May 18, 2010 • 32 mins
Even people who don't care for science fiction know about the genre -- thousands of new science fiction stories come out every year. But why does science fiction matter? Tune in and learn the answer in this podcast.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yeah, Welcome to Stuff from the Science Lab from how
stuff works dot com. Hey, guys, welcome to the podcast.
This is Alison I don't know, like, the science editor
at how stuff works dot com. This is Robert Lamb,
(00:20):
science writer at how stuff works dot com. Today we're
talking about science fiction. We're stepping outside the laboratory and
we're entering the world of science fiction world that I
know you're very fond of, Robert. Yeah, I've been a
fan of a sci fi for for quite some time. Um,
I don't pretend to be an expert on it. Therapy
is plenty of classic sci fi books that I have
not read, um, and we'll maybe get to one day.
(00:42):
But yeah, I have a lot of love for sci fi,
and I know that you have been looking to get
more into sci fi. I have. Yeah, I've done a
little reading. I've read Brave New World, I did a
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy some stuff like that. But
I do I am looking for some more sci fi reading. Cool. Well,
that's what we're gonna talk about today. We're really gonna
kick off talking about like why it, Matt, Like, what
(01:04):
what is science fiction in relation to science? Which is
our core topic here and you know what it means.
And then we're gonna go through a few different titles
that I'm particularly fond of that I might recommend to
you or to anyone out there who's looking to get
into sci fi. And these three titles are good if
it gives you any contacts. I went to the library
(01:24):
at the public library the other night and I was
looking for these three books. I've done a little bit
of reading on them, but I haven't fully read them yet,
and I'm really looking forward to them. And anyway, these
three books that Robert that made Robert's list are all
checked out, so I think that's a good son. Yeah,
and I think they're all they're all Hugo Award winners
as well, Yes, yes they are. So yeah. We'll just
kick this off with the Webster's definition for science fiction,
(01:47):
um quote fiction dealing principally with the impact of actual
or imagine science on society or individuals, or having a
scientific factor as an essential orienting component. So yeah, it's
all about where, where where science touches society and how
that impacts our view of the future. One interesting thing
(02:10):
I found about science fiction is that you would think
that it would be all about the technology, right, it
would focus on the technology. But in a lot of
science fiction, it seems that it always comes down to
the individual. The individual still remains important determining uh, the
future of the world or the future of interplanetary society.
So I just thought that was interesting. Yeah. I think
like even the even the techiest um sci fi, you know,
(02:34):
it tends to come down to human stories like how
what is how would technology change what we fundamentally are?
And what do they how do they illuminate what we
fundamentally are a lot of times that means illuminating of course,
our our strengths or our weaknesses, depending on whether you
have more of a lighthearted uh sci fi romp or
something just brutally dark. You know. An important distinction to
(02:57):
make in all of this is hard sci fi versus
soft sci fi? Right, um, and uh it comes out
of questions of is this actual science? Is it is extrapolate?
Is it it extrapolated from real um you know, studies, findings, etcetera.
Or is the science just kind of magic? Um. It
doesn't necessarily make the science fiction good or bad. You
(03:19):
have you know, really good hard sci fi, and you
also have some really boring hard sci fi out there.
Um but yeah, you're your Your hard sci fi is
going to be more rooted in in the actual science
of the thing, in realistic um visions of the future
based on the current course of science of science. For instance,
hard science fiction would be like Arthur C. Clark, especially
(03:41):
his uh, his novel A Fall of Moon Dust Stu,
which deals with moon colonization. Or Ben Bova has a
number of books dealing with the colonization of mars Um.
You know, these are these are all books that that
at heart are dealing with the actual science. If you
get into soft sci fi, I mean, the classic example
would be something like Star Wars. Yeah, because mean, I mean,
(04:01):
I'm sure there's some books that try and explain the
science of Star Wars, but any in fact, we have
an article about the light Savers. But by and large,
Star Wars is not concerned with how the science of
anything works. It's about this about creating a you know,
a big space opera, big romantic, melodramaic, melodramatic adventure with
you know, superpowered individuals and super powerful factions and all this,
(04:24):
um uh. And then also you have smaller works, say
like The Time Traveler's Wife, which I haven't read, but
but I understand that takes a sci fi element and
use it as a plot device for a character driven exploration.
You know, so correct me if I'm wrong. But um,
The Time Traveler's Wife is not really a book concerned with, um,
(04:47):
you know, the physics of time travel and um. Yeah,
and along those lines, we also have, um, very optimistic
sci fi. You have very pessimistic sci fi. And when
it comes to these visions of the future, you also
have your your very utopian visions of the future and
your dystopic visions of the future. And you know that
kind of speaks for itself. Star Trek. Star Trek is
(05:10):
a classic example, yea of of a very uh, if
not utopian, then very optimistic vision of the future. You know,
it's rude to you know, it goes back to, you know,
the excitement about the space race and then this idea
that technology was just gonna get better and better and
change the the the way that we live. Um. You know, you'll,
I mean, even though there there's war and there's a
(05:31):
there's destruction and death in in the and and certainly
conflict in the in the Star Trek universe, Um, you
still see like whole like all of Earth is united,
is one people, whole systems of you know, of of
aliens are united as one people, you know, and that's
you know, and they even have this, uh, like the
whole Prime Directive deal where they don't they don't mess
(05:51):
with with rising civilizations that haven't achieved you know, space
travel yet, you know. So they're they're already writing, you know,
writing into this future that we will have learned from
our past that we're not going to say, repeat the
exploitation and decimation of the Native American um people, you know,
on a cosmic scale, right, So they already have really
(06:12):
cool stuff like green technology, and there is an element
of morality threading the entire series. So let's look at
some of the more pessimistic stuff. What about Avatar you
put that, I would say that Avatar is not just
like Super Dark, because you have some sci fi that's
just basically saying humans are horrible and in the far future,
we're just going to be even more horrible. Um, but
(06:34):
Avatar still paints a rather bleak vision of humanity's future.
You know, it's like humans have destroyed their own planet basically,
I mean it's they talk to speak of it as
a poisoned world, and they're headed off to another planet
to exploit its resources and its native inhabitants. Um, you know,
continuing the cycle that you know, we started in colonial days.
(06:55):
And I was sorry, I see it. It's the distinction
of colonization versus new colonization. I guess. Yeah, it's just
kind of you know, it's it kind of comes down
to the whole you know idea, you know, the terror
of history. It's like our humans gonna just keep making
the same mistake over and over again. And you're more
optimistic visions involve us learning from our mistakes, and the
more pessimistic or in my opinion, realistic ones involve us
(07:18):
making the same mistakes over and over again. So let's
get into some of the classics. Let's talking about H. G.
Wells and Jules Verne. Yeah, yeah, these were these are
two of the big guys. Um. You know, you can
you can go back and find, you know, older works
that are technically sci fi, but these are the real
fathers of modern science fiction. UM. Wells, of course, is
(07:41):
known for such works as the It's the Time Machine,
Verne twenty leagues under the sea, so you know, they're
they're they're writing. Especially Verne is right, wrote a lot
about the future, predicting what the future was going to
be like. And he was like a true tech like
tech geek, Like he would probably have a podcast with
with Jonathan Strickland today, you know, if you were around
(08:03):
um or Jonathan would and him would be tweeting back
and forth, because yeah, Verne was writing about you know,
air conditioning, automomobiles, facts, machine electricity, traveling to the moon, submarines.
