Tag Archives: Sci-Fi

Dick’s novel “The Penultimate Truth” already showed us how AI that writes according to prompt can be corrupted

By David Gill, Published June 10, 2023 10:59AM (EDT)

*Robotic hand pressing a key on a laptop (Getty Images/Guillaume)*

Philip K. Dick had some strange ideas about the future. In his 40-plus novels and 121 short stories, the science fiction author imagined everything from “mood organs” which allow users to dial up an emotional state including “the desire to watch TV, no matter what’s on” to pay-per-use doors that refuse entrance or exit without sufficient coinage.

Characters in Dick’s mind-bending novel “Ubik” (published in 1969 and set in 1992) include a psionic talent scout named G.G. Ashwood, who wears “natty birch-bark pantaloons, hemp-rope belt, peekaboo see-through top and train engineer’s tall hat” and a taxi driver wearing “fuchsia pedal pushers, pink yak fur slippers, a snakeskin sleeveless blouse, and a ribbon in his waist-length dyed white hair.”

Source: https://www.salon.com/2023/06/10/philip-k-dick-predicted-chatgpt/

Arts & Humanities, Books & Reading, Current Affairs, Film & Movies, Libraries, Memories & History, Pleasures

12 Sci-Fi Stories Written Before Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

March 27, 2023 DrWeb

The Modern Prometheus is a bit too modern to have solely created science fiction, although it did revolutionize it.

By Rob Bricken, published March 21, 2023

*F. H. van Hove’s frontispiece for a 1687 edition of Cyrano de Bergerac’s* *Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon.*
Image: Public Domain

Like her titular protagonist, when Mary Shelley published Frankenstein in 1818, she knew not what she had wrought into the world.

Her tale of science taken too far birthed what many consider the first science fiction novel… and what some don’t.

As it turns out, there are several tales told before the 19th century that could also be considered sci-fi stories about aliens, spaceships, time travel, and more. Here’s a (non-exhaustive) list of proto-science fiction written when science itself was practically fiction.

Editor’s Note: Read more, see link below for original item…

Source: 12 Sci-Fi Stories Written Before Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

Books & Reading, Current Affairs, Film & Movies, Love & Relationships, Memories & History, Pleasures, Television

Geeky Hallmark: Our 30 Fave Sci-Fi Christmas Ornaments

December 26, 2022 DrWeb

From Star Wars and Spider-Man, to Aliens and Mario, we’re having a pop culture Christmas.

By Germain Lussier, Published December 6, 2022

This ornament is definitely not a piece of junk.
Photo: io9/Germain Lussier

When we bought a second tree, it was officially a problem. I’ve loved sci-fi and pop culture my entire life. So, when I was young, my mom started taking me to Hallmark each year to buy a few of the latest Keepsake ornaments. Even after I moved out, each year I’d give her a list and that year’s ornaments were part of my Christmas presents. Sadly, my mom passed away in 2020, but our tradition for pop culture Christmas ornaments continues. In fact, it may have gotten worse.

After completely covering a 7.5-foot tree for the past several years, this year my wife and I decided to buy a 10-foot tree to go along with the 7.5-footer. And, even though I’d estimate 100 or so ornaments are still in my childhood home where I left them, we were still able to fill the big tree, with the smaller one reserved just for ornaments I bought this year.

What follows is a slideshow of my favorites from this emotional but obviously expensive obsession. Some of these were released by Hallmark this year and are still in stores. Others are long retired. But there’s a little bit of everything in here. Check it out.

[Editor’s Note: See slideshow on the link below… ]

Source: Geeky Hallmark: Our 30 Fave Sci-Fi Christmas Ornaments

Current Affairs, Science & Health, Web & Technology

Space Elevators Are Less Sci-Fi Than You Think – Scientific American

November 30, 2022 DrWeb

I’ve been working on space elevators for almost 20 years, and though we still have issues to solve, we are getting closer to making them reality

By Stephen Cohen on November 25, 2022

*A space elevator made of carbon nanotubes stretches from Earth to space in this artist’s illustration. Credit: Victor Habbick Visions/Science Source*

Space elevators are often dismissed as a science fiction dream, but I believe they will exist soon—perhaps in two or three decades. Throughout my career as an aerospace engineer and physics professor, I keep coming back to the concept of a cable stretching from Earth to space, along which people and cargo can easily travel.

In recent years, I and other researchers have found new ways to tinker with designs and answer questions about how space elevators could work. There are many reasons to build a space elevator. The obvious one is the major energy and cost savings; it’s a much more practical way to get to orbit than rockets.

