Doc Rampage (Free subscription) | 30/11/2009
Anyone as ignorant of history as Arthur C. Clark should be more reticent to make statements about it in public. I got this quote from a link at Roger L. Simon : A Chat With Arthur C. Clarke FI: What appeals to you in Islam? Clarke: Historically, Islam had a great deal of tolerance for other views and offered the world its priceless wisdom in the form of astronomy and algebra. And, as you know, Islam...
Eclectica (Free subscription) | 29/11/2009
I'm a big fan of 2001: A Space Odyssey, the film adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke's book of the same name. Clarke's vision of a future where space travel and exploration are the norm, together with Stanley Kubrick's visual interpretation of that vision, make this a fascinating and convincing film. For me, part of what makes 2001 so compelling is the design of the locations and technology. Everything...
View From The Porch (Free subscription) | 29/11/2009
The four walls of the dining room at Roseholme Cottage sport floor-to-ceiling shelving devoted to naught but my roommate's SciFi books, shelved alphabetically. She's posted a picture of the Aaa-Far wall . I always shelved non-fiction by a rough Tamara Decimal System and shelved fiction by author , but Instead of arranging authors alphabetically, they were ordered by how likely I was to want to grab...
A giants life (Free subscription) | 28/11/2009
So, what is it about science fiction in literature that is something to be hidden, almost ashamed of? It is ok to go to the cinema and watch the latest Star Trek film. Go to a screening of Lord of the Rings and people think you are mildly intelligent. But buy yourself a copy of “Foundation” by Isaac Asmov and you may as well admit to signing the sex offenders register. Look through the...
PC Plus (Free subscription) | 27/11/2009
With 2009 now over, our eyes must inevitably turn to 2010. In Arthur C Clarke’s famous novel, this was the year when the Russians and Americans teamed up on a universe-redefining mission to uncover the secrets of reality. In the real world, there’ll probably be a slightly faster iPhone. All things considered, we’ll call it a draw. But what else can we expect? We’ve dug out...
Autopia (Free subscription) | 26/11/2009
*There’s about a million eccentric power-generation schemes; this one’s especially cute because it’s osmotic. There’s an Arthur C. Clarke story — gosh, must be 50 years old by now — that had a passing mention of an “osmotic bomb.” *You gotta like the idea of Norway somehow running on membranes. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8377186.stm Norway’s...
Movin' Meat (Free subscription) | 25/11/2009
TAPPED Archive | The American Prospect Which Party Is Best Prepared to Save Us From the Robot Apocalypse? Arthur C. Clarke famously said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” But if science fiction has taught us anything, it’s that any sufficiently advanced technology will inevitably rise up to enslave us. So if you want to get ready for the day...
Doug Mahugh (Free subscription) | 25/11/2009
Arthur C. Clarke famously wrote that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Another characteristic of advanced technologies is that they often contain intellectual property (IP) that may be covered by patents. When such a technology becomes standardized, though, implementers need to feel comfortable that they have access to the technology on a non discriminatory...
Planet Intertwingly (Free subscription) | 24/11/2009
A really interesting issue, despite the useless-in-isolation second part of Vernor Vinge's "Marooned in Realtime". First, there's Timothy "I'd Rather Be Writing Star Wars Tie-In Novels" Zahn, with an enjoyable space opera piece, "The Evidence of Things Not Seen". Geoffrey A. Landis has the funny "Stroboscope", in which a guy cryogenically freezes himself as a...
Sam Harrelson (Free subscription) | 23/11/2009
Arthur C. Clarke would be proud… Astronaut Self-Portrait – Astronaut self-portrait – Gizmodo: “Some time during a six-hour space walk last week, astronaut Robert Satcher managed to capture this shot of himself…via himself.” I should write a short story based on this pic. Hmmm…
The Guardian (Free subscription) | 20/11/2009
Would we have had Alien, Planet of the Apes and The Time Machine if it weren't for a certain bearded Victorian? Darwin, Evolution and the Movies is a one-off festival of film and live comedy to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species on 24 November 1859. Over this weekend the festival is running at three separate venues across London. Classic films you...
Fast Company (Free subscription) | 20/11/2009
You know those neat mind-control toys ? Well, Intel has some grand plans for mind control that go far beyond their limited power. By 2020, the company's researchers plan to have chips that let you control computers with your thoughts. But here's the scary part: To read your brain waves, Intel's not planning on having you wear some kind of skull-cap--the solution venerable sci-fi author Arthur C. Clarke...
Earth and other unlikely worlds (Free subscription) | 19/11/2009
A few years ago, Jonathan Lethem published an essay in The Village Voice, ‘Close Encounters: The Squandered Promise of Science Fiction’, in which he decried the close-mindedness of the genre and sketched an alternate history in which Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow won the Nebula instead of Arthur C. Clarke’s Rendezvous With Rama in 1973, leading to a reconciliation...
The Guardian Books Blog (Free subscription) | 19/11/2009
Speculative fiction has produced some of the most intriguing story titles ever. But which are the best of the best? You should never judge a book by its cover, but should you judge a story by its title? If the recent success of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is anything to go by, then for many readers today the answer is yes. Seth Grahame-Smith's bestselling mash-up of Jane Austen and George A Romero...
PhotoReflect (Free subscription) | 18/11/2009
click photo to enlarge I have said elsewhere in this blog that I think I could have been a futurologist. It's a job with little responsibility - I mean, honestly, how many people really believe your predictions? Moreover, you know for a fact that much of what you foresee will never come to pass, so failure in your job is a given. However, it would definitely be great fun (for a while at least) to get...
Videos