Ringworld is one of the most classic of science fiction classics, and yet often the fantastic setting(which is one of the best in science fiction history) overshadows the other ideas that are going on. One of the most overshadowed are the kzin, who take a back seat in the story of ringworld even though there is a kzinti with them.
In the anthology "The Man-Kzin Wars" the Kzin step forward, and while we still get to see fascinating places and visit worlds that are both brilliant in their scientific understanding and storytelling importance it is the kzin who become the most interesting aspect.
The Kzin are a race of cat people, and from that you might assume that they are like any number of cat races in science fiction. If they are it is because those races took the ideas of Larry Niven and used them. This is a race of carnivores who believe in strength above all else. They have spent centuries breeding their women into what amounts to little more than pets and whenever they aren't at war they are preparing for it.
With this understanding you might assume that the kzin are little more than moustache twirling villains but they are far more than that. This is a race that in many ways is more honorable than humans are. They won't, or can't lie, they will almost always fight fair, and if you prove you are truly stronger than them they will submit and become quite loyal. In many ways it is this honor that allows them to continue to fight wars where humans, who don't follow any of those rules can't afford to because they would annihilate themselves.
There are three stories in this anthology, the first by Larry Niven himself covers the first meeting between humans and kzin. The humans after three hundred years of peace are hardly able to understand what is happening when the Kzin attack, but once they realize it they fight back with an efficiency the kzin can hardly understand.
Next is a story by Poul Anderson. This is the bulk of the book, taking place after the first two kzin wars, the Kzin have discovered hyperspace and with that they will soon be on equal footing again to fight humanity.
The third story begins when the kzin attack. The only survivor is captured by the kzin and put on a zoo world where he discovers kzin women from before they were bred to be docile and stupid and we discover why they were so dangerous that the Kzin men chose this course of action.
I had never taken the time to get truly acquainted with the work of Arthur C. Clarke, and so when I saw the "The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke" I decided it was time to rectify that, and I am glad that I did. I had largely not read his work because I didn't care all that much for 2001 a space odyssey. It's not that I disliked it I just didn't care all that much, but I suspect after having read a few of his short stories, including those that helped to define that book that the book he wrote would be more interesting.
It is rare to pick up a collection of short stories, even by a single author and enjoy all of them. Typically even in classic works by famous authors I have found things that I didn't care for, and while there is certainly there are swings in quality in this story none of the stories were bad.
One of the qualities that is important in an author, especially a science fiction author is to know how much space an idea deserves. I have read far too many short stories that would have been very good if only they had been written in half the length, but, I suspect, the authors had some set length they wanted their story to be and so it got stretched out.
One of the stories that has stuck with me is "The Sentinel" which has a connection to the obelisk scene in the movie 2001, except in this story it is on the moon, left as a way to tell when humans have reached a technological level worth investigating. The story makes assumptions on why the object is there and it doesn’t show the aliens returning but none the less it is quite haunting.
The other thing I didn't know was that Arthur C. Clarke wrote a quite a lot of funny stories. The White Hart stories were all fun, in part because he could tell stories that could be science fiction without having to be hard science fiction since they were lies. This could be a fun TV series and reminded me of Eureka in the tone.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who hasn't read enough Arthur C. Clarke to know which of his styles you most like. It has almost every type of science fiction you can think of and all of it is quite enjoyable.
Picture from DarthFar on Deviant artI've been going through "The Complete Robot" by Isaac Asimov. This is a huge anthology of his robot stories. The classic stories are all here and a few that I hadn't heard before.
I haven't made it all the way through yet, but it got me thinking about the movie "I, Robot" and what it was that ultimately disappointed me so much about the movie.
The thing about "I, Robot" is that it came close to an actual movie about Asimovian robots. It had the right names, and it had the laws, it even understood how to use the laws. And the idea of robots taking the idea of the first law to extend to all humanity and not the individual is in Asmovs work. The problem is that by making your first story about them basically ignoring the laws it makes them useless.
