Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Right! Same publisher.>> ^Payback:

>> ^dag:
Good stuff. Quite a bit after this interview, but I used to love OMNI magazine.

So did I. Penthouse for the brain.

>> ^dag:

Good stuff. Quite a bit after this interview, but I used to love OMNI magazine.


So did I. Penthouse for the brain.

It's Isaac Asimov, people!!!!

Thanks for the quality bump, jan.

In reply to this comment by jan:
quality

I recently finished, Psychohistorical Crisis by Donald Kingsbury, an unauthorized sequel to the Asimov Foundation Series, basically picking up where Second Foundation ended. The author is a mathematician, so he is able to make some bridges between probability, math theory, and Asimov's psychohistory, which is cool.

Kingsbury sets his novel 1600 years after the establishment of the second empire. His protagonists explore a highly detailed galaxy, while unveiling a fatal flaw in Seldon's Plan.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

But to care about SF, it has to be about how it relates to human beings. In some sense we have to put ourselves in the shoes of the people who are experiencing the wonder. Otherwise it's dry and boring.

When I think about SF movies without good character, I think of Transformers. Style over substance.

Contact on the other hand had a great central character that let you feel the wonder of what she was experiencing through her eyes. That's vital.

>> ^gorillaman:

>> ^dag:
Hmmm. Examples? I guess Dave Bowman was pretty flat, but HAL as a character definitely wasn't. Deckard in Bladerunner was not flat, very tortured nuanced performance by Harrison Ford. I think I'd have to disagree with you gorillaman. The best SF, like all stories, is character driven.
Well there's Rama, where Clarke correctly focuses on the ship. I feel like people who complain about the humans' characterisation just aren't reading the book right. I read Schild's Ladder recently - the characters have intellectual disagreements but not much else, to the point of lacking differentiated sexes, and it still paints a compelling portrait of future civilisation. I hesitate to mention Ayn Rand's Anthem, but she understood if you detail your protagonist too explicitly then you lose your universality of meaning.
It's not often an author can write SF in its purest form and still get published, so it's easier to find examples where too much emphasis on the human elements detracts from the work. Like Asimov's Foundation, one of my favorites. The characters in that book are downright intrusive on what's otherwise an exploration of events on a galactic scale. After the reader gets his introduction to the wonderful concept of psychohistory, the characters start to drive the plot and everything falls apart. The rest of the book and the subsequent books in the series become just Some Stuff That Happens. Well stuff happens every day, I don't need to read about stuff. Just like Rama's sequels, no good can come from watering down high literature with narratological cliches.
Good SF communicates to the reader a single idea as clearly and elegantly as possible then ends. Characterisation, even plot, are distractions.
It's an educational experience. How would you feel if your maths textbook gave the number two a quirky personality, and the equals sign a terrible secret to hide? That's fine if you just want to be entertained, but not if you want to learn something. I use SF as a kind of zen meditation, projecting my consciousness into a construction of a future I won't visit in person, in order to become enlightened.

>> ^dag:
Hmmm. Examples? I guess Dave Bowman was pretty flat, but HAL as a character definitely wasn't. Deckard in Bladerunner was not flat, very tortured nuanced performance by Harrison Ford. I think I'd have to disagree with you gorillaman. The best SF, like all stories, is character driven.

Well there's Rama, where Clarke correctly focuses on the ship. I feel like people who complain about the humans' characterisation just aren't reading the book right. I read Schild's Ladder recently - the characters have intellectual disagreements but not much else, to the point of lacking differentiated sexes, and it still paints a compelling portrait of future civilisation. I hesitate to mention Ayn Rand's Anthem, but she understood if you detail your protagonist too explicitly then you lose your universality of meaning.

It's not often an author can write SF in its purest form and still get published, so it's easier to find examples where too much emphasis on the human elements detracts from the work. Like Asimov's Foundation, one of my favorites. The characters in that book are downright intrusive on what's otherwise an exploration of events on a galactic scale. After the reader gets his introduction to the wonderful concept of psychohistory, the characters start to drive the plot and everything falls apart. The rest of the book and the subsequent books in the series become just Some Stuff That Happens. Well stuff happens every day, I don't need to read about stuff. Just like Rama's sequels, no good can come from watering down high literature with narratological cliches.

Good SF communicates to the reader a single idea as clearly and elegantly as possible then ends. Characterisation, even plot, are distractions.

