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Independent Publishers Who Are Reinventing The Future
Kim Stanley Robinson: Dystopian Fiction Is For Slackers
10 Ways To Rescue The Climate, According To Science Fiction
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Why Aren't Aliens Talking to Us?
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Allen_Richards
11/21/09

In reply to Independent Publishers Who Are Reinventing The Future
A solid half of my Lansdale collection is from Subterranian. While I absolutely HATE, HATE, HATE the cover art on pretty much every one, it's nice to know those limited are out there.
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Bootknife-Jackson
11/20/09

In reply to Independent Publishers Who Are Reinventing The Future
must buy shatner book!
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Bootknife-Jackson was starred

braak: You are, as usual, completely correct.
11/20/09

In reply to Independent Publishers Who Are Reinventing The Future
Also Threat Quality Press. We have published ONE WHOLE BOOK!
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Ruthless, If you let me
11/20/09

@braak: and a HALF! Holland's was sorta out, and then not out right?
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braak: You are, as usual, completely correct.
11/20/09

@Ruthless, If you let me: Yes, true, technically! Technically it's a book and a half!
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crashedpc - Haifisch
11/20/09

In reply to Independent Publishers Who Are Reinventing The Future
Eraserhead gets an automatic win because of the Shatner Quake. Dear sweet jeebus.
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Tomb: R.O.A.C.H.
11/20/09

In reply to Independent Publishers Who Are Reinventing The Future
I would call this a post that starts with a image that makes you wanna run away. But the hashtag was to long.
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Edited by Tomb: R.O.A.C.H. at 11/20/09 1:09 PM Tomb: R.O.A.C.H. was starred Tomb: R.O.A.C.H. was unstarred

Klebert L. Hall
11/10/09

In reply to Kim Stanley Robinson: Dystopian Fiction Is For Slackers
Of course it's easier to write about a dystopia than a utopia. Dystopias are eminently believable, while trying to make a utopia seem like there's a chance in hell of it actually working is nigh-impossible.
-Kle. #kimstanleyrobinson
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Pope John Peeps II
11/10/09

In reply to Kim Stanley Robinson: Dystopian Fiction Is For Slackers
The funny thing about the Thomas More's Utopia is that the whole thing isn't what people think it is. It's very subtly satirical in places, and sometimes menacing. More's Utopia wasn't meant to be prescrptively perfect, but was meant to illustrate certain things about the world at large and human nature. Like Plato's Republic, or Dante's Paradise.

A great utopian fiction also covers all of the problems in society. But intellectually, subtly, subversively. It's not prescriptive except in the way that it teaches you how to look at the subtle currents in society as a whole, and examine the meanings in larger pictures.

Robinson is right that it's harder to do, but he doesn't fully get at why it's so much harder. Which is fair. He's an author, and author's don't study literature. #kimstanleyrobinson
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Dr Emilio Lizardo
11/09/09

In reply to Kim Stanley Robinson: Dystopian Fiction Is For Slackers
KSR has been getting a little preachy lately but I really like his stuff in general. he seems to be trying to right about how we got to the utopia in all his big works (Mars, 40/50/60, Rice and Salt) and that can certainly be an interesting story. #kimstanleyrobinson
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Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H.
11/09/09

In reply to Kim Stanley Robinson: Dystopian Fiction Is For Slackers
This is one of the best things I've read in ages. He's right, and he said it well.

+1, Kim. #kimstanleyrobinson
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Anekanta - killed by a cacodemon
11/09/09

@Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H.: Absolutely--thanks for this Kim! #kimstanleyrobinson
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strideo
11/09/09

In reply to Kim Stanley Robinson: Dystopian Fiction Is For Slackers
Most science fiction I've read doesn't necessarily take place in a dystopia or a utopia but in some form of society that is pretty much somewhere in between.

Also there are science fiction stories where one civilization has spread out to include many cities, planets, or colonies where some are virtually utopias while others are very much dystopian factory worlds.

Also, a lot of stories I've read about utopian societies often suggest that there is something terribly wrong with the utopia at it's secret inner core or the author portrays a world where somehow people are no longer responsible for their own well being while still somehow retaining a great degree of personal freedom and growth while having almost no external challenges to overcome whatsoever. I think it'd be great if humanity could be so greatly self motivated but I imagine in such a world we'd look a lot like the fat people in WALL·E .
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Edited by strideo at 11/09/09 3:29 PM strideo was starred strideo was unstarred

Pope John Peeps II
11/10/09

@strideo: Also, a lot of stories I've read about utopian societies often suggest that there is something terribly wrong with the utopia at it's secret inner core

I'm not trying to be snide here, but those are actually dystopian stories. They illustrate the abject failure of a utopian project. #kimstanleyrobinson
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Pope John Peeps II was starred

strideo
11/10/09

@Pope John Peeps II: You could argue that, yes.