You know. In all this, um Wells was new Slatch either, right,
he was learning about time travel, of course, he was
learning about lasers and visibility, interplanetary war, um, even wireless
(08:23):
communications and answering machines. And just to give your perspective,
H G. Wells was alive of from eighteen sixty six
to ninety six. Yeah, and one thing I ran across
when I was brushing up again on him was that
people pointed out that if Mary Shelley hadn't written Frankenstein, um,
then Wells may have actually like hit all the the
(08:45):
key like sci fi plot elements, you know, and just
you know, nailed them ahead of time because he was
just he was just on a frenzy towards the end
of the nineteenth century, just like Book a Year, you know,
and each one is you know, a classic today. But
it's also worth mentioning again that, yeah, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein,
in addition to being you know, horror, is definitely a
key early sci fi work. Yeah. The important thing with
(09:07):
any of this, uh, any science fiction is that is
not what it tells you about the future, because obviously
none of it's going to be completely correct, um, but
but what it tells you about the time which was published,
you know what, what were their thoughts in the Victorian
age about about their modern technology, about what the future
was gonna was gonna hold for everybody? Um right, So
(09:28):
Wells and vern we're both concerned about humanity's path back
then and where I might leave in the future. They
were thinking that maybe it's going to be a stagnating
world like that of the Morlocks and the Eloi. Yeah, yeah,
one where um we're basically the the the class divisions
and industrialization would lead to an age where um, you
had you know, these these dreamy little elf people living
(09:51):
on the surface world doing nothing with their lives and
in their society while these monstrous, you know, troll like
creatures actually think they were more spider like in the
in the book, but it's hard to get the image
from the film out of your head. But but one
of these monsters toiled underground to keep the surface system alive.
(10:13):
And and of course Verne wrote us, you know, several
books dealing with the future of warfare, and you know,
they're pretty pretty bleak in that regard that, you know,
we have all this amazing technology and we're going to
continue to use it to destroy one another. So what
were some of the outdated concepts that both Verne and Wells. Yeah,
these are things where you know, you read them today
and um and and they just doesn't make you know,
(10:36):
it doesn't jive as well, like you know, say, well
that's that's not the way it turned out at all, um.
Sort of like if you you know, you know, it's
sort of like if you've watched you know, two thousand
and one a Space odusy and you're like, whoa hold on,
our space stations don't look like that. Um. But but
generally the older the sci fi, the bigger the chance
that the science is really won't keep by today's standards. UM. So,
(10:56):
like vern said, you have to give them credit for trying. Yeah, yeah,
because they're working with with the best that they had.
I mean, sci fi written today, even like the most
cutting edge sci fi you know, is it gonna hold
up in you know, a hundred years. Maybe maybe not.
This stuff holds up because I mean both of these
guys were great writers and uh and had something important
to say, you know. And that's when we keep going
back to him. So like Verne's Journey to the Center
(11:18):
of the Earth, Um, it has some outdated ideas about
the Earth's interior um and uh, and you know, and
he's trying to to educate the reader about about you know,
what extinct creatures existed in which geologic age, you know,
and not all that holds up today. Um, it's you know,
but it's it's but it's fine because he was he
was writing for the modern you know, his modern audience,
(11:40):
and it clues us into how they were thinking back
in the you know, the Victorian era. UM. Likewise, the
time Machine, there is great sequence in the end where
the time traveler UM goes just travels like ridiculously far.
Then he's already ridiculously far ahead because what the Time
Machine takes place in uh eighty m eight hundred and
(12:02):
two thousand, seven hundred one, you know, so which is
great because so many time travel movies like they go like, oh,
this is what the future is gonna be like in
N and you know, I'm like, oh, we didn't have
flying cars in NT seven, so you know, wells had
it right. He's like like, all right, they when you
finally get to the year eight hundred, eight hundred thousand,
you know, then you can correct me. But but no,
he had this this vision of the like the earth
(12:25):
when the sun finally stopped, you know, stops burning, and
the earth just stops in its tracks and and everything dies.
And it's very bleak and beautifully written. But of course,
uh it's it's based on outdated models of celestial mechanics.
It still works, though, I highly recommend high highly recommend
via Time Machine. What about the movies, um, you know
(12:47):
there they can be fun, but you know, it's you know,
each work of sci fi is is rooted in its day,
you know, and sometimes when you have like an older
work of sci fi and it's produced in an other time,
you end up with sort of a mixture of those
those things, so it's kind of a kind of deluded
in my opinion. So today we're gonna start off with
three sci fi books that I personally am going to
(13:09):
read and we hope you will too if you haven't already. Um,
And we picked these three books because they are award
winners and stuff like that, but they're also held up
as classics in the pantheon of science fiction, and I
really like each of them, so I can speak to them,
you know. The first one that made our list was
Dune by Frank Herbert. I'm just going to read you
the first line in case you've never read it. In
(13:32):
the week before their departure to Aracus, when all the
final scurrying about had reached a nearly unbearable frenzy in
Old Crone came to visit the mother of the boy, Paul. Yeah,
and so begins Dune, Herbert's novel, and it won the
Hugo Award in nineteen sixty six, and it went on
to also win the very first Nebula Award. June has
(13:53):
had a bunch of sequels and even a prequel written
by Herbert's son Brian. Oh. Yeah, like a string of
prequel like the her kids are just going crazy with it.
So June follows paul a treatyse the son of a
powerful family kind of think of for our future equivalent
of the Montagues or Capulets, and this powerful family is
just gaining control of the desert planet Aracus. And Oracus
(14:14):
is important because of course it's a source of milange,
and this is a drug that's pretty helpful for interplanetary travel,
psychic powers and other stuff. Yeah, crucial I would say,
like it's basically it's kind of it's kind of like
the Middle East of this universe, you know, with with
its oil, the planet that has the the the the
element that makes the whole system work. You guys might
(14:36):
remember us mentioning milange and doing on our podcast about
what drugs astronauts are one, didn't it come up on that?
But milange is not one of the drugs at Astronauts.
It's not, it's not. It is actually fictional And so
Herbert's Soon is a hugely complex story, and it's one
that has generated a serious fan base and some serious
book sales. The Library Journal says June is to science
(14:59):
fiction what the Lord of the Rings is to fantasy.
So why are we talking about doing today? Why didn't
it make our short list of three? Well? Um, well,
first I should point out that this is doing is
very much a space opera. Um. It's it's you know,
it's grand, it's epic, it's you know, it's I really
like that term space opera. Yeah, I mean it's you know,
the first couple of times you hear it, you kind
of think of people singing in space, right, A large
(15:22):
woman with a hat with horns. Yeah. I don't take
their any hats with horns in this, but but yeah,
it kind of grows on you. Uh not to say
that there's there aren't some some scientific ideas thrown around
in here. Um. For instance, Herbert was inspired by um,
by some some ongoing efforts to reclaim some some desert
(15:43):
land in the US. And so there's a there's a
good bit of ecological content in the in the books.
It's very well thought out and you know, very scientific
and perhaps accidentally, Um, you're going back to the milange.
There's the whole business where they take the pilots of
these of these huge spaceships take it because space is
so dangerous that and especially traveling at really high speeds.
(16:06):
It's so dangerous. You have to be able to see
a little bit in the into the future to UM
to successfully navigate, you know, UM and Interrestlingly enough, there
have been some reports that the that the Soviet Union
actually looked into into the possibilities UM of using psychics
in their space program early on. I did a blog
(16:26):
post about it though. Yeah. But but for the most part,
um Done is more concerned with larger ideas like what
what is the long term future of humanity and space?
