quote:

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Originally posted by wong828:
To be completely successful, you have to be willing to deceive, as with a pen name. I think once the issue is made salient, authenticity becomes an issue.

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Though, in this case, it is worth noting that LinnTate is not pseudonymous.

quote:

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Originally posted by wong828:
In any case, the tell should’ve been SF and jazz. (Is that sexist or what!)

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More a case of stereotyping than sexism, though given the audience demographics of jazz radio and the jazz-buying public, it's not exactly a stereotype either.

Another interesting example to add to your excellent survey is "Thirteen Years" my favorite song by one my favorite living musicians, Alejandro Escovedo. I've been listening to the song for more than a decade, but it was only a year or two ago that Escovedo announced the song in a concert I attended as, "My attempt to write a song from the perspective of a woman."

I was surprised. I never heard it and now that he's pointed it out, I still don't hear it. Writing across gender and race is awfully difficult.

Not that I'm trying to steer the conversation back to the topic at hand, but it's one of the things that makes LeGuin's The Left Hand of Darkness so fascinating. For all the skill LeGuin brings to telling the story of a race of hermaphrodites, her characterization of the male protagonist is not convincing to me.

See, I do read novels in addition to short fiction. Sometimes.

quote:

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Originally posted by wong828:
Figure out what WIWTFRR yet? Or you wanna throw in the towel?

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For pity's sake. It's not even twenty-four hours and I had to spend much of the afternoon banging my head on my desk during a conference call, which makes it difficult to ponder the problem. Let me at least think about it during my run this afternoon.

Now Playing: "Hard To Know" Mindy Smith One Moment More (Vanguard)

Ugh... Memoirs of a Geisha was the worst book I've ever been forced to read. Awful.

But back to SCi-Fi, anyone read Greg Bear's Short stories? He also wrote a REALLY good book called "Eon"

And here is a KILLER book for a movie - John Barnes "Mother of Storms," a well-realized disaster novel about the future... like a combination of "strange Days" and the "day after Tomorrow" only good.

and here are some other more obvious ones

"Snow Crash" Neil Stephenson - classic

"Neuromancer" Will Gibson

"Ender's Game" Orson Scott Card

"Seventh Son" series by Piers Anthony, another very talented writer. Anyone read his "incarnations of immortality?" seven books about regular joes who become Death, Nature, Fate, War, God, etc... excellent characters.

Seventh son is a historical reimagining of the American west (particularly the Battle of Little Bighorn and Sitting Bull) if magic had existed

And as bad and violent and stupid as "johnny mnemonic" i thought it had some interesting ideas. but only 300 gigs storage space in our brains? please.

Why were you "forced" to read Memoirs of a Geisha, Hattoori?

Just to give us a gauge of your taste, what other stuff do you like, apart from your liking for SF?

Well, there is Blood Music, I think his breakout story. I actually read Eon AND Eternity, one of those "big dumb object" concept that just requires more than one book, and finally reduces everybody to pieces on some cosmic scale chessboard. The destruction of Earth by bad aliens required Forge AND Anvil to avenge. Read that too.

His Darwin novels are quite good, ditto Moving Mars. Bear is a geat idea man, and one of the standard bearer for hard SF these days.

Are you talking about his Collected Stories, the 700+ pg one?

I read Piers' first 3 novels (including Macroscope) and have never had the desire to go back. I think he is soft-headed.

Here's a reading assignment: Gene Wolfe's 4 vol Book of the New Sun, and the companion 4 vol Book of the Long Sun.

And an essential addition to your permanent SF library, his 5th Head of Cerberus, as important a single collection to the history of SF as Cordwainer Smith's You Will Never Be The Same, Delany's Driftglass & Other Stories, and Zelazny's The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth & Other Stories.

I enjoy Greg Bear's short fiction. I remember the first story I ever read from him, "Petra" in Omni back in '82. Those were fertile years for the genre and he was definitely at the forefront.

I'm coming to realize that I don't read enough novels in the genre. I read plenty of novels, just not science fiction. Blood Music, in particular, should be on my short list.

Though I think you offer an excellent list of novels, HH, I question bringing all of them to the screen. Snowcrash and Neuromancer are, as you say, classics. I fear, though, that they would lose so much in the translation to the big screen. You mention "Johnny Mnemonic," for example. You're right. there are some terrific ideas there, all of which are in the original story, but those are about the only thing that made it into the movie. None of Gibson's style or real substance made the leap.

