- YouTube Videos of the Day: The trailer for Logan's Run [via Greg van Eekhout] and Darth Vader being a smarta@@ [via Boing Boing]
- Ain't It Cool interviews director Jon Favreau about Iron Man and John Carter of Mars. [via SciFi Brain]
- Harper Collins will soon be offering a "search inside" feature similar to Amazon. [via CNet]
- The Pyr-o-mania blog shows off the covers for upcoming titles Sagramanda by Alan Dean Foster and Mappa Mundi by Justina Robson. UPDATE: And now, Ian McDonalds Brasyl.
- Paul DiFillipo reviews the science fiction documentary Finding the Future: A Science Fiction Conversation over at SciFi Weekly and gives it a B+.
- Escape Pod offers an audio rendition of Tobias Buckell's "Green Thumb".
- SciFiDimensions asks: Is science fiction primarily about the future?
- Solaris Books will be publishing an expanded version of Chris Roberson's Set the Seas on Fire, the Napoleonic-era nautical adventure which introduced Hieronymus Bonaventure, the male lead of Paragaea: A Planetary Romance. [via Roberson's Interminable Ramble]
Comments (1)
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Posted by John DeNardo at Thursday August 03, 2006 at 12:54 PM
© 2008 SF Signal
I have a big bone to pick with the SciFi Dimensions piece. But there's no quick and easy comment section there so I'm going to mouth off here.
The author talks about imagining futures but also talks about being "realistic". He then goes on to make references to 1984, which wasn't about the future it was about the present (Orwell's original title was 1948).
Science Fiction isn't always about the future. It is in fact more often about the present but none the less powerful for it. 1984, Stranger in a Strange Land, War of the Worlds and even Accelerando are all novels that explored issues that were firmly rooted in the present at the time they were written. But then there's plenty of great science fiction novels out there that explore futures that have nothing to do with the present. The fact that this articles author uses examples of both interchangeably dimminishes his argument in my opinion.
Posted by Jose on Friday August 04, 2006 at 5:39 AM at 5:39 AM