science fiction
The bridge between imagination and technological advancement, where the dreamer’s vision predicts change, and foreshadows a futuristic reality. Science fiction has the ability to become “science reality”.
Best Isaac Asimov Books
Often known to say that he did not fear computers, Isaac Asimov was truly fearful of the lack of computers. Isaac Asimov's imagination is synonymous with prophetic visions of the future. On science, he said, "The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I've found it!), but 'That's funny...'" At one point, Isaac Asimov served as the Vice President of the MENSA organization. He referred to his colleagues in MENSA International as "brain proud" and quite passionately raved about their IQs. A genius among geniuses, Isaac Asimov's contribution to science fiction literature stands alongside those of his contemporaries, and his books surely rival the best Arthur C. Clarke books and the greatest works of Robert Heinlein. Whether I, Robot or I, Asimov – the author's memoir – is your book of choice, celebrate this iconic author with the best Isaac Asimov books.
Natasha SydorPublished 8 years ago in FuturismYar's Plume
It was uncomfortably chilly on the night we saw each other last. I remember the methane snowflakes and the carbon ice, the first time around. The landscape around the Plume had an unusually eerie feeling. Even a really long displacement such as the one I was going through now could not approximate the feeling. The memory somehow made the hair on my back rise. A distant, logical, and pedantic part of my troubled, aching mind sought to inform the other part—the instinctive, impulse-driven part—that technically, I had no hair. No back for that matter either.
Vasileios KalampakasPublished 8 years ago in FuturismJava From Hell-Coffee Enhances Super Powers
I should’ve seen it coming when I first saw it. When I saw my guy pal Bob Bloch- flying. Literally! I found that a particular affront, considering that, underneath my modest disguise of a human being like you and everyone else on this planet, I am, in fact (cue the echo chamber):
David PerlmutterPublished 8 years ago in FuturismRoadside Picnic and Stalker Similarities
In the eyes of science fiction author Ray Bradbury, the only crime worse than burning books is not reading them at all. We all remember books our own way. Focusing, forgetting, glazing over, missing parallels, inventing others; we embellish. When talking about a book with other people, I often wonder if we even read the same book—or, somehow, two things with the same title by the same author. It’s like we’ve both seen a whale in the water at one point in our lives, and we’re trying to determine the shape of its eyes. Obviously, there's some overlap, a little play in the bones, but it’s more of a Venn diagram than a flowchart, a sort of private film that plays for each reader, renewed with each read, every scan a fresh translation. Neither film nor literature exists as Object. Rather, each can be reduced to a set of stimuli floating in space, never in one place at one time. Not even at the site of mind.
Reynard SeifertPublished 8 years ago in FuturismThe Watcher
From the dome of his mile-long tower, peeking above the cracked earth of a former schoolyard, Dalen studied a wall of sulfuric storm clouds overshadowing the husks of Chicago’s skyline. One level below, a window wrapped around the tower’s shaft overlooked the hidden city, laid out like the layers of an onion. Were the city lifted to the surface, it would look like a giant toy top. The carved streets and homes lay open like a labyrinth, lit by cauldrons of engineered glowworms hanging from the cavern ceiling.
Sequoia NagamatsuPublished 8 years ago in FuturismH.E.L.G.A. - A Tale of Artificial Intelligence
December 20 - 5:32 AM (Miami time) 10:32 GMT An Undisclosed Secure Location Up to this point, HELGA had been following the complex set of instructions which Jay-L created for her as part of an emergency action list to be executed in the event that he could not be located. Part of the list of tasks included several methods of determining the nature of Jay-L’s disappearance. If the circumstances surrounding his absence were suspicious, then she had very specific orders she was to follow. Once she determined the high likelihood that Jay-L was being pursued for capture by the Special Forces Delta Group, under direct order of the U.S. President, a whole new set of options became available to her as a means of responding. However, HELGA had finally exhausted the myriad of options on that detailed list of instructions which Jay-L had prepared in the event of his capture at the hands of the government.
Lucian RandolphPublished 8 years ago in FuturismAlone, In the Car, And In the Dark
Rare and Special Mammals The impact pinches the car doors shut. The dome light flickers eight times blue, then eight times red. Small processors work to determine if the cabin has held its form.
Scot BraswellPublished 8 years ago in FuturismBen Bova Interview
"Don't ask your readers to admire your words when you want them to believe your story." Science Fiction author Ben Bova realized that the general rules of science - don't add an experiment to an experiment, and don't make things overly complicated - also applied to science fiction. His theory certainly brought him success. Starting out as a technical writer for Project Vanguard in the 1950's, Ben Bova went on to become a successor to John W. Campbell as editor of editor of Analog Science Fact & Fiction where he won six Hugo Awards. Throughout his career he authored over 120 books on science fact and science fiction, worked as editorial director for OMNI magazine, and was president of both the National Space Society and the Science Fiction Writers of America. He has appeared as the Guest of Honor at the Florida convention Necronomicon on two separate occasions, and in 2000, he attended the 58th World Science Fiction Convention as the Author Guest of Honor.
Claire EvansPublished 8 years ago in FuturismDarkening Day
Remember when The Curtain went up? The only viable solution, extreme as it was, to save humanity from Earth's rapidly hyper-toxifying, invisibly over-saturating air. A superstructure, ten miles up, of floating chemical filters, each a sort of box-shaped balloon, converting noxious chemicals into safer ones. Billions of them, linked together into an edgeless shell spanning the entire globe.
Breyen KatzPublished 8 years ago in FuturismDiscognition Questions Consciousness
My new book, Discognition, looks at science fiction in order to think about questions of consciousness. Each of us knows that he or she is conscious; and most of us take it for granted that not only human beings are conscious, but animals like dogs and cats are as well. But how far downwards does consciousness go? Are lobsters conscious? Are trees? Are bacteria? We don't really know. But the enigmas go further. We don't even understand our own intelligence and mental activity. We live in a golden age of neuroscience; every year, we learn more and more about the functioning of the brain. And yet, despite this accumulation of knowledge, nobody really knows what consciousness is, or how it works. Philosophers and scientists disagree on even the most basic issues. We have no idea how to get from the brain to the mind: from electrochemical processes in our neurons to things like feelings and thoughts and experiences.
Steven ShaviroPublished 8 years ago in FuturismAnalog Tale for a Digital Age
The teenage kids hanging out at my machine shop didn't know why I wanted a telephone. A plug-in phone, with wires hanging out of it, was a joke to them. They'd never seen a fax machine in their lives.
Bruce SterlingPublished 8 years ago in FuturismInterstellar Transit
This will be the beginning of a new age. Or I will fail. Again. For three hundred OE cycles, the We Together have dedicated our resources to this moment. Materials and refining facilities across the System have been shunted to the project, as both the Primary and a nontrivial proportion of upper tier secondary sentiences turned to designing and constructing the Transit Mechanism. Again.
David WilliamsPublished 8 years ago in Futurism