SciFi: Books, TV, Movies

[Linus]

I know I can't be the only one out there who loves a good SciFi show ("Dammit, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a..."). Last week, we saw Avatar (OMG! Ya gotta see that in Imax 3D! Storyline was.. eh.. but the graphics.. WOW!). I also recently finished (thanks Hulu) watching the new V episodes (I saw the entire original mini-series) and Fringe. I like the idea of contemplating things that might be, could be, should be. Along that line, I enjoy a good alternate historical fiction (e.g., Turtledove's various novel series).

So.. anyone else?

[Darth Denkay]

Count me in! Star Wars is, and will always be, my favorite movie (both trilogies included). Haven't seen Avatar but I'm going this weekend. Last night I picked up the boxed set of the first 3 Alien movies - wonder what I'll be watching tonight...

[Linus]

Ah, yes. A classic. Or rather classics. The first is still the scariest in my book. H.R. Giger, who's artwork is used in all the Alien series of movies, definitely sets the tone for what scary aliens might be like.

Some of the "funnest" SciFi, IMO, is found in the B-Movies. SyFy is having a running go at alien, monster and time-travel B-Movies today. Actually, they may be more D-movie given how bad they are.

[NJFemmie]

A random sci-fi thought ....

I think it is so fucking cool that William Bell is being played by Leonard Nimoy.

I love me some Spock.



Even when he's not Spock.

[NJFemmie]

I miss watching Mystery Science Theater 3000



I love me some sci-fi B rated cheesy crap.

[Linus]

Originally Posted by NJFemmie

A random sci-fi thought ....

I think it is so fucking cool that William Bell is being played by Leonard Nimoy.

I love me some Spock.



Even when he's not Spock.

Oh hell ya! It was awesome to see him there. I have to admit having a childhood crush on Spock and wanting to be like him.

[NJFemmie]

Originally Posted by Linus

Oh hell ya! It was awesome to see him there. I have to admit having a childhood crush on Spock and wanting to be like him.

I'm a big Star Trek fan (thanks to my mother), and have an affection for Mr. Spock. Maybe it's because he's half human. Maybe it's because of his pointy ears. Whatever it is - Spock is the man. (Not to take away any kudos from Jim, mind you ....)

I love them all.

[dreadgeek]

I haven't seen Avatar yet. Probably this weekend.

Love the first three Star Wars movies but, I have to say, the second trilogy just didn't do it for me. Belly and I did the first trilogy again a couple of weekends ago when we both were just not going to leave the house and even after seeing each of the first three *at least* 75 times each (I lost count with Ep IV at 100 which I'd easily done by my mid-twenties) I still get a thrill at the end of them. While Ep 1, 2 and 3 all had things to recommend them, I wish Lucas had made them back in the early 90's when the technology was not quite sufficient to give him precisely the scene he wanted and so he was forced to tell us a great story.

The reason I say it's funny that someone should mention sci-fi is that I got a Kindle for X-mas ('cuz my honey loves me) and the very first book I bought was an old (25 years old now) sci-fi novel titled Neuromancer by William Gibson. It's the first real cyberpunk book and it was cyberpunk that reinvigorated my love for science fiction that *wasn't* Star Wars or Star Trek. I've read this novel at least a dozen times before but it's been a decade since I've read it. It is, without a doubt, my favorite sci-fi novel and the impact of it has stayed with me because it was Neuromancer that made me decide that I wanted to write science fiction and it was that desire to write really good that made me want to study science.

Cheers
Aj

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Linus

Oh hell ya! It was awesome to see him there. I have to admit having a childhood crush on Spock and wanting to be like him.

I SO wanted to be Spock when I was a kid! Kirk got the green space wenches but Spock was just *cool*.

Cheers
Aj

[Linus]

Ah, yes. Gibson is a classic. I've read that one and still have the rest of his books on my list of To-Read. I did become very enchanted with Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon. Have you read that one yet? It is a massive read but interesting (IMO) if you like cyberpunk stuff.

Add to those ones are the likes of Gaiman and Niven (my favourite general SciFi author).

[Linus]

Oh.. and before I forget. Since you bragged about the Kindle.. I get to go one further in that I have the Kindle App on my iTouch so I can listen to music while reading and having a hand-sized "book" rather than a full sized one

Just sayin'..

[evolveme]

I've had a love affair with sci-fi going back decades. I always leaned more toward dystopian work (such as Octavia Butler but also Ursula K Le Guin) than anything like Star Wars. Lately, though, because of what is happening in science, I've been thinking about artificial intelligences and wondering what is out there that might be worth a damn.

We who are lovers of science fiction know that virtually every invention of the modern age was written about in some fashion before it came to exist. I want to see what the future will look like through the eyes of the artists whose craft is to write about it.

I want to imagine our own evolution through their eyes and determine whether I truly see it as a dystopian (self-made) disaster or simply another long stretch of epochs stringed together toward the effort in species survival.

[Linus]

Ok. The two of you just caused me to get more books. Damn.