The thing about Asimov's work is that robots were almost never the villains. They couldn't be because they were controlled by the three laws. Something else was usually the problem and the rob
ots were the key to the solution, so having a movie based on an Asimov story where robots are the only villain just feels wrong.
So, had they shown more robots acting like Asimov wrote robots earlier in the movie I would have been happier with them being more of a villain later. I'm still not sure I would have liked having Will Smith using a cybernetic arm but that was a minor quibble.
I still think that many of the stories in these would be far better movies than the one they made, and I strongly suggest that anyone who has ever read Asimov read "The Complete Robot" You'll find all the stories you love and a few you likely havn't seen before.
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ots were the key to the solution, so having a movie based on an Asimov story where robots are the only villain just feels wrong.
So, had they shown more robots acting like Asimov wrote robots earlier in the movie I would have been happier with them being more of a villain later. I'm still not sure I would have liked having Will Smith using a cybernetic arm but that was a minor quibble.
I still think that many of the stories in these would be far better movies than the one they made, and I strongly suggest that anyone who has ever read Asimov read "The Complete Robot" You'll find all the stories you love and a few you likely havn't seen before.
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As the world becomes more technological and populations grow the need to keep the machinery of the civilization working becomes more important and while we may be able to trust machinery the true question always lies in the men who run those machines? What would happen if those who ran the internet, or the airlines, or the truckers who bring us our food went on a general strike?
This question is as relevant or more so now than it was in 1940 when Robert A. Heinlein wrote "The Roads Must Roll" and while the technology that is used in this story can feel a little silly the ba
sic idea that is explored is one still worth exploring.
The roads in "The Road Must Roll" have been replaced with what amounts to moving sidewalks. These can be used to move people and goods quickly across the country. Their only real flaws are that the belts can break, though that has been largely fixed and the technicians who are needed to run them. The story is about those technicians realizing the power that they have and the attempt to exercise that power.
The main character of this story is about the chief engineer of those technicians. A large part of his job is to ensure that the technicians continue to run the road well so when one of his chief deputies shuts down a major roadway and threatens to attempt a general strike it is him who is forced to deal with it.
More impressive than the technology in this story is the political idea that is set forth of a new type of social order. This group call themselves the functionalists and believe that each man should be able to use the importance of his function in society to get what he wants. This idea works because each person believes that his function in society is vital and in large part it is thanks to the interconnectivity of our society. It works especially well with the road technicians who have a near monopoly on transportation in this world.
Of special note in this story is the use of what amounts to a Segway. It is described as a two wheeled vehicle that is kept upright and used to travel though the small areas of the roads mechanisms quickly because it is little wider than a man's shoulders. I don't know if this is the first description of this technology but as this story was written in 1940 it seems likely.
All of Heinlein's work is fun to read. With reasonable action and a quick pace he spends more time than I would like describing the technology of the road but he does it well and makes it seem like a real technology which is what was required and this is a story I would strongly recommend.
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sic idea that is explored is one still worth exploring.
The roads in "The Road Must Roll" have been replaced with what amounts to moving sidewalks. These can be used to move people and goods quickly across the country. Their only real flaws are that the belts can break, though that has been largely fixed and the technicians who are needed to run them. The story is about those technicians realizing the power that they have and the attempt to exercise that power.
The main character of this story is about the chief engineer of those technicians. A large part of his job is to ensure that the technicians continue to run the road well so when one of his chief deputies shuts down a major roadway and threatens to attempt a general strike it is him who is forced to deal with it.
More impressive than the technology in this story is the political idea that is set forth of a new type of social order. This group call themselves the functionalists and believe that each man should be able to use the importance of his function in society to get what he wants. This idea works because each person believes that his function in society is vital and in large part it is thanks to the interconnectivity of our society. It works especially well with the road technicians who have a near monopoly on transportation in this world.
