Sam Gentile: Sam::Science Fiction

Sat, 09 Nov 2002 21:01:14 GMT

Eric Raymond in a thoughtful analysis "Libertarianism and the Hard SF Renaissance: "When I started reading SF in the late Sixties and early Seventies, the field was in pretty bad shape — not that I understood this at the time. ...Hard SF was an art form that made stringent demands on both author and reader. Stories could be, and were, mercilessly slammed because the author had calculated an orbit or gotten a detail of physics or biology wrong...

The New Wave rejected all this for reasons that were partly aesthetic and partly political. For there was a political tradition that went with the hard-SF style, one exemplified by its chief theoretician (Campbell himself) and his right-hand man Robert Heinlein, the inventor of modern SF's characteristic technique of exposition by indirection. That tradition was of ornery and insistant individualism, veneration of the competent man, an instinctive distrust of coercive social engineering and a rock-ribbed objectivism that that valued knowing how things work and treated all political ideologizing with suspicion.

At the time, this very American position was generally thought of by both allies and opponents as a conservative or right-wing one. But the SF community's version was never conservative in the strict sense of venerating past social norms — how could it be, when SF literature cheerfully contemplated radical changes in social arrangements? SF's insistent individualism also led it to reject racism and feature strong female characters long before the rise of political correctness ritualized these behaviors in other forms of art.

After 1971, the implicit politics of Campbellian hard SF was reinvented, radicalized and intellectualized as libertarianism. Libertarians, in fact, would draw inspiration from Golden Age SF; Heinlein's The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, H. Beam Piper's Lone Star Planet, and Poul Anderson's No Truce With Kings (among many others) would come to be seen retrospectively as proto-libertarian arguments not just by the readers but by the authors themselves...The New Wave was both a stylistic revolt and a political one. Its inventors (notably Michael Moorcock, J.G. Ballard and Brian Aldiss) were British socialists and Marxists who rejected individualism, linear exposition, happy endings, scientific rigor and the U.S.'s cultural hegemony over the SF field in one fell swoop. [How true!] The New Wave's later American exponents were strongly associated with the New Left and opposition to the Vietnam War, leading to some rancorous public disputes in which politics was tangled together with definitional questions about the nature of SF and the direction of the field...But the New Wave, after 1965, was not so easily dismissed or assimilated. Amidst a great deal of self-indulgent crap and drug-fueled psychedelizing, there shone a few jewels — Phillp José Farmer's Riders of the Purple Wage, some of Harlan Ellison's work, Brian Aldiss's Hothouse stories, and Langdon Jones's The Great Clock stand out as examples. [and most of Thomas Disch in this period] ...Brin, and his collegues in the group that came to be known as the "Killer Bs" (Greg Bear and Gregory Benford), reasserted the primacy of hard SF done in the grand Campbellian manner. [Yes!] ....

In 1994, critical thinking within the SF field belatedly caught up with reality. Credit for this goes to David Hartwell and Cathryn Cramer, whose analysis in the anthology The Ascent of Wonder finally acknowledged what should have been obvious all along. Hard SF is the vital heart of the field, the radiant core from which ideas and prototype worlds diffuse outwards to be appropriated by writers of lesser world-building skill but perhaps greater stylistic and literary sophistication. While there are other modes of SF that have their place, they remain essentially derivations of or reactions against hard SF, and cannot even be properly understood without reference to its tropes, conventions, and imagery. [Yes!]

Sat, 09 Nov 2002 13:26:28 GMT

Just a reminder. I have a Top 20 SF of all Time and I also have other SF content

Sun, 27 Oct 2002 17:07:08 GMT

On Sci Fiction. a classic from Gardner Dozois - Flash Point, originally in Orbit #13, back in 1974

Thu, 03 Oct 2002 18:11:17 GMT

What Type of LotR Fan Are You?.

Another one of those mildly pointless quiz things that are good lunchtime distractions.

No pop-ups on this>Link Discuss

[The .NET Guy]

Fri, 27 Sep 2002 23:31:56 GMT

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom reviewed on Blog Critics. Kevin Marks reviews my novel, "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom," on blogcritics.org:

About once every ten years, a Science Fiction novel appears that redefines the art form. One that describes a world different from our own, but recognisably ours - extrapolated from current trends, but richly evocative of its difference, adding words to the language that needed to be coined. Books like The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, The HitchHikers Guide to the Galaxy,Snow Crash and now Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom.
What these books have in common are worlds that draw you in and make you believe in the technological underpinnings, accepting them implicitly and learning their terminology (TANSTAAFL, frood, Metaverse, Whuffie) as you go, while you follow the adventures of characters you come to care about.

