Broadening someone's sci-fi horizons
- Thread starter IanBruntlett
- Start date
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
As I recall, the production bought the rights to Starship Troopers as a preemptive move, since the original concept had similarities.
Much as the producers of The Karate Kid bought the rights of the DeeCee character, despite being universes apart.
Much as the producers of The Karate Kid bought the rights of the DeeCee character, despite being universes apart.
actionman
Emperor Mongoose
Totally not financiers or anything.
actionman
Emperor Mongoose
Yes he was. Verhoeven couldn't escape his ideological bias even if it drove him 1000 miles from home and left him in a forest. Fascism isn't some nebulous force like Sauron's malignant will inhabiting the One Ring, it's a very particular political and economic structure that has to be carefully assembled, and it requires a lot of force to keep it together. Without safeguards society turns into corrupt anarcho-tyranny, that's what it turns into.
Btw, it's pointless to argue with me about this, since I refuse to accept most of the literature written about it as legitimate. The entire topic of fascism has been so politically charged for so long that I consider most resources written about it to be propaganda of one type or another. It's also an argument that doesn't have a place on this forum.
It's well known that, in today's society, everyone you don't like is literally Hitler.
actionman
Emperor Mongoose
It's like in the Matrix, where instead of getting possessed and turning into Agent Smith, people disagree and get possessed and turn into literally Hitler.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Going by the playbook, we do know who the current iteration is.
actionman
Emperor Mongoose
Was that the one where there was a Rudbeck in Rudbeck?
AndrewW
Emperor Mongoose
Yup, slave turned rich.
and of Rudbeck
One of my favourites. Though I cut my teeth on Have Spacesuit Will Travel. Literally because it had spacesuit in the title. I was an Apollo kid before I was a science fiction reader.
But honestly, while I dearly love Heinlein, I don't think he's a great initial choice for someone broadening their SF horizons, or at least not in general. Starship Troopers, Stranger in a Strange Land and most of the later corpus in particular can get a bit much. I'd cherry pick out the later Juveniles - the early ones are a bit dated - and Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
Tunnel in the Sky, Time for the Stars, Citizen of the Galaxy, Have Spacesuit Will Travel for sure... maybe Farmer in the Sky and The Rolling Stones/Space Family Stone. If you're good with suspending disbelief for habitable Mars and Venus, Red Planet and Between Planets are good too.
But honestly, while I dearly love Heinlein, I don't think he's a great initial choice for someone broadening their SF horizons, or at least not in general. Starship Troopers, Stranger in a Strange Land and most of the later corpus in particular can get a bit much. I'd cherry pick out the later Juveniles - the early ones are a bit dated - and Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
Tunnel in the Sky, Time for the Stars, Citizen of the Galaxy, Have Spacesuit Will Travel for sure... maybe Farmer in the Sky and The Rolling Stones/Space Family Stone. If you're good with suspending disbelief for habitable Mars and Venus, Red Planet and Between Planets are good too.
actionman
Emperor Mongoose
What's true is true
Some weird book had some mutant who had eyes on his wrists for close work. Hmm, no getting hardboiled eggs out of hot water I guess.
CordwainerFish
Emperor Mongoose
Heinlein's juveniles were written with a sharp goal: make Boy Scouts want to become rocket scientists by combining science and engineering details - plus the attitude that science and engineering were cool, useful, and learnable - with cracking good stories. And if you polled NASA during the Apollo era, you'd decide he achieved that goal.
Probably the contemporary author working closest to that coalface is Alastair Reynolds, a former ESA scientist who likes to put as few outright impossibilities in his stories as he can - he mostly stays away from FTL, for example. Though he's not writing for Boy Scouts or with an educational agenda.
Probably the contemporary author working closest to that coalface is Alastair Reynolds, a former ESA scientist who likes to put as few outright impossibilities in his stories as he can - he mostly stays away from FTL, for example. Though he's not writing for Boy Scouts or with an educational agenda.
Farmer in the Sky remains a pretty good treatment of terraforming a colony, although the pinnacle of that is probably Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars books. Which are another good reccommendation I'd be careful with. A reader who wants action might be bored; one who revels in politics and likes their science hard is much better suited.
CordwainerFish
Emperor Mongoose
Not entirely hard; there was vast amounts of eye rolling over the windmills on r.a.sf.w.
CordwainerFish
Emperor Mongoose
Before... not that it matters. It's easy to see that their impact on Mars' heat budget would be a big fat goose egg.
Of course, their real purpose was to spread that tailored lichen. But none of the characters should have bought the cover story.
