Part 1: The Forefathers (and mother) of SciFi Literature

I present to you, fair readers, a list of some of the most influential authors in Science Fiction literature.  The writings of these greats have influenced every aspect of SciFi culture.  This is by no means a completely comprehensive list; there are too many to mention in one place.  I did my best to cover a wide variety of authors, including those who you may have passed over as a result of having been forced to read them in school. I present them to you in chronological order.

Mary Shelley (1797 – 1851) – The novel as a form of literature didn’t become popular until the late 18th century.  Shelley’s Frankenstein is arguably  the first true science fiction novel and helped shape the genre. With the advent of the microscope and thermometer, medical science was taking its first baby steps during this time. Shelley took these new advancements and produced her own vision of what might happen.  It really was the first novel of the genre; at its core, it was fiction based in science.

Jules Verne (1828 – 1905) – Along with H.G. Wells, Verne helped to expand and popularize science fiction. Around the World in Eighty Days, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, and Journey to the Center of the Earth also helped influence the Steampunk sub-genre. Many of Verne’s writings were rejected by publishers as being “too scientific” for the general public, and, as a result, many were not released until after his death.

H. G. Wells (1866 – 1946) – The influence that Wells had on the science fiction community cannot be denied. The 1938 radio drama adaptation of War of the Worlds caused mass panic. The Time Machine presents the reader with a dualistic of the future that could be.  The Island of Doctor Moreau is still the scariest book I have ever read.  Seriously. In addition to his many fictional triumphs, Wells also published two books standardizing rules for wargames.  That’s right. Anyone who has ever played Warhammer or any other miniature game has H. G. Wells to thank for it.

H. P. Lovecraft (1890 – 1937) – No one’s writing better embodies the notion that “there’s something out there and it’s going to get us” better that Lovecraft.  The Lovecraft mythos of Cthulhu and the other elder gods has become part of modern mythology, possibly one of the last authors to truly do so. Even though Lovecraft is usually categorized as a horror author, I think it’s safe to say that the notion of some life form beyond the stars that is just waiting to consume the world falls neatly into the category of science fiction.

Arthur C. Clarke (1917 – 2008) – 2001: A Space Odyssey is one of my father’s favorite books. He had a big influence in my love of SciFi, so many of his favorites are mine, too. The interesting about 2001 is that it was a collaboration between Stanley Kubrick and Clarke based on the short story “The Sentinel” that Clarke had written years earlier. Kubrick thought the story would make a great movie, but believed that it would be better to allow the story to work itself out in novel form before confining themselves to a script.  Anyone who has seen Wall-E cannot deny that Clarke’s influence is still far reaching today.

Frank Herbert (1920 – 1986) – Dune is widely held to be the best-selling science fiction novel of all time. Herbert believed that science fiction could be used to help build a better future. He felt that the dark visions that many authors had for the future could serve as a guide or warning against what could be. His works are rife with commentary on politics, science, philosophy, religion, and ecology. Herbert helped the genre become elevated in the public eye as something more than literary fluff.

Isaac Asimov (1920 – 1992) – If you’ve seen the recent movie I, Robot with Will Smith, pretend you haven’t.  Not that I have any real problems with the movie, but the only thing it has in common with the original book is the title. Asimov’s Robot and Foundation series are part of a sub-genre that he called “social science fiction”. Asimov’s works focus on the social interactions of beings and the rules and ethics by which they must abide, as well as the consequences when they don’t. His main characters tend to be an “everyman” that the reader can identify with who is forced to make difficult decisions relating to the complex society in which they live.

Ray Bradbury (b. 1920) – Bradbury is my favorite SciFi author.  I can’t get enough. His writings tend to sway in and out of science fiction proper, some hovering around more general fiction, some leaning more towards horror or fantasy.  Some of the more heavily SciFi rooted stories are The Martian Chronicals.  When compared with War of the Worlds, they provide an interesting counterpoint view of life on Mars and Martians. Many of his works are collections of short stories rather than full length novels. For those younger geeks in our audience, I recommend Fahrenheit 451 as an excellent book to write a paper on.  It’s a very enjoyable read and there’s lots to write about; teachers love it.

