What's your favorite medium for Sci-Fi?
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- By the end of 2026, how useful do you think agentic/multi-agent AI systems will actually be in your daily work or personal projects? Posted on March 11th, 2026 | 40 comments
I am torn (Score:2)
Re:I am torn (Score:5, Interesting)
I saw that Serenity had high reviews so I watched it. It was without doubt one of the worst sci-fi movies I have seen. Perhaps that's because I've never seen Firefly so had no connection with the characters. My favourite book series is the Commonwealth Saga by Peter F Hamilton, in which I including the Dreaming Void trilogy. Absolutely fantastic science fiction.
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Serenity was definitely a continuation of the series, so you probably did miss out on some of the "texture" by not seeing the episodes first. If you ever do, make sure to watch them in order, either on DVD or Netflix.
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If you like the live action visual mediums (TV, movies) I would strongly urge you to watch the Firefly series. Its on Netflix streaming. My wife, who is not a scifi fan at all, still highly enjoyed the series. Its only 13 episodes so its not like you're committing to an entire season of Glee or something.
I haven't read the commonwealth saga. Most modern scifi writing hasn't caught my attention. I tried reading Hyperion, Scalzi, Virge, Snow Crash, didn't really enjoy any of them....I guess I prefer the
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Hamilton writes good, clear creative stories (fast reads, pure escapism), but horrible cop-out endings (deus ex machina).
Simmons, Scalzi, Virge, Stephenson, (Pohl, Bear, etc) are deep writers. "Proper literature" :)
But there's plenty of bubble gum and space opera out there which still plays with big ideas. Joe Haldeman, CJ Cherryh, Stephen Baxter, Ben Bova, Jack McDevitt, David Brin (although pick well, Brin's "big books" (Earth/Existence) have a similar feel Kim Stanley Robinson's books. They are an acquir
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If you liked the Commonwealth and Void books, then definitely find Hamilton's Night's Dawn Trilogy. You'll like them just as much.
I have read those too - enjoyed them thoroughly, though they got started more slowly that the Commonwealth and Void books. Fallen Dragon was also good. I'm currentrly reading "Great North Road" and am enjoying the crime drama aspect of it.
I have read most of Stephens Baxter's works and enjoyed most of them, though each title in the "Destiny's Children" series took a bit to get into.
An older series that was my favourite before the Commonwealth and Void series was the Homecoming series by Orson Scott Card. It
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I'd really love to see Richard K. Morgan's Takeshi Kovacs series brought to the screen. Those are by far my favorite space noir books right now.
Prefer books to movies (Score:5, Insightful)
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The porn film industry in particular.
Re:Prefer books to movies (Score:5, Funny)
The porn film industry in particular.
No, he said gaping plot holes.
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Most authors can count on the reader's attention for longer than two hours, in part because a book can be consumed in dribs and drabs. You can't do that with a movie in a theater.
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Most authors try to avoid gaping plot holes, while Hollywood seems to consider them mandatory.
You have ninety minutes to tell your story.
Explaining things in a way that sounds natural to the audience and doesn't bring action and suspense to a grinding halt is hard.
Forbidden Planet manages this well. Demonstrating the safeguards built into Robby The Robot exposes the flaw in the design of the Krell machines --- but it is hard to believe and to accept that so advanced as race as the Krell could have made so simple a mistake.
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Check out The Expanse trilogy by James S. A. Corey, it's cover-to-cover spine-tingly goodness. One part space opera, one part hard-boiled detective novel, it's a total blast.
It's a trilogy. So what's the third part?
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I don't see Superman, Batman, and the like as SF. To me, they belong to a separate genre altogether.
It's called fantasy. :)
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The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Score:4)
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The radio 'adaptions' [1] of the 4th and 5th book were also awesome. No matter how I try, I still haven't managed to finish either the book or the audiobook of the Eoin Coffler 6th book.
[1] In the tradition of the radio vs. book vs. TV vs. movie, while the stories may contain the same general themes and over arching plot, there will often be significant differences in the details, DNA always did this deliberately as he felt different mediums deserved different delivery.
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Just my opinion, but as I have read the 6th book, right to the bitter end, my advice would be "don't bother".
Spend that time on something more worthy and rewarding.