Another thing occurred to me though; not everyone's utopia would be the same now would it? What may seem like a blissful society to some may be felt as stifling and oppressive to others. #kimstanleyrobinson
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Pope John Peeps II
11/10/09

@strideo: Well okay... I don't want to get into very elementary things about utopian fiction because we'll be here all day.

But in broad terms, Utopian fiction is a type of fiction in which although the project seems largely successful, underlying tensions and currents in the story and in the people involved reveal difficulties, fragilities, even subtle tyrannies in the structure. No Utopia is perfect. As a classical scholar More knew this well when he named his book. In Greek u topos means both "perfect place" and "no place". It's still a "good" place, but where you find difficulties in that "goodness" is where thought is provoked.

A dystopian book is the chronicle of the total failure of that kind project. An outright tyranny, or a miserable population, or one chemically controlled, etc. etc. #kimstanleyrobinson
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Pope John Peeps II was starred

LittleDragon
11/09/09

In reply to Kim Stanley Robinson: Dystopian Fiction Is For Slackers
Color me intrigued. I like my dystopian stories but am always looking for some one to prove that utopias can be as interesting. #kimstanleyrobinson
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Daveinva
11/09/09

In reply to Kim Stanley Robinson: Dystopian Fiction Is For Slackers
While I count myself as a huge fan of the Mars Trilogy, the unfortunate truth is that every time KSR decided to write about his "utopia" in the novels, it descended into unreadable pseudo-eco-socialist blathering nonsense that detracted from what was otherwise a fantastic yarn.

I won't take my sci-fi from my economists if I can avoid taking economics from my sci-fi authors. #kimstanleyrobinson
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Anekanta - killed by a cacodemon
11/09/09

@Daveinva: Funny, I had the total opposite reaction. I loved the times when he talked economics and politics--the parts about the struggle to create a utopia--and was bored to tears by the endless textbook-like descriptions of Martian geology and botany. I still have yet to finish Blue Mars as a result.

Don't get me wrong; science is cool, geology is cool, but at the end of the day, rocks are just rocks, and the challenge of creating a better society is much more interesting. #kimstanleyrobinson
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Daveinva
11/09/09

@Anekanta - Space Hippy!: To each their own. I was a poli sci major, I already had my fill of bad philosophy and econ by the time I read the books, I ate up the science stuff instead.

I mean, come on: SPACE. ELEVATOR. WRAPPING. AROUND. MARS.

And you like the econ???

;-) #kimstanleyrobinson
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Anekanta - killed by a cacodemon
11/09/09

@Daveinva: I loved that! That's what I mean though--the falling space elevator and the politics that led up to it was way more interesting than the dry explanations of which species of lichen would be likely to survive on the Martian surface.

It wasn't that I found his political or economic explanations any more interesting. It was more the human interactions involved--the different motivations behind the political and economic discussions--that I found appealing.

Not sure I'm making sense, but...

:D #kimstanleyrobinson
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Lassus
11/09/09

In reply to Kim Stanley Robinson: Dystopian Fiction Is For Slackers
Ohmigod ohmigod ohmigod... A new Robinson book that's actually out in space?

WOOOOHOOOOOO YAY SPACESHIPS #kimstanleyrobinson
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Lassus
11/09/09

@Lassus: Well, I read the summary, so that might be pushing it, but even so, yay! #kimstanleyrobinson
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Aurangzeb
11/09/09

In reply to Kim Stanley Robinson: Dystopian Fiction Is For Slackers
Wait, there's a new KSR book? One that harkens back to the Mars Trilogy and doesn't involve the environment?

Count me in.
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Byronotron promoted this comment Edited by Aurangzeb at 11/09/09 2:09 PM Aurangzeb was starred Aurangzeb was unstarred

ParryLost
09/05/09

In reply to 10 Ways To Rescue The Climate, According To Science Fiction
And then of course there is the solution from Elizabeth Bear's Carnival: Build AIs that will save the planet... by literally taking apart every human being in the Northern Hemisphere.
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