Author Topic: What is your favorite SF story that is not Star Trek or Star Wars?  (Read 34036 times)

Offline JayUtah

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Re: What is your favorite SF story that is not Star Trek or Star Wars?
« Reply #30 on: August 28, 2014, 02:28:48 PM »
Television
1. Battlestar Galactica reboot.  I have connections with the Comic Con sponsors, so I got to spend a fair amount of uninterrupted time with Richard Hatch and Edward James Olmos -- both amazingly fine and enthusiastic gentlemen.
2. Firefly.  Again, lots of uninterrupted time with the stars, especially Adam Baldwin (who had lots to tell me about Kubrick).

Cinema
1. Blade Runner.  One of the best scripts adapted from a Philip K. Dick story, production design by my favorite artist Syd Mead, and brilliantly directed by Ridley Scott.  And again, the subject of much fascinating discussion with Olmos.
2. Ender's Game.  Back in 1996 or so I worked on the first (aborted) attempt to bring the novel to the screen.  My dumb brother has my copy of the book with all my production notes in it, and won't give it back.  So while the recent film is not especially mind-blowing, I really like how they solved all the problems we could never decide on.

Monograph
1. Another vote for Hogan's Two Faces of Tomorrow.  Say what you will about Hogan, the book is monumental.  I'm trying to get some friends interested in film rights, just so I can work on it.
My housemate has a huge collection of vintage Asimov.  We're good friends with the largest used book dealer in Salt Lake and we get phone calls when good things come in.
Many classic authors come in a close second:  Clarke (of course), Asimov, and Heinlein.
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams

Offline Mag40

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Re: What is your favorite SF story that is not Star Trek or Star Wars?
« Reply #31 on: August 28, 2014, 03:28:25 PM »
Finally, for pure fun, Allamagoosa (sp?) is the single best SF short, ever.

Just read that online, very enjoyable 10 minutes.

Offline JayUtah

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Re: What is your favorite SF story that is not Star Trek or Star Wars?
« Reply #32 on: August 28, 2014, 03:59:50 PM »
The Martian is making the rounds.  For a novel "out of the blue" it's a good read, and aside from a few minor nit-picks the science is sound.  Literally everyone I know at NASA has recommended it to me.
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams

Offline Andromeda

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Re: What is your favorite SF story that is not Star Trek or Star Wars?
« Reply #33 on: August 28, 2014, 04:32:03 PM »
Have I mentioned Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy?
"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'" - Isaac Asimov.

Offline smartcooky

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Re: What is your favorite SF story that is not Star Trek or Star Wars?
« Reply #34 on: August 28, 2014, 07:43:36 PM »
Cinema
1. Blade Runner.  One of the best scripts adapted from a Philip K. Dick story, production design by my favorite artist Syd Mead, and brilliantly directed by Ridley Scott.  And again, the subject of much fascinating discussion with Olmos.

Yes, but the Directors cut, not the original theatrical release, and for two reasons...

1. He got rid of that awful voiceover/narration.

2. He  included the vital "unicorn dream sequence" that was cut from the theatrical release in yet another example of movie studio executives overruling the director because they underestimated the intelligence of the target audience. Without that dream sequence, the unicorn origami figure left by Gaff (and found by Deckerd as he and Rachael flee his apartment) has no meaning, and the tantalising clue that Deckerd might himself be a replicant is never effectively seeded.
Monograph
1. Another vote for Hogan's Two Faces of Tomorrow.  Say what you will about Hogan, the book is monumental.  I'm trying to get some friends interested in film rights, just so I can work on it.

Oooh, yes please!
« Last Edit: August 28, 2014, 07:50:56 PM by smartcooky »
If you're not a scientist but you think you've destroyed the foundation of a vast scientific edifice with 10 minutes of Googling, you might want to consider the possibility that you're wrong.

Offline Sus_pilot

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Re: What is your favorite SF story that is not Star Trek or Star Wars?
« Reply #35 on: August 29, 2014, 09:50:30 AM »

The Martian is making the rounds.  For a novel "out of the blue" it's a good read, and aside from a few minor nit-picks the science is sound.  Literally everyone I know at NASA has recommended it to me.