Link [Boing Boing Blog]

I haven't read Cory's book but to be put in the same company as TMIAHM, SnowCrash, it would have to be incredible beyond most SF books. I mean this is a comparison to two of the Top 20 SF books of all time, books that changed SF forever...

Sun, 22 Sep 2002 20:49:01 GMT

Whew! A Big Fall Cleaning. Sue and I have spent the last 4 hours cleaning out the spare bedroom of 9 bags of papers (trash), filed all the boxes of technical books back into the office, and refiled more than 400 Science Fiction books in alphabetical order in the office. Finally had to make an entire shelf and more just for Philip K Dick books and a few for Bruce Sterling and Rudy Rucker! Also uncovered in the rubble was my long lost HP Jornado PocketPC so now I can start playing with Smart Device Extensions and .NET Compact Framework Beta 1

Fri, 20 Sep 2002 05:20:34 GMT

New Directions: Decoding the Imagination of Charles Stross
An Interview by Lou Anders

Fri, 20 Sep 2002 05:19:32 GMT

Fantastic Metropolis has some classic stories by Lance Olsen

Fri, 20 Sep 2002 05:17:39 GMT

Sci Fiction has the Ward Moore classic "It Becomes Neccessary" from 1961, as well as continuing their hot streak of great new fiction with Paul McAuley's Doctor Pretorius and the Lost Temple

Tue, 10 Sep 2002 01:31:46 GMT

We're outta here off to America's Most Liveable City - San Diego for a week. I'll be working with one of my clients and then Sue and I will get some vacation time. Blogging will probably be non-existant or spotty at best.

Sat, 07 Sep 2002 13:50:55 GMT

The Hugo Award winners are listed here. I'm happy: American Gods was my top pick of last year and it won. This book Rocks! I'm also happy with Vernor Vinge's win. I would have liked to see Charles win but anything done by Ted Chiang is going to win its category automatically.

Sat, 07 Sep 2002 13:45:33 GMT

Robert Silverberg, the veteran SF writer on Burning Science at the Stake

Sun, 01 Sep 2002 16:04:19 GMT

Patrick Nielsen Hayden is at SF's crown event; the World Science Fiction Convention, ConJose, where the Hugos are given out. Hoe notes wrly "Anyway, the 60th World Science Fiction Convention. I started going to these when they were on their 34th. I feel a great need to lie down. " Charles Stross is there as well (where he better win the Hugo!!)

Tue, 20 Aug 2002 15:04:02 GMT

Entrenched Technology, from The Culture. The Culture is a vast, anarchist utopian society in a series of SF books by Iain M. Banks. But how plausible is a utopia driven by technology alone? An earlier version of this story appeared on Radio Free Tomorrow. [kuro5hin.org]

Mon, 19 Aug 2002 20:59:31 GMT

The SF Site has posted their "The Best SF and Fantasy Books of 2001"

I agree with all the books on the list except "Memories of Ice." Huh? Their order is of course wrong and I would have given #1 to Gaiman's American Gods.

Mon, 19 Aug 2002 20:53:10 GMT

This week, Fantastic Metropolis features the Leviathan original anthology series with a series of reprints, special features, and a give-away offer. Since 1994, Leviathan has provided readers with high-quality, cutting-edge surreal literature. The FM feature includes an overview of Leviathan by founder Jeff VanderMeer, an interview with co-editor Forrest Aguirre, and rare reprints from the out-of-print first volume.

Sun, 11 Aug 2002 17:03:26 GMT

Signs.

I was going to write a review of Signs, but this one pretty much says everything I would've said. I thought the suspense aspects were very well done, and overall the movie was quite enjoyable (when it wasn't bashing its pseudo-intellectual New Age "morality" over your head). [link via Sam Gentile]

[The .NET Guy]

Sun, 11 Aug 2002 07:41:30 GMT

Locus Online 8.03 Claude Lalumière objects to M. Night Shyamalan's Signs...

— "The worldview Shyamalan expounds in Signs is a kind of wishy-washy New Agey theism meant to mindlessly comfort and reassure. If you do evil things, don't worry: God meant you to, it's not really your fault."

