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Let's talk about old science fiction. How did it change? Did it suck? Is it good? Or does it suck? Let's go over some famous ones.  The War of the Worlds, 1897 Project Gutenberg link The War of the Worlds is a good book that is a science fiction book and the aliens come and they're mean. None of the characters fuckin get any names!! arg quote:The War of the Worlds is a science fiction novel by English author H. G. Wells, first serialised in 1897 by Pearson's Magazine in the UK and by Cosmopolitan magazine in the US. The novel's first appearance in hardcover was in 1898 from publisher William Heinemann of London. Written between 1895 and 1897,[2] it is one of the earliest stories to detail a conflict between mankind and an extraterrestrial race.[3] The novel is the first-person narrative of both an unnamed protagonist in Surrey and of his younger brother in London as southern England is invaded by Martians. The novel is one of the most commented-on works in the science fiction canon.[4] Pick fucked around with this message at 07:33 on May 14, 2020 |
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May 14, 2020 07:29
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 The Description of a New World, Called the Blazing-World by Newcastle Project Gutenberg link This was written by Margaret Cavendish and is some of the earliest scifi ever. Some people claim it's the first scifi novel. Hard to say. It's from 1666 so it's loving OLD. Also the literary conventions are odd now, but it's still completely coherent.
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May 14, 2020 07:31
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 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea Project Gutenberg link wiki link quote:Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas: A World Tour Underwater (French: Vingt mille lieues sous les mers: Tour du monde sous-marin) is a classic science fiction adventure novel by French writer Jules Verne.
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May 14, 2020 07:34
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 Frankenstein Project Gutenberg link quote:Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is a novel written by English author Mary Shelley (1797–1851) that tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a hideous sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment. Shelley started writing the story when she was 18, and the first edition was published anonymously in London on 1 January 1818, when she was 20.[2] Her name first appeared in the second edition published in Paris in 1821. I super strongly recommend the "original cut", I like it considerably better. quote:On 31 October 1831, the first "popular" edition in one-volume appeared, published by Henry Colburn & Richard Bentley.[38] This edition was heavily revised by Mary Shelley, partially to make the story less radical. It included a lengthy new preface by the author, presenting a somewhat embellished version of the genesis of the story. This edition is the one most widely published and read now, although a few editions follow the 1818 text.[39] Some scholars prefer the original version, arguing that it preserves the spirit of Mary Shelley's vision (see Anne K. Mellor's "Choosing a Text of Frankenstein to Teach" in the W. W. Norton Critical edition). So if you've only read the 1831 edition, I super super super super recommend reading the 1918 edition. This is actually a book I think is exceptionally good and it's too bad more people haven't read it.
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May 14, 2020 07:39
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haha you think i need prompting to re-read barsoom books
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May 14, 2020 07:51
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I don't have an image for this so I'll just insert a cute one The Machine Stops .pdf link quote:"The Machine Stops" is a science fiction short story (12,300 words) by E. M. Forster. After initial publication in The Oxford and Cambridge Review (November 1909), the story was republished in Forster's The Eternal Moment and Other Stories in 1928. After being voted one of the best novellas up to 1965, it was included that same year in the populist anthology Modern Short Stories.[1] In 1973 it was also included in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two.
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May 14, 2020 07:59
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 Project Gutenberg link wiki link quote:The Time Machine is a science fiction novella by H. G. Wells, published in 1895 and written as a frame narrative. The work is generally credited with the popularization of the concept of time travel by using a vehicle or device to travel purposely and selectively forward or backward through time. The term "time machine", coined by Wells, is now almost universally used to refer to such a vehicle or device.
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May 14, 2020 08:03
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Squizzle posted:haha you think i need prompting to re-read barsoom books I've never read any of those. Are they good?
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May 14, 2020 08:20
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Pick posted:I've never read any of those. Are they good? theyre good like a stuffed pepper. its not fancy, but it takes a lil bit of craft to get it right, and its deeply satisfying. you wouldnt wanna eat a stuffed pepper every fuckin day, but you wouldnt complain if you had something as decent as a stuffed pepper almost every day.
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May 14, 2020 08:37
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I genuinely liked the period when sci-fi was like "woah what if a submarine fought a squid!?" I think there was a genuine love and enthusiasm in that. That's not saying that all older stuff is less grim than new stuff. I do consider Frankenstein quite grim and think it counts as sci-fi. Actually, I'd say it's a very regretful book. One of my top memories of Frankenstein was reading a -review- of Frankenstein that suggested it was about men working to reproductively supplant women and that was the real horror of the time, and I thought it was a dumb review then, but looking back it made some really good points. I still don't know if I fully agree but good points were made.
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May 15, 2020 06:17
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So does anyone know what country it is that Captain Nemo is supposed to hate so much that he attacks a war ship at the end? I don't think it's explicitly stated in the books. Could be wrong, I read it in middle school.
