Sci-Fi of the Day
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- cannonball197811
Checking my junk mail, I found a contract for a story of mine to be published in a forthcoming anthology tentatively titled "New Voices in Science Fiction". Phew good save lol.
The year's first acceptance so far.
- docpoz-4
- Nairn1
I dun goofed.
Being Christmas, I tend to leave the UK for a week or two, so on a recent scan of second hand shops I was pleased to see a nice thicki-ish book by Liu Cixin for a quid, as I've been wanting to read 'The Three Body Problem' for a while now. Perfect for the holiday! I packed it along with a couple of old Lem Books I wanted to read again (Futurological Congress and Solaris) and here I am, abroad. Finished the Lem books in fucking no time because I'm an amazing reader and perhaps possibly because they're thin books with large type.
I start the Cixin book last night with wary anticipation - sure enough it's quickly made clear that This Is A Book Written By Someone From Chinese Culture; there's a sort of fundamental difference in philosophy and density, a shift in prose style and construction, but all very enjoyably so. As soon as my tired old brain fits itself into a new regime, I get into it and find it all very enjoyable - particularly the way it reveals itself, peeling itself back post hoc, but not in too confusing a time-jumpy fashion, except.. it's not quite. At some point a chapter or so in it's clear that there's a fundamental assumption that will not be explained and - oh fuck - there's a mention of "the three body system".
I'm reading the second part to the book I actually wanted to read, aren't I? Twat.
Now I have nothing left to read and am only a small few days in to my fucking holiday in a foreign country where I won't be able to buy any English matter - at least, stuff I'd want.
And I forgot the plug converter for my laptop, so unless I find one soon, I'm not even going to be able to read shit on the internet either. Goodbye.
- oops.
tl;don't read.Nairn - No kindle? This is the safe boat for strong readers in the xxi century mate...OBBTKN
- Or you can read on your smartphone, no english writen book store near you?? Where are going to holidays, to Mordor??OBBTKN
- Yyyeah, I know. I know! I've held off from the Kindle as I'd always expected there to be a load of equivalent open platforms, but eReaders never really did thatNairn
- Perhaps this is the spur I need.
Also - could fit a fuckload more books in my baggage!Nairn - Feliz Navidad, hombre!Nairn
- You can load your reader with tons of .mobi books, out of amazon store, np.
Eguberri on you too man!!OBBTKN - "a shift in prose style and construction" ooor its poorly written with cool ideascannonball1978
- I think I was trying to infer that I felt it being written by someone from a culture vastly different from mine, but whatever - I'm not a writer.Nairn
- Out of interest, have you read any of his stuff, cannonball?Nairn
- I read three body problem. It's a translation but the exposition and dialogue was rather unsophisticated. I don't know what that says about Chinese writing.cannonball1978
- oops.
- i_monk3
- Cool. The original Irwin Allen series is one of my favourites and goofy space monkey aside, I enjoy the shit out of the film.face_melter
- The thing with the original is that it's Sci Fi's Brady Bunch until Dr. Smith takes over the show and makes it about turning into carrots.CyBrainX
- prophetone0
- I see what you did therelemmy_k
- not me, but rather another geniusprophetone
- Need to do a Fassbender and a Fassstraightset
- cannonball197821
I sold another scifi short story. Should appear on Barnes And Noble magazine racks sometime soon in F(r)iction literary mag.
- monospaced0
- My goal is to read one good sci-fi book this summer. is this good or is isaac asimov a better start?hotroddy
- Somehow I've only read Blue Mars.i_monk
- did not likedasohr
- Asimov is better I think.
Why read the last book in a trilogy first???monospaced - An 11-year-old kid who didn't know it was a trilogy, whose school library only had that book of the trilogy. That's who.i_monk
- :)monospaced
- monospaced0
Currently into the second book of this trilogy. So far so good! Anyone else go through these?