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The thing with HHTHG is that, although the major parts of the plot are pretty much consistent, there are differences in the detail between the book, TV, and radio versions. So they are all worth checking out.
My personal favourites are the books. I've read the first three several times and still enjoy them. Once was enough for #5 though! And I've no plans to read the Eoin Colfer one.
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I love the radio show too, and it was a real treat when I got to see Simon Jones in a play in Minneapolis a few years back.
Books (Score:3, Interesting)
I have been collecting scifi/fantasy books for over 40 years, whereas my VCR collection is now collecting dust and my DVD/bluray collection is only 15 years old.
Timing (Score:3)
This poll was released around 3:00 UTC, long after the stereotypical septuagenarian has gone to bed in the US or Europe. So almost zero votes for magazines or radio right now. Let's see how that changes in a few hours . . .
BTW, Darth Vader from planet Vulcan thinks it'll be magazines FTW. I was too scared to disagree.
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FYI old people often sleep much less than younger people.
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This poll was released around 3:00 UTC, long after the stereotypical septuagenarian has gone to bed in the US or Europe. So almost zero votes for magazines or radio right now. Let's see how that changes in a few hours . . .
BTW, Darth Vader from planet Vulcan thinks it'll be magazines FTW. I was too scared to disagree.
Fun observation about /. polls: if you check the results in the first half hour to an hour or so, it tends to be representative of how they'll look 12 hours or a week later. Seems as though there's enough of a variety of geeks (age, nationality, whatever) awake at pretty much any time to get a fair sample.
Unless it involves Halloween. Because the Aussies really don't like Halloween.
TV (Score:3)
Gotta say TV. Nothing beats memories of tuning in week to week to see the latest instalment...
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I remember listening to the Hitchhikers Guide on radio back in the late 70's. My sister and I would sit in front of the radio with rapt attention. The books came out several years later, the TV series some more years after that. I was given CDs of the radio series for my 21st birthday.
Missing option: short story (Score:2)
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I prefer my sci-fi in the form of a blipvert.
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I prefer my sci-fi in the form of a blipvert.
Be careful Bryce, those things can be dangerous. Besides, remember that Edison [wikipedia.org] almost died trying to investigate their use...
Television, if done right (Score:2)
Humans are visual animals, we process pictures better than anything else. So well-directed cinematic arts are the most effective storytelling media.
But cinema is just outdated, a relic of the time before television. A film needs to tell the entire story in one go, so the duration always ends up in a shallow band which is long enough to be worth going out for, but not so long that you get tired. It also leaves no opportunities to process bits of what you've seen before you get to the next bits. The serialise
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Humans are visual animals, we process pictures better than anything else. So well-directed cinematic arts are the most effective storytelling media.
We are imaginative animals; we produce pictures, sounds, smells, tastes and the sense of touch in our minds. When you read a book, you live it without the limits and limitations imposed by cinematic arts.
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Imagining sensory input is pretty much irrelevant to the goals of storytelling. It's a means to an end. The end of storytelling is to convey feelings, and ideas which are linked to feelings. (If plain ideas are what you want to convey, you're better off with non-fiction, so as not to risk being misunderstoo
Difficult question (Score:2)
Games? (Score:2)
I like how folks seem to equate 'Games' with 'Video Games' (based on the comments I've read so far). With Traveller (and bolt on Judge Dredd) and Shadowrun 5th Edition, you have sci-fi/cyberpunk gaming that doesn't involve the same cut scenes or branches you can't step over (to pull a couple of comments from above). There are quite a few role playing games out that are sci-fi and certainly fantasy starting with D&D. And you're limited only by your imagination.
[John]
Missing Option (Score:2)
Books, hands down (Score:2)
I recall being eight years old, half a century ago. I'd read everything in the classroom, and been bored by it. I went to the library, and picked up, almost at random, Heinleins "Between Planets". It changed my life. I enjoy a good science fiction film, too - though they are few, far between, and lately seem to contain mostly explosions. Book have better special effects.
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A bit like seeing an old friend.
Two words (Score:2)
...'Nuff said.
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I agree even more. Really what you want is from half way through series 3 to the end of series 4. Around 30 episodes.
The earlier stuff is largely episodic star-trek style nonsense, and the later stuff is damaged because they tried to setup large stories and then the series finished prematurely so they didn't get to work them through properly.
