Tag Archives: science fiction

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SCIENCE FICTION CULT-URE

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“Science fiction” is NOT “science”, but it is DEFINITELY fiction.  The problem has become that people BELIEVE what they see on film, and internet in the form of “electronic media”.  Visual effects technology has become so advanced that “virtual reality” has become “reality”.

“Belief” is the foundation of mind-control. It has always been basis of power for religions.  There have literally been THOUSANDS of “gods” and religions in written history of Earth.  Modern “Science Fiction Cult-ure” has become a new “religion”.  It is often referred to as the “new age” culture or consciousness.  Please remember that every “religion” is created by people, just like you and me.

A enormous library of books, films, videos, TV shows, etc. about extraterrestrials, time travel, black holes, and a vast array of “theoretical history” have become “mainstream media” mania since the 1960s with the introduction of Star Trek on national TV.  Since then, a vast “UFO CULT-ure” has been created by film, television and and Youtube.  The phenomena is literally “mind-boggling”.

I suggest that we not lose touch with “real reality” and allow ourselves to become overwhelmed with “virtual reality”.  Take a walk outside, go to a forest, or to the beach… make direct physical and visual contract with solid objects in nature.  Let’s get REAL about reality. Don’t get sucked in to the “religion” of Science Fiction.

 

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THE UNIVERSE IS A BIG PLACE, PERHAPS THE BIGGEST

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THIS IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE SCIENCE FICTION BOOKS OF ALL TIME

“The universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest.” (Philip Jose Farmer), “Venus on the Half Shell“

Venus on the Half-Shell is a science fiction novel by Philip José Farmer, writing pseudonymously as “Kilgore Trout,” a fictional recurring character in many of the novels of Kurt Vonnegut. This book first appeared as a lengthy fictitious “excerpt”—written by Vonnegut, but attributed to Trout—in Vonnegut’s God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (1965). With Vonnegut’s permission, Farmer expanded the fragment into an entire standalone novel (including, as an in-joke, a scene that incorporates all of Vonnegut’s original text). Farmer’s story was first published in two parts beginning in the December 1974 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. The plot, in which Earth is destroyed by cosmic bureaucrats doing routine maintenance and the sole human survivor goes on a quest to find the “Definitive Answer to the Ultimate Question,” bears some resemblance to the later Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series, first launched as a radio serial in 1979.

According to Farmer’s introduction in Venus on the Half-Shell and Others, Vonnegut was initially reluctant to allow the project, but finally relented. After publication, a poorly-worded magazine article gave Vonnegut the impression that Farmer had planned to write the story regardless of his permission, which angered Vonnegut. Also, it was popularly assumed that Vonnegut wrote the book. This problem was solved by the book being reprinted under Farmer’s by-line.

A common element to this novel is the origin of many of the characters’ and locations’ names. Farmer “put in a lot of references to literature and fictional authors… Most of the alien names in Venus were formed by transposing the letters of English or non-English words.”[1]

The title and paperback cover art are a reference to an Italian Renaissance tempera painting by Sandro Botticelli, The Birth of Venus, which depicts the birth of the goddess Venus as her rising from the sea on a scallop shell.

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READ WHAT THE MASTER READS

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826525Since I received and published the interview transcripts from the late Nurse Matilda MacElroy, which I published in the non-fiction book  Alien Interview,  I have become a great fan of  E. E. “Doc” Smith,  (May 2, 1890 – August 31, 1965) an American science fiction author, best known for the Lensman and Skylark series.  He is sometimes called the father of “space opera“.

After reading these two series of books, and a few others by the same writer, I can understand why Doc Smith was an influence of the iconic writers and film makers such as George Lucas, who reveals in his biography, that the Lensman novels were a major influence on his youth.   And, J. Michael Straczynski, creator of the science fiction television series Babylon 5, also has acknowledged the influence of the Lensman books. Sir Arthur C. Clarke‘s space battle in Earthlight was based on the attack on the Mardonalian fortress in chapter seven of Skylark Three.  Superman-creator Jerry Siegel was impressed, at an early age, with the optimistic vision of the future presented in Skylark of Space.  Ron Howard‘s Imagine Entertainment and Universal Studios are in negotiation with the Smith estate for an 18-month film rights option on the series.

