Science fiction as a commercial product, for companies to use in either planning or sales, is not completely new. Monsanto’s 1950s House of the Future, at Disneyland, offered both a public puff piece and a way to focus their corporate culture. The Arconic Corp. re-imagining of the Jetsons comes vividly to mind. And if you want to explore this topic further, there’s a recent pair of Novum podcasts, entertainingly appraising both science fictional portrayals of advertising and advertising uses of science fiction.
I recently collaborated with Tobias Buckell on an action-adventure tale set on the very edge of outer space, in Overview: Stories in the Stratosphere, an anthology of terrific tales for Pluto (New Horizons) explorer Alan Stern’s World View stratospheric balloon company. The ebook can be downloaded for free on the ASU website.
I’ve mentioned Japan’s ANA Airlines collaborated with the X Prize Foundation in an anthology about an airliner whose passengers left Tokyo in 2017 and arrive in San Francisco of 2037. Here’s Bruce Sterling’s writeup. Read the stories on the ANA site: Seat 14C.
Now an entertaining article in the New Yorker reveals how Industrial-Grade SF has taken off, especially at Ari Popper’s company SciFutures. Another excellent adventure in Applies Science fiction is Berit Anderson's bold endeavor called Scout. Browse some of the great content.
== Sci Fi Cinema ==
We watched the highly touted flick Logan. How sad. It featured excellent dialogue, top actors and good (if uber-violent) action choreography… but the premise and background logic were as atrocious as that over-hyped monstrosity, Mad Max 4: Fury Road.
Both utterly betrayed the premise of their universe in order to wallow in some of the worst clichés that infest Hollywood today. Loony-cartoonish villains who deliberately violate every hint of logic or even self-interest. Infinite supplies of disposable henchmen, none of whom have a scintilla of motive for following an asshole into hell – certainly no families of their own or qualities that might question death-loyalty to jerks. Pathetically, the Logan scripters thought that making the viewer wonder "what happened to the hundreds of millions of mutants?" - yet never giving a hint - would somehow be a delicious puzzle for us all, instead of a grinding scrape of fingernails that persisted through every scene.
Yes, J.J. Abrams did something similar when he annihilated the Planet Vulcan, but at least there he allowed the Federation to be the Federation. Both Logan and Fury Road utterly obeyed the reflexive catechism of lazy Hollywood scripting: “Thou shalt never show any institution functioning, nor any chance of a working civilization. And all your fellow citizens and neighbors are useless sheep.”
Yes, J.J. Abrams did something similar when he annihilated the Planet Vulcan, but at least there he allowed the Federation to be the Federation. Both Logan and Fury Road utterly obeyed the reflexive catechism of lazy Hollywood scripting: “Thou shalt never show any institution functioning, nor any chance of a working civilization. And all your fellow citizens and neighbors are useless sheep.”
Ironically, the previous X-Men films… and Mad Max episodes one through three… did not follow those insipid rules. In all of them, both citizens and institutions were complex and included elements trying to do the right thing. In fact, X-Men and Mad Max used to be about that! True, Mel Gibson’s character seldom got much satisfaction, except by rescuing a few drips of civilization, but those worth-protecting glimmers existed! And most of the X-Men flicks were about calling citizens and institutions to rise up to their better natures.
Don't let fight scenes and good actors distract you from wretched storytelling. Demand: what supposedly happened to all the mutants? There were hundreds of millions of them! And nations who had made peace with them, incorporating their talents. And billions of people would have started relying on the talented ones.
I sat through these things, as I sometimes do, in a state of self-lobotomization, in order to enjoy the good parts. In both cases, the action choreography and in Logan’s case, watching Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart and the youngster-with-a-big-future act away. But every minute after, I got angrier. Then reached a limit and shrugged it aside.
== Life on the sun? ==
On Quora, someone asked: “Could there be life on the Sun?”