Ender's Game is another interesting suggestion. I should probably expand on my earlier assertion that it won't work on the screen. Card is working hard to bring it off the page and his enthusiasm only increased after seeing Jake Lloyd in Star Wars Episode I (though I am at a loss to explain why). My fear for EG is that no studio will allow a science fiction movie largely featuring children to be as violent as EG must ultimately be. Perhaps Lord of the Flies proves me wrong, but I cannot see the final cut doing the novel justice.

quote:

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Originally posted by Hattoori_Hanzo:
Seventh son is a historical reimagining of the American west (particularly the Battle of Little Bighorn and Sitting Bull) if magic had existed.

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There is an interesting short story floating around out there somewhere about an alternate WWII where the Nazis successfully enlisted the help of the Norse gods with Loki coming to our side. I need to track down the title and author.

quote:

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Originally posted by wong828:
Figure out what WIWTFRR yet? Or you wanna throw in the towel?

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Consider it thrown. Nothing is coming to mind and I refuse to Google.

Now Playing: Nothing. I need to get up and do something about that!

yeah, blood music was the collection I read, I thought it was some of the best short sci-fi. There's also something like "Tales from a burning woman"? or somethng. really good - you should check out the novel Eon, although I think his short stories are better because it's the ideas that are so strong.

LinnTate, your restraint with Google is an example to all of us.

Actually it didn't even occurred to me that given the length of the title, the acromyn would be a no brainer.

And since I'm in less control of my impulses than you are (see elsewhere), I googled, and damn if there wasn't 6 hits. Wonder never ceases. God is indeed great!

The last two (2) "f" is our late beloved president. And Ballard mentioned that the first American edition of "Atrocity Exhibition" was pulped by its publisher because of it.

Of course, since we've become more decadent and dissolut since, it is available in bourgeoise establishments as well as outlaw places like Amazon and eBay.

Maybe I should google the Ellison. Would you include the degrees?

Left Hand of Darkness is 1969, LinTate, what kinda street cred is that?

Ahhh...I never would have guessed it. I've not read Atrocity Exhibition and I'm not positive I've read much Ballard. I take it this is a recommendation?

Google "Ellison" and "Langerhans" oughta do the trick. Have you read it? I don't know what kind of street cred it carries as it was published in the mid 70s.

Get all up in my face for being old, indeed!

Now Playing: American Public Media's "Marketplace" <-- Wait! I AM old!

Vermilion Sands would be the recommendation of choice. For its voice alone, it belongs up there with Martian Chronicles as an evocation of place that justifies SF as literature.

Atrocity is a piece of high modernism, next to Calvino, and the acadamie period LeGuin. Like John Cage and Robert Wilson, Ballard here represents a sensibility that connects to the mainstream avant garde. More successfully than either Aldiss or Moorecock, he left the tidal reaches of SF altogether, because after this, and his static novels, he wrote some fine autobiographical novels, of which Empire of the Sun was the first.

I suspect he misses SF.

But than so do I...

(I read near night everything up to maybe the mid-90s, than just the necessary stuff - just the occassional devotion - to be not totally apostate. It is the same feeling you have listening to middle-period Coltrane or Ben Webster, where maybe for a moment, you have a certainty that art can be redemptive. On the other hand, maybe it was just sex.)

The sci-fi genre of feature film movies has had a distinguished evolutionary history and has had to balance economic-entertainment reality along the way. Since Voyage to the Moon (1902) Metropolis (1926), the very notion of moving pictures obviously brought with it something almost scientifically revolutionary fantasy-creating. The fifties brought even more serious sci-fi features with moral and scientific tales of warning in the nuclear age. The sixties brought out more of more enlightened possibilities of science Fantastic Voyage (1966) and 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) though Fahrenheit 451 (1966) about government censorship and Planet of the Apes (1968) were a cautionary warning to us all. The seventies continued looking a important societal issues in The Andromeda Strain (1971) about biological catastrophy, A Clockwork Orange (1971) about societal chaos and human conditioning, THX-1138 (1971) about dehumanization, Logan's Run (1976) about eternal life. Perhaps it was Star Wars (1977) that introduced mainstream, popular entertainment, soap opera fashion and mega-profits into the equation. The focus became money, film enjoyment and action and thrills. Alien and Star Trek came in 1979. However, Bladerunner and Brazil came out in 1980s to promote a substantive, qualitative sci-fi movie experience. Later Gattaca (1997) came out to address genetic engineering and The Truman Show (1998) to address society's craving for reality television, A.I. (2000) about robotics. I don't see that the sci-fi movie genre really losing its substantive luster as much as the movie industry using science fiction as one of its standard genres to generate big profits through action sci-fi adventures, leaving to other independents to continue spinning out quality sci-fi films that continue to find a niche market. If one is concerned, it really speaks directly to the entire movie industry in general reflecting on all movie genres.

im calling for a gears of war movie that doesnt end up a hunk of shit like doom!

quote:

Originally posted by Member 27:
I dont mean just in movies either. It seems like all sci-fi nowdays is just violence. I remember the genre used to be about presenting a hypothetical future thats used to examine issues in modern life. For example, "Brave New World" and "Bladerunner" taught us about the dangers of science and how it cant be allowed to go unrestrained. It seems like we just dont get real messages in sci-fi movies or books anymore. For me, the genre has basically died.