In order to gain a greater understanding of his books, and the amazing science and philosophical points of view revealed by “The Master”, Doc Smith, I thought it would be a good idea to read some of the books that influenced “The Master”.  Read the works of “The Master”, but also read what “The Master” has read.

In his 1947 essay “The Epic of Space”, E.E. “Doc” Smith listed (by last name only) authors he enjoyed reading:

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John W. Campbell, L. Sprague de Camp, Robert A. Heinlein, Murray Leinster, H. P. Lovecraft, A. Merritt (specifically The Ship of Ishtar, The Moon Pool, The Snake Mother, and Dwellers in the Mirage, as well as the character John Kenton), C.L. Moore (specifically Jirel of Joiry), Roman Frederick Starzl, John Taine, A.E. van Vogt, Stanley G. Weinbaum (specifically Tweerl), and Jack Williamson. In a passage on his preparation for writing the Lensman novels, he notes that Clinton Constantinescu’s “War of the Universe” was not a masterpiece, but says that Starzl and Williamson were masters; this suggests that Starzl’s Interplanetary Flying Patrol may have been an influence on Smith’s Triplanetary Patrol, later the Galactic Patrol.  The feeding of the Overlords of Delgon upon the life-force of their victims at the end of chapter five of Galactic Patrol seems a clear allusion to chapter twenty-nine of The Moon Pool; Merritt’s account of the Taithu and the power of love in chapters twenty-nine and thirty-four also bear some resemblance to the end of Children of the Lens. Smith also mentions Edgar Rice Burroughs, complaining about loose ends at the end of one of his novels.

Smith’s daughter, Verna, lists the following authors as visitors to the Smith household in her youth: Lloyd Arthur Eshbach, Robert Heinlein, Dave Kyle, Bob Tucker, Williamson, Frederik Pohl, Merritt, and the Galactic Roamers. Smith cites Bigelow’s Theoretical Chemistry–Fundamentals as a justification for the possibility of the inertialess drive. There is also an extended reference to Rudyard Kipling‘s “Ballad of Boh Da Thone” in Gray Lensman (chapter 22, “Regeneration,” in a conversation between Kinnison and MacDougall).

Sam Moskowitz‘s biographical essay on Smith in Seekers of Tomorrow states that he regularly read Argosy magazine, and everything by H.G. Wells,Jules Verne, H. Rider Haggard, Edgar Allan Poe, and Edgar Rice Burroughs. Moskowitz also notes that Smith’s “reading enthusiasms included poetry, philosophy, ancient and medieval history, and all of English literature.”

Source:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._E._Smith#Family_and_education

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UNNATURAL SELECTIONS

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80-beetles

“…there are millions of speciesof insects. About 350,000 of these are species of beetles. There may be as many as 100 million species of life forms on Earth at any given time. In addition, there are many times more extinct species of life on Earth than there are living life forms. Some of these will be rediscovered in the fossil or geological records of Earth.

The current “theory of evolution” of life forms on Earth does not consider the phenomena of biological diversity. Evolution by natural selection is science fiction. One species does not accidentally, or randomly evolve to become another species, as the Earth textbooks indicate, without manipulation of genetic material…”

~ Alien Interview ~

ALIEN INTERVIEW, edited by Lawrence R. Spencer

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SCI-FI REALITY

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“Reality is incredibly larger, infinitely more exciting, than the flesh and blood vehicle we travel in here. If you read science fiction, the more you read it the more you realize that you and the universe are part of the same thing. Science knows still practically nothing about the real nature of matter, energy, dimension, or time; and even less about those remarkable things called life and thought. But whatever the meaning and purpose of this universe, you are a legitimate part of it. And since you are part of the all that is, part of its purpose, there is more to you than just this brief speck of existence. You are just a visitor here in this time and this place, a traveler through it.”

— Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek