains all other fiction genres. There is mystery and detective science fiction. There is romance (and sexual) science fiction. Action? Horror? Psychological thriller? Drama and pathos? Allegory? Westerns? Science fiction has them all and more.
In a sense, SF is just a property that fiction can have. I’ve tried to explain what I think that property is. I also took a stab at separating science fiction from fantasy. Now that thread resumes to explore the idea of SF hardness.
But first we return to and start with…
Continue reading
29 Comments | tags: Anne McCaffrey, David Brin, dragons, fantasy, Frankenstein, George O. Smith, Greg Egan, Hal Clement, hard SF, Isaac Asimov, James P. Hogan, Larry Niven, Orson Scott Card, Robert L. Forward, science fiction, soft SF, vampires, werewolves, witches, Wizards, zombies | posted in Sci-Fi Saturday
I recently had the pleasure of re-watching the 1979 Hal Ashby classic, Being There. It stars an aging Peter Sellers and was the last film of his released during his lifetime. If you enjoy thoughtful stories with deep currents under their surface, this is a must-see, a best-of-breed. The film was critically acclaimed, and Sellers and the screenplay rightfully won a number of awards.
A core motif of the film is mistaken identity with hints of The Emperor’s New Clothes contrasted with our reaction to authenticity. It’s also a political satire and a look at the ever-growing relationship we have with television.
That’s a lot to bite off, but it does it almost flawlessly!
Continue reading
27 Comments | tags: Also sprach Zarathustra, Being There, Chance, David Lynch, Eumir Deodato, Hal Ashby, Jack Warden, Melvyn Douglas, Peter Sellers, Richard A. Dysart, Richard Dysart, Shirley MacLaine, The Emperor's New Clothes | posted in Movies
Zzzzzzzzzzz-t!
One of those annoying-to-those-who-know-better shortcuts that movies and TV shows sometimes take is the visual trope of throwing a piece of wood (or a rock) at an “electrified fence” and producing an exciting shower of sparks. Typically, one character is just about to touch the fence, only to be pulled back just in time by another character who throws something at the fence to show the first character how they almost bought it.
It looks good — everyone loves a good sparking. In fact, you may have noticed how many action scenes take place in factories that seem mainly to manufacture sparks and steam. You may have noticed how often welders seem to be creating showers of sparks in the background of every action movie.
But this isn’t about our love of sparks.
Continue reading
10 Comments | tags: amperage, amps, conductor, delta, delta-v, differences, differential, diversity, electric fence, electrical current, electrical pressure, electricity, insulator, Mandelbrot fractal, non-conductor, sparks, voltage, volts, water pipes, water pressure, water tower | posted in Basics
One of the great things about science fiction is how it allows an author to explore the human condition in contexts that ordinary fiction cannot. For example, it can explore the idea of immortality. Is boredom a problem? If you are immortal, but others aren’t, what is it like to see everyone you know age and die? Is it as desirable as it seems?
Some themes occur repeatedly in science fiction. Immortality is just one. A very common one is the idea of alien races — or even intelligent machines. Such stories view humanity through new eyes.
Another common one is time travel, and that is the subject of today’s Sci-Fi Saturday!
Continue reading
26 Comments | tags: H.G. Wells, Looper, Poul Anderson, Primer (film), Special Relativity, The Shield of Time, The Time Machine, Time Patrol, time travel, time tunnel | posted in Sci-Fi Saturday
It’s snowing here in Minnesota right now (exactly why we call it “Minnesnowta”). The recent temperatures rival — sometimes excel — the temperature in my freezer (which is to say: zero degrees Fahrenheit). To be clear, by “excel” I mean ‘colder than’ — we would disdain a February that didn’t chill our bones and nip our nose.
But down south, in Florida and Arizona, MLB pitchers and catchers are reporting for Spring Training after having the winter off. (Teachers get summers off, baseball players get winter.) Depending on the team, the report date varies from the 19th to the 22nd. The rest of the players, depending on team, report from February 23rd through the 27th.
So I thought now would be a good time to talk about pitching.
Continue reading
4 Comments | tags: batters, breaking ball, Cactus League, catchers, curve ball, fast ball, Grapefruit League, Major League baseball, Minnesota Twins, MLB, pitchers, pitching, Spring Training, strike zone | posted in Baseball
It started out as conversation about how Edge of Tomorrow is the best big screen SF movie to come along in a good long while. That led to a ranking of recent SF movies with very high marks going to Elysium and Ender’s Game. It also touched on that Tom Cruise has made four — no, five! — SF films, at least two of which are very good.