I don't have a problem with the violence in the current spate of sci-fi films. I think the problem with sci-fi is that, as a genre, it has become far too all-inclusive, adopting far too many spin-off genres into it in order to justify calling film "X" as a sci-fi genre film.

Yeah I know what you mean. I often ask my self what happened to the days where we had movies about aliens/Martians and flying saucers? That was the kind of movies I grew up with in the 1990's.

Martian Leader

quote:

martian leader Participant
Posted 05 March 2008 12:34 AM

Yeah I know what you mean. I often ask my self what happened to the days where we had movies about aliens/Martians and flying saucers? That was the kind of movies I grew up with in the 1990's.

The movie genre of science fiction has gone through a wide-ranging transformation - aliens/Martians and flying saucers took up just one segment of science fiction in both books, television, and movies. Linn Tate (July 2, 2007), Smenkharon (July 2, 2007), and especially wong828 (July 6, 2007) in earlier posts do a good job of explaining and putting into context science fiction's rich history. Then there's my own post of August 13, 2005 that offers up a brief overview of the history of science fiction movies.

When you talk of growing up in the nineties, I assume this is when you really got into and enjoyed science fiction movies and from what you write were prone to violence, aliens, Martians, and flying saucers. Since your post intrigued me, I spent some time looking over the decade of the nineties. Not only were science fiction movies about aliens, Martians, and flyer saucers one could find:

Time Travel
BACK TO THE FUTURE 3 (1990)
BILL & TED'S BOGUS ADVENTURE (1991)
FREEJACK (1992)
TIMECOP (1994)
TWELVE MONKEYS (1995)*
LOST IN SPACE (1998)

Technology
DARKMAN (1990)
FLATLINERS (1990)
ROBOCOP 2 (1990)
TOTAL RECALL (1990)*
THE ROCKETEER (1991)
FOREVER YOUNG (1992)
UNIVERSAL SOLDIER (1992)
GHOST IN THE SHELL (1995)
JOHNNY MNEMONIC (1995)
OUTBREAK (1995)
MULTIPLICITY (1996)
ALIEN: RESURRECTION (1997)
CUBE (1997)
FACE/OFF (1997)
GATTACA (1997)*
MIMIC (1997)
SOLDIER (1998)
BICENTENNIAL MAN (1999)
VIRUS (1999)

A Future or Alternative Society
KAFKA (1991)
DEMOLITION MAN (1993)
THE CITY OF LOST CHILDREN (1995)
JUDGE DREDD (1995)
STRANGE DAYS (1995)*
WATERWORLD (1995)
ESCAPE FROM L.A. (1996)
THE POSTMAN (1997)
THE TRUMAN SHOW (1998)*

OTHER MONSTERS
ARACHNOPHOBIA (1990)
TREMORS (1990)
JURASSIC PARK (1993)*
CONGO (1995)
THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU (1996)
THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK (1997)
MIMIC

*Considered by many to be classic science fiction motion pictures.

And since the nineties there have been as regards aliens, Martians, and Flyer Saucers:

BATTLEFIELD EARTH (2000)
MISSION TO MARS (2000)
PITCH BLACK (2000)
RED PLANET (2000)
SUPERNOVA (2000)
TITAN AE (2000)
EVOLUTION (2001)
FINAL FANTASY: THE SPIRITS WITHIN (2001)
GHOSTS OF MARS (2001)
MEN IN BLACK II (2002)
SIGNS (2002)
SOLARIS (2002)
STAR TREK: NEMESIS (2002)
STAR WARS EPISODE 2: THE ATTACK OF THE CLONES (2002)
DREAMCATCHER (2003)
THE MATRIX RELOADED (2003)
THE MATRIX REVOLUTION (2003)
THE TERMINATOR 3: THE RISE OF THE MACHINES (2003)
ALIEN VS. PREDATOR (2004)
THE CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK (2004)
THE HITCHHIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY (2005)
DOOM (2005)
SERENTIY (2005)
STAR WARS EPISODE 3: THE ATTACK OF THE SITH (2005)
THE WAR OF THE WORLDS (2005)
4: RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER (2007)
ALIEN VS. PREDATOR: REQUIEM (2007)
THE INVASION (2007)
SPIDERMAN 3 (2007)
TRANSFORMERS (2007)

Perhaps you thought of this thread while you had to experience a dry spell during 2006.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: tabuno,