#36 – Alternate History – A Reader's History of Science Fiction
Alternate histories, where events in the past unfolded differently, are a fairly new genre, but it's made large strides since it first became popular in the 80s. In this episode, we look at an overview of these works. Book recommendation: The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal. My companion blog post on The Calculating Stars. Other books discussed: The Domination by S. M. Stirling "The Road Not Taken", The Guns of the South and Harry Turtledove in general. The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon
Like books, movies and television also went through a golden age in science fiction in the 1950s. In this episode we explore the trends in the visual medium at the time and how they compared to print.
Movie recommendation: The Day the Earth Stood Still.
“movies and television also went through a golden age”
Yes, but this is a reader’s history!
Interesting aspects on the original Day the Earth Stood Still that I had not thought of.
In regards to 2001, I think it was in “Lost Worlds of 2001” that Clarke said the effects version of Saturn was so incredibly realistic that they were concerned the audience wouldn’t believe it, so they sent Discovery to Jupiter instead.
The effects people for “2001” (Douglas Trumbull?) would later use the Saturn they developed in “Silent Running”. Wikipedia page just reports the “2001” set had ‘technical difficulties’ with Saturn, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Running