A Brief History of the Reality Distortion Field

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• Steve Jobs and his Reality Distortion Field: Apparently the Star Trekly-esque named Bud Tribble was working on a software project for Apple in 1981, and thought he had been given an unrealistic ten-month schedule from inception to ship date. When asked why he didn't just ask Steve to change it, he reportedly said "Well, it's Steve. Steve insists that we're shipping in early 1982, and won't accept answers to the contrary. The best way to describe the situation is a term from Star Trek. Steve has a reality distortion field." Although it turns out no one could find a connection between that term and Star Trek, and thus a legend was born.
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• The Scramble Suits from A Scanner Darkly: In Phillip K. Dick's novel about drug addiction and the paranoid world on both sides of that issue, government narcotics agents wear "scramble suits" that change every aspect of the reader, shifting at a moment's notice so that people looking at someone wearing one will never be able to tell what they look like. In the novel they shift extremely quickly, but they slowed it down in the movie to show how they work. They alter your voice as well, making you the most visible invisible man/woman around: they scramble reality for everyone except you.
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• The Matrix in The Matrix: Nothing distorts reality more than entire system of machines set up to grow you from a fetus, nurture you, and feed your brain signals that tell it you're growing up normal inside a world that doesn't exist. As Morpheus says, "It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth." Sounds pretty distorty to us, although if they decided to make us some sort of science fiction superstar inside this simulation, we probably wouldn't mind. Then you'd all be invited to the rad parties we'd throw.
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• The Holodeck in Star Trek: Seriously, we could never understand why people just didn't stay on the holodeck 24/7. Sure, it's technically "not real," but it does everything you'd want a real world to do. You've got an entire library of billions and billions of option of things to simulate, plus you can even disable the security protocols making it possible to actually die while you pretend you're inside Alice in Wonderland. It's like a portable Matrix To Go (tm), so how did they ever manage to get any work done with one of these things around?
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• The world of They Live: You can blame our current obsession with this film on the fact that it's been showing up on cable a lot lately, but there's something about this Roddy Piper/John Carpenter film that makes it hard to hate. In their world, an alien signal is being beamed out that makes humans as complacent as cattle, and stops them from seeing the aliens as they actually are. Thankfully, Roddy gets some magic glasses that help him kick ass and thwart the fugly aliens. Although in retrospect, they just wanted to make him rich. Was that so bad?
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Image above from the Joy of Tech website. Full version can be seen here.