Douglas Adams (1952 – 2001) – While many of the previous science fiction authors include humor in their writings, none, I feel, do it so effortlessly as Douglas Adams. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a fantastic story in every iteration it has been presented. The almost dadaist absurdity found throughout lends a lighthearted feel to even the most dire situations. In most science fiction, authors present a future or alternate past where all of the characters are a part of that world.  Even in The Time Machine, Wells’ hero may be foreign to the times he visits, but the notion and technology of time travel are his own. The fantastic thing about Adams is that Arthur Dent, the hero, believes that he lives in a completely ordinary world. Then, out of the blue, he discovers that his world is not at all ordinary but that he is living a science fiction novel. Hilarity ensues.

That is my whirlwind trip through the greats of science fiction.  None of these tiny descriptions do any sort of justice to the epic proportions of these works of literature. I beseech you to go out, read them, and reclaim your nerd roots.

Classical Geek is a series dedicated to ensuring today’s geeks are properly educated and informed.

Kindred: The Embraced cover art

Allow me to take a few moments of your time and I’ll give you a bit of history about the show as well as explain a few of its charms.

With all of the love in the media being given to vampires these days, I thought it would be a good idea to look at this earlier attempt to bring the “vampire society” concept to mainstream audiences.  If you’re not familiar with the show, it aired for one season in 1996 and was loosely based off of the much beloved (at least by my friends and I) pen and paper role-playing game Vampire: The Masquerade and was one of the first attempts that I can remember that portray the hidden society concept.

The story takes place in modern day San Francisco and centers around a vampire council that, for the most part, runs vampire society in the city and surrounding areas. Vampire society in the cities in the Kindred world are ruled by vampire councils with representatives from different clans and these councils are led by a Prince of the city.  The Prince of the City is a Clan Venture (wiki) vampire named Julian Luna played by Mark Frankel (R.I.P.) (imdb).  If you are versed in the clan aspects from the Masquerade, you will see that Julian fits the classic Venture archetype very well, playing the part of the successful businessman with a powerful fury that can be unleashed when needed.  Also present on the council are representatives of Clan Brujah (rebellious and looking for power, wiki), Clan Toreador (art enthusiasts, wiki), Clan Gangrel (wandering gypsies, wiki) and Clan Nosferatu (think Nosferatu the movie, wiki).

At the time of the show’s airing I was a little scared when I heard that Aaron Spelling’s name was attached to the show.  I mean, how do you go from producing Beverly Hills: 90210 to a live action treatment of a pen and paper role-playing game about vampires?  Somehow, he managed to make the transition, to a certain degree.  There were of course a few “artistic licenses” taken with the show, but this is to be expected.  Notably, some of the clans were missing, including the Malkavian and Tremere clans to name a few.  Also, some fans believe that some of the clan portrayal’s strayed a bit too far from the source material which I can understand.

Artistic license aside, I think the show’s strongest point that it got across was the existence of an entire vampire society living behind the scenes from everyone and putting on a “masquerade” to  trick the human world into believing they didn’t exist.  This particular aspect is what drew me into the pen and paper role-playing game so I was able to identify with it immediately.  Other story points that the show touched upon were various romantic involvements (this was Aaron Spelling after all), a vampire who believed he was practically Jim Morrison reincarnated, war between the vampire clans and human society investigating into the existence of vampires.

There were of course some weak points about the show.  Just reading about the plot points involved can evoke some great images of a world where vampires live out of sight and the struggles involved with this.  To a certain extent, this is what the show delivered.  However, keep in mind that a lot of the acting was very over the top stuff!  I was easily able to overcome this and actually felt it brought a certain charm to the show.  Particularly “guilty” of this was C. Thomas Howell’s portrayal of portrayal of Detective Frank Kohanek.  Howell pulled everything possible from the classic film noir detective archetype and I loved him for it!  He really went all out on the character, and while it may come across as overacted to many, I really enjoyed the character.  Years later, when I played the first Max Payne, I thought to myself that Howell would be perfect for that character because the portrayal of Payne in that game really drew from the film noir type as well.  But you know, no one can do a better job than who they ended up choosing for the Payne movie… (Mark Wahlbergif you weren’t aware.)

Perhaps the biggest hit against the show is that it ends too abruptly.  The decision to not renew the show must have come midway through the original season (imagine that happening on a FOX show… I know, crazy talk right?) so the episodes suddenly take a shift towards trying to wrap up loose ends and it ends up feeling a bit forced.

