Tag: books

Is there no chance to save traditional sci-fi from decline?

As a newcomer author, I can’t really judge from my own experience if Liu Cixin is correct… but I fear he might be…Interview with Chinese Hugo Award Winner Liu Cixin:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-08/16/c_136529000.htm

As a kid I remember thirsting for any anything that tasted of the future. Every drip of speculation about technology was absorbed like a drop of water on a parched dessert–

  –but now, I feel I am standing in a torrent of futurism; my orifices clamped tight shut else I bloat and explode from the pressure!
Against this, I can see how people see Science Fiction as more of the same.Summary: People are bored with novelty; they want familiarity!

My #top100 #scifi Num:46 Caves of Steel

Amazon: http://amzn.to/2fYSH7K

Life is cheap on Earth. Overpopulation and fear of attack have forced the population down into subterranean megacities. Elijah Baile and R. Daneel Olivaw (R for Robot) are dispatched to solve the murder of a ‘Spacer’, a person not from Earth, but one the pampered, Elite, K-Selected humans who moved beyond the Solar System with their legions of Robot man servants. Like Monty Python’s British officers, Spacers shouldn’t die. It is simply politically unacceptable.
Continuing the run of Asimov, this is another of his Science Fiction classics, ostensibly a story of robots and spaceships, but with a payload of prejudice and privilege tucked inside.  
Isaac Asimov

My #top100 #scifi Num:47 The Naked Sun

Amazon: http://amzn.to/2gZ5pEC

Social commentary masquerading as a Sci-Fi detective story. A planet of people avoiding human contact can only interact with each other via screens and their robots – uncanny and this was first published in 1956
Note: I realise now that the cover looks like a giant porn-star-bot having sex with a spaceship. I had this on my bookshelf for years as a child and it never occurred to me… 
Isaac Asimov