Here’s a thought for those writing SF novels about time travel: The hackneyed plot is always one of those ethically dubious stories about someone deciding to get into the time machine and kill Hitler, or Pol Pot, or Mao, or whoever. They do so because they are supposedly moral relativists and believe that killing one psychopath is better than letting that psychopath lead a society into the mass murder sanctioned by governments led by psychopaths like Pol Pot, Mao, and Hitler. The moral absolutist, however — say, the traditional Catholic — would argue that killing Hitler, Mao, or Pol Pot …
Category: SF
Inception and PKD
After reviewing the book about PKD in my last post, I realized I’d said nothing about the film Inception, which I saw a few weeks ago. I’m going to come out and say what I think about the film, and what it means for cinematic SF, but save the spoilers (and much of my explanation) for the extended part of this post, so that those who wish can avoid the spoilers. (Note, if you’re reading on the RSS feed you might not have a cut. I’ll warn you.) So, what is Inception? It’s one of the most Phildickian films I’ve …
The Immersion Book of SF — Available for Preorder on Amazon
Yes, the Immersion Book of SF (edited by Carmelo Rafala and published by Immersion Press) is now available for preorder on Amazon.com. Along with Tanith Lee, Lavie Tidhar, Aliette de Bodard, and others, I have a story included in it, titled “The Broken Pathway” — a tale not only set in Korea, but in the very area where I have lived for the past five years (except, of course, it’s not set in the present day). It’s a tale of geomantic warfare, colonialism, love, regret, and harsh justice. You can find out more about my story here, and you can find out …
Bible as SF?
I must thank Emmanuel Carrère for this lovely little anecdote about SF in, I presume, the 1950s: Terry Carr, the Ace paperback editor, used to joke that if the Bible had been published as science fiction, it would have had to be cut down to two volumes of twenty thousand words each; the Old Testament would have been re-titled “Master of Chaos,”, and the New Testament “The Thing With Three Souls.” — Emmanuel Carrere I Am Alive And You Are Dead; A Journey Into The Mind Of Phillip K. Dick Terry Carr, the Ace paperback editor, used to joke that …
Why, Revisited: The KOFAC Presentation
On the afternoon of Thursday, July 22nd I spoke at a short SF-related seminar for KOFAC (The Korea Foundation for the Advancement of Science & Creativity) in Gangbyeon. I was asked to lay say a bit about how SF writers choose what to write about. Basically, to answer that question I felt I had to explain what I think SF is. So I put it this way: SF is how modern, industrialized culture digests the two shocks of technologically-imposed change on society, and the philosophical changes imposed on culture by science. That’s meaty — note that culture and society are …
Splice — another science-illiterate movie.
If you are worried about spoilers? You need to read this post, so that you don’t spoil your bloody afternoon, the way I did by paying money to watch this crap. Wow, and I thought genetics was a branch of science and industry where people were researching how genetics works, how to design medicines and other technologies based on those discoveries, and hopefully figure out how to regrow organs or limbs, fight aging, combat genetically-heritable illness, and that kind of thing. I mean, yeah, there’s also all kinds of stuff I don’t like in the biotech industry; most people I …
One Paper, Two Paper, Three Paper Accepted…
Well, no, wait, that sound better than it is. I just like the sound of that line, sung to the tune of a rather objectionable song but it always reminds me of the Agatha Christie novel title… So far I have three papers to present this fall. Two are within the space of a week and a couple of days, down in Melbourne at the beginning of September — one on ecology, politics, and dystopia in The Host at the annual Utopias conference hosted by Monash, and one on a couple of diverse uses of SF in the Korean classroom …
SF Airshow
I was commenting to my friend Insu (a Korean SF translator/fan) that I’m not much of a fan of airplanes, but I got a kick out of this, which was posted to the Launch Pad mailing list the other day… even though I don’t recognize most of the ships.
Meme: women in SF
The Rules of the Game (as teefed from Aliette de Bodard’s blog) Are: Bold the women by whom you own books Italicize those by whom you’ve read something of (short stories count). *Star those you don’t recognize Unmarked are those whose work you have not read (And I’ve got some comments on the original list at the end, which may be of more interest than the list itself…)
Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex (video), and Grading Adventures
Interesting thing: I am typing up the response sheets to the final essays for students in my Understanding English & American Pop Cultures course, and I actually had occasion to pass along the link to this video to one student who discussed Superman: (It is, of course, based very closely on Larry Niven’s original story.) I am not going to say more about superheroes, because I feel as if I’m a bit superhero-ed out, to be honest. It’s a huge genre, and there’s so much I don’t know about it… but I imagine it’d be fun to teach a whole …