Of course that led to talk of actors and how Jodie Foster and Matt Damon seem (unlike, for example, poor Sandra Bullock) to have excellent taste in what scripts they accept. If either of those two — let alone both — is in a movie, it’s probably pretty decent. Talk of actors in SF films naturally lead to Keanu Reeves whose ancestry and acting style make him such a perfect choice in certain roles.
And that lead to what a damn shame it is they tried to remake The Day the Earth Stood Still.
Continue reading
8 Comments | tags: Edge of Tomorrow, Elysium (movie), Ender's Game, Forbidden Planet, Gone With the Wind, Hamlet, Jodie Foster, Johnny Mnemonic, Keanu Reeves, Kenneth Branagh, Laurence Olivier, Matt Damon, Philip K. Dick, remakes, Sandra Bullock, science fiction, science fiction movies, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Tom Cruise, William Gibson | posted in Movies
I was tempted — just for a moment — to call this The Lost Oeuvre, but it really doesn’t rate such a highfalutin title. (And until just now, I had no idea “highfalutin” was a single, hyphen-free, word.) Considering that “works” can refer to drug-taking gear, that word seems just right.
Going through some old stuff, I came across typewritten copies of a few scripts from my film student college days. Not just film, but television production, too. I ended up becoming a computer programmer, but for a while I aspired to be the next George Lucas (or more likely, Quentin Tarantino).
For fun, I thought I’d share one of the ones I’m not too embarrassed by all these years later.
Continue reading
16 Comments | tags: Angel, college, dead, elevator, fantasy, Fiction, film student, FINCH, heaven, Heaven and Hell, hell, humor, Peter Finch, Purgatory, script, Stanley, teleplay | posted in Writing
It was a number of years ago that the book you see pictured here on the right caught my eye. I was wandering around a bookstore, as book-lovers do, seeing what there was to see (and possibly buy). This may surprise you, but I’ve always enjoyed a good debate, so the book’s topic seemed attractive and a nice change of pace from baseball and science books or SF novels.
Plus: Aristotle, Lincoln and Homer Simpson! Who could resist that? A glance at a few of the pages showed an easy and breezy open writing style that went down nicely, and the bits I read were quite intriguing. I snagged it thinking it would be right up my alley, and that I’d enjoy it thoroughly.
I never got more than a third of the way through it!
Continue reading
20 Comments | tags: Ancient Greeks, debate, For The Record, FTR, Jay Heinrichs, Plato, rhetoric, sophism, sophist, sophistry, Thank You For Arguing | posted in Opinion
You’ve probably heard the news by now. First Stephen Colbert leaves his show, and now Jon Stewart is leaving The Daily Show.
Wow. I’m seriously bummed about that. He’s been voted The Most Trusted Name in News (an honorific held by the great Walter Cronkite). Now what are we gonna do?
Topping it off, his friend Brian Williams turns out to have feet (or at least a few toes) of clay. Kind of ironic considering the TV commercials NBC was recently pushing about how trusted he is.
Just how many Signs of the Apocalypse does that make?
To quote Professor Farnsworth, “I don’t want to live on this planet any more!”
And that’s the way it is, February 16, 2015.
14 Comments | tags: Brian Williams, Jon Stewart, Professor Farnsworth, Signs of the Apocalypse, Stephen Colbert, The Daily Show, Walter C. Scott, Walter Cronkite | posted in TV
It’s been over two years since I wrote the Worst NCIS Ever! rant post, and I still think that was weak plotting. That episode was the premiere of the 10th season, but clinkers like that one episode seem incredibly rare. They’re turning out powerful, engaging stories even after 12 years. Still my favorite show currently airing.
So why is that the spin-off show, NCIS: Los Angeles, is such an ugly sibling to me? It’s seems so different that it’s as if it’s not part of the franchise, but some other — far less worthy — show. The new spin-off, NCIS: New Orleans, is so far proving to be as attractive as the first sibling, which puts the ugly one in even greater contrast.
Last week’s episode was so bad I just have to rant about it.
Continue reading
9 Comments | tags: G Callen, Hetty Lange, JAG, Kensi Blye, Marty Deeks, NCIS, NCIS:Los Angeles, NCIS:New Orleans, Owen Granger, Sam Hanna | posted in Rant, TV
Logos con carne 