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I'm going to have to respectfully disagree.
The first season is mostly about setup for the payoff years later, but there are also some interesting questions explored in a SF context, like:
- Christian Science and similar belief systems
- Labor rights or lack thereof
- Racism and hate groups
- Alcoholism and its effects on, well, everything
- War crimes and what to do about them
- The death penalty
- Justifiable homicide in self defense
They weren't epic fights, but they were stories worth telling and thinking about
Books, easily (Score:2)
The basic problem with other media is that they can't get anywhere close to in-depth the way a book can. And you can tell a story in a book that just can't be expressed in other ways: For instance, Harlan Ellison's short stories pack way more punch than his TV scripts ever did, because he can create horrific stuff that can't really be seen, only imagined. There's a reason there is no film version of The Dispossessed or Foundation.
A big part of this is that books can stop the action and explain a point much
none (Score:2)
SciFi is, ultimately, about telling a story (about the future). So it depends on the story you want to tell.
Movies and TV (visual media) are great at painting a big-picture impression of a world in full colour, making it come alive. But books are better at going into depth or exploring things not easily put into pictures, such as culture or society. Games are great if you want to explore a personal story and highlight the consequences of decisions. And so on.
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SciFi is, ultimately, about telling a story (about the future).
Proper SF is about asking a question: "What if this happened ... " and exploring one or more possble outcomes. It can use the medium of story-telling to make the asnwer easier to understand, on a human level, but for real SF the story is just the medium, not the end in itself
Fallacy (Score:2)
SciFi is, ultimately, about telling a story (about the future).
Proper SF is about asking a question: "What if this happened ... " and exploring one or more possble outcomes. It can use the medium of story-telling to make the asnwer easier to understand, on a human level, but for real SF the story is just the medium, not the end in itself
Almost any statement of the form "Proper X is..." is likely to be falling victim to the No True Scotsman fallacy [wikipedia.org].
Science fiction is, indeed, about telling a story—about the future, or an alternate present or past where the technology level is, at least in some ways, more advanced than it is here and now.
It's true that one type of science fiction is about exploring the consequences of a particular advance in technology, or change to the timeline, or similar "what if this happened." However, that's far
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Almost any statement of the form "Proper X is..." is likely to be falling victim to the No True Scotsman fallacy
That would be true, except there's no proper One true Scotsman fallacy.
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I love to do with mental work of coloring in the characters and giving them voices, when I read a book.
Matter of fact, I'm *so* good at it I'm frequently disappointed by movie renditions, because they don't look or sound like my magnificent imagination made them (in my own image, of course)
Besides, you can take a book or magazine anywhere, do almost anything to it and still read it. The batteries don't run down. And if you really need to reach the cookie jar you can always count on books to give you that
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Books do almost all of the things that every other medium does.
No, they don't.
I love books, and I find your remarks following that sentence insulting. But I am also keenly aware that a good movie can do things that books can't. The scene in 2001 where HAL is watching the lips of the astronauts move - a fantastic scene that works exactly because it is not spelled out that he is reading their lips. The emotions it creates in the audience work precisely because you arrive at that conclusion yourself.
Several scenes in Bladerunner have the same quality.
Or the reveal in Demo
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I maintain that a movie can do things a book can't.
For example, showing things in the background and leaving the reader to guess if it matters or is just scenery (or even miss it altogether) is a lot easier in a movie. Images are more powerful then words for certain things, just as the reverse is true for others.
The subtle change in the time/setting in Death Proof for example has no equivalent in words. Sure, you can do something similar, but you can't do the same thing.
As I said: I love books. But there ar
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but what are the weaknesses of a book?
Linear string of words. No parallelism, no seperation between background and foreground, no layering without stretching it out into time, and most importantly: We humans are fantastic at processing visual information. You can pack much more into a picture then into words.
How do you express an irrational fear on screen? Poorly, I expect.
But are better at some things. Movies are better at some things. I can't understand how someone could disagree with that simple truth. To me, it's as obvious as saying the some people are better at some things and other people are better at
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Games are the one stand-out, but their power is SO rarely used. ... It is the only medium where you can affect the outcome.
Nonsense. I've read plenty of Choose Your Own Adventure books. And where does interactive fiction like PlanetFall fit in? Game, or book?
