Science Fiction

Asimov Alert

This entry was posted in Science Fiction on by

If you like science Fiction and in particular if you like Isaac Asimov you will love West Virginia University’s new Asimov collection which was donated by Larry Shaver.
The 600 item collection is housed in a controlled environment and may be viewed by appointment only. This presentation of the covers of many of the books is great.
And here is a lot of related cover art and illustrations. Makes you wonder just what was on the minds of those folks back in the 20th century.
Via Metafilter where this robot generated some commentary…

Quicksilver Companion

This entry was posted in Biology Literature Science Fiction on by

Those of you who have read or are reading Stephenson’s Quicksilver might also want to read Carl Zimmer’s Soul Made Flesh. PZ Myers reviews the Soul Made Flesh here:

The book is a fascinating combination of history, philosophy, biography, and science. And by “science”, I don’t mean the plain recital of observations and inferences, but the process of grappling with the evidence, testing hypotheses, and deriving new and better explanations. I’ll be assigning Soul Made Flesh as required reading next time I offer my neuroscience course.

and provides a comparison of the two here:

After all, both describe the same period of intellectual ferment, and both make it clear that it was not a good thing to be a dog in England in the last half of the 1600s.

Oh, and Myers has also posted the most titillating picture of the week. Read the caption here.
NB (1/18): Corrected Zimmer’s first name.

Heinlein, Science Fiction, Space Travel, Utopia and More

This entry was posted in Science Fiction on by

Back in time, before the new year, Patrick Hayden made a brief mention of a book review including a short quote from the review.
And that post took on a life of its own with the discussion, now 161 comments, still ongoing.
Hey, if the title subjects got you this far you will want to spend the time (and it will be more then a few minutes) reading that comment thread. As Eric Burns says:

The discussion is fascinating because of the sheer plethora of authorities contributing to it. Scientists, futurists, fans, literary critics — there’s something of everything in it, and the content of the discussion is unusually high for the web.

Oh yes, the review was of Heinlein’s first novel, unpublished until now, For Us, The Living.
Full disclosure: I have not read it yet.

Philip K. Dick

This entry was posted in Culture Literature Science Fiction on by

Fans as well as the curious will want to visit the new official Philip K. Dick website. The official biography (short) has some interesting items.
Also, Wired has a lengthy article subtitled The inside-out story of how a hyper-paranoid, pulp-fiction hack conquered the movie world 20 years after his death..

All of this, of course, happening just prior to the 12/25 opening of the latest Dick film adaptation: Paycheck.
Via Planet Swank.

Tuesday’s Book

This entry was posted in Law Science Fiction on by

It has taken three days, now, to get a usable surge of energy, i.e., to feel a bit better. And, I haven’t read any more books since Tuesday.
Normally I read only one novel at a time. I might have 8, 10 or 12 non-fiction books going at once but only one novel and I’m about 180 pages into the current one: Quicksilver.
Tuesday, though, I could hardly keep my head off the pillow and Quicksilver is just too heavy to hold up where a pillow attached set of eyes could read it. So, I grabbed a small paper back instead. One I figured I could read in a day, even a sick day: Card’s Seventh Son.

(more…)