Weekly Sci-Fi Thread (01/11/09)

01/11/09 | Kevin Davis

[KevinDavis]

This weeks Sci-Fi Thread:

Fri:
10/9 - Battlestar Galactica -- SciFi

[Hyzenthlay]

Well, I think the fact that Amanda Tapping’s character ended up being ‘nobody’ actually makes sense because she was the only woman, and women really didn’t get far as far as scientific progress went - almost all the famous women from that period were famous because they were royalty or politicians’ wives or writers or something like that.

[Tanniker Smith]

She could’ve been a writer. That would’ve worked. Or even a “fictional” character like Watson/Holmes was. The fact that it’s her show and that she’s a “nobody” on it says more about the show.

[Hyzenthlay]

The writer thing might have worked, but who’d want to take time out to write when you could be doing science instead? Maybe a sci-fi writer, like Jules Verne or HG Wells?

Anyways, speaking of writers, I’ve come to the conclusion that the only real problem with Sanctuary is that the writers are some of the worst on television. Fire them and get new writers, and the show could actually be pretty good (hey, it worked for Heroes!), since the Cloverfield spoof episode showed it sure wasn’t lacking from the technical side...

[Tanniker Smith]

Yeah, it could use some new writers. I wasn't sure what it was supposed to be when it started. Was the Sanctuary supposed to be like the Undercity from Beauty and the Beast? Was it a prison like season (3 ? 4?) of Buffy? Medical facility to rehabilitate them?

It has a lot of possibilities and a lot of potential ... if it lasts long enough to find it. I wouldn't care which road they took, as long as it were interesting.

[Hyzenthlay]

I don’t know, I think it was more supposed to be like the place in Hellboy (having never seen Beauty and the Beast, I have no idea what you’re talking about there), albeit not run by the government and not used for supernatural crime-fighting purposes... and a bit like a prison/zoo for any creatures that might kill lots of people if let loose.

Oh, and that’s season 4 of Buffy =P

[Paradox]

You bring back some memories. Macroscope is also one of my favorite Sci-Fi books. I first read it when I was 13, totally blew my mind. I found it some 30 years later and re-read it. Still a great book, a little easier to understand this time though :)

I also read Orn, but then Anthony diverged into the "Fantasy" genre and was never the same..

I'll always credit Macroscope with leading me to more adult type sci-fi, after reading that thing, I figured I could read just about anything.

[gorush]

I think I ran into it in my late teens and it had a similar effect on me. Guess I’ll have to look for a copy...

[gorush]

I just finished "The Elegant Universe" by Brian Greene. He is a physicist working on string theory. He describes physics from Newton's laws To Einstein's General Relativity to Planck's Quantum Mechanics. These last two are both provable through experimentation yet are apparently incompatible. String theory appears to tie them together. It's a fascinating read. The author makes it understandable, to a degree, to the casual observer.

It blew my mind like Macroscope and it may or may not be science fiction.