Some of those answering sneered about the Sun being too hot for molecular life. To which I answer: “So? Try actually stretching your conceptual noodle.”
“Life” can be defined as a dissipative structure that utilizes thermodynamic gradients to: (1) produce entropy, (2) export entropy from a confined area in order to create islands of order, (3) reproduces new versions, in order to continue.
The sun provides many kinds of extremely steep energy and thermal gradients. We use some of them here on Earth. In the solar atmosphere (chromosphere) these gradients might by exploitable. Moreover, while it is too hot to allow molecules and molecular chemistry, there is another kind of structure that might, possibly, become self organizing.
In my novel SUNDIVER I portrayed entities consisting of self-sustaining magnetic field loops, that use the copious energy flows to energize, grow, and spawn new loops. We can already do similar things in the lab and we see field loops forming all the time in the Chromosphere. Not in ways that satisfy a definition of life. But it’s not precluded.
See an illustration of my sun beings in the cover art to Sundiver, created by the brilliant Jim Burns. I have it hanging on the wall behind me. And yes, I have had Nobel winners compliment this book, so it ain’t all that crazy… just far-fetched! ;-)
== Miscellaneous ==
Reminiscent of a scene in
my 1989 novel Earth, the National Wildlife Property Repository, near Denver, is crammed with stuffed monkeys and ivory carvings,
snow leopard coats and dried seal penises, chairs with tails and lamps with
hooves. The repository contains 1.3 million confiscated items. See a
purse of alligator skin; a stool made of an African elephant foot with a zebra
skin cushion; walrus tusks; a hat made of black bear skin; medicinal snake
wine; an orangutan skull. A room filled with tigers and leopards. I
don’t know if it existed in 1989… but read my ultimate suggestion for what to
do with these things… in Earth.
Indeed, the producers ought to know where the books of the Second Foundation Trilogy fit in the sequence. Greg Bear and Greg Benford wrote prequels showing Hari Seldon as a young man... and my story fits right in among the opening chapters of FOUNDATION. Just sayin’ that a chat might be called for.
Oh, for the several of you who asked... The Postman is now back on Audible.
== Why Alternate Histories are generally silly – “if the South had won.” ==
Okay, I am going to use a new sci fi parallel world TV series as a kickoff for a historical (hysterical?) rant.
A new parallel world show called “Confederate” seems a timely, provocative riff on our re-ignited American Civil War. “The series takes place in an alternate timeline, where the Southern states have successfully seceded from the Union, giving rise to a nation in which slavery remains legal and has evolved into a modern institution. The story follows a broad swath of characters on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Demilitarized Zone — freedom fighters, slave hunters, politicians, abolitionists, journalists, the executives of a slave-holding conglomerate and the families of people in their thrall.”
Romantics claim the outcome of the 1860s phase of our ongoing Civil Was was iffy and could have gone either way. But it's just not true. Even the southern-born scholar Shelby Foote avows that "The Union fought with one hand behind its back. If it were ever in peril, it would have just brought out the other hand."
A new parallel world show called “Confederate” seems a timely, provocative riff on our re-ignited American Civil War. “The series takes place in an alternate timeline, where the Southern states have successfully seceded from the Union, giving rise to a nation in which slavery remains legal and has evolved into a modern institution. The story follows a broad swath of characters on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Demilitarized Zone — freedom fighters, slave hunters, politicians, abolitionists, journalists, the executives of a slave-holding conglomerate and the families of people in their thrall.”
Romantics claim the outcome of the 1860s phase of our ongoing Civil Was was iffy and could have gone either way. But it's just not true. Even the southern-born scholar Shelby Foote avows that "The Union fought with one hand behind its back. If it were ever in peril, it would have just brought out the other hand."
Romantics claim the question teetered on bare chance, at Gettysburg. Bull. The outcome at Gettysburg was foregone, the day the Army of Potomac arrived and Reynold's men gave Hancock's Corps time to form up along a ridge in good order. All the AoP had to do then was sit tight. Let Lee fumble around and discover why offense was so darn near impossible with 1860s technology. Picket's Charge was just a capper. Lee lost before the battle began.
