All the stories on the FP are about labor relations and corporate shenanigans. So anyway, do you like Star Trek or Star Wars better? Anybody still ike to read old school sci fi, for example I really love Poul Anderson’s Polesotechnic League stories - the swashbuckling adventures of intersteller trador Nicholas van Rijn and his Solar Spice and Liquors company, David Falkayne, et al. Good old basic space opera.
Back in the days of Star trek the next generation, Voyager and Deep Space 9, I Would say Star Wars is not really Science Fiction but Science Fantasy.
But unfortunately that’s become true for Star Trek too.As Science Fiction I clearly prefer old school Star Trek, but as Science Fantasy Star Wars does it way better IMO.
I hadn’t heard about Poul Anderson’s Polesotechnic League stories before, they look very interesting, I’ll bookmark that for when I feel like some old school SciFi. 👍 😀
To be fair, Star Trek always had its fantasy element as well. They dressed it up with Treknobabble a lot, but many of the episodes had fundamentally fantasy elements as well. Like, remember the time Kirk gets beamed down to a planet where the inhabitants use literal, actual magic and it turns out the Salem witches were actual witches?
You are absolutely correct, I’d also argue Q is more fantasy than SciFi, it’s probably more correct to say Star Trek was MOSTLY SciFi, while Star Wars had more fantasy elements as a fundamental part of the Universe that are the basis for the stories.
Personally I consider time travel as absolutely a fantasy element, I see no reason to believe the past and future exist at the same “time” as the present. Which makes time travel basically nonsense.
All time travel speculation quickly ends out in either infinities or paradoxes. Only a very careful author, who set up strict limitations prevent that.
To be honest I’m extremely tired of all the time travel babble Star Trek has turned into, where time travel is a key element of the stories.
‘War Of The Wing-Men’ is a good one to start with.
Thanks. I just found the entire series, 😋 but with some odd numbering?:
Anderson, Poul - Polesotechnic League - 01 - The Trouble Twisters
Anderson, Poul - Polesotechnic League - 02 - War Of The Wing-Men
Anderson, Poul - Polesotechnic League - 03 - Trader To The Stars
Anderson, Poul - Polesotechnic League - 04 - Satan’s World
Anderson, Poul - Polesotechnic League - 05 - Mirkheim
Anderson, Poul - Polesotechnic League - 06 - The Earth Book Of Stormgate
Anderson, Poul - Polesotechnic League - People in the WindCompletely different numbering than for instance the recommended here?
https://www.bookseriesinorder.com/polesotechnic-league/
Which would you recommend?
By publication date or chronological story line?I always try to go by publication.
Someone put it this way [they were talking specifically about the Conan stories]. If you meet someone and get to chatting you don’t tell your story in chronological order. Maybe the first story you tell is about what happened at work, or your most recent vacation. After you’ve known them a while you talk about grade school.
That’s my opinion.
Thanks. 😀
Poul Anderson mentioned 🗣️ 🗣️🗣️
He and H.Beam Piper are my favorite SF writers, be sure to check Three Hearts and Three Lions, the book where the hero solves fantasy problems with Science™.
In my late 20s at a sci fi con, a friend came up and said, “Here’s someone I’d like you to meet,” and suddenly I was face to face with Poul Anderson. He was one of my idols - I had read the crap out of his work for years and years. I was so gobsmacked all that came out of my mouth was, “How do you say your first name?” Worst fail of my life.
I’ve never heard of HBP, will take a look.
The Little Fuzzy books are some of my favorites.
He’s fun reading, though being a woman I also find his stuff kinda sexist. It’s basically cowboys in space.
I mostly read sci-fi from the late Golden Age and the New Wave, so I have a lot of practice in glossing over questionable bits!
Cowboys in space sounds fun.
New age sci-fi, but you have GOT to read the Murder Bot books. They are absolutely incredible. They’ve also won Nebula and Hugo awards.
Also: children of time series, as well as the bobiverse series
I haven’t read Children of Ruin yet, but Children of Time was awesome.
Ruin is awesome. The story is like going on an adventure.
People are split on Memory, but I like it. It’s just written differently
Martha Wells… cool, thanks!
I just started reading the dune series, after watching the movies, and I’m having a great time with it! Somehow the books do a better job of detailing the conversations between all the different characters, and setting the stage for movie 2.
