Michael Crichton was a huge influence on science fiction in the 1990s and 2000s, particularly through the many movie adaptations of his work. In this episode, I given an overview of his writings and his work in Hollywood.
Book recommendation: Sphere
Luke McKinney on “The Malcolm Fallacy”
Other works discussed:
The Andromeda Strain
Westworld
Jurassic Park
Timeline
Disclosure: I am a NASA postdoc. However, all opinions are my own.
Hi, everyone. Just a PSA that the James Webb Space Telescope lifts off tomorrow morning from French Guiana. (Yes, on Christmas Day.) The launch is at 7:20 AM Eastern time (12:20 UTC), and live coverage will begin on NASA TV at 6 AM.
This is NASA’s newest giant space mission, which has been built as a successor to Hubble (even though Hubble is still kicking). JWST will look back closer to the Big Bang, get a better look at planets than ever before, and a bunch of other cool science, too.
And we really, really need this to go off without a hitch.
I’ll just refer you to this Slate article for why astronomers like me are totally freaking out about this. Seriously, this thing is 14 years behind schedule and costs 10 times the original budget estimate. It feels like it’s already set astronomy back 10 years by getting so bogged down. Now, that’s probably uncharitable; a lot of the problems stemmed from getting a totally unrealistic sales pitch when it was first proposed. But still, there are a lot of things that can go wrong and very few options to fix them if they do. Maybe Elon Musk could get someone out there within 5 years to service it, but it’s not really designed to be serviced to start with. This needs to work on the first try.
And yes, the designers and engineers have done great work, and they’ve tested and retested everything (I think something like a year of the delays were for testing reasons), and I have the utmost respect for them…but there are still tens of thousands of person-years of future work that are riding on a mission that is three times as complicated as the Mars Perseverance rover at the start of the year.
So, yeah, I think the astronomy community has good reason to be nervous. If you’re a praying person, this one is (sort of) traditional:
“Dear Lord, please don’t let us %$*& up!” —Pseudo-Alan Shepard
Well, it’s about time I got back to these. For those of you who started reading my blog after I started my podcast, I used to do movie reviews pretty often here. It’s just that I’ve hardly seen any new movies since the pandemic started. Even with the new Marvel movies (ones where I wasn’t familiar with the characters), I couldn’t seem to find the time or effort.
But I certainly wasn’t going to pass up Spider-Man: No Way Home. The third installment of the MCU’s version of Spider-Man came out this weekend, and it is getting big reviews—so far even better than Homecoming and Far From Home.
And…yeah, it’s pretty high up there. I think…I would put Far From Home first, No Way Home second and Homecoming third, but ask me again tomorrow, and I might have a completely different answer. It’s really too close to call. And that’s impressive, because how many other trilogies are out there where all three movies are truly top tier? There’s Lord of the Rings and Toy Story, and…I think that might be it.
And now, the MCU Spider-Man.
My rating: 5 out of 5.
Continue reading
In this episode, I interview David Brin, author of the Uplift Series, The Postman, Existence, and many more.
David Brin’s website.
Advice for new writers.
Sample chapters of many of Brin’s books.
Brin’s recommended reading list.
Brin on Robert Heinlein.
Recommended essay: “The World, the Flesh, and the Devil” by J. D. Bernal.
Some Linguistic Ramblings
If you study linguistics on a casual level, you may have previously encountered this sentence:
“Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.”
This is, in fact, a fully grammatical English sentence—and without any punctuation, at that. (Although the capitalization is mandatory.) It even has its own Wikipedia article. This may sound ridiculous, but it works based on the multiple meanings of the word “buffalo.” “Buffalo” usually refers to the animal[1], but it can also mean the city in upstate New York. Thus, a “Buffalo buffalo” is a buffalo from Buffalo, New York. Meanwhile, “buffalo” can also be used as a verb. Depending on the context, it can mean “to bully” (which makes sense; it’s based on a similar animal), and it can also mean “to baffle” (which also kind of makes sense based on similar sounds).
Continue readingAfter cyberpunk had its day, a more mature, less countercultural successor to it emerged, known as postcyberpunk. In this episode, we explore what makes it distinctive and how it ties in with the ideas of transhumanism.
Book recommendation: Existence by David Brin.
Other books discussed:
Permutation City by Greg Egan
The Imperial Radch/Ancillary trilogy by Ann Leckie
Accelerando by Charles Stross (free download)
Blindsight by Peter Watts
Cyberpunk has produced many offshoots over the years as new authors have applied the style to other historical eras and new technologies. In this episode, we tour the wide spread of these diverse subgenres.
Book recommendations:
The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling
The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson
Other works mentioned: too many to name. Full list here.
In this week’s episode of A Reader’s History of Science Fiction, I discussed all of the various cyberpunk derivatives that have cropped up over the years. And much like the previous one about time travel, I ran through far too many titles to fit in the episode description, so I’ve written out the full list below.
Steampunk
Morlock Night by K. W. Jeter
The Wild Wild West (TV show)
Wild Wild West (film)
The Time Machine (2002 film)
Around the World in 80 Days (2004 film)
Sherlock Holmes (2009 film)
Atlantis: The Lost Empire
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
Howl’s Moving Castle
The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling (recommended)
The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage by Sydney Padua
Dieselpunk
Children of the Sun (RPG) by Lewis Pollak
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
Wolfenstein
The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
The Legend of Korra
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
Atompunk
James Bond
The Jetsons
The Iron Giant (film)
The Incredibles
Fallout
Steelpunk
Snowpiercer
The Terminator
Mad Max
Clockpunk
Mainspring by Jay Lake
The Three Musketeers (2011 film)
Swordpunk
Treasure Planet
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Bronzepunk
Stonepunk
10,000 BC
The Land that Time Forgot
The Clan of the Cave Bear
Nowpunk
The Zenith Angle by Bruce Sterling
Scott Pilgrim
Steven Universe
Rick and Morty
Biopunk
Gattaca
Splice
Repo Men
Resident Evil
BioShock
The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
Twig (web serial) by John McCrae/Wildbow
Nanopunk
Prey by Michael Crichton
Deus Ex
Transcendence
The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson (recommended)
Cyberpunk was the big new subgenre of sci-fi in the 80s–the combination of “lowlife and high-tech.” In this episode, we explore the highlights of this subgenre.
Book recommendation: Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
Other works discussed:
Akira
Neuromancer by William Gibson
The Matrix
Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
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
Science Meets Fiction 