OK, bought it, read the first 3 chapters so far, love it.

Of course, I started reading it this morning before I went to work and I was a few minutes late.  Jay, you are part of some sort of conspiracy!!

Offline Peter B

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Re: What is your favorite SF story that is not Star Trek or Star Wars?
« Reply #36 on: August 29, 2014, 12:33:51 PM »
In a similar vein, I do love me some Firefly too, which, weirdly enough, is actually pretty damn hard sci-fi despite (or possibly because of) its being a Space Western.

I was left completely unimpressed by Firefly, for a variety of reasons.

Several of the plots seemed to involve Mal getting everyone into trouble because he took some insult personally and had to blow his cover to restore his (or someone else's) honour.

The Chinese expressions the various characters used were distracting - as realistic as they may have been in the culture it was often hard to tell what concept or emotion was being expressed. I felt the dialogue was nowhere near as sharp and witty as it was on Buffy.

The series had no apparent story arc like the Buffy seasons did. Instead the episodes seemed to be a bunch of unrelated incidents. Likewise I felt most of the characters showed no development over the season.

I was constantly distracted by the unresolved issue of whether the various planets were orbiting one star (in which case how did so many planets fit into one system) or many different stars (in which case why did they never seem to be either in deep space or hyperspace (or whatever)). Also, I felt the low tech of some of the planets they visited seemed to be just a little too low tech.

And finally I was put off by Whedon's constant description of how brilliant the show was - with the implication to me that the network people who cancelled the show, and those disagreeing with him, were dumb.

Offline Glom

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Re: What is your favorite SF story that is not Star Trek or Star Wars?
« Reply #37 on: August 29, 2014, 02:47:04 PM »
Like Wheddon himself, I liked Firefly but don't consider it as perfect as many. I think Firefly and Wheddon get the benefit of the martyr worship given his unfortunate relationship with the networks.

Offline BazBear

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Re: What is your favorite SF story that is not Star Trek or Star Wars?
« Reply #38 on: August 29, 2014, 06:32:54 PM »
The Martian is making the rounds.  For a novel "out of the blue" it's a good read, and aside from a few minor nit-picks the science is sound.  Literally everyone I know at NASA has recommended it to me.
Thanks for the tip Jay. I just finished reading it. The only reason I couldn't finish it in one sitting was because I had to get some sleep before I had to go to work.
"It's true you know. In space, no one can hear you scream like a little girl." - Mark Watney, protagonist of The Martian by Andy Weir

Offline JayUtah

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Re: What is your favorite SF story that is not Star Trek or Star Wars?
« Reply #39 on: August 30, 2014, 03:05:33 PM »
I was left completely unimpressed by Firefly, for a variety of reasons.

I think those are all reasonable criticisms.  I'm ambivalent about the long story arcs.  I was brought up on American sitcoms, so episodic television was, for me, the rule until not too long ago.  Consequently not all American writers start with them.  On a series like Buffy that could practically guarantee several whole seasons, you have the luxury of writing a several-episode story arc.  When you're writing your first season in a pre-Netflix series, you don't necessarily want to dive into a serial format right away because early viewership in an American market depends on single episodes being self-contained enough

Battlestar Galactica ended with a fairly unsatisfactory "punch-out" ending precisely because the last season was supposed to be two seasons, and the producers got wind that there might not be two seasons.  Therefore the writers crammed all the wrap-ups into the last one.  At least Firefly got enough interest for a feature film to try to tie up loose ends, which was only partially satisfying.  I think some characters could have had story arcs in a second season to develop backstories, such as why Book was obviously not the simple cleric he appeared as, whether Mal would pull a Boromir-like stunt and turn River against the Alliance, whether Jayne would eventually turn against Mal.

I really like Whedon's dialogue.  I mean in general, but even when his dialogue is bad it's better than most other Hollywood writing.  You're judging the dialogue by Whedon standards, and that's perfectly valid.  But I agree that the Chinese was distracting, mostly because the contrast between it and 19th-century American Western vernacular just didn't seem to work too well.  I think it was worth an experiment, given the Space Western genre, but I would have phased it out in the next season.