DS9 > TNG > BSG
I’d put ‘The Expanse’ at the head of the line
The Expanse is great
Star Trek for the technology and exploration (both of space and the human condition). Star Wars because WOW that dude just moved that shit with his FREAKIN’ MIND!
Think about the technology we have now - a lot of it was inspired by Star Trek technology. Communicators -> smartphones/watches, shuttle -> Rovers, non invasive medical diagnosis, large screens, video calls. And that’s just from TOS. And I’m pretty sure people are still working on creating Transporters.
I’ve tried star wars. Just didn’t like it like I do star trek
Love TNG and DS9, currently reading the Ringworld series
Not a fan of either but I did enjoy watching Lost in space recently. Also enjoyed reading Neuromancer
seveneves was a banger, if you haven’t read it just go in hot.
Everything I needed to learn about SciFi I learned from watching Prisoners Of Gravity on TVO. The host Rick Green was always interesting to listen to. I learned there was far more scifi than just TrekWars
I feel like in a post-global pandemic world, where we have AIs that can pass the Turing test, VR world’s where we can do global virtual raves, and if one cobbles enough cutting edge tech together one can say “earl Grey, hot” and a 3d printer can print up a model of a tea cup… I think scifi writers have to come up with what is NEXT.
No more “Oh this logical robot which can either be a metaphor for autism or enslaved people want to be free and human”. Give us projections on our current technology and social evolution. Shows set in the year 2200 shouldn’t just be dealing with the emergence of AI and still have only straight nuclear families.
True, most sci fi about the future just overlays fancy gadgets on top of present-day culture, and every robot is Pinocchio and wants to be a real boy. But if an author tried hard to speculate about future life it would probably be too unfamiliar and unrelatable to sell a lot of books - and I don’t really blame them for not wanting to put readers in a too-unfamiliar world, they’re trying to entertain not write white papers. Also consider the reaction to a writer who made it okay for an robot to get fulfillment out of just functioning perfectly. OMG no, we can’t give that toxic idea any breathing space. Every entity must long for Freedom like an angst-ridden teenager or the writer will be accused of shilling for the system.
Is social media not technology? If you don’t want to see it, there are text filters.
By “social media” you must mean “echo chamber”. Criticism is completely appropriate.
By “social media” you must mean “echo chamber”.
Why…would you ever think that? Is everyone here echoing your sentiment?
Criticism is completely appropriate.
I wasn’t saying it was inappropriate, just inaccurate.
IMHO, this community should be about technology. Novel inventions. Interesting or creative applications. Discoveries. Dangers, advances, impacts, experiments, tutorials, etc.
Instead, it’s overrun with stock market and business news having no more to do with technology than CEOs of wood pulp factories have to do with literature.
I wish Rule 2 was phrased in a way that clearly excludes the latter, and enforced.
Technology cannot be disentangled from society and the economics that create and develop it. Technology is social process, it is not a technical matter.
The idea that technology is a thing on its own, maybe even with its own agency, is an ideological stance pushed first and foremost by the people you don’t want to hear about exactly for the purpose of obscuring their role in the whole deal.
no more to do with technology than CEOs of wood pulp factories have to do with literature.
This has me envisioning a literature community filled with stories like “Random House and Penguin merging” (I know, old news), “Layoffs at PRH”, etc.
Yeah I prefer a post about coffee_drudge version 0.12 being released than what we have now.
I’ve kind of felt the same way, would rather have a somewhat-stronger focus on technology in this community.
The current top few pages of posts are pretty much all just talking about drama at social media companies, which frankly isn’t really what I think of as technology.
That being said, “technology” kind of runs the gamut in various news sources. I’ve often seen “technology news” basically amount to promoting new consumer gadgets, which isn’t exactly what I’d like to see from the thing, either. I don’t really want to see leaked photos of whatever the latest Android tablet from Lenovo or whatever is either.
I’d be more interested in reading about technological advances and changes.
I suppose that if someone wants to start a more-focused community, I’d also be willing to join that, give it a shot.
EDIT: I’d note that the current content here kind of mirrors what’s on Reddit at /r/Technology, which is also basically drama at social media companies. I suppose that there’s probably interest from some in that. It’s just not really what I’m primarily looking for.
I made [email protected] for all the drama at social media companies
Hah, clever name!