Computer/Online/Streaming (Score:2)
Why do I have to choose? (Score:2)
I like SF in films, TV, books, games, comics. Probably holodecks once they exist.
I never heard SF on radio but probably would have been a fan; and never bought the mags, although I read short story collections (and still enjoy new ones online) so in a way I grew up reading Astounding even though I've never seen a copy in my life.
(I also hate SF in films, TV, books, games and comics. But that's part of being a fan too.)
Nothing, but NOTHING, says FUTURE (Score:2)
Like reading great stories printed on dead trees.
screw flying cars, why don't we have plastic books?
books... and if you don't... (Score:2)
...then you really don't know what SF is. All you want is entertainment... and sf is a *lot* more, in some cases, than merely that. I've read thousands of times more worlds and futures than you've ever thought of.
mark "and written some"
Definitely Holodecks (Score:4, Funny)
Books are still the best (Score:2)
Number of good ones (Score:2)
There is a handful of great sci-fi movies, several tv shows, and really a lot of great books. And a good portion of those movies/tv shows were book adaptations, sometimes very bad adaptations or adaptations that change the book message (the last mismy is one of the worst offenders, but world war z is a more recent example).
They are different kind of media, is different what you can tell (or how well) in books, movies, comics or games. There are good examples of great science fiction in all, but in numbers
Imagination.... (Score:2)
While I love good Sci-Fi movies, I prefer reading and letting my imagination create the environments.
My first love has always been mystery books. I later got into westerns. I didn't get exposed to good Sci-Fi until I was in university. I worked at the library part-time to pay for college and they happened to have a Librarian who was building a high quality SciFi and Fantasy collection. To this day, it's one of the biggest collections in North America.
http://blogs.unb.ca/iss/2012/03/06/science-fiction-an [blogs.unb.ca]
Radio (Score:3)
Radio For me.
TV, Movies, Game, Comics, (Some) Magazines. Want to give you the visuals on what is happening. And they tend to give you a vision that shortly gets dated. Or just looks bad.
Books, other then the fact I have a condition that makes it hard for me to read in a straight line (making reading books difficult, without a ruler) , will often go into details that bogs the story down. Sure it is great for fan boys who wants to hear all about the though process of the person but sometimes goes a bit too far.
Radio tends to give a good balance. You get some sound effects and the actors and express the emotion, and no visuals allows for a lot more of the story telling. Those sound effects don't get so dated. Think of the Hitting a Slinky Lasers, still used today. Or Dr. Who's Tardis noise. It gives you a fuller picture without jamming it down your gullet.
Options (Score:3, Funny)
- Direct neural interface
- Cowboyneal's flipbook
- I just use my tasp
I have an outrageous number of SF hardback books (Score:3)
Some 7,000 of them [lawrenceperson.com], actually, the vast majority hardback first editions. And I'm an SF writer myself.
So I'm a little off the standard deviation.
Each have advantages (Score:2)
I literally cannot answer this one.
Books are good for sci-fi because they can easily focus on the "science" aspect of it. Asimov, Clarke... books are brilliant for the speculative subgenre of science fiction. But they're also not easy to get into, and I don't find them as immediately enjoyable as other forms.
Movies work well because they can show, not tell. Detailed descriptions don't work well in books, but in movies, you can do a lot of world-building in the background. TV could work well for this, but it
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I have to agree with gman003. I can't answer this either
I know "Don't complain about lack of options. You've got to pick a few when you do multiple choice. Those are the breaks"
Instead of the throw away choice of "Holodeck", how about "All of the above"
CowboyNeal? (Score:2)
I prefer the one where Cowboy Neal reads the book to me, with accompanying finger puppet theater.
Most Imagination, Most Innovation, Most Mind Fucks (Score:2)
The most imaginative, innovative science I have found with the biggest mindfucks have been in short story magazines like the old "Analog"
Re:Movies (Score:5, Insightful)
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I was torn between TV and books, because both media allow you to tell a rich story.