Okay, that’s enough waxing ecstatic on my part and I hope you have enjoyed my nostalgic recount of a show that I love.  I own the series on DVD and VHS (go me!) and have turned a number of people onto the it by loaning them out.  Of these people, everyone has ended up falling into the stories and wanting to consume it so if you are looking for a good drama about vampires (that’s a strange thought for some reason) or just an interesting series, give this one season show a shot and let me know what you think.

When you hear/see that there is a SciFi channel (SciFi obviously being short for Science Fiction) an expectation of content is established.  One would expect to find Science Fiction shows on the SciFi channel, golf on the Golf channel, and news on CNN (Cable News Network).  While some channels ignore their namesake (MTV), for some years now you have been able at least expect to find SciFi content on the SciFi channel.  Unfortunately, in my opinion, the SciFi channel does not just show SciFi content.  While they championed great shows like the Battlestar Galactica relaunch and all of the Stargate series, you can also find shows like ECW (Extreme Championship Wrestling) that don’t really fit with the SciFi moniker.  However, in general, the content on the SciFi channel can be placed in the science fiction bin.

According to the cable network’s website, “Syfy is our way of getting our unique programming point of view across. As you may have noticed, we’ve always aired shows that many people wouldn’t consider strictly science fiction: Fantasy, paranormal, etc. Syfy is a way to recognize that, and a way to make our programming more accessible to a broader audience.”  While I see their argument to a certain extent, I don’t think the answer should be to make up a word.  SciFi may not describe their entire programming line-up, but at least it describes a portion of it.  What is a Syfy program?  If they felt that the name SciFi was limiting them is some manner, maybe they should have just removed themselves from the name a bit.  Do something like rename the network SFN for Science Fiction Network, but always refer to the station as SFN.  By doing this they are a bit more ambiguous about the content, but if you dig into it the name still means something.

Despite my gripe with SciFi’s name change, I will still continue to watch their programming.  While most of the shows I watch on SciFi have been canceled or have finished their runs (Stargate:Atlantis, BSG, etc), I am excited about upcoming programs like Stargate:Universe, and Caprica, and I’ve been meaning to check out Sanctuary.  Another place that SciFi has always shined is in their miniseries.  Both my wife and I really enjoyed the Dune miniseries, and more recently their take on the Wizard of OZ universe with the Tin Man miniseries.  I’ve just recently discovered that they are going to create a new miniseries around the Philip José Farmer Riverworld book series, so that’s something to look forward to as well.

In the end, content is king.  As long as SciFi/Syfy continues to fund good programming they will maintain their current viewership.  They are trying to reach out to a new audience with the name change and I don’t think they will achieve this because the new name doesn’t really convey anything new about their content.

My first thought about the show was that is was a ripoff of the Top Cow 90′s comic book Aphrodite IX that has a similiar premise of a young woman who is a special agent/assassin who has her memory wiped after every mission to protect her as well as the agency. The storyline in Dollhouse seems to follow the same line of thought even with the main character having to have a handler who takes care of her on the missions.

After I calmed down and told myself that it was ok because the idea was still a good idea and I was glad to see it ma

Finally. Some awesome posters for the Dark Side.

Clicky!

Doctor Beef is my hero over at flickr.

These make me want to go out and get some storm troopers to play with all day.

Storm Troopin’ – a set on Flickr

via gizmodo , via The Star Wars Blog

http://www.nikkoamerica.com/nhe/dvd_projector_video.html

There isn’t a single Back to the Future buff who hasn’t dreamed of riding around town on a hoverboard. Every Star Trek
fan has lusted after Captain Kirk’s communicator—in fact, the original
23rd-century models inspired the design for the first flip phones.
While scientists haven’t quite figured out teleportation or how to
build a truly effective Terminator, there is some technology available
today that looks pretty similar to what ambitious movie makers have
been able to invent. You’ve seen some of them before: Microsoft Surface looks an awful like the gesture-based computer interface in Minority Report, and the video phones used by everyone from the Jetsons to the characters of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis are now available from your local phone company. We’ve dug deep to bring you some

that seemed to be inspired by the big screen.

Nifty