Of special note in this story is the use of what amounts to a Segway. It is described as a two wheeled vehicle that is kept upright and used to travel though the small areas of the roads mechanisms quickly because it is little wider than a man's shoulders. I don't know if this is the first description of this technology but as this story was written in 1940 it seems likely.
All of Heinlein's work is fun to read. With reasonable action and a quick pace he spends more time than I would like describing the technology of the road but he does it well and makes it seem like a real technology which is what was required and this is a story I would strongly recommend.
Picture from alltellering on deviant artThere is something about mars that catches the attention of science fiction writers. Perhaps it is because in so many ways it is like earth. Pictures from the surface of the planet almost feel like pictures of a desert on earth. Because of this nearly every genre of science fiction from short stories to video games and comic books has used Mars as a setting or had characters from mars.
Some of the most famous uses of Mars are in classic science fiction. There are a few reasons for this. Telescope technology had allowed us to begin to glimpses the planet but not enough to know what it was really like. This type of ambiguity is the heart of science fiction.
Perhaps the most famous of these books is "The Martian Chronicles" by Ray Bradbury. This series of short stories tells the story of men coming to mars, meeting Martians, building a civilization and eventually leaving mars. But it is only the tip of the iceburg. Heinlein wrote "Stranger in a Strange Land" about a man raised by Martians returning to earth and Isaac Asimov wrote "The Martian Way". In fact nearly every great science fiction writer of that Era had at least one story with Martians.
Once television and movies appeared there were even more stories. Invasions from mars were almost common in stories like War of the Worlds but eventually as we grew to understand the planet a little better it became about exploration, though these stories often didn't work out well, or seeing mars as a new frontier almost always exploited by corporations like in "Total Recall" which mixed ancient mars technology, paranoia and an evil corporation all together into one story.
Comic books had their own share of mars stories and characters. Perhaps the most famous of those was the Martian Manhunter. This character has become a major character and one that came about in large part because of the fascination of mars in the popular culture.
In more recent years video games have also began to use mars as a setting. Often using the same ideas in the other genres. "Red Faction: Guerilla" have you on a mars that has began to be terraformed fighting for Mars freedom. This is reminiscent of the battles for mars in both Total Recall and Babylon 5, including the use of ancient Martian technology.
No matter what media science fiction comes in it remains fascinated by the planet mars and if we are perseverant and willing to take a few risks perhaps someday we can fulfill some of the dreams of these science fiction authors. We can walk and even live on the surface of mars and I believe we will because we are a species who has constantly conquered new environments and we aren't likely to stop now.
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Harlan Ellison is one of the most interesting people in science fiction. It seems that in nearly every story you hear about him he is upset with someone or something, from filing lawsuits against Star Trek to fighting with various people across the science fiction, yet there is far more to this man than someone who is abrasive and willing to start a fight. He is willing to give praise when he thinks it due and is clearly a brilliant man who has spent his life writing fantastic stories.
Harlan Ellison was born on May 27, 1934 in Cleveland Ohio. He has been a professional writer for most of that time, publishing hundreds of short stories. Much of what he has written is science fiction but he has in no way limited himself to the genre branching out into other fields as well as writing for television and movies.
Perhaps his most famous work is the Star Trek Episode "City on the Edge of Forever" and though the story was changed considerably, to its detriment if you ask Harlan, it still holds much of his vision. What it lost was a story of drug dealing aboard the Enterprise that was lost because it didn't fit Roddenberry's vision of Star Trek. The original script was eventually released, but even through all of this "City on the Edge of Forever" Is considered by many to be the best episode of the Original Star Trek series and possible Star Trek itself.
Harlan has written only a handful of novels when compared to his work on short stories. This is likely the reason that his name is not as well known as some of the others of his time period and skill. One of the most famous of those short stories is "A Boy and His Dog" which was turned into a movie of the same name. Both book and movie are filled with d
ark humor and are extremely fun so long as you like extremely dark humor.
