Monday, July 08, 2002
Ah, sci-fi. How I love it.30 something years ago Gene Roddenberry introduced us to a world of space ships, aliens, phasers, communicators, and funky talking computers. Pretty far fetched stuff to be sure, and I remember as a kid saying to my mum "I want a communicator, and a phaser, and a computer, and and and..." She smiled and said "That's just tv. Those things don't exist." I replied "Computers are real." She smiled again and said "Yes, but they're very expensive, and very big. Ordinary people will never have them." I was somewhat disappointed, to say the least, though nearly 30 odd years later I'm pleased to say she was misinformed. We have the communicators... cell phones being more common than a very common thing. We have the talking computers... well, mine does, and understands my speach too (sometimes). Now where can I get a phaser gun?
Jump forward a few years, mid 80s, William Gibson's Neuromancer. He describes cyber space. We may not have the fully immersed experience just yet, more's the pity, as I'd love to just jack in, but still... you're how many thousand miles away from me? You're reading these words that I only wrote maybe a few mins or hours ago, and you're doing it in the comfort of your own home most likely. If you wanted to, you could click the link to my webcam and watch me midlessly tapping away at my laptop, or even venture into audio/video chat with me on yahoo or netmeeting. I'm not saying you should, or that I'd want to either, but the fact is that the technology is there in your home and mine.
So what's all this got to do with anything?
Two things. The first being that sci-fi is often seen as being nothing more than another brand of fantasy literature. In some cases this is true, but that's not 'real' sci-fi at all. The truly hard edged stuff very often shows us glimpses of what really is to come, and often much sooner than we expect.
The second, well... it's related to the book I picked up today. Vitals by Greg Bear. He's always been one of the very best contemprorary sci-fi writers as far as I'm concerned, dealing with concepts that are wholely plausable, often within our lifetimes. Check out Queen Of Angels, Slant, and Darwin's Radio to see what I mean. Anyway, in Vitals he's describing the work of a scientist researching the possibility of extending human life through radical gene therapy. I won't go into the technical aspects, but suffice to say if he's on the mark with this, as many sci-fi writers have proved to be, I want in. Having an ego the size of a plant, the idea of living for a few thousand years rather appeals to me.
On an entirely different note, I also picked up a copy of Ursula LeGuin's new book The Other Wind. I'm rather thrilled about this, as it's book five in the Earthsea series, something I started reading when I was about 11. As a rule, I'm not into the fantasy genre at all. Wizards, dragons and such don't do it for me, and I couldn't give a monkeys' about LOTR, but there's a certain charm about the Earthsea novels that I find compelling. Maybe it's just nostalgia, reading something that continues from a book I read as a kid... whatever, I look forward to reading it.
Labels: books
Steve 6:45 PM [+]
Comments:
Post a Comment
The Benway Empire |
 |