Another reason that is often overlooked is accessibility. The word “space mission” would be replaced by “transit,” as trips to space become routine and mostly independent of weather conditions. Transits involving humans would be safer than current practices, whereby astronauts must accept a nonnegligible risk to their lives with each launch. A space elevator becomes a bridge to the entire solar system. Release a payload in the lower portion, and you orbit Earth, but do so in the upper portion, and you orbit the sun; all without fuel.

Source: Space Elevators Are Less Sci-Fi Than You Think – Scientific American

Books & Reading

What Is Space Opera in the 2020s? | Los Angeles Review of Books

May 29, 2022 DrWeb

By Grant Wythoff, May 28, 2022

A SPACE OPERA revival is in full flight.

But it’s not streaming on Amazon or any other platform owned by someone trying to escape to Mars. While studios hungry for prestige intellectual property are mining a much older space opera paradigm with adaptations like Foundation and Dune, books by a diverse group of writers from around the world are beginning to rework the tropes of speculative fiction’s oldest and pulpiest tradition.

This revitalization of space opera — stories traditionally set in distant futures when humanity has spread to worlds beyond the solar system — comes at an odd time. Many vanguard SF and literary authors alike, having finally acknowledged that it’s no longer possible to ignore the climate emergency, are writing influential, near-future works of climate fiction.

Why, then, has a new generation of authors like Nnedi Okorafor, Yoon Ha Lee, Ann Leckie, Hao Jingfang, Charlie Jane Anders, and Maurice Broaddus turned to stories of other worlds, when the fate of ours hangs in the balance?

Source: What Is Space Opera in the 2020s?

Arts & Humanities, Books & Reading, Pleasures

Science Fiction For Crime Lovers: a Beginner’s Tour ‹ CrimeReads

April 19, 2022 DrWeb

Or, a look at five great scifi novels that also happen to be pitch-black noirs.

April 13, 2022, by Adam Oyebanji

“I can’t read science fiction. It’s not real.”

I have lost count of the number of times I’ve heard someone say that—or something like that—when I try to explain my love of a genre chock full of alien invaders, interstellar spacecraft, and gun-toting princesses, alien or otherwise.

There is something so “out there” about SF that many readers never give it a chance.

If so, you’re missing out. Science fiction is “out there” because it sets its stories in a world that isn’t necessarily ours. Sometimes in a universe that has nothing to do with the one where you’re reading this article.

Daunting for the non-nerd? Sure. But think about it this way. If the whole universe is your playpen, you can write any story you want. Any story. A love story? Sure. Starcrossed lovers from warring worlds, for starters. A swashbuckling adventure? Ditto. Isn’t that Star Wars after all?

And crime novels? Absolutely. Wait. What?

Source: Science Fiction For Crime Lovers: a Beginner’s Tour ‹ CrimeReads

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Tag Archives: Sci-Fi

Philip K. Dick predicted ChatGPT and its grim ramifications

Dick’s novel “The Penultimate Truth” already showed us how AI that writes according to prompt can be corrupted

12 Sci-Fi Stories Written Before Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

The Modern Prometheus is a bit too modern to have solely created science fiction, although it did revolutionize it.

Geeky Hallmark: Our 30 Fave Sci-Fi Christmas Ornaments

From Star Wars and Spider-Man, to Aliens and Mario, we’re having a pop culture Christmas.

Space Elevators Are Less Sci-Fi Than You Think – Scientific American

I’ve been working on space elevators for almost 20 years, and though we still have issues to solve, we are getting closer to making them reality

What Is Space Opera in the 2020s? | Los Angeles Review of Books

Science Fiction For Crime Lovers: a Beginner’s Tour ‹ CrimeReads

Or, a look at five great scifi novels that also happen to be pitch-black noirs.

all things library and life.. from a librarian

Dick’s novel “The Penultimate Truth” already showed us how AI that writes according to prompt can be corrupted

For Sharing

The Modern Prometheus is a bit too modern to have solely created science fiction, although it did revolutionize it.

For Sharing

From Star Wars and Spider-Man, to Aliens and Mario, we’re having a pop culture Christmas.

For Sharing

I’ve been working on space elevators for almost 20 years, and though we still have issues to solve, we are getting closer to making them reality

For Sharing

For Sharing

Or, a look at five great scifi novels that also happen to be pitch-black noirs.

For Sharing

all things library and life.. from a librarian