Fri, 09 Aug 2002 18:46:10 GMT

Current SCI FICTION story is by the versitile Robert Reed.

Fri, 09 Aug 2002 18:41:05 GMT

Locus Online reports on the new August magazines.

Fri, 26 Jul 2002 13:55:07 GMT

Just wanted to give a title on this and amplify a little bit. I have been working with .NET since the COM+ 3.0/NGWS (NDA) days and was a Microsoft.NET Early Adopter Partner (EAP). Because of this I have had the opportunity to build two real production products using .NET which is a somewhat unique position. I consider myself expert in many areas of .NET and particuarly Interop, VSIP and VS.NET. I have am also the co-author of a book As I explained earlier:

I am available after July 30th. I have come in on a contract basis for the last 7 months and helped Groove produce some great things. We have had a great relationship and will continue to have one in the future (with Groove work). The current contract will complete on July 30th and I am available. I am interested in continuing to do .NET and Web Services work. If you are interested, you can contact me at ManagedCode@attbi.com.

Update: Some kind words of reference from Groovers Paresh Suthar, John Burkhardt and Matt Pope.

Fri, 26 Jul 2002 13:44:13 GMT

Locus Online: New SF Books

Fri, 26 Jul 2002 03:22:57 GMT

I had been putting titles on a lot off stuff, honest-). Of course, it was foolish of me to rely on the Radio Prefs settings "Item-level Title and Link?" thinking that they did what they said. You actually have to do this which is kind of foolish as the prefs settings should insert a line like this into the HTML. Oh well. Argh!!! It's only doing it on the main home page. Does anyone know how to fix this??

Thu, 25 Jul 2002 13:35:57 GMT

Charlie Stross notes that his interview has been Slashdotted, with "It's not much of a slashdot thread, but it's mine. Hah. "

Thu, 25 Jul 2002 05:54:02 GMT

New Story on SCI FICTION - The Names of All The Spirits

Classic - Robert Sheckleys Cordle to Onion to Carrot

Wed, 24 Jul 2002 06:04:29 GMT

I have come in on a contract basis for the last 7 months and helped Groove produce some great things. We have had a great relationship and will continue to have one in the future (with Groove work). The current contract will complete on July 30th and I am available. I am interested in continuing to do .NET and Web Services work. If you are interested, you can contact me at ManagedCode at attbi.com.

Tue, 23 Jul 2002 13:27:59 GMT

Bruce Sterling: "There's this cabal of heavy geeks who like to dink on Mac OS X. And they're big bloggers. But some of them are also science fiction writers. There's even an SF editor in there. And they are *really knowledgeable* about the technology. Like, scarily so.

None of your mid-80s William Gibson manual typewriters for these boys. This is some kind of cyber-apotheosis, here."

Tue, 23 Jul 2002 13:25:46 GMT

New essay on Fanstastic Metropolis: The Age of Chaos - The Multiverse of Micheal Moorcock

New story on Fantastic Metropolis: Three O'Clock in the Morning, by Mary Jane Moore

Mon, 22 Jul 2002 14:24:46 GMT

Ray Vukcevich has the new story on SCI FICTION "Some Other Time"

Sun, 21 Jul 2002 16:41:39 GMT

I've branched off a whole bunch of Category pages and will start experimenting with keeping most of the content into categories so that people interested in certain things won't have to read all the other stuff in one mondo page: .NET, Science Fiction, Books, Groove, Personal and Family, XML and Web Services, Science.

Sun, 21 Jul 2002 16:32:45 GMT

I've just started Alastair Reynolds's new Redmption Ark, available only in the UK so far. Of course, anything Alastair writes is a must have and I buy from the UK as soon as it's out. He is one of the best of the Hard SF school that I favor. It's his third and a direct sequel to his first brilliant book, Revelation Space (UK) Revelation Space (US). He resurrects the trope of Space Opera but with so much more. I just finished Greg Egan's Schild's Ladder, which is certainly one of the best of 2002. However, it is quite a hard read. Take one look at his web site at the Physics and Math behind it and you will see why.

Thu, 04 Jul 2002 15:33:04 GMT

Sci Fi Channel Singularity Chat with Venor Vinge and Ray Kurzweil.. Sci Fi Channel Singularity Chat with Venor Vinge and Ray Kurzweil. [Hack the Planet]

The two masters of Singularity together.