Because this is like a far future world we're dealing
with where I think the the Earth no longer even exists,
you know, so it's just the you know, the far
future colonies that's sprang from Earth. You know. He gets into,
(16:49):
you know, concepts of like like what would religion be
like in the future in a post Earth future? Um,
you know, what's what's the rate? How to sexuality figure
into it? Uh, you know, gender issues, etcetera. So it's
a great adventure story that hits a lot of pretty
serious issues concerning the human race. Also, the main character
overdoses on space drugs and he writes a giant sin
(17:11):
or him to save the universe. How could you not
love that? Pretty gnarly. Yeah, you gotta you gotta love that. Um, Now,
did you like the rest of the series. Um, I
love the first book. And the great thing about the
first book I should mention too, is like the first
time I read it, I read it like in high
school or junior high and loved it because it's a
great sci fi adventure, you know. But but then I
actually reread it last year and um, you know, it's
(17:33):
it's been a decade or so and I'm a different
reader now and it speaks to me on a whole
different level. So it's I mean, I think it's the
mark of a great, great book that that. But but yeah,
the second book is good, but not as good and
in the third book it was in the fourth book
all right, you know, I enjoyed some things about them,
but they kind of get progressively um dents and progressively dry,
(17:58):
and uh, you know, this is just my opinion. A
lot of people share this opinion. Some people love everything.
My dentist actually like everything done related, and which is
awesome because again he can talk about it and I
can garble about it when I go to see him.
But but now I'm not a fan of the later books.
Have you seen David Lynch's Dune? Yeah? Yeah, that's uh,
(18:20):
you haven't seen it? I have you? No, I have
not seen it. I mean it's it's not I love it,
but not as a as an accurate betrayal of of
how I see the book in my head. Um. So,
it's got some great costumes in it. Uh, you know,
Staying runs around in his underwear stabbing people. So again,
what's not to love? Um, there's a great John Hodgment
(18:41):
quote about the film. Can you read that for us?
I must remind you this was the David Lynch version
of Dune in which everyone was sexy and deformed at
the same time. Yeah, so I love I love that quote.
That pretty much sums up the film. In other news,
they've tried a couple of different adaptations of Dune, haven't they. Yeah,
there was like a scythe By mini series version of
(19:02):
it that I think I watched part of it, but
it didn't really speak to me. When we were researching
this podcast, I read that French director Pierre Morrell, director
of Taken and From Paris with Love, I've never heard
of either of those films of you. Uh yeah, one
familiar with him. I haven't actually seen them, so I
can't really say much on you know, whether I think
it's great or not. But but if if he's out
there listening and has some casting ideas, I think that
(19:25):
he should get Eddie Murphy to play the entire Harconan
family a clumps, you know, where it's like different fat
suits for different members of the family. So Morrell seconded
to your opinion about Lynch's do not being perhaps treated
the story. Morrell commented to MTV News, Like many people,
I was not fully satisfied with David Lynch's movie in ur.
(19:46):
I do respect David, and I think his interpretation and
vision were interesting, but not what we fans expected. Yeah,
you know it was. And it's also it's very much
a film actation stuck in its time and and speaking
each Dune was written in six and I mean this
is so in many ways, this is the book that's
really like sci fi coming out of the sixties. You know,
(20:09):
all these fantastic elements that we just talked about. So
if you haven't read it, by all means, consider reading Dane.
That's our first book, and moving on to our second book,
Neuromancer by William Gibson the sky above the port was
the color of television tuned to a dead channel. And
with that you're starting along with Case the protagonist. You
(20:30):
would call him a protagonist, right, yeah, yeah, definitely. In
Computer Cowboy, William Gibson's heavyweight contribution to the world of
SCIPI back Neuromancer One. Not just a Hugo and a
Nebula ward. It also snagged the Philip K. Dick Award,
and it herald the beginning of a new science fiction genre,
and that's one of the reasons why we're talking about
it today. Yeah, this is the cyberpunk book. Everything that
(20:54):
came after it from you know, from from you know,
from any any cyber punk book you might read. To
the Matrix, you know, his matrix is just chocked full
of neuromancer gimmicks, you know. Um, And it's so this
is a this is you know, a great dystopian work.
Most cyberpunks pretty dystopian, and I should define cyberpunk womb
(21:16):
at it. The idea of cyberpunk is that it deals
with ubiquitous technology. You know, when when technology high technology
is available to at pretty much every level of society,
and how that again both changes who we are and
illuminates things about who we are. So, like you're saying,
Matrix is a good example of cyberpunk that people might
(21:37):
be able to relate to. Yeah, I mean, Matrix only
goes so deep really with the cyberpunk stuff. But it's
it's definitely something that everybody's gonna be able to recognize.
And Gibson was the forefather. Yeah. Yeah, and it's and
it's a lot of cyberpunk. Is follows some more elements
in Neuromancer, and then it's kind of noir theme. There's
kind of you know, it's always like some sort of
a you know, sort of a shady you know, shady characters,
(21:59):
sort of rogue characters, you know, on the margins of society,
um um, you know, mysterious benefactors, you know, that kind
of thing. So they tend to be you know, kind
of kind of action adventure mystery kind of deals. So
we'd recommend this just because cyberpunk is an integral part
of science fiction today. Yeah, and its and it's you know,
(22:19):
like I say, it's rooted with questions about technology and
how it changes you know, who we are. Plus it
has some called beat elements and our elements Yeah, yeah,
he was definitely. He was also inspired by by Bye
Beat Um the Beat era, So you can really, especially
in this book, you really get a lot of that. Um.
And now one one thing to keep in mind is
that it is one of the more violent and sexy
(22:40):
books by William Gibson. So um, you know it's it's
kind of edgy and not for you know, every reader. Um.
Though each each William Gibson book after this kind of
gets a little tamer and a little more contemplative, um
and actually a little less sci fi like the last
two books that that Gibson has put out. I think
there were Pattern Recognition and Spook Country, right, Yeah, like
(23:03):
those are both set just in the modern world for
the most part. It's really interesting. Yeah. And Gibson's even
even said that that he basically doesn't have to write
sci fi anymore because the technology has reached the has
reached the point where it's you know, the future is
now movies. Um. It seems inevitable. Yeah, that they've they've
(23:24):
continued to be talking about a neuromancwer film. Um. I
I don't have a lot of faith in it. Whatever
they put together, um, and inevitably, whatever they put out.
People are going to be like, oh, this is just
like this is a matrix trip off man. So so
let's get to the third book on our list today,
which is Ender's Game by Orson Scott Carts. Yeah, this
(23:45):
book had me at the first line, I can hardly
wait to go back to my desk and read it
and then podcast research. Okay, so the line is I've
watched through his eyes, I've listened through his ears, and
I tell you he's the one. How can you not
be intrigued to find out what the heck this book
is about. Yeah, it's similar to to Doing in that respect,
which also dealt with the one. And that's the beginning
(24:05):
of Enders Game. So Enders Game is published in like
we said, by Orson Scott Card and it was the
first in the Enders Game series. So the plot basically,
every parent likes to think because or her child is
a genius, myself included, but Ender Wiggins actually is. And
that's good because humanity is hanging by a shred, as
it tends to in science fiction, and it's hanging by
(24:26):
shred because it has had these attacks from aliens called
buggers and enders the world government's hope and as such,
the government starts ruthlessly training him to save the planet,
and the training takes the form of the game's reference
in the title, Did I do that Justice Robert? Yeah, Yeah,
pretty much. I mean it's really the idea is that
that aliens attack and the only reason that we were
able to survive is because we had one guy who
(24:49):
was just an amazing leader, like one guy that just
stood above everybody else. And then then everybody starts wondering, well,
these guys are gonna attack again, and who's gonna lead us?