- I've read those. Halfway through 2312. Shaman was also pretty good, although slow.cannonball1978
- I read Years of Rice and Salt a long time ago and was blown away by this author. Let us know how 2312 is when you’re done. Cheers.monospaced
- I have to say, it was very gratifying being selected for a writing workshop after he read one of my stories and gave it a thumbs up.cannonball1978
- Also, I can already tell you 2312 is worth it.cannonball1978
- Nice!monospaced
- plash5
- I think Gibson has said that out of all the editions of Neuromancer, this is his favourite cover.face_melter
- I'd have to agree_niko
- "NEUROMANGER" A thinking man's Christmas.fadein11
- So, so great.docpoz
- Beeswax1
Good production value
Hit or miss stories/episodes
Suppresses Black Mirror cravings
- i_monk3
- That looks pretty badass!MondoMorphic
- wakkawakkawao
wakkawakkawaoo
wakkawakkawaoooo
rock and roll,
showtime
teeereteteee
teeereteteeeeee
teeereteteeeeeeeeeee...sted - I'm shocked...thsi actually looks really good.utopian
- spider smith approves.sted
- https://inception.da…pablo28
- ^ this guy gets it. I have always loved Lost In Space - robots, talking carrots, Judy in her silver outfit. Looking forward to this.face_melter
- So is that Robbie the Robot or did he tame an alien?see_thru
- Ah, my bad...different robot. I thought it appeared in both this and Forbidden Planet.see_thru
- Jesus christ, that gave me goosebumps!elahon
- @see_thru - Robbie DID appear in Lost in Space - ROBOT BATTLE
https://www.youtube.…ETM
- i_monk2
- Hope they at least have the decency to reboot BlawpSlashPeckham
- cannonball19781
https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/…
!!!!!1!11!!1
- I loved this bookcannonball1978
- Oh cool! I just started re-reading this the other week :) (I'm not that a slow reader - i just haven't picked it up for a few days!)detritus
- Started re-reading Lem over the past weeks as well - some of it is laugh out aloud funny... much to my partner's disgruntlement :)detritus
- CULTURE!!!!!!
Hope they let someone take a risk with it.thumb_screws
- cannonball19788
Negotiating the contract for a third story in another pro-paying market. I think I'm getting a handle on this writing SciFi stuff.
- Fantastic. Can I ask how you got your foot in the door? I have some horror shorts I'd love to get out in the world.mugwart
- Really happy for you. Let us know how it goesmugwart
- I just submit the story with a cover letter and hope for the bestcannonball1978
- Had a couple romance stories that were rejected because I kept ending it with a scifi/horror twist. Where are you submitting yours?futurefood
- Thanks, I only asked as I had a script stolen after I submitted. Wondered if you had managed to get an agent first or something. Think I'll bite the bullet agaimugwart
- Agents don't rep short stories usually. I send mine everywhere. Constant string of submissions.cannonball1978
- I've been struggling to start an anthology series, bogged down in the research.i_monk
- Write an anthology or edit/publish one?cannonball1978
- Write.i_monk
- sofas0
https://web.archive.org/web/2014…
Understand
a novelette by Ted ChiangTed Chiang writes...
"The initial impulse to write "Understand" arose from an offhand remark made by my roommate in college; he was reading Sartre's Nausea at the time, whose protagonist finds only meaninglessness in everything he sees. But what would it be like, my roommate wondered, to find meaning and order in everything you saw? To me that suggested a kind of heightened perception, which in turn suggested superintelligence. I started thinking about the point at which quantitative improvements -- better memory, faster pattern recognition -- turn into a qualitative difference, a fundamentally different mode of cognition.Something else I wondered about was the possibility of truly understanding how our minds works. Some people are certain that it's impossible for us to understand our minds, offering analogies like "you can't see your face with your own eyes." I never found that persuasive. It may turn out that we can't, in fact, understand our minds (for certain values of "understand" and "mind"), but it'll take an argument much more persuasive than that to convince me."
- You really can't see your true face with your own eyes http://2.bp.blogspot…robotron3k