Category Archives: Sci-Fi Saturday
A long time ago (nearly four years!) I wrote a post about my high school English teacher, Mrs. McGee (see The Love Connection) and a short story I’d written in her class. I complained in my post that she’d given me a low grade on the story because she objected to its conclusion.
Turns out my memory about the objection is correct, but she give me an ‘A’ on the paper anyway. (In fact, she compared the writing to Chekhov’s The Seagull … kinda sorta.)
I wanted to share it years ago, but didn’t know where it was. I found it just last week, and here it is:
Continue reading
9 Comments | tags: English class, Phyllis McGee, science fiction | posted in Sci-Fi Saturday, Writing
In Greek mythology, the hero Theseus, who slew the Minotaur and escaped its maze, returned from Crete to Athens where the Athenians preserved his ship in seaworthy state for more than a thousand years. It was an emblem of courage and a reminder of a national hero that many Greeks considered more legendary than mythological.
The Ship of Theseus was carefully maintained. Parts that rotted away were replaced with exact replicas. And in a ship made almost entirely of wood, crude iron, rope, and sail, everything rots, so eventually everything gets replaced.
Which makes the identity of the ship an interesting question.
Continue reading
43 Comments | tags: brain mind problem, consciousness, Discworld, human brain, human consciousness, human mind, identity, Ship of Theseus, Theory of Consciousness, Theseus | posted in Philosophy, Sci-Fi Saturday
Blessed be the Force!
As long as I’ve been picking my own reading material, a huge fraction of it has science fiction. I’ve been doing that picking since about 1963-ish, so let’s just call it 50+ years. Up until around the mid 1990s, it would have been hard to name a science fiction book or movie I didn’t know (and in many cases, own).
But somewhere near the end of the last century science fiction became a full-fledged mass-produced commodity that through sheer over-exposure became dull and uninteresting. In a way, I blame George Lucas and Star Wars, so I split SF into two eras:
Before Lucas (B.L.) and Anno Stella Bella (ASB).
Continue reading
20 Comments | tags: Anno Domini, Anno Stella Bella, Before Christ, Before Lucas, Fantastic Voyage, Forbidden Planet, Isaac Asimov, Lucky Starr, Plan 9 From Outer Space, robots, science fiction, SF, Star Wars | posted in Sci-Fi Saturday
I really didn’t expect to like it at all, but I have to say that the CBS show Supergirl has really won me over. To be honest, they engaged me with the first episode, and they’ve engaged and charmed me ever since. They’ve found the necessary secret ingredient for telling stories about an invulnerable flying alien who wears red, yellow, and blue underwear: plenty of whimsy, sheer joy, and don’t forget the love.
Full disclosure, when I was in grade school, Supergirl in the comics was my first long-time crush. The kid in me is still head-over-heels. Some of my earliest sexy images involved Supergirl’s landings (which would cause her skirt to flip up). Yeah, I had it bad!
So maybe I’m just smitten but thumbs up on the show!
Continue reading
11 Comments | tags: Calista Flockhart, Cat Grant, CBS, Chyler Leigh, Helen Slater, J'onn J'onzz, Jimmy Olsen, Laura Benanti, Melissa Benoist, Supergirl, superheroes, Superman | posted in Sci-Fi Saturday, TV
It’s been a wait of almost a year (the last episode of season 8 aired in November 2014), but The Doctor is finally back!
The best science fiction show ever on TV continues to deliver with a gripping and engaging cliffhanger first episode for season nine.
Continue reading
7 Comments | tags: Alex Kingston, Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant, Doctor Who, Freema Agyeman, Martha Jones, Matt Smith, Myanna Buring, Peter Capaldi, River Song, science fiction, Scooti Manista, The Doctor | posted in Sci-Fi Saturday, TV
You may know about the Drake Equation, which is an attempt to quantify the number of intelligent species that evolve in a galaxy. Depending on how you set the parameters, the answer varies from “lots!” to “almost none.” The first answer leads to Fermi’s Paradox: Okay, if there are lots of aliens… where are they? So far we’ve seen no signs (pardon the reference).
If you read science fiction you may also be familiar with the idea of Ancient Alien Ancestors (AAA) who are now long gone leaving only a legend. Sometimes there are The Ancients (now long absent), the current Elder Races (powerful, not always wise, not always kind), and the Younger Races (which Earthlings invariably belong to).