I agree. The only problem with TV is that it's effectively open-ended in terms of time and scale, which many developers and writers don't seem to be able to handle well. Story arcs start meandering and characters develop in sudden fits and spurts. Then there's the dreaded "unexpected final season" where poor planning catches up with them and they make a hatchet rush job of the end. And of course the "last ditch effort for another season or movie". The Stargate showrunners were stupidly bad when it cam
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And of course the "last ditch effort for another season or movie". The Stargate showrunners were stupidly bad when it came to this. (...) A bad movie leaves viewers annoyed at wasting a couple of hours. A TV series with a horrible conclusion leaves longtime viewers disgruntled and sometimes quite angry. But yes, a well-constructed TV show can provide many, many hours of great storytelling.
Yeah, except then the product (you!) has already been sold to the advertisers. And you've probably bought all but the last DVD/BluRay set, which means you'd have to be royally pissed and not just a little miffed to not buy the last one. They really don't have anything to lose that way, and it did get them Stargate: The Ark of Truth and Stargate: Continuum. It started with a movie becoming a TV series that ran for ten seasons with two spin-off series that ran for five and two seasons respectively plus the tw
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The only problem with TV is that it's effectively open-ended in terms of time and scale, which many developers and writers don't seem to be able to handle well
The same is true of books. I've read a couple of series recently where the author has felt the need to increase the difficulty of the things that protagonist has to overcome each book such that by the time you're about half way through the series it's completely ridiculous.
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Though Movies are nice visually, because there's a tendency to spend more on production, the best SCI-FI comes in TV form, because there's time to explore the characters, establish large story arcs, and create a very detailed world.
Of course it also requires amazing writers that can keep the story going over the course of more than one flash on the screen... It also requires competent actors that understand and make their characters worth watching. I would have to say it's the most difficult form of SCIFI t
Re:Movies (Score:5, Insightful)
the best SCI-FI comes in TV form, because there's time to explore the characters, establish large story arcs, and create a very detailed world
TV would be a promising choice, if almost all TV-SF wasn't such utter dross.
It does give writers the time and space to develop good characters, with some depth and personable qualities. It does allow for interesting scenarios to be put forward and explored. And FX frees up a lot of physical constraints.
However most TV science fiction is monumentally crass, shallow and merely forms of kiddies fiction (cowboys, baddies, monsters) with a spaceship in the middle of it. Just adding a rocket or dressing an actor up in a rubber mask doesn't turn a pile of crap into science fiction it just makes it crappier. While the same can be said of SF movies, at least they have the saving feature of some astounding effects and a huge budget, which makes a film more of an "experience" than a story to pay attention to and think about afterwards. Plus, they don't drag on for weeks on end.
So for me it has to be books. Since you know with a book that it isn't going to get cancelled after chapter #3
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Though Movies are nice visually, because there's a tendency to spend more on production, the best SCI-FI comes in TV form, because there's time to explore the characters, establish large story arcs, and create a very detailed world.
Really? And books don't offer the same?
Movies usually have better budgets, and can afford better actors and better SFX. TV shows run longer, so you can, as you say, spend more time exploring the world and characters, but SF shows are so expensive to make that other factors usually suffer, and they're also highly constrained by the episodic format. You need at least 13 episodes, and if your story doesn't quite stretch to that, expect lots of filler.
Books, on the other hand, can be exactly as long as is neede
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The problem with movies, and to a similar extent comics, is that you are captive to come body else's interpretation. Non visual media allows you to craft your own vision on top of the story. I personally find that much more rewarding, but it does require a practiced imagination.
Re:Movies (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, it takes some imagination - but since when was that a bad thing? Certainly when was it worse than having everything there and explained/shown, rather than letting you decide for yourself exactly what each person/character/setting looked like, based within the guidelines of the book's description?
Re:Movies (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd dispute this - books can certainly do the same (particularly when written in the first person, but even in third person they still envelop you)
Let's not discriminate Charlie Stross by omitting second person...
Anyhow, in my opinion, books have a far more believable environment than games. Your mind provides all the missing details, and you don't have objects that look like they can be interacted with but are just painted on, branches you can't step over, or people who repeat the same phrases and stances endlessly.
Re:Movies (Score:5, Funny)
Books can be very immersive! For example, back when I first read Larry Niven's book Ringworld, I had an interesting experience...
I was bicycling through a bunch of allotment gardens, and noticed on plot had nothing but sunflowers...and I started to panic. SUNFLOWERS!!! Then I realized that it was cloudy that day, so I was safe....then I figuratively kicked myself...I was on Earth, not Ringworld!
