Science fiction discussion

[ToroidalBoat]

"Independence Day: An American Disaster" - PointlessHub

(he likes the 1st movie despite any flaws of that film)

 

[WhatIsThePunchline]

Despite secularism (at least of the "New Atheist" variety) usually being associated with naive consequentialism and hedonism, Star Trek implicitly embraces some kind of virtue ethics that says "humans share some basic nature, this is what humans are, and they can flourish only by living a certain kind of life that involves using all human faculties to their best abilities, and hedonism and excess is inadequate."

I guess that's what makes Star Trek so appealing to me, it's not about the post-scarcity or going into space, it's the fact that most people seem driven by a sense of purpose that gives them individual satisfaction while also avoiding myopic, antisocial pleasure-seeking. It also avoids the radical subjectivism that plagues postmodern philosophy.

Much of the self improvement thing seems focused on humanity in Star Trek, not necessarily the Federation as a whole (we don't really know since all depictions of the federation are human centered). But I like to headcanon it to be the 'hat' of humanity. Since every race have one overarching theme that defines them. So between Ferengi capitalists, Klingon militarists, Vulcan rationalists, you have the Human meritocracy. (the alternative is the humans are the Engineer race. Fits with their Vulcan buddies).

I wonder how much of the 'humans should pursue self actualization' came from Gene and how much of it came from TNG. It seems to have been lost after his death a bit, but lots of things were.

On another note: lots of HP Lovecraft's work is technically scifi. At the Mountains of Madness, Shadow out of Time, The whisperer in darkness, Color out of space.

It's more focused on alien civilizations, inhuman psychology and large scale history than space travel but it still counts.

 

[Alexander Thaut]

So, anyone getting the new Harlan Ellison anthology or reprints of James Blish's Black Easter?

 

[Flaming Carrot]

So, anyone getting the new Harlan Ellison anthology or reprints of James Blish's Black Easter?

I considered the Ellison, but I have so many of his collections that I don't think there's, any stories in there I don't already own. I might get Last Dangerous Visions, but I'm disappointed that a ton of the stories he selected for the anthology are not going to be in there. I have a copy of Black Easter already, but I might get the new printing because I really like Valancourt Books and want to support them.

 

[Betonhaus]

Hey how many series have Christian religion in them? Like the Dust series by Elizabeth Bear is aboard a colony ship full of radical Christians that were delving into nanotech experiments, and I guess The Expanse had the Navoo which was supposed to be a Mormon colony ship.

 

[Alexander Thaut]

I considered the Ellison, but I have so many of his collections that I don't think there's, any stories in there I don't already own. I might get Last Dangerous Visions, but I'm disappointed that a ton of the stories he selected for the anthology are not going to be in there. I have a copy of Black Easter already, but I might get the new printing because I really like Valancourt Books and want to support them.

I have Dangerous Visions and Again Dangerous Visions. Thinking that Greatest Hits might be worth it just for I have no mouth!

Valancourt seems to be baller. THinking of picking up the Black Easter book and their Silver John by Wellman collection.

Hey how many series have Christian religion in them? Like the Dust series by Elizabeth Bear is aboard a colony ship full of radical Christians that were delving into nanotech experiments, and I guess The Expanse had the Navoo which was supposed to be a Mormon colony ship.

Case of Conscience by James Blish, I hear, has some bits of it. Canticle for Leibowitz, and uh

not sure what else I've heard of has some.

 

[LordOfZhbagva]

Has anyone read The Final Architecture? If so, what are your thoughts on it and is it worth reading?
It's on my list after The Martian Chronicles.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Reading The Three Body problem. I don't care a lot about the current day plot while the online game is way more interesting. I also hate all the references to technology that feels like a "I know that reference" bait.

One paragraph I really didn't understand is the protagonist describing a problem consisting of 2 pictures, one is a blue sky and one is a famous painting. With the question which one contains more information, and the answer is the sky due to entropy.

Now this is wrong no matter what. If you look at color entropy, the painting wins. Ditto visual information. You can argue that if you view those in the real world you have more data hidden in the sky but that's just comparison infinities.

 

[Spectre Saren]

Reading The Three Body problem.

I tried reading that book like three times. This might be autistic but I find it hard to differentiate between the characters because of their names and that just takes me out. And, idk. I felt the writing style like, standard? I like it when scifi authors are edgy af on their prose. Maybe is some translation thing. Maybe Im retarded.

 

[Betonhaus]

I tried reading that book like three times. This might be autistic but I find it hard to differentiate between the characters because of their names and that just takes me out. And, idk. I felt the writing style like, standard? I like it when scifi authors are edgy af on their prose. Maybe is some translation thing. Maybe Im retarded.

the series goes downhill fast, I'd say it's a form of environmental propaganda with a dash of "women are too soft to make important decisions"
In the next two books cyrostasis is used a lot to have massive timeskips. The second book focuses on the wallfacer project where a series of bright minds must come up with plans for saving humanity without ever letting the all-seeing aliens figure out what they are up to, while humans loyal to the aliens are tasked with figuring out the plans. in the third book a female scientist is regularly brought out of cyrostasis in order to make important decisions about the fate of humanity, and her decision is always proven to be the wrong choice that further dooms humans. It is revealed that the speed of lights and the number of dimensions are consumable resources, and the universe used to consist of an infinite speed of light and 11 dimensions until wars kept degrading both until the female scientist ends up in a pocket dimension where she stays until the universe fully decays.