I had never heard of Butler before but am presently downloading Fledgling as my curiosity is piqued.

[evolveme]

This is where I depart from sci-fi:

The idea of a Kindle saddens me. Not physically holding a book, smelling it's pages, writing in the margins, dog-earing...well. It just feels like something romantic and lovely has died.

Beyond that, it would certainly cost me a lot less to move!

[NJFemmie]

Would the perfection of a mind meld interest you? (That's what I'm holding out for ... pfttt..... kindle....)

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Linus

Ah, yes. Gibson is a classic. I've read that one and still have the rest of his books on my list of To-Read. I did become very enchanted with Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon. Have you read that one yet? It is a massive read but interesting (IMO) if you like cyberpunk stuff.

Add to those ones are the likes of Gaiman and Niven (my favourite general SciFi author).

Oh yeah I read Cryptonomicon! Went out and bought it the day it hit the shelves. Don't know if I ever told you this but I was a cryptographer during my stint in the Army so, yeah, it was right up my alley!

I don't like it as much as I liked his earlier work but I love the way he introduces one of his main characters.

For those that have not had the pleasure of this sublime passage here it is, in all of its rambling glory:

Let's set the existence-of-God issue aside for a later volume, and just stipulate that in someway, self-replicating organisms came into existence on this planet and immediately began trying to get rid of each other, either by spamming their environments with rough copies of themselves, or by more direct means which hardly need to be belabored. Most of them failed, and their genetic legacy was erased from the universe forever, but a few found some way to survive and to propagate. After about three billion years of this sometimes zany, frequently tedious fugue of carnality and carnage, Godfrey Waterhouse IV was born, in Murdo, South Dakota, to Blanche, the wife of a Congregationalist preacher named Bunyan Waterhouse. LIke every other creature on the face of the earth, Godfrey was, by birthright, a stupendous badass, albeit in the somewhat narrow technical sense that he could trace his ancestry back up a long line of slightly less evolved stupendous badasses to that first self-replicating gizmo--which, given the number and variety of its descendants, might justifiably be described as the most stupendous badass of all time. Everyone and everything that wasn't a stupendous badass was dead.

As nightmarishly lethal, memetically programmed death-machines went, these were the nicest you could ever hope to meet."

That is the best summation of neo-Darwinian theory I have ever read and my favorite character introduction ever.

Cheers
Aj

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Linus

Oh.. and before I forget. Since you bragged about the Kindle.. I get to go one further in that I have the Kindle App on my iTouch so I can listen to music while reading and having a hand-sized "book" rather than a full sized one

Just sayin'..

Oh like you think I didn't have the Kindle app on my iPhone? You've met me, right? LOL

I LOVE that I can read something on my Kindle and then when I'm taking a break at work, continue reading on my iPhone in a seamless fashion.

And don't get me wrong, I LOVE the feeling of a book. For me the Kindle is practical (along with being insanely great). When I'm not in school, I leave the house for work with my laptop and at least two, usually three, books in my messenger bag. Add to that some massive textbook during the school year and I can easily have a bag that's coming in around 15 lbs or so depending upon what I'm reading at the time. Before I got the Kindle, for instance, I had the new Terry Pratchett in hardcover and the new Richard Dawkins in hardcover Thorsten Veblen's "Theory of the Leisure Class" in the bag. Did I mention I cycle to work?

So this way, I no longer have to worry about "which book(s) do I haul today" I can take as many with me as I wish, in the same 10 oz package and can read whatever it is I feel like reading that day. It saves my back. Oh and did I mention that the Kindle is insanely great?

There's things I promised Belly I wouldn't get on the Kindle--like any new Terry Pratchett since we both worship him as a literary god.

Cheers
Aj

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by June

If it's any consolation, I think both of you are extremely "Spock-Like"

Is Terry Pratchett considered Sci-Fi? Or is it just Fantasy? At any rate, I <3 him so much. How he combines political satire with popular culture references and then adds them to a whole 'nother solar system, like ours, but on the back of a turtle.

I also got a Kindle for Xmas, I just need to figure out how to use the damn thing...Anyone? Spock?

I would put Pratchett in the realm of fantasy having the exact same relationship to fantasy as Douglas Adams did to science fiction.

Anytime you want to hang out, June, I'm happy to show you around the Kindle.

And thank you for saying I was Spock-like (Spocksh?), that's the second nicest thing I've heard all day. "Belly saying "I love you" being the first"

Cheers
Aj

[Linus]

Ah.. AMC had Aliens on (just finished watching that) and now am watching Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. Between Tina Turner's Aunty Entity and Mel Gibson's Mad Max (prior to his Last Temptation of the Christ) don't know who's more interesting..

[Waldo]

Originally Posted by evolveme

This is where I depart from sci-fi:

The idea of a Kindle saddens me. Not physically holding a book, smelling it's pages, writing in the margins, dog-earing...well. It just feels like something romantic and lovely has died.

Beyond that, it would certainly cost me a lot less to move!

Of course something lovely died. TREES.

I love my Kindle.

Luddite.