Like most pages on the Web, this is heavily under
construction. I'm completely overhauling my pages and I really wanted
to get the new versions up, though it'll be a while before I get
everything in place.
Like most pages on the Web, this is heavily under
construction. I'm completely overhauling my pages and I really wanted
to get the new versions up, though it'll be a while before I get
everything in place.
The television shows, movies, and books mentioned on this page are particular favorites of mine (well, mostly :). When collecting links I have included things that I have found particularly useful or striking in some way (nicely designed, comprehensive, or containing things not found elsewhere).
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What can I say? Babylon 5 is probably the best thing
on television (even Dilbert agrees), so I've devoted an entire page to it.
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Star Trek is definitely not the best thing on
television, but I've still devoted an entire page to it. (OK, I'll qualify my previous
statement - The Next Generation was good until DS9
started and DS9 was good for the first three seasons and has had
the occasional gem since then. As for Voyager, well,
one can always hope. :)
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The X-Files isn't the same sort of science fiction as B5 and
Trek, but this seems like the best category for it. The writers tend
to be a bit preoccupied with slime and bugs, but there are still some
good episodes.
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Star Wars simply can't get left out of a listing like this...
The more I watch it the more I realize that there are actually
amazingly large sections of the movies that I don't really like, but
as I have seen it more times than I can remember and I won't hesistate
to sit down to it again, I guess it belongs on this page. :)
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Finally, a science fiction movie that isn't about special
effects and how many things they can blow up in two hours. If
you go to Contact expecting a repeat of Independence
Day you'll be disappointed - sure, there is plenty of
computer graphics but the special effects are used as a tool to
tell the story, not become the story. Contact is a story
about what happens when contact is made with aliens, and raises a
number of questions: Are we ready for contact?
What happens when that contact is made? How do science and religion
fit together? (If this last question seems like a bit of a
non-sequiter, see the movie.) One last note, though - avoid spoilers
beforehand. It's good not to know any more about the what is going to
happen than the characters themselves.
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Gattaca |
Another SF movie which doesn't focus on blowing
things up, Gattaca is about a world where one's DNA
determines one's future, and how a strong enough will can
overcome that.
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The description sounds a bit melodramatic, but A Fire Upon The Deep (a Hugo Award winner in 1993) is not an easy book to summarize. I first heard about AFUTD on the Babylon 5 newsgroup and finally read it when a friend recommended it. It has a number of nifty ideas - ones that I found particularly interesting are the division of the galaxy into zones of thought where different laws of physics apply and the particular nature of the Tines (the "medieval lupine race" mentioned above). Another Vinge book I highly recommended is Across Realtime, which is actually two novels (The Peace War and Marooned in Realtime) and a short story (The Ungoverned) published together in a single book. The best of the three is Marooned in Realtime - it is a very unusual murder mystery - but the other stories are worth reading and provide some interesting background. Across Realtime deals with more "traditional" Vinge subjects - it is an extrapolation, a story of what might happen, and deals with intelligence amplification and the idea that this leads to a technological Singularity beyond which any sort of useful prediction is impossible.
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Several other books I have really enjoyed are those set in C. J. Cherryh's
Foreigner universe - Foreigner, Invader, and
Inheritor.
These books are unique among others that I have read because they deal
with a culture gap between humans and a species of aliens called atevi.
So often the only barrier to communication is language, and once the language
has been learned there are no further problems (like with Trek's Universal
Translator). In these books there is a very fundamental communications
gap, which seems to me to be much more reasonable than flawless understanding.
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In the Foreigner universe, humans have been thrust onto the atevi world as a result of a navigational malfunction. The ensuing War of the Landing war resolved by a treaty allowing the humans an island enclave in exchange for their technology. A single human paidhi is allowed to live in atevi society, to act as translator and to oversee the transfer of technology. The books focus on the story of the paidhi Bren Cameron, 500 years after the landing, as he tries to maintain the peace between atevi who don't understand humans and humans who don't understand atevi. Bren tries desperately to keep each crisis under control as he struggles to deal with human feelings for which there are no atevi translations while trying to fathom atevi culture which similarly has no human equivalent.
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Nicola Griffith
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Like a lot of people, I am a fan of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the
Galaxy and its various sequels, though Mostly Harmless is
by no means the best of the lot. I also like the Dirk Gently books
and Last Chance to See (which I found lurking in the zoology
section of the bookstore).
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The Lord of the Rings is the story of the One Ring, the master of all of the Rings of Power, the one that gives its wearer control over all creatures. Forged by the Dark Lord Sauron, the Ring inevitably turns any who try to use it to evil. It had been lost for many years after being cut from Sauron's hand, but has again been found. Now Sauron searches eagerly for it, while a small band of companions must undertake the perilous journey to destroy the Ring once and for all...by casting it into the Crack of Doom, in the heart of Sauron's kingdom. The Lord of the Rings chronicles the journey of the Ringbearer and his Fellowship and thus describes the events that bring the Third Age of Middle-earth to a close. The Lord of the Rings is an epic fantasy, a story of sweeping proportions, and well worth the read.
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This is by no means comprehensive; it just includes some places I have
come across. A listing here does not imply an endorsement (well,
except for The Space-Crime Continuum - I know the owner, so buy your
books from them :).
Looking for out-of-print books?
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Once again, this is not a comprehensive list.
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Various other potentially useful SF-related links.
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ssb@cs.brown.edu -- last update: 9/10/99