I regret reading the books as they were depressing. the second two make the first very entertaining in comparison

 

[Mexican_Wizard_711]

Hey how many series have Christian religion in them? Like the Dust series by Elizabeth Bear is aboard a colony ship full of radical Christians that were delving into nanotech experiments, and I guess The Expanse had the Navoo which was supposed to be a Mormon colony ship.

Sci Fi authors have beef with Big G, but your statement reminds of this video by Pilgrims Pass

the series goes downhill fast, I'd say it's a form of environmental propaganda

Cringe

with a dash of "women are too soft to make important decisions"

Based. 3 Body Problem never appealed to me, I guess it's too Chinese for my taste

 

[Alexander Thaut]

the series goes downhill fast, I'd say it's a form of environmental propaganda with a dash of "women are too soft to make important decisions"
In the next two books cyrostasis is used a lot to have massive timeskips. The second book focuses on the wallfacer project where a series of bright minds must come up with plans for saving humanity without ever letting the all-seeing aliens figure out what they are up to, while humans loyal to the aliens are tasked with figuring out the plans. in the third book a female scientist is regularly brought out of cyrostasis in order to make important decisions about the fate of humanity, and her decision is always proven to be the wrong choice that further dooms humans. It is revealed that the speed of lights and the number of dimensions are consumable resources, and the universe used to consist of an infinite speed of light and 11 dimensions until wars kept degrading both until the female scientist ends up in a pocket dimension where she stays until the universe fully decays.

I regret reading the books as they were depressing. the second two make the first very entertaining in comparison

3 body problem keeps sounding like it's interesting but needs to have been ironed out way better.

Guess I'll stick to my current reading list. Slowly making my way through Zelazny's Lord of Light. It's pretty good stuff. I'm probably gonna read something a bit less. . . fantastical. . . after this.

Maybe I'll go read Earth Abides or Canticle for Leibowitz? I just need to figure something more chill. Then it's off to Budrys' Rogue Moon, Pohl's Gateway, Asimov's Foundation, Silverberg's World Inside, and Heinlein's Moon is a Harsh Mistress for the rest of the SF on my reading list.

Any good sci-fi horror to pick up? I've been keeping an eye out for the John Wyndham and Richard Matheson books in the wild when I go to libraries. Also been keeping an eye out for Finney's Body Snatchers. I have books to go through but I figured I'd ask in case there's some random opportunity to grab something good for a buck.

 

[Dragged Into Sunlight]

Finished re-reading all of the Revelation Space stuff in prep for his latest main series book and prefect book.

God damn I forgot how much the ending sucks

Spoiler

Spend an entire book on basically just a side quest with a short epilogue that says "lol BTW we beat the Inhibitors but unleashed something that destroyed the galaxy anyways so none of it matters

 

[Stoneheart]

Jewtube is bombarding me with those absolutly pozzed scifi stories read by ai.
im not sure if they are written by npcs or ai but they are horrible.
All Aliens are soy cucks and humans are like superman.

 

[Betonhaus]

Jewtube is bombarding me with those absolutly pozzed scifi stories read by ai.
im not sure if they are written by npcs or ai but they are horrible.
All Aliens are soy cucks and humans are like superman.

oh those get reposted by Tiktok. They were interesting at first but like 90% of them are that the Aliens are missing one aspect that humans have, such as nuclear science or ability to drink water. there were a couple interesting ones, like the immortal aliens that waged war for fun and didn't know humans were mortal

 

[Dragged Into Sunlight]

oh those get reposted by Tiktok. They were interesting at first but like 90% of them are that the Aliens are missing one aspect that humans have, such as nuclear science or ability to drink water. there were a couple interesting ones, like the immortal aliens that waged war for fun and didn't know humans were mortal

My favorite one of that kind is the series where all the other races in the galaxy have evolved in nice environments so they're all weakling pussies that need humans to fight their battles against a malevolent alien mind control slugs.

 

[Stoneheart]

oh those get reposted by Tiktok. They were interesting at first but like 90% of them are that the Aliens are missing one aspect that humans have, such as nuclear science or ability to drink water. there were a couple interesting ones, like the immortal aliens that waged war for fun and didn't know humans were mortal

Im still not sure if NPC or AI wrote those.


Also fuck the Perry Rhodan Publisher, they cant get ebooks right. something is ALWAYS broken.

 

[teriyakiburns]

Jewtube is bombarding me with those absolutly pozzed scifi stories read by ai.
im not sure if they are written by npcs or ai but they are horrible.
All Aliens are soy cucks and humans are like superman.

Those are computer readings of stories posted to r/HFY. Some of them are ok, but they tend to fall into the same narrow set of tropes.

 

[Stoneheart]

Those are computer readings of stories posted to r/HFY. Some of them are ok, but they tend to fall into the same narrow set of tropes.

Yeah i know that, but are they written by human npcs or by AI? im a bit fascinated by it, they are soo bad that its hard to imagine they come from humans, but we are talking about redditors so who knows...

 

[ChampFantana]

I don't know if there are any steampunk fans around here, but I really enjoyed the Tales of the Ketty Jay series by Chris Wooding.

It's very reminiscent of Firefly, but it definitely has it's own charms. I highly recommend the series, and it's only 4 books long, so it doesn't take forever to get through. It also having a definitive end means that it's not gonna be dragged out over the next couple of decades like a certain fat neckbeard's most famous work.