• Minority Report and Other Stories, by Phillip K. Dick: Keir Dullea (who played Dave in 2001) reads these short stories from Dick's library. "Minority Report" is, of course, a lot better (and different) than the movie was, but the standout here is "Second Variety," which details artificially intelligent robots that have learned how to disguise themselves as humans in order to be more deadly. This came out years before Terminator and Battlestar Galactica, and is worth the price alone. Collection also includes "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" which became Total Recall, and "Paycheck," which became a terrible Ben Affleck movie of the same name.
• The Dark Tower Series, by Stephen King: King's science fiction meets sorcery Dark Tower series has been coming out in dribbles for decades, and the last volume finally came out in 2004. I found that the best way to catch up with these was by chucking them onto my iPod while I was stuck in the car in Los Angeles all morning and evening. Some of the seven books in the series are expertly read by Frank Muller, who has narrated a huge share of King's novels. Tragically, he had a motorcycle accident several years ago, and has been unable to resume his narration work as a result. George Guidall picked up the reins and does an equally impressive job.
• Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card: In 2002 a 20th anniversary edition of Card's novel about the extensive training of young boy by the military to be the savior of all mankind was issued with a full cast production reading the story, and a bonus epilogue tacked on by Card. The project was extremely successful, and they also released the sequel Ender's Shadow with the same cast members. If you've never picked this book up, this is a great way to get into it.
• Neuromancer, by William Gibson: Gibson himself reads this audiobook version of his classic novel, and U2 provided a track for the book, with the group Black Rain contributing music and sound effects throughout the reading. It's moody and atmospheric, great for listening to while the rain is hammering down outside. Sometimes it can (oddly) be a mixed bag when the author reads their own work, but Gibson does a fantastic job.
• The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson: Jennifer Wiltsie not only reads both the abridged and unabridged versions of this book about a nanotechnology-built learning "illustrated primer," but she also provides different voices and accents for all the characters. Not many readers can pull this off without being distracting, and she does a great job with this, particularly with the Primer and the young Nell character.
• Idlewild, by Nick Sagan: This book by Nick Sagan, the son of Carl, is read by a cast of characters and features a superb robotic female monotone as the voice of one of the A.I. taskmaster programs in this story about a virtual reality school for rich kids. It owes a lot to The Matrix, but the ending opens up a whole new world where the sequel Edenborn takes place. Immersive narration takes you deep inside the VR world in the novel.
• A Scanner Darkly, by Phillip K. Dick: Paul Giamatti does an excellent job of reading this novel and capturing the frenetic apathy that the world of Substance D brings on. I listened to this not long before the animated film came out, and I vastly prefer the audiobook version. Giamatti's range as an actor shows off even when you can't see his face.
• Transmission, by Hari Kunzru: Kunzru reads his own novel about a hacker from India who thinks he's found paradise in the United States, until he realizes he'll never escape his slave labor job as a database engineer for a temp firm. He unleashes a powerful computer virus that infects your computer with a dancing video of a Bollywood starlet so he can appear to step in and save the day with a "cure," but it doesn't go as planned. A great listen, and a wonderful read.
• Dune, by Frank Herbert: Clocking in at 21 hours long, this unabridged version of Herbert's classic novel about desert planets and space-folding spice drugs is read by a full cast and will require a serious time commitment. However, you'll get more satisfaction out of listening to this than you will watching the movie or the miniseries again. Perfect if you decide to drive across the continent, or through a desert somewhere.
• Idoru, by William Gibson: I didn't want to have two Gibson novels on this list, but Idoru was the first science fiction book I ever listened to, and it got me through my first year in Los Angeles. I have probably listened to this thing at least ten times, and it never gets old. Actor Jay O. Sanders does a superb reading job, providing different voices for all of the characters, and captures this book perfectly. Plus, it's a great starting point for Gibson if you missed out on the whole Neuromancer cycle.
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams: This series has appeared in multiple formats: read by the author, read by the full cast, read by Simon Jones (who played Arthur in the TV and radio versions), read by Martin Freeman (who played Arthur in the movie version), the BBC Radio versions, and even a Live in Concert version, featuring Douglas Adams giving live readings from his works in front of an audience. With multiple readers and multiple books, there is a ton to choose from here. In my opinion, the Douglas Adams and Simon Jones (and full cast version, including Simon Jones) editions are the best. Sorry, Martin. Technically, this gives this list a lot more than 11 books, but who's counting?

Malcolm McDowell, probably best known for his lead role in Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange stopped to share his thoughts about science fiction with us:

Do you think science fiction films have lost their political edge over the years?

You know, science fiction has gone through many changes, hasn't it? I think the benchmark was Stanley Kubrick's 2001, which took science fiction into another sphere completely, from the sort of Flash Gordon type thing with cardboard sets to films about our philosophy and where and what we are. That's the beauty of science fiction and where it should be. Even films like Star Wars have taken where Stanley left off and run with it, and they're beautiful films. And of course, Blade Runner is a very good example. It's rather a dark film, but it does question us as a human race, and that's what's so interesting about it.

The problem is, a lot of these films are really hokey and bad. Although some of the bad ones can be fun to watch. But, Kubrick did us such a service when he set the bar so high.

It's funny you mention "bad" movies, because when Blade Runner came out, it was generally perceived as a flop. However, here we are celebrating it 25 years later as a classic. Will that happen to other films that weren't hits?

You know, I think that's down to the DVD and the internet. It's amazing how DVD has really rescued some great movies, classic cult movies and now it's not only about who can have the biggest opening weekend. I really love a slow burn, and Blade Runner is one of the best examples of that.

When you were young, were you inspired by any science fiction?

Of course I read The Martian Chronicles and I love Ray Bradbury. He really is the Jules Verne of our country, and he's also a great poet as well.