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May 15, 2020 14:44
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It might not technically be science fiction, but I think I like Around the World in 80 Days the most of Wells' books. Make that VERNE's books 
paragon1 fucked around with this message at 18:31 on May 15, 2020 |
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May 15, 2020 14:46
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paragon1 posted:It might not technically be science fiction, but I think I like Around the World in 80 Days the most of Wells' books. Hot Air balloons were sci fi in the same way submarines were
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May 15, 2020 15:02
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The part in War of the Worlds where a battleship opens fire on some alien tripods trying desperately and fairly badly to defend a civilian transport is still real badass
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May 15, 2020 15:21
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ive read that verne was not at all a fan of wells's work, because he was like, “you dont even explain how anything works!!! you cant just say that it does!! that is not science!!!!!” and wells was like “lmao. hes invisible, boom. the machine goes thru time. eat my rear end”
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May 15, 2020 17:21
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Squizzle posted:ive read that verne was not at all a fan of wells's work, because he was like, “you dont even explain how anything works!!! you cant just say that it does!! that is not science!!!!!” and wells was like “lmao. hes invisible, boom. the machine goes thru time. eat my rear end” i guess we know who was the star wars guy and who was the star trek guy
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May 16, 2020 01:16
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PICK CHALLENGE: READ A BOOK!
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May 16, 2020 03:55
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Pick posted:PICK CHALLENGE: READ A BOOK! PICK A BOOK was right there smdh Did anyone ever read Flatland? I had a copy ages ago but never got around to it. Seemed kind-of interesting as it was Victorian  but equally unappealing in that way.
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May 16, 2020 04:44
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mind the walrus posted:PICK A BOOK was right there smdh my dad loves that book
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May 16, 2020 04:54
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Pick posted:I've never read any of those. Are they good? I read something like first six (in one big volume I got from B&N for like $6) a few years ago and they're fun for a bit but SUPER formulaic. Basically John Carter finds the lost civilization of the [color] martians, gets tossed in their dungeon, escapes, dispatches the balance of the foemen, and either becomes their chieftain if they're good or destroys them if they're evil. It was an interesting read because the setting was very imaginative and was hugely influential to scifi, fantasy, and especially science fantasy, but they're sort of hard to recommend as actual good books. Also everyone is naked all the time. mind the walrus posted:PICK A BOOK was right there smdh It's been awhile, but IIRC it's one of those books where you get 90% of the value by reading the wikipedia page. The Moon Monster fucked around with this message at 23:28 on May 16, 2020 |
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May 16, 2020 23:23
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 I haven't read it, I'm sure it hasn't aged well, but it is such a ridiculously awesome setting and gave us Lynn Collins as Dejah Thoris:   
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May 17, 2020 00:13
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The MC in 20,000 leagues is truly amazed that you can eat seafood.
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May 17, 2020 01:32
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paragon1 posted:So does anyone know what country it is that Captain Nemo is supposed to hate so much that he attacks a war ship at the end? I don't think it's explicitly stated in the books. Could be wrong, I read it in middle school. Nemo was revealed in The Mysterious Island - a Verne novel that was a sort of crossover sequel to both Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea and In Search of the Castaways - to be... lemme just let Wikipedia explain. quote:On his death bed, Captain Nemo reveals his true identity as the lost Indian Prince Dakkar, son of a raja of the then-independent territory of Bundelkund and a nephew of the Indian hero Tippu-Sahib. After taking part in the failed Indian Rebellion of 1857, Prince Dakkar escaped to a desert island with twenty of his compatriots and commenced the building of the Nautilus and adopted the new name of "Captain Nemo". The country whose ship he attacked was never explicitly given, but apparently "In early drafts of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, Nemo appears as a Polish noble, a member of the szlachta bent on avenging the murder of his family during Russia's violent suppression of the January Uprising. However Verne's editor Pierre-Jules Hetzel feared that the book not only would offend the Russian Empire, a major French ally, but would also be banned from that country's bookstores. Accordingly Hetzel insisted that Verne revise the novel to conceal Nemo's background and political motivations.[2][3] Even so, one of the captain's remarks in the published book could hint at an East Indian ancestry: during the episode where he rescues a Ceylonese pearl fisherman in the Gulf of Mannar, Nemo describes the man as living "in the land of the oppressed, and till my last breath I'll remain a native of that same land."" So my guess is England (in the latter; Bundelkhand was conquered by the British), even if Verne's original conception was that his grudge would be against Russia.
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May 17, 2020 01:48
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Bogus Adventure posted:I haven't read it, I'm sure it hasn't aged well, but it is such a ridiculously awesome setting and gave us Lynn Collins as Dejah Thoris:
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May 17, 2020 03:48
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mind the walrus posted:Thank you for reminding me of her. She was an underrated part of the movie. Definitely felt like someone doing her best to bring an actual performance to a character that is one of the original Fantasy bikini girls. She loving ruled, and was the best part of that movie for me for a ton of reasons. She also seemed like the closest we would ever get to a Wonder Woman on screen, and I was hoping that Snyder would tab her as Diana for his now-defunct DC operatic universe. I think she would have ruled as an older, wizened Diana who teaches Clark and Bruce the ropes of what it truly means to be a hero.