That's Immersive!
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Books don't put you in control.
Except for choose-your-own-adventure books, which both A) generally suck, and B) tend to have deeper, more compelling stories than most games. What do games offer instead? Lots of shooting and stuff. Sure, you choose what to shoot (or at least, in what order to shoot), but that's not exactly a story. "Oh, I shot minion 743 before I shot minion 296, instead of the other way around." Wow, tell me more! :)
The exception might be RPGs (the tabletop kind, not the video kind), but even there, the story often comes
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Eve, as evidenced by the various /. posts that arrive describing how players manipulated the outcome, is a great example of how sci-fi in games can be incredibly immersive due to how much of the plot is controlled by players.
Games (Score:2)
agree...good point
I answered 'movies' over 'film'...if I was a gamer I'd probably answer games
the future of 'sci-fi gaming' is about as much of a 'sure-thing' investment as I can imagine...it's perfect 'synergy' as the MBA guys like to say
right now the gaming industry is in a weird doldrums of development but as we see Netflix producing multiple hit TV shows we'll start to see more funding for experimental gaming projects with **bi
Re:Books (Score:2)
correction...I chose 'movies' over 'books'
K.S. Robinson's Mars Trilogy is for me as good as any book ever written in human history, but that's my personal taste...
I'm also a literature snob...I read all kinds of stuff...from Toni Morrison to Thomas Pynchon...yes i tried to read a bit of Proust in French...that kind of literature snob...
So *that* part of me can't say 'books'...There are, for me, many more scifi films I enjoy than books...on an absolute scale...sure i'd rather read Mars Trilogy than watch *an
Foundation [Re:Movies] (Score:2)
... actually, a book has no limitations whatever. That said, I'd love to see the "Foundation" series done right but doubt seriously it will happen.
I can't imagine a movie out of Foundation. The awe and grandeur of Foundation was entirely intellectual-- it was not manifested in the form of visual images or action. I still vividly remember the "action" sequence at the climax of Foundation and Empire: ignoring what was actually going on, and looking only what the camera would see, here is the exciting action: three people stand looking at each other. One of them holds (but doesn't shoot) a gun. After a while, they turn and walk away.
A thrilling sce
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a well-written book is far more immersive and detailed than a movie and has far fewer limitations
A good book is only limited by your imagination. A movie is limited by somebody else's
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No it wasn't, it was complete crap.
It was imperfect, but surprisingly good.
The outfits looked nothing like they were described in the books
Which had such a major impact on the story. You're basically picking nits here.
the sets were abysmal, the acting was only passable
The sets and acting were about par for the course for a TV show. Especially a basic cable channel show.
No, it wasn't an exact reproduction of the book--first of all, that wouldn't be possible, and second, it didn't have the budget. But for what it was, I thought they did surprisingly well. Especially if judged as a standalone work, ignoring the source material. And even if you take the sour
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There are some really good indie sci-fi series and graphic novels still being made, but the two giants that dominate comics publishing – Warner/DC and Disney/Marvel – are putting all of their focus on beings-with-impossible-powers-and-dreadful-fash
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I can see the technology surely making it possible, but the content will just as sirely change and so the piece will be very different; check out classic lit vs. movies today, like "The French Lieutenant's Woman", or "The Age of Innocence". I just saw the latter last night again, and Scorsese's movie is just incredible, as is Edith Wharton's novel. But they say different things. And putting those things, that content, into the hands of an AI will make it different again.
I personally have trouble listening t
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I'm currently reading "Alas, Babylon" which I am really enjoying - I'm about 1/3rd through it so far.
Just finished "Reamde" by Neal Stephenson, which I enjoyed, but I felt it was about 1/3rd too long for its own good.
My favourite book I've read this year has been "Use of Weapons" by Iain M Banks.
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Too many to list, but I have one serious recommendation: if you want good SF/Fantasy, check out the nominations lists for the major genre awards, like the Hugos and Nebulas. The winners can be hit-or-miss, but the nomination lists invariably have at least two or three really excellent works, and are my main source for discovering great new authors.
A few random suggestions:
* The Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold. This series has more Hugos for best novel than any other, and is one of the most charming