And if he had won? Crushed the AoP and moved on to Washington? So? The AoP had proved its stunning resilience over and over, and always reformed within a week after even devastating losses like Chancelorsville. Augmented by truly vast numbers of alarmed northern militia and led by Sherman, the reformed AoP would have fallen on Lee's rear while he tried to noodle a way around Washington's defenses. Without any conceivable source of supplies, he'd be doomed.
And yes, this holds even if both France and Britain joined the slave-holders' side (they wouldn't, but pretend they did.)
Let's recall that the very day Lee ordered his last gambit at Gettysburg, Grant finished off the Confederacy's last outpost on the Mississippi, Vicksburg. Half of the CSA's ports were already taken by smaller Union armies. So, let's say Lee takes Washington and forces an armistice. Or say McClellan wins the 1864 election and signs a treaty. The "Confederacy" might include much of the official territory you see on maps...maybe even (unlikely) including Texas and Arkansas. But none of the great waterways or rivers.
Moreover, consider what happens next. Even supposing McClellan lets the CSA have transport rights on the Mississippi, the economic power of the CSA will be negligible. Texas would likely declare independence, or else rejoin the Union. And both sides would spend the next ten years re-arming for another war. And the 1870s phase would not be in doubt past the first day, the first minute.
Industrial and military capacity in the Union was skyrocketing by the end of the war. Heck, in our own timeline, in 1865, the US military could have taken on all of the armies and navies of the world, combined. Propelled further by a deadly grudge, by 1875, the US would far outstrip the industrial capacity of Britain. The behemoth faced by the South would have been overwhelming.
But look at history. The 1875 war would not have been for unification, but punishment and correction. The CSA would have lost Virginia, Florida and the Mississippi Valley... and the slaves would have been freed. Perhaps they'd be given Georgia. All of it. Every house and stick of furniture. What remained could then call itself the Confederacy. Until they provoked a third war.
Is that parallel world better than this one? You'll see it in no sci fi paratime novels, because an equal struggle makes better drama. But it's the likely course, had Lee or McClellan got their wish and Lincoln not prevailed.
Let me be clear. Those of who who denigrate the Confederacy are right on every moral or historical plane, save one. That horrific "cause" had one unsullied and spectacular grace... martial courage, resilience and audacious effectiveness. Them rebs were fighters, all right. And southern men sign up for military service at higher rates, even today. And you have no right to criticize faults, unless you have the calm maturity to acknowledge virtues. Those that are there.
Still, here's your Halloween costume.
Let me be clear. Those of who who denigrate the Confederacy are right on every moral or historical plane, save one. That horrific "cause" had one unsullied and spectacular grace... martial courage, resilience and audacious effectiveness. Them rebs were fighters, all right. And southern men sign up for military service at higher rates, even today. And you have no right to criticize faults, unless you have the calm maturity to acknowledge virtues. Those that are there.
Still, here's your Halloween costume.
== Weirdly connected to sci fi ==
Now calm down all you fantasy maniacs. Isn’t it likely that Donald Trump would have known of this book, and then later have named his son after it? No need for time travel, dudes. Heck, one is more impressed with the episode of a 1950s cowboy series called Trackdown, that is about a conman named Walter Trump who convinces the townsfolk that the world will end—unless they build a big wall around the village.
In fact, the other book – “The Last President” – is a little polemical tract attacking the real Democratic candidate for president, William Jennings Bryan and the Free Silver movement, prophesying what would happen if they took power. While I am no fan of Bryan – the famed prosecutor in the infamous Scope Monkey Trial (played brilliantly by Frederick March in Inherit the Wind) – the other side was even worse, as evidenced by Lockwood’s turgid tirade screed. Other than the irrational screaming, it has zero overlap with Donald Trump, that I can see.
