@Annalee Newitz: I see someone else posted a link to the video clip from Aliens... I really wonder how many survey respondents may have been affected by genre fictions like that movie? Or by the bloodthirsty atmosphere on a lot of political forums these days?
To approach this from another angle... an internet survey may not have as much truth to it as the original survey did back in 1945. Presumably, the scientists were told to take the survey seriously, and circumstances encouraged them to really think about it, whereas this new site will accept entries from completely anonymous people who know the results are hypothetical rather than influential.
To approach this from another angle... an internet survey may not have as much truth to it as the original survey did back in 1945. Presumably, the scientists were told to take the survey seriously, and circumstances encouraged them to really think about it, whereas this new site will accept entries from completely anonymous people who know the results are hypothetical rather than influential.
Dude, couldn't you have included at least one book by a woman? Personally, I don't think anyone should even bother with a "best of" list unless they are going to try to be somewhat inclusive.
Anyway, I second the recommendation of Butler's "Kindred", and some other pretty obvious ones include: "The Lathe of Heaven" and "Always Coming Home" by Ursula Le Guin, "Queen City Jazz" by Kathleen Ann Goonan, "Beggars in Spain" by Nancy Kress, "Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang" by Kate Wilhelm, "War for the Oaks" by Emma Bull, and "Wild Life" by Molly Gloss.
Anyway, I second the recommendation of Butler's "Kindred", and some other pretty obvious ones include: "The Lathe of Heaven" and "Always Coming Home" by Ursula Le Guin, "Queen City Jazz" by Kathleen Ann Goonan, "Beggars in Spain" by Nancy Kress, "Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang" by Kate Wilhelm, "War for the Oaks" by Emma Bull, and "Wild Life" by Molly Gloss.
I'm going to have to be a dissenter here and say that I don't think this really succeeds as a literary review. It consists mostly of plot summary and statements of personal belief; there is very little commentary on the novel's structure, quality of writing, or context. I get that you liked it -- a lot -- but I still can't tell if that means it's a good book or not.
Here's a question I really would have liked to see addressed in your review: is the book based on Hinduism or Buddhism? They aren't the same, though there is some overlap in origins and cosmology. The gods are more Hindu; Sam, as he is described, is more Buddhist. Is the book a science fictional version of the rise of Buddhism in Hindu India? Or was Zelazny just sloppy and mixing the two into an "exotic" blend for his American readership?
Here's a question I really would have liked to see addressed in your review: is the book based on Hinduism or Buddhism? They aren't the same, though there is some overlap in origins and cosmology. The gods are more Hindu; Sam, as he is described, is more Buddhist. Is the book a science fictional version of the rise of Buddhism in Hindu India? Or was Zelazny just sloppy and mixing the two into an "exotic" blend for his American readership?
@Nivenus: Fair enough, you did say that. But there still remains the problem of what that number would be compared to. What's the use of comparing the inflation-adjusted numbers of yen to euros, for example? They are on fundamentally different scales of value. To really compare, you would have to include an exchange rate equivalence to some single currency, and that also often varies by the day.
Apart from all that, there is the issue of the same movie being rereleased in different years. Box Office Mojo has some notes about this on their All Time Domestic page. You can't just take the box office total for a movie and multiply it based on inflation since the first year of release, because it might be a movie like Snow White, which has made most of its money since it was rereleased in 1983. Accounting for such things would get *much* more complicated for a film that was released several times, in different years, and in several different countries.
In fact, it's giving me the heeby jeebies just thinking about it.
@Nivenus: There is no single inflation rate that applies to all countries -- thus the difficulty of calculating such a measurement of worldwide ticket sales. There are dozens of countries reflected in most movies' international totals (Avatar has been released in 75!), and most of those countries have their own currencies and individual histories of monetary valuation. Even if you could come up with an "inflation adjusted" total for international sales for one movie, you would only be able to compare that total to other movies that had been released in exactly the same set of countries. It just wouldn't be very useful given how much effort would be involved, so I doubt you'll ever see such a number.
@Nivenus: Box Office Mojo keeps a list of the top 100 domestic box office records adjusted for inflation here: [www.boxofficemojo.com]
Avatar comes in at #14, with about half the total of Gone with the Wind. However, if you look at the All Time Worldwide list here: [www.boxofficemojo.com]
...you will find that Avatar has taken an astonishing $2.7 billion to date. This is over $1 billion more than Gone with the Wind's inflation-adjusted domestic total. I call that "beating the pants off Gone with the Wind".
