- At SciFi Wire, John Joseph Adams profiles Elizabeth Bear, author of Undertow.
- New/Updated at Gutenberg: "Slingshot" by Irving W. Lande. "The slingshot was, I believe, one of the few weapons of history that wasn't used in the last war. That doesn't mean it won't be used in the next!"
- John C. Wright has completed his work on Null-A Continuum, the sequel to A.E. van Vogt's Null-A series.
- Cherie Priest talks at length about zombies.
- This group blog of romance writers rounds up instances of pets and small children in SF and Fantasy.
- Locus Online has posted the contents of the September 2007 issue of Locus magazine.
- SciFi UK Review announces the contents of Interzone #212. [via Gareth L. Powell]
- Asimov's previews the contents of their upcoming 30th anniversary issue.
- Michael Riga writes: Any Story is Better if Set in Space. "So in the end it appears that science fiction is less of a genre than it is a setting. Within science fiction you can have any sort of movie, with action and horror and more existential aims all represented, often times in the same movie."
- Fractal Universe - A Pictorial Hypothesis by Colin Hill. [via Dad2059]
- Fifty bucks will get you a Transformer that turns into the Death Star. [via SciFi Scanner]
Comments (6)
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Posted by John DeNardo at Saturday September 01, 2007 at 12:08 AM
© 2008 SF Signal
I, Robot (although it should be noted that Asimov's book was intellectual and interesting unlike its movie contemporary, which was pure garbage).
The movie is fundamentally a moral criticism of the imperfections of Asimov's three laws.
Posted by joshua corning on Saturday September 01, 2007 at 6:57 PM at 6:57 PM
I always thought that, trying to avoid too much in the way of spoilers, that the I, Robot movie fundamentally was an evocation of the Zeroth Law of Robotics.
Sure, its dressed as an "action sci fi movie vehicle" but the core plot points to that.
Posted by Paul on Saturday September 01, 2007 at 11:07 PM at 11:07 PM
And I always thought they took another script they couldn't sell, slapped a few Asimovian references into it and made a movie with Will S. that had nothing to do (really) with Asimov's tales.
Posted by Fred Kiesche on Sunday September 02, 2007 at 11:42 AM at 11:42 AM
And I always thought they took another script they couldn't sell, slapped a few Asimovian references into it and made a movie with Will S. that had nothing to do (really) with Asimov's tales.
Maybe but it seems sort of odd that a random process like that would hit exactly the flaw in the three laws that make it morally repugnant...the lack of any safe guards for protecting individual freedom. If you might recall a giant AI did attempt to take over all of humanity and set up a "Brave New World" type system and doing so without conflicting with the three laws.
I guess a thousand Hollywood script monkeys given enough time could eventually spit that out...but i doubt it.
Posted by joshua corning on Sunday September 02, 2007 at 3:36 PM at 3:36 PM
Truth be told, it wasn't all that random. They really did have a script that they felt would not sell as it was by a relative unknown. They had the rights to Asimov, but did not want to make a movie (see Harlan Ellison's excellent screenplay--still available--for a look at the Hollowood Thought Process). They made some changes to the script, tossed in some Asimovian references and names, and voila! I, Robot, the Movie (NOT).
Posted by Fred Kiesche on Sunday September 02, 2007 at 6:53 PM at 6:53 PM
http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff500/fv00459.htm
This strip does a great job of talking about the Three Laws...
Main site:
http://freefall.purrsia.com/default.htm
Posted by Fred Kiesche on Sunday September 02, 2007 at 7:02 PM at 7:02 PM