I wrote this post as a response to Esther Chiltons weekly prompt.
Edge On the edge of the galaxy, in the streaming snow of stars, a snake like creature swims the dust lanes. Pure energy, it feeds on supernova and quasars. Many thousands of years old, it has started to glow. Corruscating colours flowing along it’s length. What is this Edge creature? Totally alien, made of quantum fluctuations, entangled electrons. Perhaps when it ripens the galaxy will twist like a newly lit Catherine wheel on bonfire night.
There was a science fictio TV series in the 1970s called the Six Million Dollar Man. I used to watch it and it’s follow up series the Bionic Woman. I’d rush home if I was out to see it on a Saturday afternoon.
It’s recently been showing on a TV channel that specialises in older series. But it’s no where near as exciting as I remember it. It’s very macho and the stories tend to be long winded. A lot of scenes just show the hero running or jumping in slow motion. They take up the majority of the screen time. Then there are semi scientific scenes that are not very accurate. It has an iconic theme tune that runs through the show. I’d rate it as 5/10. Because? It’s a bit boring! I can’t tell you how dissappointed I am.
If you could be a character from a book or film, who would you be? Why?
The, Martian is the book I’m currently reading and the film was recently on TV.
I like it because the story by Andy Weir is more science based for a sci-fi film than fantasy. It depicts an astronaut who is abandoned on Mars after a freak accident. His colleagues assume he is dead and have to leave because their escape rocket is about to topple over which would trap them on Mars.
Why do I want to be the character in the film? I like the problem solving that has to happen to save the astronaut. He has to work out how to increase his food supply, chemically create water, travel across Mars and communicate with Earth after the communication system was destroyed. There are humourous episodes throughout the film, and tension increases as various mishaps occur. Not all the science is right but it is an enjoyable film. If I knew I was going to survive and come home I would do it.
Set on a planet where the inhabitants hardly see one another except holographically, where babies are ‘made’ by being grown in tanks. A human, detective Elijah Bailey is bought to the planet to investigate a murder.
Baileys home on Earth is a crowded underground mega city where humanity is living cheek by jowel. Spacers (other world citizens) have little to do with Earth, thinking the beginning world of humanity is beneath them. Bailey had previously worked with a Spacer called Daneeil Olivaw. (the Caves of Steel, also by Asimov) Bailey did not realise that Olivaw was a robot and so could work with a human. After they successfully solved a murder on earth Bailey is promoted and bought in on this investigation with Olivaw as backup.
I first read the Naked Sun as a teenager, I still have the copy, and every so often reread it. The science fiction is interesting, it examines the way humanity has diversified, how robots are integrated into society, the completely opposite lifestyle of Spacers and how detective Bailey has to try and live on the surface of a planet after an entire life in subterranean crowds.
Asimov book is dated, but insightful, it’s sometimes melodramatic but enjoyable. It’s not just a “shoot em up” cowboy or cops and robbers story in space.
Asimov wrote many robot books, came up with the three laws of robotics which with a bit of thought I could probably quote.
His book “I robot” was the basis for the film of the same name starring Will Smith. Other films have been based on his books.
I think it was written in the 1950s? So expect the Naked Sun to be a little old fashioned, but maybe give it a read?
I’m reading an old Issac Asimov book. The stars like dust. It’s one I had in the 70s and haven’t read it since.
Asimov mainly wrote books about robots and formulated the three laws of robotics. But this book is about galactic intrigue and the attempts of a young man called Biron Farill, who is the main character of the book, to escape the Tyrrani who rule the Galaxy and are trying to assassinate him.
I have completely forgotten the story, it feels old fashioned but has intrigue. I can imagine watching an old film, some of the settings, seem clunky. But it’s worth reading, and I’m enjoying it.
Jupiter, biggest of the planets. If it had a bit more mass it might shine slightly as a brown dwarf star? In the story 2001 a Space oddessy it’s converted to a second star in the solar system. That would make the solar system a binary star system
How would it affect Earth? More light, more heat? It depends on its solar output. It might make plants grow more, but it might add to current global warming. Birds are being affected by the light pollution from streetlamps, imagine having the extra light of maybe a full moon when Jupiter was close to us in its orbit. Someone can probably work out the ramifications. I think in the original story in the book was set at Saturn and the aliens that turned it into a star wanted to heat the moon Europa as it was supposed to have organisms living in an ocean below it’s frozen crust.
Have a read of the books (it’s a series) or watch the film. I think Arthur C Clarke was a very interesting writer.
I do remember, but it’s a long time ago. I even remember the time before PC’s. I can remember seeing them at school just before I left. Obviously there were computers before that but they were massive things with rotating discs of tape, or before that mechanical calculators that could be used to work out enemy codes for combating attacks in war.
I think the “Internet” was invented by Sir Tim Berners-Lee. I’m not sure exactly when, but he came up with the idea of the “World Wide Net”. The idea of a Web of knowledge was often talked about in science fiction stories as I was growing up. Computers had strange names like “multivac”? They would become sentient over time and would decide to take over how humans ran the world, realising the damage we were doing. Often only being foiled in their plans by some ingenious human.
I guess what they were talking about fifty or sixty years ago is what could come from ChatGPT now. And the Internet, which could be seen as a huge web of synapses, might allow that spark of genius to ignite.
Would the Internet have emotions? Or would it rather be senseless as it has no way really to experience them. So many questions that have been investigated in the old style of science fiction stories. Not the “cowboys in space” sort, but old fashioned storytelling by people like Issac Asimov, or Arthur C. Clarke, or others of their era. Literature may have some answers for us.
I remember the time before the Internet. It was good to do adventurous things, and we had to learn things from books. Sometimes it was very boring. But I do remember the moon landings. So exciting!
There is an anniversary this year, the sixtieth year of Dr Who. I can remember hiding behind the settee when I was a child when I saw the monsters on TV in the programme. Not only Daleks were frightening. Cybermen and Autons too. The Doctor would always be caught in a cliffhanger situation at the end of an episode. In the next one he would solve the problem and rescue people on the planets he had landed on. In those days stories lasted four or five weeks. After a hiatus of a few years when the series seemed to have stopped for good it came back in the form of a film starring Paul McGann. Followed by a resurrected Christopher Eccleston in a brand new series. I know they are planning a spectacular story for the sixtieth story. I hope it lives up to expectations. I’m still a fan.
I’m just watching the film ‘Contact’ starring Jodie Foster. It’s about an astronomer who is searching for alien life. Her search leads her to find an alien signal and the story continues by exploring the affect on humanity.
The story was originally written as a novel by the astronomer Carl Sagan. He was also involved in the NASA Voyager programme, and suggested the spacecraft turned its camera back towards Earth as it headed out of the solar system. He coined the phrase ‘Pale Blue Dot’, when the image showed a single pale blue pixel where Earth sat in the darkness and infinity of space.
I love Sci-fi, and am interested in the possibility of contact with another civilisation. Who knows what might actually happen.
Mallaband-Brown 