Whedon is an outspoken self-promoter.  I tend to attenuate a lot of what he says about his own work.  But mostly I don't pay attention to it, and let the work speak for itself.

One of the things I like most about Firefly has nothing to with the show itself.  Most of its fans are people you'd actually want to hang out with, and not feel like you don't want people from your family, church, or place of employment seeing you there.

I was constantly distracted by the unresolved issue of whether the various planets were orbiting one star (in which case how did so many planets fit into one system) or many different stars (in which case why did they never seem to be either in deep space or hyperspace (or whatever)). Also, I felt the low tech of some of the planets they visited seemed to be just a little too low tech.

The setting is a single star system, apparently with a Goldilocks Zone wider than Jarrah White's yellow streak.  Yeah, it's really hard to believe it could have so many habitable planets and moons.  You have to put faith in the purported terraforming and the retconned presumption that it was an anomalous star system with lots of interorbiting suns and satellites.  Yeah.  At a certain point you file it in the same drawer as transporters and the Force and accept that it's ineptly conceived plot device.
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams

Offline Glom

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Re: What is your favorite SF story that is not Star Trek or Star Wars?
« Reply #40 on: August 30, 2014, 03:29:02 PM »
Re BSG climax: I thought the first half of season 4 was fantastic. The second half was generally quite ropey. I did like the finale very much including the very end though I certainly can't deny one particular plot point is a legitimate cause for grief. My enjoyment benefits from my somewhat creative biblical interpretation of some of the plot elements.

Offline gillianren

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Re: What is your favorite SF story that is not Star Trek or Star Wars?
« Reply #41 on: August 30, 2014, 08:43:25 PM »
The setting is a single star system, apparently with a Goldilocks Zone wider than Jarrah White's yellow streak.  Yeah, it's really hard to believe it could have so many habitable planets and moons.  You have to put faith in the purported terraforming and the retconned presumption that it was an anomalous star system with lots of interorbiting suns and satellites.  Yeah.  At a certain point you file it in the same drawer as transporters and the Force and accept that it's ineptly conceived plot device.

The map for the game (yes, there's a game; yes, it's a lot of fun) has multiple stars.  I have to assume distances are not to scale, because otherwise, that doesn't work on a level that even I know doesn't work.
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Offline raven

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Re: What is your favorite SF story that is not Star Trek or Star Wars?
« Reply #42 on: August 31, 2014, 08:23:21 AM »
The Seedling Stars stories by James Blish are among my favourite.  Surface Tension is probably my favourite of all those. Sure, it got science wrong, but so what? It's not like the science was even right at the time it was written.
I also really like Little Fuzzy H. Beam Piper, though I found the ending to be a little too pat, [spoiler]with the talking question resolved by sudden, if pretty reasonable, revelation.[/spoiler]

Offline JayUtah

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Re: What is your favorite SF story that is not Star Trek or Star Wars?
« Reply #43 on: August 31, 2014, 12:02:31 PM »
The map for the game (yes, there's a game; yes, it's a lot of fun) has multiple stars.  I have to assume distances are not to scale, because otherwise, that doesn't work on a level that even I know doesn't work.

No, board games generally aren't to scale.  And yes, the gist of the Firefly 'Verse is that it is supposed to involve multiple dwarf stars in a cluster.  The problem is that the gravity of multiple interorbiting stars -- even if they somehow worked themselves into a metastable system -- is too "lumpy" to hold onto planets.  However, since you have to be in second-year orbital mechanics to understand fully why (short version:  n-body systems are inherently unstable), it's reasonable as a premise to science fiction.
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams

Offline JayUtah

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Re: What is your favorite SF story that is not Star Trek or Star Wars?
« Reply #44 on: August 31, 2014, 12:05:17 PM »
I also left out my short-story category, which would probably have to be Niven's Known Space stories, among them "Neutron Star," "The Slaver Weapon," and pretty much anything with Beowulf Scheaffer.  If you know that character, you'll understand why I often postpone explaining something I'm about to do with "Assume I'm a genius."
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams