A pet peeve of mine: There's no science fiction any more. It's been replaced by what I think should be called techno-fantasy. Science fiction is fiction with a science theme. Fiction is a story that has not happened, but could plausibly happen. Dickens wrote fiction. (A Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield, etc.) Isaac Asimov wrote science fiction, as did many others back in the day. But now science fiction been replaced by techno-fantasy: Fantasy is a story that could not possibly happen because it occurs in a make-believe world that functions in a manner incompatible with the real world. Techno-fantasy is fantasy where the impossible is performed by pseudo-scientific gadgets. Peter Pan and Harry Potter and Twilight are fantasy stories. They make no effort to seem scientific. Fairy dust that lets people fly, a world where boys never grow old; magic wands and a world of wizards; a world where there are vampires and werewolves. These are fantasy, and fantasy has always been a part of literary culture. But now we have Star Trek and its ilk: These are not science fiction because there is nothing truly scientific about them. They are fantasy, but with pseudo-scientific gadgets: "Machines" that are no more scientific than Harry Potter's magic wand, and perform tasks that are just as much magic and fantasy as Potter's wand, but which are presented as "scientific." This annoys me because it distorts science in the public mind. And they are accepted as "plausible" by the viewers because these are so ignorant of science, and so uneducated, that they cannot discern the line between science and fantasy. "Faster-than-light" travel is not merely impossible, but the very concept is meaningless. Monte Python got it exactly right when they said that the speed of light in a vacuum is "the fastest speed there is." If you measure the time during which a photon exists, and the distance it travels, FROM ITS OWN FRAME OF REFERENCE, it turns out that it exists for no time at all and travels zero distance. This is because of the dilation of both time and space in the direction of travel. Nothing can exist for LESS than zero time, and nothing can travel LESS than zero distance, so the concept of "faster than light" simply has no meaning. This is not to say that shows like Star Trek should not be made and enjoyed by people who like that sort of thing. Merely to say that it should not be called science fiction because it is NOT science fiction. It is techno-fantasy. It is fantasy, set in a make-believe world apart from the real world, where the laws of reality do not apply, but where the magic is performed by technical gadgets rather than by wands or fairy dust. I enjoy fantasy. I loved Temeraire and The Golden Compass (the books, not the movie) and to a lesser extent I enjoy books about vampires and demons and werewolves. And I like some space fantasy, such as Firefly and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. But let's call it what it is: Anything with transporter beams and faster-than-light travel is fantasy. Thanks f0r reading my rant.
Have you tried Firefly? Mr. Whedon pushes past the limits of what we can do, but seems to respect the laws of physics.
Sci-Fi really isn't my genre. I like much of the literature, but as the name implies? It's Fiction. Made Up. Not Real. Imaginary. Most of the time I will not admit even to watching Star Trek (TOS) because I'm either confronted with people who think that it's a documentary, OR..... I have to confront people who know that you can't really do all of the crap that they FICTIONALIZE, and will provide you endless hours of details on how it's all..... er....made up. When I worked for the Naval Research Lab, I made a Star Trek reference. Huge Mistake! After that.....I talked about sports, because the only thing that's worse to talk with scientists about than Star Trek.....is politics! This isn't a dig on Daniel. I can relate to how he feels because I have some of the same heartburn with a relatively new genre called "Historical Fiction." I'm just pretty good at filtering out stuff that bugs me. When I want to unwind during the one or two hours a week that I devote to digital media??? Just let me watch (or read, or listen) and enjoy. I guess what I'm trying to say (badly) is that there's money in the laser (phaser) end of the biz....and talent goes where the money is. Besides.....scientists have a relatively poor track record at defining the word 'possible' if you study history.
Your premise seems to come down to one main point Daniel, that FTL travel elevates any story from Sci-Fi to fantasy. There are some physicists who are hypothesizing that FTL is theoretically possible. I heard a podcast several months back with a guy (I think he's from NASA) talking about it, and IIRC he's working on proving it experimentally. There's no way to know for sure what the future holds. If you haven't read the "Safehold" series yet I recommend it. Great story, and I think it will fall into your sci-fi category. I'm anxiously awaiting the next book in the series
Mixed into the "Space Opera", the 15 or so books in the Vorkosigan Saga deal with reproductive/genetic science in subtle ways. Vorkosigan Saga - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Right now it does, however our knowledge of physics does not seem to be complete at this time. There is no particular need for FTL except to make it easy to write lively stories. That being said, there are some theoretically possible workarounds. There is a guy by the name of Alcubierre who has suggested that rather than try to move fast within space-time, you might try to warp space-time itself. You and I cannot go faster than C, but space-time itself is not particularly bounded by C.
^^ This. Additionally in star trek "Warp Drive" does not involve faster than light travel. It involves transiently warping space ahead of the ship so that the distance traveled is far less than it would have been in unwarped space. It only creates the same end resulting travel times as FTL travel. This requires more energy than we can generate by any known means, and how to avoid tearing the ship apart from tidal forces generated is a nontrivial problem, but it might not be impossible. Engage! Quantum Thruster Physics Could Help Make Warp Drive a Reality | Space.com Transporters may also be possible via quantum teleportation, which so far has been shown to work over a distance of 89 miles. Anyways the only really impossible thing in the Alien series of movies is holding onto a ladder while the airlock door is open. The cryo-chambers, androids and cloning are the only human tech in those that wouldn't be achievable already. Most of the predator tech is plausible as well. I will grant your premise with regard to comic book movies such as X-men but scifi without FTL is out there and effective FTL is not necessarily impossible.
Daniel, you need to catch up with modern physics. FTL travel of matter or energy is considered impossible by many, but FTL travel of quantum correlations is proven fact. So if we discover some way to use this reality to convey "information" faster than light, then we can assemble something using the existing local matter and energy just from the information alone. Done on a large enough scale, that might include living things. No FTL vehicle needed to achieve FTL travel. The separation between engineering and fantasy is a much thinner line than most realize.
The Golden Age of Science Fiction may be in the distant past, but that doesn't mean it's dead. And yes, television and movies focus on the visual at the expense of the story, but that's nothing new. There's plenty of good science fiction to be read. Have you finished the collected works of Arthur C Clarke, Philip K Dick, David Brin, Ursula K LeGuin, William Gibson........?
I get a lot of pleasure out of the Escape Pod podcast. (Escape Pod - The Science Fiction Podcast Magazine. Each week Escape Pod delivers science fiction short stories from today's best authors. Listen today, and hear the new sound of science fiction! : Escape Pod) There's a new story either week, and you can download it either as audio or text. There's a huge range of different types of SF story, some of which use feasible technology that could be around next week, and some of which could never happen. There are more than 400 short stories on there now. If you like SF, you'll definitely find stories you like. I use the site a lot for long drives on my own (I have to go to Canberra twice this week, and it's 3-4 hours each way, so some good SF stories are a great way to pass the time). And, of course, after your eye operation, it'll be useful to have some good podcast stories to listen to so you can let your eyes relax. So get downloading now.
Yes, I was going to say this. I dropped science at 16 (when you have to choose in Britain, and I went with languages), but I've always kept up a layman's interest in science, and I love SF. To me, warp drive seems perfectly feasible: if you can fold the space in front of you, then you're not travelling faster than light, even though you get to your destination faster than light would. I'd be so thrilled if warp drives were to be developed during my lifetime. But I suppose this is quite unlikely.
This is already possible. I grew up in a small town. If you made out with someone new in the pub, that information would travel around the town faster than light.
To twist this subject in a new way: The Morgaine Stories have no magic, no fantasy, but the narrator believes he is seeing magic and that his soul is doomed for helping Morgaine. (The protagonist sees it all as science, but we never see the story from her POV) The Morgaine Stories - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I could never be a zombie. I've been taken to so many banquets in China where I've been served brains, and I hate them - they're squishy and tasteless and disgusting. And zombies only eat brains. I'm quite the foodie, so existence as a zombie would be horrible for me. Also, zombies never seem to consider the risk of CJD.
The whole young kids thing restricts my movie viewing. World War Z sounds very good. And there was some film last year about a zombie who was in love with a living person, which sounded great. And I'm told Shaun of The Dead is great. And while it's not quite a proper zombie film, I think 28 Days Later is close enough to count, and that's one of my very favourite films ever. The Walking Dead is on TV here, but I haven't got round to watching it. I should give it a try - thanks for the recommendation.
I watched the first 2 seasons of Walking dead. I did not see the last years season 3 cause it will release on Netflix and cable when the new season 4 starts which is very soon in 3 weeks. The first one is OK but after that it starts to get very good. Plenty if drama and well written. Love triangle, morality versus iron fist. Bad decisions made and consequences. If kept my attention and not much of TV does that for me. You won't regret watching. Just bear with the first season but watch it cause it lays out the foundation for the rest of it. There is not much good script writing coming out of Hollywood but this is the exception.