You know when that happens. So, yeah, they begin this
just systematic search that I think he made the comparison
to the search for the Next Dolly. It's kind of
like that, except the world of science fiction. So while
(25:11):
I was reading up on enders game, I came across
or Sin Scott Cards Amazon review turns out he was
a playwright to Oh yeah yeah, so Card rights in
the end, a storyteller tells the tale that he believes
in and cares about, and the natural audience consists of
those readers who are also willing to believe in and
care about that jail. So Card is actually a bit
on the defensive here because he's taken a lot of
(25:31):
flak as your wont to do on Amazon reviews. Um,
some for his choppy prose style. I guess, um, Yeah,
I mean I can't really get on the on boat
with the with slamming him for for his writing. I mean,
I I really enjoy his work. But but yeah, he's
come under sharp criticism for a number of things. Yeah.
(25:52):
So he had this pretty funny quote at the end
of his lengthy Amazon review and he says, if America
can forgive Bill Clinton, surely there's room for a bit
of forgiveness for the imperfections of a few bad writers
now and then we'll see. And I wouldn't necessarily call
him a bad writer. And you have to read the
whole review to get the context. But I thought that
was a funny yeah, to say, yeah, well this, I mean,
(26:13):
certainly this want to you know, Hugo Award and a
Nebula Awardia and actually the sequel one. I believe the
next year. I want a Hugo Award as well. But yeah,
it deals with some some pretty weighty issues. You know,
how about our future in the cosmos? How would how
would might we respond to some sort of alien attack? Um?
(26:34):
And I know it's a fantastic notion, but when you
when you talk to a cosmologist like that's that's really
an issue, Like Stephen Hawkings talks about this, you know,
how you know, if there is alien life out there,
how's it going to how are we going to attempt
to communicate with it? How can we possibly um, you know,
deal with it? And if it's anything like us, then
God help us, you know, because it's probably gonna eradicate it.
(26:56):
And there's also some cool stuff with with with with
time as well, the the the world leader that everyone
is afraid, you know, what are we gonna do when
he's dad? They go so far as to put him
in a spaceship and spend it scent it at high speeds,
and the time dilation allows him to live much longer
than he normally would, so he's still there to to
(27:18):
teach whoever the chosen one is when they come along.
So it's more Lord of the Flies than Harry Potter. Definitely. Yeah.
And that's the only like the only thing about it
that I could, you know, the only reservation I would
have in recommending it to some people might be you've
got to be ready for some pretty pretty heart wrenching
scenes because endure is you know, it doesn't indur just
(27:38):
has a rough time. But it's a it's a it's
a great read. And I would definitely recommend this one
to to any female book readers out there who well,
because and this is this is a there's a large
generalization on one hand that uh that women prefer more
character driven books, and certainly this is yeah, and this
is and this is very character driven. Side I um,
(28:00):
you know, because you really care about Ender and you
really want, um want things to work out for him. Um,
And on like a personal level, I have I know
a number of I have a number of female friends
who love this book to death, And then I love
this book to death too. If you're a guy out
there and you're like, well, I don't want to read
a book that girls like or whatever, then um, I
would highly recommend um Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan
(28:24):
because that is the most violent, um and brutal and
outrageous sci fi book that I think you could hope
to read. And it has a lot of cool science
fiction in it, but it's very much a guy's book.
So let's talk about a couple of other great science
fiction authors that you may want to check out. Besides Gibson,
Herbert and orson stop card, there's of course Isaac Asimov,
(28:45):
I Robot, Arthur C. Clark, whom you already mentioned, and
then Philip Kate, Dick Ray Bradberry, and then there's u Ursula,
Kay Lagoon question Mark and I think that's how you
pronounced that. Correct me if I'm wrong, And and there
there's a whole list of other authors. I'm sure we're
leaving some off the list and you're going to be
furious about it, and by all means, let us know,
(29:06):
because I'm always interested to hear who everyone's favorite authors
are and uh and who indeed I should be reading.
And I'm excited to start delving into science fiction more. Yeah,
which one do you think you're gonna pick up? Ender's Game?
Absolutely cool? Yeah, I think you'll do that one. I
wonder if I can get away with reading my desk
in the name of the podcast. Yeah, totally. You should
like buy a copy. This is part of my job
(29:26):
as science editor, after all, don't you think so? If
you want to learn a little bit more about science fiction,
type in science fiction on the search bar on our
homepage and you might get some cool articles like science
fiction musicals and how sci fi doesn't work, or even
top five sides Born Superpowers. And now we have a
little listener mail Yeah, break up in the mail bag.
(29:52):
We had to uh folks right in about the Virtues
of venom podcast we recently did, and one of whom
was Mike. He works at a university lab in he's
working with venomous snails that live in the ocean and
hunt fish, mollusks, worms, and other snails. And Mike writes
that they're doing basic level research trying to develop drugs
for neurological disorders, and he points out the cone snail
(30:13):
as one of the venomous creatures that we might have
been interested, and he sent us a pretty cool video
of a cone snail eating a fish. Oh wow, I'm
gonna watch that when I get back to my desk
and a half lunch. In fact, there's a whole cone
snail channel on YouTube in case you're not Yeah, so
check that out. I'm gonna subscribe to that. We also
heard from Jack who wanted to drop us a line
(30:34):
from the Home of the Terrifying venomous Platypus and Jack
writes that he grew up in North Queensland, Australia, near
the James Cook University, which is at one of the
leading universities and marine stinger jellyfish research. Jack writes, in
regard to the panny host comments, in case you guys
don't remember, we talked about people wearing panty hose to
protect themselves from being stung by a jellyfish. So Jack rites,
(30:55):
in regards to the panny host comments, while you joke
about it, it is kind of true. In the battle
day is surf life, savers and even members of the
public used to wear a penny hose on their legs
and cut the gusset out of a second pair to
make a kind of penny hose top. I think it's
the thing at the top of the penny hose. I'm
not sure. There might be an awesome thing. I don't know.
(31:16):
It could be an awesome thing to um Jack rights.
These days, several companies have started producing what are known
as stinger suits, essentially a land nylon body suit, and
you can find these if you do a little Google
image searching. So you go to Australia, you just wear
this thing all the time, right you go to Australia,
you get one of these teletubby wetsuit things right at
the airport. Just yeah, just as if you're right into
(31:37):
it and you get off the plane. Well, that's that's
really cool, cool to know. Yeah, Australia, Land of venomous Creatures.
Jack also alerted us to a venomous creature that we
didn't mention, the stone fish. You should check it out.
Maybe you should write a blog about us, stone fish.
So thanks for writing us, guys. You know, feel free
to shoot us, shoot some feedback or some little tidbits anytimes.
(31:59):
We live here in Femia, so send us an email
that science stuff at how stuff works dot com. Oh,
and this is new. You can check us out now
on Facebook and Twitter. Um. On Twitter we are lab
stuff and uh on Facebook, we're a stuff in the
science lab. Look us up, you know, become fans of us,
follow us. Uh, we're gonna be updating those on a
regular basis. Thanks for listening, guys for more on this
(32:28):
and thousands of other topics because at how stuff works
dot com. Want more how stuff works, check out our
blogs on the house stuff works dot com home page
Yeah, Welcome to Stuff from the Science Lab from how
stuff works dot com. Hey, guys, welcome to the podcast.
