Tag Archives: Science Fiction

Arts & Humanities, Current Affairs, Film & Movies, Memories & History, Pleasures, Television

Star Trek has truly reinvented itself – Polygon

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The sci-fi franchise is all TV these days, and there’s something for (almost) everyone

By Dylan Roth, Sep 27, 2022, 10:40am EDT, 105 Comments / 105 New

Photo: Marni Grossman/Paramount Plus

Here’s a wild statistic: There are nearly as many currently running Star Trek television series as there are completed Star Trek television series. The first 40 years of the franchise’s history include five live-action series and one animated spinoff, totaling 725 episodes.

In the past five years, five new series have launched (six if you count Short Treks as its own entity), airing a cumulative 130 episodes as of today. Star Trek as a brand is busier than it’s been since the mid-1990s, when Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and the Next Generation TV series were all running concurrently and shops around the world dedicated entire displays to Star Trek toys, novels, and video games.

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

Source: https://www.polygon.com/23345284/star-trek-tv-show-best-start

Arts & Humanities, Current Affairs, Film & Movies, Science & Health, Television

More People Should Watch This Sci-Fi Masterpiece on Apple TV Plus – CNET

For All Mankind’s version of the space race is one of the most compelling dramas on TV.

By Erin Carson, July 7, 2022 5:40 p.m. PT

light man people space
Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com

Watching the season 3 premiere of For All Mankind on Apple TV Plus, I didn’t touch my phone once. That never happens.

The hour-long episode, which placed several main characters at a wedding-gone-wrong aboard what was supposed to be the first space hotel, was a tense introduction to what will likely be a tense season.

The hotel is built on the idea that centrifugal force creates gravity, and when a piece of debris hits one of the thrusters, causing the rotation (and gravity) to increase, characters struggle to put one foot in front of the other.

I half expected The Doctor to show up in the Tardis because a seemingly doomed spaceship in the middle of a party is exactly the kind of place he’d be likely to turn up.

Source: More People Should Watch This Sci-Fi Masterpiece on Apple TV Plus – CNET

Arts & Humanities, Books & Reading, Film & Movies, Science & Health, Television

How ‘Invasion’ Showrunner Created Fact-Based Science-Fiction – TV | The Hollywood Reporter

Simon Kinberg, co-creator and showrunner of Apple TV+’s alien drama, sought experts on extraterrestrial life for his sci-fi drama series: “Some facts come out that are as strange as your fiction.”

By Mia Galluppo, June 20, 2022 1:30pm

From left: Golshifteh Farahani, Tara Moayedi and Azhy Robertson in Invasion. COURTESY OF APPLE TV+

“I’m somebody who went to college and didn’t take a single science or math class when I was there,” explains Simon Kinberg. “Unlike someone like a James Cameron, for whom that is their vocation, science is not something that comes naturally to me.”

In other words, he surmises, “I need Astrophysics for Dummies.”A lifelong fan of sci-fi, from Isaac Asimov to Aliens, the prolific writer-producer has put his stamp on the genre with entries like The Martian and his latest, Apple TV+’s drama Invasion.

The series, co-created with David Weil, tells the story of an alien invasion through the eyes of five ordinary people. When creating his science fiction, Kinberg wants it to feel as grounded as possible, so he sought out experts from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, as well as the SETI Institute, a research organization devoted to investigating life beyond Earth. (In a testament to this commitment to realism, The Martian had some audiences believing it was based on a true story to such a degree that the filmmakers had to release a statement to the effect of “No, we haven’t actually sent a mission of human beings to Mars yet,” remembers Kinberg.)

Source: How ‘Invasion’ Showrunner Created Fact-Based Science-Fiction – The Hollywood Reporter

Books & Reading

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

By Grant Wythoff, May 28, 2022

from article…

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

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

April 13, 2022, by Adam Oyebanji

–from article…

“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