golge011/science fiction

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From the page: "A pioneer of the genre and one of the longest-active writers in the field, Williamson died of natural causes Friday at his home in Portales, N.M., said his family. He was 98.

"Jack Williamson was one of the great science-fiction writers," writer Ray Bradbury told The Times on Monday. "He did a series of novels which affected me as a young writer with dreams. I met him at 19, and he became my best friend and teacher.""

From the page: "Truth is, you probably already watch plenty of shows that, if someone had explained the plot to you years ago, you would have rolled your eyes and said, "not in a million years." So the question is, if you were willing to give Tony Soprano and his therapist a chance, or Jack Bauer, or the Lostaways or Earl, why wouldn't you take a chance on the best series on television, Battlestar Galactica?"

I didn't know that Battlestar Galactica needs defense but I guess it's different in US. This article summarizes best parts of the show and states why it should be watched at least once.

If you haven't heard of Jim Baen's universe now it's a good time to check. There are many subscribtion options and I'm sure one is suitable for you.

Ray Bradbury on censor.

From the page: "For it is a mad world and it will get madder if we allow the minorities, be they dwarf or giant, orangutan or dolphin, nuclear-head or water-conversationalist, pro-computerologist or Neo-Luddite, simpleton or sage, to interfere with aesthetics. The real world is the playing ground for each and every group, to make or unmake laws. But the tip of the nose of my book or stories or poems is where their rights and my territorial imperatives begin, run and rule. If Mormons do not like my plays, let them write their own. If the Irish hate my Dublin stories, let them rent typewriters. If teachers and grammar school editors find my jawbreaker sentences shatter their mushmild teeth, let them eat stale cake dunked in weak tea of their own ungodly manufacture. If the Chicano intellectuals wish to re-cut my "Wonderful Ice Cream Suit" so it shapes "Zoot," may the belt unravel and the pants fall.


For, let's face it, digression is the soul of wit. Take the philosophic asides away from Dante, Milton or Hamlet's father's ghost and what stays is dry bones. Laurence Sterne said it once: Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine, the life, the soul of reading! Take them out and one cold eternal winter would reign in every page. Restore them to the writer - he steps forth like a bridegroom, bids them all-hail, brings in variety and forbids the appetite to fail.


In sum, do not insult me with the beheadings, finger-choppings or the lung-deflations you plan for my works. I need my head to shake or nod, my hand to wave or make into a fist, my lungs to shout or whisper with. I will not go gently onto a shelf, degutted, to become a non-book.


All you umpire, back to the bleachers. Referees, hit the showers. It's my game. I pitch, I hit, I catch. I run the bases. At sunset I've won or lost. At sunrise, I'm out again, giving it the old try.


And no one can help me. Not even you."

From the page:

"...Grown-ups don't understand that (or they wouldn't be teaching it) but Macbeth is the true authentic story of my generation. This is Macbeth's world, and us teenagers just live in it. Dig this: those "Three Weird Sisters", who mysteriously know everything? They can foretell anything, instantly, like Google? Plus, the witches make it all sound really great - only, in real life, it totally sucks? Well, those "Three Weird Sisters" are the "Internet of Things", they're "Ubiquitous Computation", they're "Ambient Findability". The truth is written all over the page (or the screen - my school can't afford to give us any "pages"). Just read that awesome part where they're boiling pseudocode in their witch-cauldron! They talk like web designers!


Macbeth stumbles around seeing ghosts and virtual-reality daggers. That sure makes sense. Every day of my life, I see people with cellphones yelling eerie gibberish in public. The world of Macbeth is totally haunted and paranoid! You can't get one minute's privacy, even inside your own bed!

...

We can't "find ourselves" - the market's already found us and filled us with map pins."



A very good short story from Bruce Sterling. Sterling has a eerie way of storytelling. When I stumbled this story I thought it was an article, maybe because of this story seems like a prediction. A future where we all lost ourselves between jumping bits of life. So does this mean technology is a bad thing? Nope. Tech will conquer new frontiers and new gadgets new technologies bring us new lives. Problem is to be aware of what you get from this rumble.

Today's technology can be effectively used to form a police state. However tech today is a boon for most of us. So learn your way in this world of ones and zeros.