This is Alison I don't know, like, the science editor
at how stuff works dot com. This is Robert Lamb,
(00:20):
science writer at how stuff works dot com. Today we're
talking about science fiction. We're stepping outside the laboratory and
we're entering the world of science fiction world that I
know you're very fond of, Robert. Yeah, I've been a
fan of a sci fi for for quite some time. Um,
I don't pretend to be an expert on it. Therapy
is plenty of classic sci fi books that I have
not read, um, and we'll maybe get to one day.
(00:42):
But yeah, I have a lot of love for sci fi,
and I know that you have been looking to get
more into sci fi. I have. Yeah, I've done a
little reading. I've read Brave New World, I did a
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy some stuff like that. But
I do I am looking for some more sci fi reading. Cool. Well,
that's what we're gonna talk about today. We're really gonna
kick off talking about like why it, Matt, Like, what
(01:04):
what is science fiction in relation to science? Which is
our core topic here and you know what it means.
And then we're gonna go through a few different titles
that I'm particularly fond of that I might recommend to
you or to anyone out there who's looking to get
into sci fi. And these three titles are good if
it gives you any contacts. I went to the library
(01:24):
at the public library the other night and I was
looking for these three books. I've done a little bit
of reading on them, but I haven't fully read them yet,
and I'm really looking forward to them. And anyway, these
three books that Robert that made Robert's list are all
checked out, so I think that's a good son. Yeah,
and I think they're all they're all Hugo Award winners
as well, Yes, yes they are. So yeah. We'll just
kick this off with the Webster's definition for science fiction,
(01:47):
um quote fiction dealing principally with the impact of actual
or imagine science on society or individuals, or having a
scientific factor as an essential orienting component. So yeah, it's
all about where, where where science touches society and how
that impacts our view of the future. One interesting thing
(02:10):
I found about science fiction is that you would think
that it would be all about the technology, right, it
would focus on the technology. But in a lot of
science fiction, it seems that it always comes down to
the individual. The individual still remains important determining uh, the
future of the world or the future of interplanetary society.
So I just thought that was interesting. Yeah. I think
like even the even the techiest um sci fi, you know,
(02:34):
it tends to come down to human stories like how
what is how would technology change what we fundamentally are?
And what do they how do they illuminate what we
fundamentally are a lot of times that means illuminating of course,
our our strengths or our weaknesses, depending on whether you
have more of a lighthearted uh sci fi romp or
something just brutally dark. You know. An important distinction to
(02:57):
make in all of this is hard sci fi versus
soft sci fi? Right, um, and uh it comes out
of questions of is this actual science? Is it is extrapolate?
Is it it extrapolated from real um you know, studies, findings, etcetera.
Or is the science just kind of magic? Um. It
doesn't necessarily make the science fiction good or bad. You
(03:19):
have you know, really good hard sci fi, and you
also have some really boring hard sci fi out there.
Um but yeah, you're your Your hard sci fi is
going to be more rooted in in the actual science
of the thing, in realistic um visions of the future
based on the current course of science of science. For instance,
hard science fiction would be like Arthur C. Clark, especially
(03:41):
his uh, his novel A Fall of Moon Dust Stu,
which deals with moon colonization. Or Ben Bova has a
number of books dealing with the colonization of mars Um.
You know, these are these are all books that that
at heart are dealing with the actual science. If you
get into soft sci fi, I mean, the classic example
would be something like Star Wars. Yeah, because mean, I mean,
(04:01):
I'm sure there's some books that try and explain the
science of Star Wars, but any in fact, we have
an article about the light Savers. But by and large,
Star Wars is not concerned with how the science of
anything works. It's about this about creating a you know,
a big space opera, big romantic, melodramaic, melodramatic adventure with
you know, superpowered individuals and super powerful factions and all this,
(04:24):
um uh. And then also you have smaller works, say
like The Time Traveler's Wife, which I haven't read, but
but I understand that takes a sci fi element and
use it as a plot device for a character driven exploration.
You know, so correct me if I'm wrong. But um,
The Time Traveler's Wife is not really a book concerned with, um,
(04:47):
you know, the physics of time travel and um. Yeah,
and along those lines, we also have, um, very optimistic
sci fi. You have very pessimistic sci fi. And when
it comes to these visions of the future, you also
have your your very utopian visions of the future and
your dystopic visions of the future. And you know that
kind of speaks for itself. Star Trek. Star Trek is
(05:10):
a classic example, yea of of a very uh, if
not utopian, then very optimistic vision of the future. You know,
it's rude to you know, it goes back to, you know,
the excitement about the space race and then this idea
that technology was just gonna get better and better and
change the the the way that we live. Um. You know, you'll,
I mean, even though there there's war and there's a
(05:31):
there's destruction and death in in the and and certainly
conflict in the in the Star Trek universe, Um, you
still see like whole like all of Earth is united,
is one people, whole systems of you know, of of
aliens are united as one people, you know, and that's
you know, and they even have this, uh, like the
whole Prime Directive deal where they don't they don't mess
(05:51):
with with rising civilizations that haven't achieved you know, space
travel yet, you know. So they're they're already writing, you know,
writing into this future that we will have learned from
our past that we're not going to say, repeat the
exploitation and decimation of the Native American um people, you know,
on a cosmic scale, right, So they already have really
(06:12):
cool stuff like green technology, and there is an element
of morality threading the entire series. So let's look at
some of the more pessimistic stuff. What about Avatar you
put that, I would say that Avatar is not just
like Super Dark, because you have some sci fi that's
just basically saying humans are horrible and in the far future,
we're just going to be even more horrible. Um, but
(06:34):
Avatar still paints a rather bleak vision of humanity's future.
You know, it's like humans have destroyed their own planet basically,
I mean it's they talk to speak of it as
a poisoned world, and they're headed off to another planet
to exploit its resources and its native inhabitants. Um, you know,
continuing the cycle that you know, we started in colonial days.
(06:55):
And I was sorry, I see it. It's the distinction
of colonization versus new colonization. I guess. Yeah, it's just
kind of you know, it's it kind of comes down
to the whole you know idea, you know, the terror
of history. It's like our humans gonna just keep making
the same mistake over and over again. And you're more
optimistic visions involve us learning from our mistakes, and the
more pessimistic or in my opinion, realistic ones involve us
(07:18):
making the same mistakes over and over again. So let's
get into some of the classics. Let's talking about H. G.
Wells and Jules Verne. Yeah, yeah, these were these are
two of the big guys. Um. You know, you can
you can go back and find, you know, older works
that are technically sci fi, but these are the real
fathers of modern science fiction. UM. Wells, of course, is
(07:41):
known for such works as the It's the Time Machine,
Verne twenty leagues under the sea, so you know, they're
they're they're writing. Especially Verne is right, wrote a lot
about the future, predicting what the future was going to
be like. And he was like a true tech like
tech geek, Like he would probably have a podcast with
with Jonathan Strickland today, you know, if you were around
(08:03):
um or Jonathan would and him would be tweeting back
and forth, because yeah, Verne was writing about you know,
air conditioning, automomobiles, facts, machine electricity, traveling to the moon, submarines.