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May 17, 2020 04:34
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I liked Edgar Alan Poe's story where a bunch of scientists and socialites are fooling around with a mummy (like people in the 19th century tended to do), and they manage to resurrect him, whereupon he tells them that everything they know about ancient Egypt was wrong and most of the wonders of modern science pale in comparison to the forgotten dead civilization.
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May 17, 2020 21:14
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(The) Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde remains well worth reading, I think. It takes a very materialistic approach to the human psyche, being able to manipulate it to extreme extents via chemistry, and really paints a kind of nightmare scenario for the kind of dependency on - and side-effects of - medication that has become commonplace in today's society. There's also clear parallels with later science-fiction that focuses on how the human body may be changed through technology, and how that might dehumanise us. Beyond all that, though, I think it's especially engaging because it raises questions about free will and culpability.
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May 17, 2020 22:22
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Sombrerotron posted:(The) Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde remains well worth reading, I think. It takes a very materialistic approach to the human psyche, being able to manipulate it to extreme extents via chemistry, and really paints a kind of nightmare scenario for the kind of dependency on - and side-effects of - medication that has become commonplace in today's society. There's also clear parallels with later science-fiction that focuses on how the human body may be changed through technology, and how that might dehumanise us. Beyond all that, though, I think it's especially engaging because it raises questions about free will and culpability. 
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May 17, 2020 22:36
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All this talk about 100 year old books and nobody brings up the Lensman series? The big Space Opera inspiration?
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May 18, 2020 10:01
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habituallyred posted:All this talk about 100 year old books and nobody brings up the Lensman series? The big Space Opera inspiration? oh i watched a video on that anime
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May 18, 2020 19:16
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poo poo, I should have looked it up before I posted, started in 1949. 29 years off. I'll think of a way to make up for that mistake later. Edit: Or 14 years if you go by the magazine date. habituallyred fucked around with this message at 02:46 on May 19, 2020 |
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May 19, 2020 02:21
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That's ok, I'm happy to learn more about Lensman. It's a series I know my dad liked.
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May 19, 2020 02:55
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The extremely casual racism in the very old stuff is a bit of a trip. It's just like taken for granted, nobody calls it out or objects in any way. Like "Ok, time to take this hot air balloon up to the moon, which is hollow, and might be filled with sexy moon ladies. Tell that lazy negro in the engine room to get to work." Also exceedingly rare for a woman to have any other role or depth than just being a cardboard cutout sex object that the protagonist gets to bang at some point. Early sci-fi authors were probably pretty weird dudes.
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May 19, 2020 17:54
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:Nemo was revealed in The Mysterious Island - a Verne novel that was a sort of crossover sequel to both Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea and In Search of the Castaways - to be... lemme just let Wikipedia explain. Oh drat. Thanks!
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May 19, 2020 18:12
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The Butcher posted:Early sci-fi authors were probably pretty weird dudes. edit: Anyway, I've been rereading Hark! A Vagrant and I feel that I'd be remiss for not seizing the opportunity to link these: http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=213 http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=231
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May 19, 2020 18:12
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvtWDIZtrAE Everyone don't forget to watch Metropolis, despite it being only 93 years old
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May 20, 2020 03:25
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Pick posted:I've never read any of those. Are they good? Like most pulp they are very repetitive, so spread out time reading. If you think Star Wars is getting a little tiresome with three death stars, imagine 9 star wars films where there's a death star as the main problem each time with slight model changes.
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May 21, 2020 08:31
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:Nemo was revealed in The Mysterious Island - a Verne novel that was a sort of crossover sequel to both Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea and In Search of the Castaways Incidentally The Mysterious Island is worth reading in its own right, quite apart from the Nemo reveal which doesn't happen until late in the book. Five prisoners of war escape the American Civil War in a hot-air balloon that takes them to an unknown island, which just happens to have enough resources to get them to a quite modern standard of living. It's kind of like a Minecraft playthrough. There's some very dated stuff from the main character's black servant, but at least the book is firmly against the Confederate side in the war.
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May 22, 2020 02:00
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Bogus Adventure posted:
Read it. It's fine. Red Martians lay eggs.
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May 25, 2020 13:39
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I've read The Night Land, and while it had an interesting setting and atmosphere, William Hope Hodgson couldn't write for poo poo. It's a terrible slog. Going on for literal pages about the dark things that darkly dwell in the dark darkness. The guy was also really into the storytelling device where events aren't narrated as they happen, but instead it's someone telling you a story, or a dream, or something like that. In The Night Land, the narrator and MC is actually a person from like the 18th century, that astral projects into his future reincarnation, and is retelling what he saw there. There's also somehing about some woman he's into being reincarnated in that future because they're destined lovers or something. This pretty much never comes up after the intro is done and has no bearing on the actual story. grate deceiver fucked around with this message at 10:56 on May 30, 2020 |
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May 30, 2020 10:02
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