Controversy seems to be one of the defining characteristics of Harlan Ellison's life. One of the more common of these ccontroversies is the use of the pseudonym Cordwainer Bird on any project in which he feels his work was mangled beyond repair by Hollywood executives. He has also claimed that Terminator was taken from two ideas he wrote for the outer Limits and was fired from Disney studios on his first day for joking about making an adult feature staring the cartoon characters.
In 2006 Harlan Ellison was given the title of Grandmaster of Science Fiction by the Science Fiction and Fantasy writers of America. Harlan lives in Los Angeles, California with his wife Susan.
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ark humor and are extremely fun so long as you like extremely dark humor.
Controversy seems to be one of the defining characteristics of Harlan Ellison's life. One of the more common of these ccontroversies is the use of the pseudonym Cordwainer Bird on any project in which he feels his work was mangled beyond repair by Hollywood executives. He has also claimed that Terminator was taken from two ideas he wrote for the outer Limits and was fired from Disney studios on his first day for joking about making an adult feature staring the cartoon characters.
In 2006 Harlan Ellison was given the title of Grandmaster of Science Fiction by the Science Fiction and Fantasy writers of America. Harlan lives in Los Angeles, California with his wife Susan.
Visit his HomepageWhile stories that want to be important are great sometimes you want something that is simply fun. A story that doesn’t try to be a lot more. "The Big Front Yard" by Clifford D. Simak is just that fun. It is the story of that guy that seems to be in every town who has lived there forever and can fix anything, as well as dickering so well that he can make a living trading and selling his stuff.
Hiram Taine is just such a man. He repairs anything ad sells antiques and while he isn't rich he is making a living doing that, but one day while he is preparing to fix a TV he discovers that his basement suddenly has a roof that he didn't put there. What is more odd the glass like material under the wood appears to be almost indestructible.
Over the next days he begins to have more things around his house repaired with no explanation and he begins to worry but whatever is here seems friendly enough. And then one day as he is returning to his home he sees that the entire front of his house is gone.
Rushing inside he finds that whatever has been fixing things has connected his house to another world, and within hours the secret has slipped out and everyone in the world is clamoring to take over his home. The U.S.A. government is threatening emanate domain and the U.N. is arriving.
First contact stories are common and in many ways the ideas of this story are not new. Aliens visit earth and give us a new way to connect with the universe, yet by grounding this story so fully in the time(the fifties) and place it makes it seem far more real than many of those stories. In addition this is not a story of war or aggression. The humans react relatively calmly to the news and the worst thing anyone does is try to hack open a bigger door in Hiram's house so they can get vehicles through it and one of the major conflicts is the loss of Hirum's dog and Hirum's sense of duty for the entire situation since it happened in his front yard.
"The Big Front Yard" won the 1959 Hugo award for best Novelette. Clifford D. Simak won two other Hugo awards, one for "Way Station" in 1964 and in 1981 far "Grotto of the Dancing Deer". In addition to this he was named a grandmaster of science fiction by the science fiction and fantasy writers of America.
You aren't likely to have any great revelations while reading "The Big Front Yard" but it is an enjoyable story and one that is so grounded in reality that you really feel as if you're hearing something that could actually happen even while much of it is quite absurd.
Got the picture from This Website, a bunch of reviews there too.
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"The Big Front Yard" won the 1959 Hugo award for best Novelette. Clifford D. Simak won two other Hugo awards, one for "Way Station" in 1964 and in 1981 far "Grotto of the Dancing Deer". In addition to this he was named a grandmaster of science fiction by the science fiction and fantasy writers of America.
You aren't likely to have any great revelations while reading "The Big Front Yard" but it is an enjoyable story and one that is so grounded in reality that you really feel as if you're hearing something that could actually happen even while much of it is quite absurd.
Got the picture from This Website, a bunch of reviews there too.
"Flowers for Algernon" is the perfect example of what science fiction can do better than any other genre. By using science as a instigator of massive changes in Charley mental state it allows the author, Daniel Keyes, to examine human intellect, the desire for knowledge, love, sexuality and more in ways that could never be achieved in more traditional stories, allowing us in the end to know more about Charley than we ever could have in those stories.
