Science Fiction has become a poisoned well . .

7-27-06 | Marc Costanzo

[marc costanzo]

The essay below was originally written in the early Spring of 2001:

With the passing away of LEXX ends an intriguing albeit tawdry experiment in Sci-fantasy. One that breaks with conventions, or should I say cliches of TV sci-fi of the 90's . The politically correct pabulum, the multicultural indoctrination, the BladeRunner motifs, and not the least; the steroid mutated superbabes that can punch the lights out of men, but never get punched back in return !?

How about creating a new sci-fi anthology with none of the puerile baggage of Rod Serling, Rockne Obannon, Michael J. Stracinsky, etc .. It is time to end their reign of un-American cynicism and fatalism !

[RebelBanker]

The one with the AK-47's was Guns of the South which has no sequels. Turtledove also has an alternative history series in which the Confederacy won the War Between the States by more conventional means; the change point was some Confederate soldiers finding the lost copy of Lee's orders during the 1862 invasion of Maryland rather than them falling into Federal hands.

[Jonah Hex]

Rumsfeld: Eater of herbivore droppings! Our troops will bring glory to the Patriarch, Doobyia Boosh. Now is the time to thrust victory into the haunches of fortune, not grovel like a guilty female. Your ears are mine!

One of the great Niven observations on the nature of intelligence was when Louis Wu ruminated on the scarcity of herbivore intelligent species in Known Space (paraphrased):

Speaker to Animals: "And how much intelligence does it require to sneak up on a plant?"

(probably mangled the quote)

I love to tease my vegan friends with that one while cutting into my nice bloody steak. :-)

[JamesP81]

Those would make great sci-fi movies

I've thought about the possibility myself, and the big question in my mind is who would you get to play Harrington? That's a hard part to fill. Harrington is a tall, dark haired woman hailing from mountainous country. She's mostly caucasian with a significant amount of Chinese. That's going to be a hard thing to cast.

[CaptRon]

That's the name! Couldn't think of it!

[Hydroshock]

Please put me ont he scifi ping list. Thanks.

[Grig]

"I think it's amusing that everything that passes for science fiction these days is dystopian."

Stargate is anything but dystopian.

[Kieri]

I don't understand your beef with Michael Strazinsky. We *loved* Babylon 5 in my house. Unlike Star Trek, which ridiculed religion at best and eradicated it as ignorant at worse, it was a way of life and accepted norm on B5. Not only that, B5 was helped out by Harlan Ellison. It had a few shaky episodes but to see Walter Koenig as the insidious Bester was wicked fun.

And he NEVER said "nuclear wessles!"

[SSR1]

Im with you. B5 is number two after STTOS!

[Kieri]

Browder and Black will always be Crichton and Aeryn Sun to me.

[zeugma]

A sandy desert planet with something the rest of the galaxy could not live without, under their sands...

Yeah, the analogy was pretty obvious with Dune.

My initial comment was kind of a joke. Especially since you rarely see Christians in Space either.

Jews in Space was Mel Brooks, so it hardly qualifies :-) 

[DoctorMichael]

Islam in Sci-fi Literature.............
http://www.cs.rit.edu/~maa2454/SCIFI/sci_lit.php
http://www.cs.rit.edu/~maa2454/SCIFI/movies_scifi.php
http://www.cs.rit.edu/~maa2454/SCIFI/muslim_scifi.php
http://www.cs.rit.edu/~maa2454/SCIFI/alt_history.php

[AFreeBird]

Did you see the movie "Serenity"?

Awsome flick.

[KevinDavis]

The odd thing is that JMS is an athiest..

[Grig]

"What was wrong with Babylon 5 other than the cultural relativism?"

Got me. I'm rewatching B5, very interesting in light of the War on Terror. They wouldn't allow it to be made today the same way, would be seen as too 'pro-Bush' so it would either be changed or not made at all I bet.

[zeugma]

I've never found anyone who's read any of the Rick Cook books. I was laughing so hard at some of the stuff in the second Wizardry book, my wife thought something was wrong with me. She read it and still thought so. I had to explain a lot of the more esoteric Unixisms. The Daemons were hilarious.

[Interesting Times]

No one beats Jack Vance. For Sci-Fi and Fantasy.

Absolutely. How about a full-length feature film of The Last Castle, are possibly Emphyrio?

[af_vet_rr]

Also the sci-fi channel is showing ECW...

Which has pissed off a lot of people. I don't know what they are thinking, unless it was a decision made above their heads (which I'm thinking maybe the case - that it was an NBC/Universal decision rather than a Sci-Fi Channel decision).

I watched this Darkplace show last night. I was laughing so hard. It's a parody of all of the British horror shows, and they nailed it perfectly (I lived in English for quite some time and were exposed to many of them). Bad acting, bad sets, bad dialogue, continuity errors, etc.

Since the thread is going back and forth between TV/Films and print, I have to say, if people haven't picked up any of Harry Turtledove's alternate history books, they should, very interesting (make sure and go chronologically as far as the books are concerned - he spends a lot of time creating deep backgrounds for characters, and assumes you've read previous books in many cases). I would also throw out the Red Mars/Green Mars/Blue Mars trilogy (and the companion book).

Not a lot of Sci-Fi writing has interested me of late, so I've found myself going back to stuff that was written when I was a kid but didn't read back then - Heinlein, etc.

[Kieri]

During one of SCIFI's holiday marathons, we introduced our 16-year old son to the Twilight Zone. He LOVED them! We TIVO'd the best of the best.

It was sheer bliss to watch his face at the end of "To Serve Man." He nearly fell off the sofa!

These are classics. I wish the schools would show them as examples of good SF tales without the flash of modern FX.

[zeugma]

Thanks. Sounds interesting. May have to check into that. Anything that can show the dangers of liberalism and governemnt in general run amok is a Good Thing.

[6ppc]

*Sigh!* In a better universe, there would have been an anthology series "Tales of Known Space", with installments of Gil 'The Arm' Hamilton, Beowulf Shaeffer, and Man/Kizn Wars...

I've always thought Niven and Pournelle's books would make great movies. "The Mote in God's Eye", "Lucifer's Hammer" and "Footfall" would be epic tales on the big screen.