You know. In all this, um Wells was new Slatch either, right,
he was learning about time travel, of course, he was
learning about lasers and visibility, interplanetary war, um, even wireless
(08:23):
communications and answering machines. And just to give your perspective,
H G. Wells was alive of from eighteen sixty six
to ninety six. Yeah, and one thing I ran across
when I was brushing up again on him was that
people pointed out that if Mary Shelley hadn't written Frankenstein, um,
then Wells may have actually like hit all the the
(08:45):
key like sci fi plot elements, you know, and just
you know, nailed them ahead of time because he was
just he was just on a frenzy towards the end
of the nineteenth century, just like Book a Year, you know,
and each one is you know, a classic today. But
it's also worth mentioning again that, yeah, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein,
in addition to being you know, horror, is definitely a
key early sci fi work. Yeah. The important thing with
(09:07):
any of this, uh, any science fiction is that is
not what it tells you about the future, because obviously
none of it's going to be completely correct, um, but
but what it tells you about the time which was published,
you know what, what were their thoughts in the Victorian
age about about their modern technology, about what the future
was gonna was gonna hold for everybody? Um right, So
(09:28):
Wells and vern we're both concerned about humanity's path back
then and where I might leave in the future. They
were thinking that maybe it's going to be a stagnating
world like that of the Morlocks and the Eloi. Yeah, yeah,
one where um we're basically the the the class divisions
and industrialization would lead to an age where um, you
had you know, these these dreamy little elf people living
(09:51):
on the surface world doing nothing with their lives and
in their society while these monstrous, you know, troll like
creatures actually think they were more spider like in the
in the book, but it's hard to get the image
from the film out of your head. But but one
of these monsters toiled underground to keep the surface system alive.
(10:13):
And and of course Verne wrote us, you know, several
books dealing with the future of warfare, and you know,
they're pretty pretty bleak in that regard that, you know,
we have all this amazing technology and we're going to
continue to use it to destroy one another. So what
were some of the outdated concepts that both Verne and Wells. Yeah,
these are things where you know, you read them today
and um and and they just doesn't make you know,
(10:36):
it doesn't jive as well, like you know, say, well
that's that's not the way it turned out at all, um.
Sort of like if you you know, you know, it's
sort of like if you've watched you know, two thousand
and one a Space odusy and you're like, whoa hold on,
our space stations don't look like that. Um. But but
generally the older the sci fi, the bigger the chance
that the science is really won't keep by today's standards. UM. So,
(10:56):
like vern said, you have to give them credit for trying. Yeah, yeah,
because they're working with with the best that they had.
I mean, sci fi written today, even like the most
cutting edge sci fi you know, is it gonna hold
up in you know, a hundred years. Maybe maybe not.
This stuff holds up because I mean both of these
guys were great writers and uh and had something important
to say, you know. And that's when we keep going
back to him. So like Verne's Journey to the Center
(11:18):
of the Earth, Um, it has some outdated ideas about
the Earth's interior um and uh, and you know, and
he's trying to to educate the reader about about you know,
what extinct creatures existed in which geologic age, you know,
and not all that holds up today. Um, it's you know,
but it's it's but it's fine because he was he
was writing for the modern you know, his modern audience,
(11:40):
and it clues us into how they were thinking back
in the you know, the Victorian era. UM. Likewise, the
time Machine, there is great sequence in the end where
the time traveler UM goes just travels like ridiculously far.
Then he's already ridiculously far ahead because what the Time
Machine takes place in uh eighty m eight hundred and
(12:02):
two thousand, seven hundred one, you know, so which is
great because so many time travel movies like they go like, oh,
this is what the future is gonna be like in
N and you know, I'm like, oh, we didn't have
flying cars in NT seven, so you know, wells had
it right. He's like like, all right, they when you
finally get to the year eight hundred, eight hundred thousand,
you know, then you can correct me. But but no,
he had this this vision of the like the earth
(12:25):
when the sun finally stopped, you know, stops burning, and
the earth just stops in its tracks and and everything dies.
And it's very bleak and beautifully written. But of course,
uh it's it's based on outdated models of celestial mechanics.
It still works, though, I highly recommend high highly recommend
via Time Machine. What about the movies, um, you know
(12:47):
there they can be fun, but you know, it's you know,
each work of sci fi is is rooted in its day,
you know, and sometimes when you have like an older
work of sci fi and it's produced in an other time,
you end up with sort of a mixture of those
those things, so it's kind of a kind of deluded
in my opinion. So today we're gonna start off with
three sci fi books that I personally am going to
(13:09):
read and we hope you will too if you haven't already. Um,
And we picked these three books because they are award
winners and stuff like that, but they're also held up
as classics in the pantheon of science fiction, and I
really like each of them, so I can speak to them,
you know. The first one that made our list was
Dune by Frank Herbert. I'm just going to read you
the first line in case you've never read it. In
(13:32):
the week before their departure to Aracus, when all the
final scurrying about had reached a nearly unbearable frenzy in
Old Crone came to visit the mother of the boy, Paul. Yeah,
and so begins Dune, Herbert's novel, and it won the
Hugo Award in nineteen sixty six, and it went on
to also win the very first Nebula Award. June has
(13:53):
had a bunch of sequels and even a prequel written
by Herbert's son Brian. Oh. Yeah, like a string of
prequel like the her kids are just going crazy with it.
So June follows paul a treatyse the son of a
powerful family kind of think of for our future equivalent
of the Montagues or Capulets, and this powerful family is
just gaining control of the desert planet Aracus. And Oracus
(14:14):
is important because of course it's a source of milange,
and this is a drug that's pretty helpful for interplanetary travel,
psychic powers and other stuff. Yeah, crucial I would say,
like it's basically it's kind of it's kind of like
the Middle East of this universe, you know, with with
its oil, the planet that has the the the the
element that makes the whole system work. You guys might
(14:36):
remember us mentioning milange and doing on our podcast about
what drugs astronauts are one, didn't it come up on that?
But milange is not one of the drugs at Astronauts.
It's not, it's not. It is actually fictional And so
Herbert's Soon is a hugely complex story, and it's one
that has generated a serious fan base and some serious
book sales. The Library Journal says June is to science
(14:59):
fiction what the Lord of the Rings is to fantasy.
So why are we talking about doing today? Why didn't
it make our short list of three? Well? Um, well,
first I should point out that this is doing is
very much a space opera. Um. It's it's you know,
it's grand, it's epic, it's you know, it's I really
like that term space opera. Yeah, I mean it's you know,
the first couple of times you hear it, you kind
of think of people singing in space, right, A large
(15:22):
woman with a hat with horns. Yeah. I don't take
their any hats with horns in this, but but yeah,
it kind of grows on you. Uh not to say
that there's there aren't some some scientific ideas thrown around
in here. Um. For instance, Herbert was inspired by um,
by some some ongoing efforts to reclaim some some desert
(15:43):
land in the US. And so there's a there's a
good bit of ecological content in the in the books.
It's very well thought out and you know, very scientific
and perhaps accidentally, Um, you're going back to the milange.
There's the whole business where they take the pilots of
these of these huge spaceships take it because space is
so dangerous that and especially traveling at really high speeds.
(16:06):
It's so dangerous. You have to be able to see
a little bit in the into the future to UM
to successfully navigate, you know, UM and Interrestlingly enough, there
have been some reports that the that the Soviet Union
actually looked into into the possibilities UM of using psychics
in their space program early on. I did a blog
(16:26):
post about it though. Yeah. But but for the most part,
um Done is more concerned with larger ideas like what
what is the long term future of humanity and space?
