Science Fiction Foundation Collection

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libguides.liverpool.ac.uk/library/sca/sfhub

www.sf-foundation.org


Founded in 1971 through its archive based at the University of Liverpool, publication of the academic journal Foundation, and its support of activities such as the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the George Hay Lecture, the Science Fiction Masterclass, Science for Fiction and SF Outreach, the SFF continues to promote academic research within science fiction and to encourage greater public understanding of the genre.

[Markus]

Films/TV shows rather than books etc. Love a good deep thinker of a sci Fi.

[souphound]

Them (sci-fi)books, huh?!?

Reading a couple of Jules Verne novels in my early teens opened my eyes to the possibilities offered by good storytelling. It made me dream while still keeping my eyes open to the reality around me, more or less, if you know what I mean. It made me dream realistically I guess.

I was lucky enough to read those in their original language, my mother tongue and only language at that time.

Once I learned English, well, a whole different world opened up bookwise. I dwelt in many genres without really adopting any specifically. I read mostly the most known names in each genre, which, in the case sci-fi would have been the likes of Asimov and similar.

So yes, I like to dream, hence I like sci-fi (and lots of others)

[cousinlou]

I have always loved early Sci-Fi. I think it developed from a genre that was called at the time 'suspense'. The sort of stories
Hitchcock did in his series 'Hitchcock Presents'.

As it developed further I lost interest as a certain human angle got lost and story characters became robots or advanced technological systems and became increasingly clogged with names that were just too hard to relate to or even remember.

I think one of the stars of early Sci Fi is Ray Bradbury and his Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles.

[Markus]

Jun 28, 2022 3:18:04 GMT souphound said:

Them (sci-fi)books, huh?!?

What? i'm not a big reader. I'm trying to convince myself to start reading watchman.

[DarknessFish]

I was a big sci-fi reader up until my early 20s, but it's not a genre I return to much. I don't say that out of literary snobbishness or anything, I think I just burned out on it. I read pretty much everything Arthur C Clarke wrote, all the Dune novels, Phil K Dick, a ton of Asimov's short stories, all those JG Ballard books about the collapse of society via luxury flats. I still look out for Christopher Priest books, who's really hard to find these days, especially for someone with a major film based on his novel (The Prestige).

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Jun 29, 2022 20:03:45 GMT DarknessFish said:

I was a big sci-fi reader up until my early 20s, but it's not a genre I return to much. I don't say that out of literary snobbishness or anything, I think I just burned out on it. I read pretty much everything Arthur C Clarke wrote, all the Dune novels, Phil K Dick, a ton of Asimov's short stories, all those JG Ballard books about the collapse of society via luxury flats. I still look out for Christopher Priest books, who's really hard to find these days, especially for someone with a major film based on his novel (The Prestige).

Any bruce sterling or william gibson? octavia butler?

[oh oooh]

Jun 28, 2022 11:44:58 GMT Markus said:

Jun 28, 2022 3:18:04 GMT souphound said:

Them (sci-fi)books, huh?!?

What? i'm not a big reader.

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😉

[Markus]

Ach, I'll read this later.

[DarknessFish]

Jun 29, 2022 21:33:03 GMT ~ / % ? * said:

Any bruce sterling or william gibson? octavia butler?

I've never heard of Sterling or Butler. A black female sci-fi writer must've felt well out of place at any conventions.

Thinking on it a bit more, I have read an occasional bit of sci-fi, I've read a couple of Cory Doctorow books. Someone Comes to Town was genuinely odd and compelling, Walkaway much less so. And there was an odd book by Jeff Vandermeer a while back.

[Sneelock]

I like Cory Doctorow's "young adult" titles. they're kinda dopey but I like how he gets his strong opinions out about technology and authority in what I consider an entertaining way.

speaking of "young adult fiction" - that's where I'll lay the blame for growing up interested in Science Fiction. Our little podunk school had a GREAT goddam library. we had to do book reports so we had to go find books that interested us enough to fake reading them.

Robert A. Heinlein wrote these kid's books in the 50’s like "Farmer in the Sky" & "Starman Jones". they were slim volumes with big type. I didn't even have to fake the book reports. This stuff was aimed right at my attention span.


so, that's probably 68. in 69 I discovered Ray Bradbury. I avoided him because all the really smart kids were running around with copies of Dandelion Wine. I wasn't a smart kid. anyway, for some reason I got a hold of a paperback of "martian chronicles" that summer and read it out loud to myself, over & over, all summer long. Rocket Summer!

I went through a Clifford Simak phase but I think I always liked his short stories best. ("Skirmish" pre-dates Stephen King's "trucks") I liked that "new wave" of writers in the 70's like Larry Niven & R.A.Lafferty but while I like science fiction I don't really have much of a head for science. I thought those guys were good writers but they could make my head hurt. thank God for Kurt Vonnegut.

I like Gibson better now that his fax paper laden punk-scapes are just as dated and corny as heinlein's blasters. I'm surprised they haven't strip-mined him for movies. I really liked one he co-authored about an alternate history brought on by a steam computer being invented in the industrial age.

I think watching stuff like "the incredible shrinking man" & "the outer limits" had a lot to do with the way I looked at that stuff. trowel on the point of view, add a monster or blow my mind every so often and I'm a happy camper.