"Flowers for Algernon" is the story of Charley a janitor with an IQ of 68 who wants to be smarter. He is studying at night to learn to read and write but even that simple task is nearly impossible for him. He is given the opportunity to be given a experimental surgery that will triple his IQ.
The title character of the story, Algernon, is a laboratory mouse who has been given the procedure before Charley and regularly defeats Charley at tests of intelligence early in the story as well as being an indicator throughout the story of where Charley is likely to end up.
This story is told through a journal kept by Charley. This is the key to this stories success. Charley as the narrator tells as much about his increases and eventually decreasing intelligence through the words he uses, spelling and punctuation as he does through the actual stories he tells. This keeps the focus of the story on what is important, Charley rather than attempting to deviate into other interesting but superfluous piece of the story.
There are numerous lessons and themes in this story but perhaps the most important is the reminder that people with low IQs are still people with feelings and emotions just like ours. This is most clearly seen in one of the stories Charley tells at the near peak of his intelligence of being in a restaurant when a busboy drops a stack of dishes. Charl
ey finds himself laughing with everyone else until he sees the look in the boy's eyes and recognizes who he was previously. He then becomes angry, more at himself than anyone else.
It is this moment, along with the changing of how other people see Charley, that makes the end of this book less melancholy. In the end the effects of the operation wear off and Charley slowly reverts to his previous mental state, but even as he returns to who he was the emotional lessons seem to remain. Those who had made fun of him because they were smarter now understand better after he has, inadvertently, done the same to them.
This is one of the most powerful stories in science fiction in large part because it is so perfectly suited to the genre. Doing things that could not be realistically done in any other genre it examines the range of both human intellect and human emotion and the connections between them nearly perfectly.
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ey finds himself laughing with everyone else until he sees the look in the boy's eyes and recognizes who he was previously. He then becomes angry, more at himself than anyone else.
It is this moment, along with the changing of how other people see Charley, that makes the end of this book less melancholy. In the end the effects of the operation wear off and Charley slowly reverts to his previous mental state, but even as he returns to who he was the emotional lessons seem to remain. Those who had made fun of him because they were smarter now understand better after he has, inadvertently, done the same to them.
This is one of the most powerful stories in science fiction in large part because it is so perfectly suited to the genre. Doing things that could not be realistically done in any other genre it examines the range of both human intellect and human emotion and the connections between them nearly perfectly.
Science fiction is one of the most difficult genres of literature to define. It can stretch in time from stories that happen in the distant past to thousands and even millions of years in the future, it can have adventure, romance, comedy and more. And yet it is often reduced to being called simple escapist fiction or on the other extreme considered to be too difficult to understand.
Often people think that it is technology that defines science fiction. Often this is true, but science fiction is more than robots and laser guns. Yet not all science fiction needs to be like this. Hard science fiction stories like 2001 has very little technology that isn't available now , yet this book is one of the greatest stories in science fiction, and often the addition of the technology doesn't take over a good story.
The question of escapist fiction is one that is often spoken of when discussing science fiction. This is said with an assumption that there is something negative about being escapist but while the derivate nature of that statement is absurd so is the statement. Some of the most thought provoking and important fiction in the English language is science fiction. These are stories that explore situations like racism, genocide, war, peace and more.
The other argument that is often leveled against science fiction is that it is too difficult. The idea that you need to understand science in order to read science fiction. That it somehow requires a great deal of knowledge to understand. That it is somehow difficult to read. There is certainly some science fiction that this is true with, but even science fiction that requires understanding almost always has that information in its pages so you can learn while enjoying truly good fiction.
In the end science fiction, or speculative fiction, t
hat also includes fantasy can be better defined by a single question than the technology, or magic. That question is "What if". Not all stories that ask this question are science fiction or fantasy but this is the question of science fiction. What if aliens contacted us? What if a man could travel in time? What if people developed super power? What if robots tried to take over the world?