Because this is like a far future world we're dealing
with where I think the the Earth no longer even exists,
you know, so it's just the you know, the far
future colonies that's sprang from Earth. You know. He gets into,
(16:49):
you know, concepts of like like what would religion be
like in the future in a post Earth future? Um,
you know, what's what's the rate? How to sexuality figure
into it? Uh, you know, gender issues, etcetera. So it's
a great adventure story that hits a lot of pretty
serious issues concerning the human race. Also, the main character
overdoses on space drugs and he writes a giant sin
(17:11):
or him to save the universe. How could you not
love that? Pretty gnarly. Yeah, you gotta you gotta love that. Um, Now,
did you like the rest of the series. Um, I
love the first book. And the great thing about the
first book I should mention too, is like the first
time I read it, I read it like in high
school or junior high and loved it because it's a
great sci fi adventure, you know. But but then I
actually reread it last year and um, you know, it's
(17:33):
it's been a decade or so and I'm a different
reader now and it speaks to me on a whole
different level. So it's I mean, I think it's the
mark of a great, great book that that. But but yeah,
the second book is good, but not as good and
in the third book it was in the fourth book
all right, you know, I enjoyed some things about them,
but they kind of get progressively um dents and progressively dry,
(17:58):
and uh, you know, this is just my opinion. A
lot of people share this opinion. Some people love everything.
My dentist actually like everything done related, and which is
awesome because again he can talk about it and I
can garble about it when I go to see him.
But but now I'm not a fan of the later books.
Have you seen David Lynch's Dune? Yeah? Yeah, that's uh,
(18:20):
you haven't seen it? I have you? No, I have
not seen it. I mean it's it's not I love it,
but not as a as an accurate betrayal of of
how I see the book in my head. Um. So,
it's got some great costumes in it. Uh, you know,
Staying runs around in his underwear stabbing people. So again,
what's not to love? Um, there's a great John Hodgment
(18:41):
quote about the film. Can you read that for us?
I must remind you this was the David Lynch version
of Dune in which everyone was sexy and deformed at
the same time. Yeah, so I love I love that quote.
That pretty much sums up the film. In other news,
they've tried a couple of different adaptations of Dune, haven't they. Yeah,
there was like a scythe By mini series version of
(19:02):
it that I think I watched part of it, but
it didn't really speak to me. When we were researching
this podcast, I read that French director Pierre Morrell, director
of Taken and From Paris with Love, I've never heard
of either of those films of you. Uh yeah, one
familiar with him. I haven't actually seen them, so I
can't really say much on you know, whether I think
it's great or not. But but if if he's out
there listening and has some casting ideas, I think that
(19:25):
he should get Eddie Murphy to play the entire Harconan
family a clumps, you know, where it's like different fat
suits for different members of the family. So Morrell seconded
to your opinion about Lynch's do not being perhaps treated
the story. Morrell commented to MTV News, Like many people,
I was not fully satisfied with David Lynch's movie in ur.
(19:46):
I do respect David, and I think his interpretation and
vision were interesting, but not what we fans expected. Yeah,
you know it was. And it's also it's very much
a film actation stuck in its time and and speaking
each Dune was written in six and I mean this
is so in many ways, this is the book that's
really like sci fi coming out of the sixties. You know,
(20:09):
all these fantastic elements that we just talked about. So
if you haven't read it, by all means, consider reading Dane.
That's our first book, and moving on to our second book,
Neuromancer by William Gibson the sky above the port was
the color of television tuned to a dead channel. And
with that you're starting along with Case the protagonist. You
(20:30):
would call him a protagonist, right, yeah, yeah, definitely. In
Computer Cowboy, William Gibson's heavyweight contribution to the world of
SCIPI back Neuromancer One. Not just a Hugo and a
Nebula ward. It also snagged the Philip K. Dick Award,
and it herald the beginning of a new science fiction genre,
and that's one of the reasons why we're talking about
it today. Yeah, this is the cyberpunk book. Everything that
(20:54):
came after it from you know, from from you know,
from any any cyber punk book you might read. To
the Matrix, you know, his matrix is just chocked full
of neuromancer gimmicks, you know. Um, And it's so this
is a this is you know, a great dystopian work.
Most cyberpunks pretty dystopian, and I should define cyberpunk womb
(21:16):
at it. The idea of cyberpunk is that it deals
with ubiquitous technology. You know, when when technology high technology
is available to at pretty much every level of society,
and how that again both changes who we are and
illuminates things about who we are. So, like you're saying,
Matrix is a good example of cyberpunk that people might
(21:37):
be able to relate to. Yeah, I mean, Matrix only
goes so deep really with the cyberpunk stuff. But it's
it's definitely something that everybody's gonna be able to recognize.
And Gibson was the forefather. Yeah. Yeah, and it's and
it's a lot of cyberpunk. Is follows some more elements
in Neuromancer, and then it's kind of noir theme. There's
kind of you know, it's always like some sort of
a you know, sort of a shady you know, shady characters,
(21:59):
sort of rogue characters, you know, on the margins of society,
um um, you know, mysterious benefactors, you know, that kind
of thing. So they tend to be you know, kind
of kind of action adventure mystery kind of deals. So
we'd recommend this just because cyberpunk is an integral part
of science fiction today. Yeah, and its and it's you know,
(22:19):
like I say, it's rooted with questions about technology and
how it changes you know, who we are. Plus it
has some called beat elements and our elements Yeah, yeah,
he was definitely. He was also inspired by by Bye
Beat Um the Beat era, So you can really, especially
in this book, you really get a lot of that. Um.
And now one one thing to keep in mind is
that it is one of the more violent and sexy
(22:40):
books by William Gibson. So um, you know it's it's
kind of edgy and not for you know, every reader. Um.
Though each each William Gibson book after this kind of
gets a little tamer and a little more contemplative, um
and actually a little less sci fi like the last
two books that that Gibson has put out. I think
there were Pattern Recognition and Spook Country, right, Yeah, like
(23:03):
those are both set just in the modern world for
the most part. It's really interesting. Yeah. And Gibson's even
even said that that he basically doesn't have to write
sci fi anymore because the technology has reached the has
reached the point where it's you know, the future is
now movies. Um. It seems inevitable. Yeah, that they've they've
(23:24):
continued to be talking about a neuromancwer film. Um. I
I don't have a lot of faith in it. Whatever
they put together, um, and inevitably, whatever they put out.
People are going to be like, oh, this is just
like this is a matrix trip off man. So so
let's get to the third book on our list today,
which is Ender's Game by Orson Scott Carts. Yeah, this
(23:45):
book had me at the first line, I can hardly
wait to go back to my desk and read it
and then podcast research. Okay, so the line is I've
watched through his eyes, I've listened through his ears, and
I tell you he's the one. How can you not
be intrigued to find out what the heck this book
is about. Yeah, it's similar to to Doing in that respect,
which also dealt with the one. And that's the beginning
(24:05):
of Enders Game. So Enders Game is published in like
we said, by Orson Scott Card and it was the
first in the Enders Game series. So the plot basically,
every parent likes to think because or her child is
a genius, myself included, but Ender Wiggins actually is. And
that's good because humanity is hanging by a shred, as
it tends to in science fiction, and it's hanging by
(24:26):
shred because it has had these attacks from aliens called
buggers and enders the world government's hope and as such,
the government starts ruthlessly training him to save the planet,
and the training takes the form of the game's reference
in the title, Did I do that Justice Robert? Yeah, Yeah,
pretty much. I mean it's really the idea is that
that aliens attack and the only reason that we were
able to survive is because we had one guy who
(24:49):
was just an amazing leader, like one guy that just
stood above everybody else. And then then everybody starts wondering, well,
these guys are gonna attack again, and who's gonna lead us?