@Nivenus: Actually, that's only true if you discount international ticket sales, of which Avatar had a boatload. It has far outstripped Gone with the Wind at this point.
@bonniegrrl: If you're talking about the guy who played Forrest on season 4 of Buffy, then... yes.
This looks hilarious. BTW, there is a version of the trailer with English subtitles here: [www.youtube.com]
@greasypigarvin: You're right, this has happened twice before. Box Office Mojo has the details, but basically, the chipmunk movie beat Avatar on 12/23, and Sherlock Holmes beat it on 12/25. So this truly isn't news.
@crashfrog: But what about them having only 2 eyes, while the other critters have 4?
I have a bunch of these stories in other anthologies, but I still might have to buy this book. It looks great!
On a nitpicky note, you spelled Le Guin's last name wrong. It has a space in it. (Boy, am I getting tired of pointing this out.) #books
Despite the vaguely medieval feel and the telepathic dragons, the Pern novels are in fact science fiction. It becomes a lot more explicit from The White Dragon on (where the colonists start excavating the archeological sites from their original landing on the planet), but even in Dragonquest there is a significant plot line about the science behind thread and the Red Star. #youngadultsciencefiction
@Chuck: I second this. Edmonson's Firefly score is one of the few soundtrack albums I have ever bought. Something by Bear McCreary is probably going to be next.
BTW, there is a great interview with Edmonson here: [www.tracksounds.com]
@jbq: Nope, gratuitous violence just didn't do it for me. I watched all the early episodes and remained ambivalent until "Out of Gas".
"Get's"? What is with this extraneous apostrophe meme?
There are so many angles on this genre question that it's really hard to talk about it meaningfully. First off, people use the word to mean different things. For some it's a just a marketing category that should be talked about mostly in economic terms; for some it's a label used by outsiders to denigrate something they know little about; for some it's a useful descriptive category to talk about works that are in conversation with each other. All these are valid ways of talking about it, but theoretical progress on any of the various approaches is pretty rare because people are often talking past each other.
The Le Guin/Martin piece seems to focus on the "outsiders who don't understand us denigrating what we do" approach, and their solution is to get rid of the genre labels that carry the cultural baggage. But that doesn't help answer the question of whether genre terms actually have meaning or might be useful at least some of the time. Martin gets at this a bit with his "fantasy and SF are the same thing with different furniture" theory. Too bad I think he's almost totally wrong.
Totally unrelated note: Le Guin's last name has a space in it. For the love of FSM, can you fix the spelling on the post so people stop perpetuating this spaceless version?
@ParryLost: I think you're misinterpreting Le Guin's comment. She does not deny that her SF works are SF; she said that a lot of her works don't "easily classify" as SF. If you read a certain amount of discussion of her work on the internet, you'll see that there are a lot of people who don't think Always Coming Home is SF (it is), as well as a lot of people who don't see anthropological speculation as being "hard" enough to qualify as their idea of SF. So I think Le Guin is just stating a fact.
Now, Margaret Atwood is a genre denier...
Terminator 2 "far superior to the first"? Like... how? It was flabby and sentimental compared to the relentless and terrifying T1. Special effects do not a good movie make.
As for the list... I think "The Matrix" really ought to be there. It's a great movie AND it was hugely influential. Kind of a no-brainer. I'd probably toss "Back to the Future" to make room for it. I also really like "Children of Men", but not enough to go to bat for it when it only came out in 2007. (The AFI's criteria include "Popularity Over Time" and "Historical Significance".)
According to this SciFi.com news item, Jane's supposition that Ron Moore was too busy developing BSG to watch Firefly is wrong. For those who don't feel like clicking over to the link, the upshot is that Loni Peristere, the head of the special effects studio Zoic, was approached by Ron Moore and Gary Hutzel, the FX supervisor for BSG and asked to use the same "handheld" effects for their show as he had done for Firefly.
Outside of the visuals, though... I think Battlestar owes a lot more to Space: Above and Beyond and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (a show Ronald Moore wrote for from 1994-1999) than Firefly or Farscape. Personally, I am not interested in ranking BSG against Firefly or Farscape; I love them all in their different ways. In fact, it gave me a weird feeling when I heard that Joss Whedon was interested in writing an episode of BSG's 4th season. I don't know if I am disappointed or glad that he'll probably be too caught up in his new show Dollhouse to manage it.