Defining science fiction isn't easy and defining it as anything except technology is even more difficult. Perhaps this is why some of the more interesting science fiction authors, such as Kurt Vonnegut have denied that what they write is science fiction at all but the question "What if" is often the real key to understanding this genre.
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hat also includes fantasy can be better defined by a single question than the technology, or magic. That question is "What if". Not all stories that ask this question are science fiction or fantasy but this is the question of science fiction. What if aliens contacted us? What if a man could travel in time? What if people developed super power? What if robots tried to take over the world?
Defining science fiction isn't easy and defining it as anything except technology is even more difficult. Perhaps this is why some of the more interesting science fiction authors, such as Kurt Vonnegut have denied that what they write is science fiction at all but the question "What if" is often the real key to understanding this genre.Some time ago I found I found a sight called Sci-fi Lists which has the top 100 science fiction books of all time. I decided to attempt to read everything on that list. I'm still working on it but the first 5 were easy as two of my favorite books were in that number.
What strikes me the most about the list is the variety of books. I suspect that in most genres if you gave a list of the top 100 you would find authors on the list more and being becoming similar.
For today I thought i would share the first five of these books and my opinions on them.
1. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
This book is sometimes by favorite and sometimes second favorite book but I'm still surprised that it is number 1. This is a book about a young boy being trained to be a general in a war against an alien race.
There has been some controversy surrounding this book. The Essay Ender and Hitler and the essay "Creating the Innocent Killer" both try to explain this. I suspect most of this simply exists because of the popularity of the book.
Don't let either of these scare you away from this book. It is a great deal of fun and one of the best science fiction books available.
2. Dune by Frank Herbert
What is there to say about Dune. I have read dune twice, the second time to confirm what I found the first time. I don't like Frank Herbert's writing style. He creates a deeply detailed world and interesting story and I recommend this book to anyone who likes stories with a lot of detail.
Dune is the story of Paul Atreides, a son of a noble forced to move to the planet Dune which is inhospitable but the only place to get spice. The name Dune is approprate because the story really is about this one world.
3. Foundation by Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov is science fiction master and this is considered his best work. In this book Asimov discusses the technology of psycho-history. The ability to predict the way events with large groups will turn out. The creator of this science discovered the empire was going to collapse and so created two foundations that would shorten that collapse from 30,000 years to a thousand.
Fantastic book, Asimov eventually tried to connect this with his robot series. I never really liked that idea all that much but it does not harm the book any. In addition some of the books after the original trilogy are not as good, but reading this is well worth your time.
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Typically I am not enamored with science fiction humor. I'm not sure why, but Hitchhiker's guide is the exception to that. Along with Ender's game this vies for my favorite book. What is odd is that the two couldn't be less alike, and neither could the authors.
Beginning with the destruction of earth to make way for a bypass this is a satire about Arthur Dent who is the last human saved off earth, which is a computer designed to discover the ultimate question of life the universe and everything. (the answer has already been discovered and is 42). Because the earth was so close to discovering it, it is suspected he may know the question.
As a radio play, a TV series, a movie and a book this is always fun and always a bit different from previous incantations but any of them are worth seeing. Just don't judge the others by any version.
5. 1984 by George Orwell
It is fitting that a political work should appear in the top 5 of science fiction books as it is one of the things that science fiction does well is illuminate things that we are often too close to see.
I read this in high school. My teacher had a list of genres and you had to read at least one book from each. I managed to fit science fiction and fantasy stories into 4 of the 5 categories. This was my classic and it is.
This book is often used as a metaphor, most commonly used as big brother, but what strikes me is how similar spam is to the books in this book which were created by computers.
In many ways these books couldn't be less like each other, and neither could the authors. From Mormons to athiests and trageties to comedies the science fiction genre is not one that lacks in tradition or personality. i would recommend any of these books to anyone whethere they think they like science ficiton or not.
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