You know when that happens. So, yeah, they begin this
just systematic search that I think he made the comparison
to the search for the Next Dolly. It's kind of
like that, except the world of science fiction. So while
(25:11):
I was reading up on enders game, I came across
or Sin Scott Cards Amazon review turns out he was
a playwright to Oh yeah yeah, so Card rights in
the end, a storyteller tells the tale that he believes
in and cares about, and the natural audience consists of
those readers who are also willing to believe in and
care about that jail. So Card is actually a bit
on the defensive here because he's taken a lot of
(25:31):
flak as your wont to do on Amazon reviews. Um,
some for his choppy prose style. I guess, um, Yeah,
I mean I can't really get on the on boat
with the with slamming him for for his writing. I mean,
I I really enjoy his work. But but yeah, he's
come under sharp criticism for a number of things. Yeah.
(25:52):
So he had this pretty funny quote at the end
of his lengthy Amazon review and he says, if America
can forgive Bill Clinton, surely there's room for a bit
of forgiveness for the imperfections of a few bad writers
now and then we'll see. And I wouldn't necessarily call
him a bad writer. And you have to read the
whole review to get the context. But I thought that
was a funny yeah, to say, yeah, well this, I mean,
(26:13):
certainly this want to you know, Hugo Award and a
Nebula Awardia and actually the sequel one. I believe the
next year. I want a Hugo Award as well. But yeah,
it deals with some some pretty weighty issues. You know,
how about our future in the cosmos? How would how
would might we respond to some sort of alien attack? Um?
(26:34):
And I know it's a fantastic notion, but when you
when you talk to a cosmologist like that's that's really
an issue, Like Stephen Hawkings talks about this, you know,
how you know, if there is alien life out there,
how's it going to how are we going to attempt
to communicate with it? How can we possibly um, you know,
deal with it? And if it's anything like us, then
God help us, you know, because it's probably gonna eradicate it.
(26:56):
And there's also some cool stuff with with with with
time as well, the the the world leader that everyone
is afraid, you know, what are we gonna do when
he's dad? They go so far as to put him
in a spaceship and spend it scent it at high speeds,
and the time dilation allows him to live much longer
than he normally would, so he's still there to to
(27:18):
teach whoever the chosen one is when they come along.
So it's more Lord of the Flies than Harry Potter. Definitely. Yeah.
And that's the only like the only thing about it
that I could, you know, the only reservation I would
have in recommending it to some people might be you've
got to be ready for some pretty pretty heart wrenching
scenes because endure is you know, it doesn't indur just
(27:38):
has a rough time. But it's a it's a it's
a great read. And I would definitely recommend this one
to to any female book readers out there who well,
because and this is this is a there's a large
generalization on one hand that uh that women prefer more
character driven books, and certainly this is yeah, and this
is and this is very character driven. Side I um,
(28:00):
you know, because you really care about Ender and you
really want, um want things to work out for him. Um,
And on like a personal level, I have I know
a number of I have a number of female friends
who love this book to death, And then I love
this book to death too. If you're a guy out
there and you're like, well, I don't want to read
a book that girls like or whatever, then um, I
would highly recommend um Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan
(28:24):
because that is the most violent, um and brutal and
outrageous sci fi book that I think you could hope
to read. And it has a lot of cool science
fiction in it, but it's very much a guy's book.
So let's talk about a couple of other great science
fiction authors that you may want to check out. Besides Gibson,
Herbert and orson stop card, there's of course Isaac Asimov,
(28:45):
I Robot, Arthur C. Clark, whom you already mentioned, and
then Philip Kate, Dick Ray Bradberry, and then there's u Ursula,
Kay Lagoon question Mark and I think that's how you
pronounced that. Correct me if I'm wrong, And and there
there's a whole list of other authors. I'm sure we're
leaving some off the list and you're going to be
furious about it, and by all means, let us know,
(29:06):
because I'm always interested to hear who everyone's favorite authors
are and uh and who indeed I should be reading.
And I'm excited to start delving into science fiction more. Yeah,
which one do you think you're gonna pick up? Ender's Game?
Absolutely cool? Yeah, I think you'll do that one. I
wonder if I can get away with reading my desk
in the name of the podcast. Yeah, totally. You should
like buy a copy. This is part of my job
(29:26):
as science editor, after all, don't you think so? If
you want to learn a little bit more about science fiction,
type in science fiction on the search bar on our
homepage and you might get some cool articles like science
fiction musicals and how sci fi doesn't work, or even
top five sides Born Superpowers. And now we have a
little listener mail Yeah, break up in the mail bag.
(29:52):
We had to uh folks right in about the Virtues
of venom podcast we recently did, and one of whom
was Mike. He works at a university lab in he's
working with venomous snails that live in the ocean and
hunt fish, mollusks, worms, and other snails. And Mike writes
that they're doing basic level research trying to develop drugs
for neurological disorders, and he points out the cone snail
(30:13):
as one of the venomous creatures that we might have
been interested, and he sent us a pretty cool video
of a cone snail eating a fish. Oh wow, I'm
gonna watch that when I get back to my desk
and a half lunch. In fact, there's a whole cone
snail channel on YouTube in case you're not Yeah, so
check that out. I'm gonna subscribe to that. We also
heard from Jack who wanted to drop us a line
(30:34):
from the Home of the Terrifying venomous Platypus and Jack
writes that he grew up in North Queensland, Australia, near
the James Cook University, which is at one of the
leading universities and marine stinger jellyfish research. Jack writes, in
regard to the panny host comments, in case you guys
don't remember, we talked about people wearing panty hose to
protect themselves from being stung by a jellyfish. So Jack rites,
(30:55):
in regards to the panny host comments, while you joke
about it, it is kind of true. In the battle
day is surf life, savers and even members of the
public used to wear a penny hose on their legs
and cut the gusset out of a second pair to
make a kind of penny hose top. I think it's
the thing at the top of the penny hose. I'm
not sure. There might be an awesome thing. I don't know.
(31:16):
It could be an awesome thing to um Jack rights.
These days, several companies have started producing what are known
as stinger suits, essentially a land nylon body suit, and
you can find these if you do a little Google
image searching. So you go to Australia, you just wear
this thing all the time, right you go to Australia,
you get one of these teletubby wetsuit things right at
the airport. Just yeah, just as if you're right into
(31:37):
it and you get off the plane. Well, that's that's
really cool, cool to know. Yeah, Australia, Land of venomous Creatures.
Jack also alerted us to a venomous creature that we
didn't mention, the stone fish. You should check it out.
Maybe you should write a blog about us, stone fish.
So thanks for writing us, guys. You know, feel free
to shoot us, shoot some feedback or some little tidbits anytimes.
(31:59):
We live here in Femia, so send us an email
that science stuff at how stuff works dot com. Oh,
and this is new. You can check us out now
on Facebook and Twitter. Um. On Twitter we are lab
stuff and uh on Facebook, we're a stuff in the
science lab. Look us up, you know, become fans of us,
follow us. Uh, we're gonna be updating those on a
regular basis. Thanks for listening, guys for more on this
(32:28):
and thousands of other topics because at how stuff works
dot com. Want more how stuff works, check out our
blogs on the house stuff works dot com home page
Stuff To Blow Your Mind News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Lamb
Joe McCormick
Popular Podcasts
United States of Kennedy
United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com