But what if we are those Ancient Ancestors?
Continue reading
30 Comments | tags: alien contact, alien races, alien vistors, aliens, ancient alien races, ancient aliens, Drake Equation, Fermi Paradox, Rare Earth Hypothesis, science fiction | posted in Brain Bubble, Sci-Fi Saturday
As a memorial to the loss of my favorite voice in fiction, I’ve been doing a Sir Terry Pratchett Discworld memorial read. I’d been planning to read the Witches novels again anyway, so I did that and then went on to read the Rincewind novels. Now I’m working my way through the rest in chronological order. I just finished Hogfather.
This time, as I go, I’m leaving tape flags behind to mark bits I especially liked and plan to share (and record) here. Part of what is so engaging about the Discworld novels is how intelligent and perceptive the writing is. Pratchett was a brilliant writer. After reading these books many times I’m still learning to appreciate his genius.
Today I thought I’d share some of those flagged bits with you.
Continue reading
7 Comments | tags: Death (Discworld character), Discworld, Discworld novel, Hogfather, Pterry, Pterry Psnippets, science fiction, science fiction books, Susan Sto Helit, Terry Pratchett | posted in Sci-Fi Saturday
Movies, for a variety of reasons, are hard to make. They’re even harder to get right. Science fiction and fantasy are also hard to get right — in addition to all the other challenges of storytelling, they require much more imagination and invention than fiction based on reality or history. This, in large part, accounts for the truth of Sturgeon’s Law.
It’s not often that a science fiction movie gets all the notes exactly right. Many are lucky if they have just a few good ones that make the film worth seeing. A very rare few get enough right to make an SF film notable. (For my money, Elysium and Oblivion are recent good examples, and Ender’s Game and Edge of Tomorrow weren’t bad.)
And once in a blue moon a film gets it so right that the horse sings.
Continue reading
21 Comments | tags: Chris Pratt, Drax, Galaxy Quest, Gamora, Groot, Guardians of the Galaxy, I am Groot, James Gunn, LA Story, Marvel comics, Marvel movies, Peter Quill, Rocket Racoon, science fiction, science fiction film, Star Lord, The Fifth Element | posted in Movies, Sci-Fi Saturday
For my money, Sir Terry Pratchett is the greatest fantasy author ever. That includes Tolkien, Verne, Wells, Burroughs, and Howard. (Martin isn’t even in this conversation to my mind, but then neither is Lucas.) Pratchett’s work has incredible social relevance. His keen sense of people, his deft hand with humor, and his ability to weave a rich, textured story as engaging as it is fantastic, gives his work a substance that sticks to the soul.
A recurring theme in Pratchett is the power — and the reality — of belief. Is Superman real? Or Sherlock Holmes? If millions believe in them, if so many stories are told about them, how can they not be real? One might say the same of all the gods we worship.
There’s also the bit about the frogs.
Continue reading
85 Comments | tags: Agnes Nutter, American Gods, bromeliad frogs, Diggers (novel), Good Omens, Johnny and the Bomb, Johnny and the Dead, Johnny Maxwell, Neil Gaiman, Only You Can Save Mankind, Terry Pratchett, The Bromeliad, Truckers (novel), Wings (novel), xkcd | posted in Sci-Fi Saturday
Science fiction authors Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle collaborated on about a dozen SF novels, at least one of which is highly regarded as a classic in the genre (and an oft-named favorite). Ironically, that one — The Mote in God’s Eye — was the very first book the two of them wrote together.
Rereading it is a task I have queued for this summer (along with the sequel they wrote almost 20 years later: The Gripping Hand). But this past week or so my relaxation reading took me back to their second and third collaborations, the latter of which I just now finished.
Being that it’s Sci-Fi Saturday I thought I’d share those two with you (along with an entirely different series by an entirely different author).
Continue reading
8 Comments | tags: Idiocracy, Inferno (novel), Jerry Pournelle, Larry Niven, Oath of Fealty, omnivore, Piers Anthony, science fiction, The Gripping Hand, The Mote in God's Eye, Xanth | posted in Sci-Fi Saturday
You must be logged in to post a comment.