It's an educational experience. How would you feel if your maths textbook gave the number two a quirky personality, and the equals sign a terrible secret to hide? That's fine if you just want to be entertained, but not if you want to learn something. I use SF as a kind of zen meditation, projecting my consciousness into a construction of a future I won't visit in person, in order to become enlightened.

*dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/Isaac-Asimov-Debate-Is-Earth-Unique.

This video has been nominated as a duplicate of this video by chicchorea. If this nomination is seconded with *isdupe, the video will be killed and its votes transferred to the original.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

You'll probably like Source Code. It's a tight SF thriller- a bit on the short side - and a little more mainstreamy than Moon - but still good and validates Duncan as someone who can direct a fairly complicated movie and have it make sense to to a general audience without dumbing it down.

I wish someone good would do a reboot of Bladerunner making a version more true to the original book Do Andriods Dream of Electric Sheep which had so much more in it:

>> ^dag:

I have high hopes for Proyas as well. I think our best bet though, for smart speculative fiction on the screen is Duncan Jones. Director of both Moon and the recent Source Code - his next film is supposedly a homage to Blade Runner set in Berlin - which sounds just awesome.
>> ^spoco2:
>> ^dag:
Nobody ever wants to watch Logan's Run with me - but I love that movie so much.

Oh! Great movie, I downloaded it recently to watch again, but it has to be one of those I watch alone as my wife has only so much ability to watch dated Sci Fi (current sci fi no probs).
Knowing had good bits, but I disliked the resolve. Also had high hopes because it was Alex, and, well, shot in Melbourne Yeay for the museum that me and the kids go to regularly.
Alex has done some stunning work, Dark City and the Crow, some ok work, iRobot was pretty good as long as you didn't actually expect it to be anything to do with Asimov, and some dribble... Garage Days was pretty crap.
I'd love to see him get back on top with an awesome, high concept, visually thrilling film again. Dark City is just so damn awesome.
Oh, but yeah, the plane crash scene in Knowing was awesome, very awesome.




Moon was pretty darn awesome, proper sci fi, dealing with 'concepts' rather than just flying cars and lasers. Source code looks cool, haven't seen it yet. But a 'love letter' to Blade Runner sounds ok by me

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

I have high hopes for Proyas as well. I think our best bet though, for smart speculative fiction on the screen is Duncan Jones. Director of both Moon and the recent Source Code - his next film is supposedly a homage to Blade Runner set in Berlin - which sounds just awesome.

>> ^spoco2:

>> ^dag:
Nobody ever wants to watch Logan's Run with me - but I love that movie so much.

Oh! Great movie, I downloaded it recently to watch again, but it has to be one of those I watch alone as my wife has only so much ability to watch dated Sci Fi (current sci fi no probs).
Knowing had good bits, but I disliked the resolve. Also had high hopes because it was Alex, and, well, shot in Melbourne Yeay for the museum that me and the kids go to regularly.
Alex has done some stunning work, Dark City and the Crow, some ok work, iRobot was pretty good as long as you didn't actually expect it to be anything to do with Asimov, and some dribble... Garage Days was pretty crap.
I'd love to see him get back on top with an awesome, high concept, visually thrilling film again. Dark City is just so damn awesome.
Oh, but yeah, the plane crash scene in Knowing was awesome, very awesome.

>> ^dag:

Nobody ever wants to watch Logan's Run with me - but I love that movie so much.


Oh! Great movie, I downloaded it recently to watch again, but it has to be one of those I watch alone as my wife has only so much ability to watch dated Sci Fi (current sci fi no probs).

Knowing had good bits, but I disliked the resolve. Also had high hopes because it was Alex, and, well, shot in Melbourne Yeay for the museum that me and the kids go to regularly.

Alex has done some stunning work, Dark City and the Crow, some ok work, iRobot was pretty good as long as you didn't actually expect it to be anything to do with Asimov, and some dribble... Garage Days was pretty crap.

I'd love to see him get back on top with an awesome, high concept, visually thrilling film again. Dark City is just so damn awesome.

Oh, but yeah, the plane crash scene in Knowing was awesome, very awesome.

High brow scifi:



Suck it, Asimov.

dupeof

Earth may or may not be, but this isn't, dupeof http://videosift.com/video/Isaac-Asimov-Debate-Is-Earth-Unique.