Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
Pick
Jul 19, 2009
Nap Ghost
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

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Pick
Jul 19, 2009
Nap Ghost


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.

Pick
Jul 19, 2009
Nap Ghost



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.

The novel was originally serialized from March 1869 through June 1870 in Pierre-Jules Hetzel's fortnightly periodical, the Magasin d'éducation et de récréation. A deluxe octavo edition, published by Hetzel in November 1871, included 111 illustrations by Alphonse de Neuville and Édouard Riou.[1] The book was widely acclaimed on its release and remains so; it's regarded as one of the premiere adventure novels and one of Verne's greatest works, along with Around the World in Eighty Days and Journey to the Center of the Earth. Its depiction of Captain Nemo's underwater ship, the Nautilus, is regarded as ahead of its time, since it accurately describes many features of today's submarines, which in the 1860s were comparatively primitive vessels.

Pick
Jul 19, 2009
Nap Ghost


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.

Pick
Jul 19, 2009
Nap Ghost
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.

The story, set in a world where humanity lives underground and relies on a giant machine to provide its needs, predicted technologies similar to instant messaging and the Internet.

Pick
Jul 19, 2009
Nap Ghost


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.

Pick
Jul 19, 2009
Nap Ghost

Squizzle posted:

haha you think i need prompting to re-read barsoom books

I've never read any of those. Are they good?

Pick
Jul 19, 2009
Nap Ghost
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.

Pick
Jul 19, 2009
Nap Ghost

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

Pick
Jul 19, 2009
Nap Ghost
PICK CHALLENGE: READ A BOOK!

Pick
Jul 19, 2009
Nap Ghost

mind the walrus posted:

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 :smug: but equally unappealing in that way.

my dad loves that book

Pick
Jul 19, 2009
Nap Ghost
That's ok, I'm happy to learn more about Lensman. It's a series I know my dad liked.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Pick
Jul 19, 2009
Nap Ghost

skasion posted:

A Voyage to Arcturus is 100 this year, so just about fits in the thread! This is a really unique one.



One day some well-off British folks decide to hold a seance, not so much because they’re interested in speaking to dead people as much as because it’s a trendy social occasion. Two strangers arrive late: giant, adventurous Maskull and taciturn Nightspore. Before their eyes, the medium summons what appears to be the ghost of a smiling young man. Suddenly a loud rear end in a top hat called Krag busts in, snaps the ghost’s neck, breaks up the party, and gets Maskull and Nightspore to himself. Telling them, “Surtur has gone, and we are to follow him,” he offers to take Maskull and Nightspore on a one-way trip to the planet Tormance, orbiting the double stars of Arcturus, in a starship which he keeps in a deserted observatory in Scotland...after they get shitfaced and let Krag do a blood transfusion on them with a pocket knife so that the alien gravity won’t crush them to death, of course.

The book only gets crazier from here! Maskull finds himself abandoned alone on Tormance, seeing colors that don’t exist on earth, developing and losing telepathic powers, growing and shedding new organs and limbs every time he sleeps, getting into philosophical arguments with the widely various and entirely weird locals, having sex with and/or killing them, and maybe at some point finding the people he came here with, though maybe not, since he has no hope of return anyway.

There’s no book like this, to be honest. Its closest antecedent is MacDonald’s Phantastes, but that takes place in an eccentric fairytale setting and doesn’t have anything like the bizarre/cosmic quality of this book. CS Lewis attempted to write a couple responses from a more orthodox point of view (his Space Trilogy) but the resemblances are pretty superficial in the end. Not the most stylishly written, but if you can make it through Barsoom or Lensman books, you can and should read this.

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply