Guess we have different tastes. I started to lose interest once Paul stopped being the focus. Maybe later he comes back into the spot light but it seemed like his arc was all but done by book 2.
Miles Teg ripping things apart post-T probe torture was the most memorable scene for me, so Paul sloughing off was not that hard to take. I enjoyed the Duncan Idaho ghola reincarnations also. He ended up being very close to the true Kwisatz in terms of potential. Plus the face dancers. Man so much more to that story heheh
I'm not entirely sure why an author feels it's important to know that what they're writing is, by definition, sci-fi. Just write what you want to write, and in the way you want to write it, then if you're lucky enough to have it reach the masses, let them decide. It seems silly to shoehorn elements into your story, just to ensure it will be classed as sci-fi. Many of the ideas I have are set in the future, featuring tech, pastimes and elements I suspect will become reality one day. Is this sci-fi? I don't know. Do I care? No.
I get what Dick was saying and I have to agree. I got that feeling of "holy crap! What if??" the first time I read Jurassic Park, Behold the Man, Timeline, Voyage from Yesteryear, Replay and many, many others, not to mention films and a few TV shows (like the original Star Trek). That's one of the reasons I've never understood why bookstores started lumping science fiction in with fantasy about 20 years ago. To save shelf space? To confuse and annoy people? To me, they are light-years apart. I have no idea how to define 'good fantasy,' but to me this looks like a good definition of 'good science fiction.'
So true. Even on amazon the genres are together and there it's obvisiously not because of limited shelf space. Sf is a genre that covers so many different kinds of stories, everyone has an other definition. 'Good science fiction' makes me wonder about the future of humanity. 'Good science fiction' introduces new possibilities. 'Good science fiction' provides us with scientific concepts that scare me or leave me in awe because they may become true one day. But that's just my impression. Personally I like hard sf best. I like to read in awfully long detail about the scientific background of every single new invention. And I spend much time to inform myself about science before I write a sf story. Of course I don't unterstand everything. But that's another element I like about 'good science fiction'. Afterwards I have the urge to understand new things. And that's always a good sign.
I tried to write hard science fiction at first, but I'm really not a science person; I just love science fiction (although I am pretty particular about exactly what I read within the genre). I finally decided on writing stuff that has science fiction elements but with a humorous bent. It only took me most of my life to come to that, so I've wasted a lot of time. (sigh)
Here I can agree with Dick wholeheartedly. Case in point, the last decent Sci-Fi film I saw was Her, which, to me, has absolutely nothing to do with A.I. and everything to do with emotional accountability. To say that it's a story about "what would happen if you could buy an A.I. at the mall like it was an iPod" I think is to look at the story from the wrong end of things. That story is about how we do and don't form bonds and uses the prop of an A.I. to give us a girl who has nothing superficial to take into account. She has no breasts, no legs, no hair, no face, no shapely figure. She is only a mind. How do we engage that? The human mind of another? That's why that film is really great to me. Other than that it's been a good two decades of utter rubbish in the realms of Sci-Fi on film.
Because the people who buy science fiction, are probably frequent consumers of fantasy as well. If I'm buying some Asimov and a hitherto unknown author of fantasy catches my eye*; I'm far more likely to pick it up than say, someone who came in looking for a spy novel. *Call him Lovecraft, because that's exactly the circumstances in which I was introduced.
You haven't wasted any time if you've gotten a satisfying result in the end. Few people know from the very beginning what they really want to achieve or to write. Some people don't know it even at the end of their lives. I like the film Interstellar. And I love the new Star Trek films.
Have not seen it. It's on the list. Have you seen Moon? Have seen it twice which is incredibly rare for me and enjoyed it both times.
Ok. Yes. I take back what I said about "two decades of rubbish". Moon was spectacular! And it actually engages a similar theme to that of Her. This man has to engage himself, all his facets, his youth and his death... it's an introspection of the human paradigm flipped inside out. Thank you for reminding me of that film.
I found it difficult to start watching it, to be honest, because of my Green Mile memories. I am not sure when I was able to let go of that characterization, but the Hal impersonator voiced by Kevin Spacey helped distract me.
I enjoyed these films too, don't get me wrong, but I would not personally rank them in with "good science fiction". Interstellar was profoundly self-conscious and trying so very hard to be "deep" that it got in its own way. Star Trek, well, I mean... I love Star Trek and it always has its moments, but my love for it is cultural, the way I love my country and my flag and Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy. I can't imagine a world without it, but... good? I don't know...
Am a fan of Star Trek also. Star Trek: good like a chocolate bar vs good like a chocolate souffle perhaps? Aaron the murderer of metaphors.
Exactly! It's like a Hershey bar! I know a Hershey bar isn't exactly the acme of chocolate bars, but it's always there and you can buy it with the change in your car's ashtray and... yeah, it's still pretty good chocolate.
I'll admit I never made it all the way through Galaxy Quest, and I love each of the main characters individually from their various starring roles. Eesh! I think I watched Green Mile with a friend like a week before, so it was very fresh in my mind
