The latest Cracked article, 5 Absurd Sci-Fi Scenarios Science Is Actually Working On is a gem you should read. Another one is 6 Absurd Movie Plots You Won’t Believe Are Based on Reality. Science fiction with foundations in science and the overlap with reality are reliable mind-blowers.
I have been getting serious about my love for Carl Sagan in the last year, reading the Pulitzer prize winner Dragons of Eden, his last book, Billions and Billions, and I just finished Broca’s Brain. The latter gets into science fiction writing, the good kind, like that of Arthur C. Clarke (who wrote 2001: A Space Odyssey), that of Jules Verne, Philip K. Dick and Isaac Asimov, among others.
The way Sagan wrote about science fiction, with so much passion, intellect, love and nostalgia for his beginnings in science through science fiction, got me interested in the genre. I finally got serious about this too, and bought Isaac Asimov’s Robot Series.
- “Misbegotten Missionary,” Isaac Asimov, 1950 (jennre.wordpress.com)
- Science Fiction: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly (girishkumar.me)
- Eyes change over time, thwarting iris scanners, research finds (theverge.com)
- The Stridency and Sensitivity of Carl Sagan (choiceindying.com)
Juliana Jimenez 
Super interesante. Me Parece muy bien traer a estos “dias”a Carl Sagan. Hay una serie de Tv de los annos 80’s muy buena, cuyo titulo era “COSMOS”.
Animo y mas logros compartidos!!! ROJC
Sí, “Cosmos” es lo máximo. Parece que la van a recrear con los adelantos que han habido desde entonces. Lo más complicado era encontrar un cientifico tan carismático y tan “tevegénico”como Sagan, aunque por ahí hay un par. Hay un montón de videos de él en Youtube que explican unas cosas súper complicadas y más chéveres… Cosas que se le entienden solo a él.
El libro que me compré de Asimov en el pulguero ese día está buenísimo!
(Hardcover) Arthur C. Clarke The Lost Worlds of 2001 Sidgwick & Jackson, Paperback, 1972. 12mo. 240 pp. Foreword by Arthur C. Clarke [p. 11]. First published in 1972. Contents Foreword 1. View of the Year 2000 2. Son of Dr. Strangelove 3. The Sentinel 4. Christmas, Shepperton 5. Monoliths and Manuscripts 6. The Dawn of Man 7. First Encounter 8. Moon-Watcher 9. Gift from the Stars 10. Farewell to Earth 11. The Birth of HAL 12. Man and Robot 13. From the Ocean, from the stars 14. With Open Hands 15. Universe 16. Ancestral Voices 17. The Question 18. Midnight, Washington 19. Mission to Jupiter 20. Flight Pay 21. Discovery 22. The Long Sleep 23. Runaway 24. First Man to Jupiter 25. The Smell of Death 26. Alone 27. Joveday 28. Jupiter V 29. Final Orbit 30. The Impossible Stars 31. Something Is Seriously Wrong with Space 32. Ball Game 33. Last Message 34. The Worlds of the Star Gate 35. Reunion 36. Abyss 37. Cosmopolis 38. Scrutiny 39. Skyrock 40. Oceana 41. Into the Night Land 42. Second Lesson Epilogue Note on the conntets. The book is a very curious mixture of fiction and non-fiction. Apart from the Foreword and the Epilogue, the conntets can be split as follows: – Chapters 1, 3, 7-10, 12-18, 20-33, 35-42 are fiction: leftovers, alternative versions, etc. that were supposed to be used in the writing of the novel but in the event were discarded. The only exception is the short story The Sentinel which was published as early as 1951. All other pieces apparently appear here for the first time. – Chapters 2, 4-6, 11, 19 and 34 are non-fiction. They mostly serve as links between the fictional parts. The early chapters are mostly concerned with the genesis of the novel and the movie in parallel. ========================================== If you have the same defect of character as I do, namely if Arthur Clarke’s classic science fiction novel (1968) is among the greatest experiences of your young adulthood, you should certainly read this book. First published in 1972, that is when the events were still fresh, The Lost Worlds of 2001 is a detailed account of the strange working relationship between Arthur Clarke and Stanley Kubrick during the 1960s which produced a novel and a movie that have become absolute classics; curiously enough, both were born during the same time and the adaptation for the screen was actually released first, whereas the novel appeared a little later on the same year. I daresay this book might be quite boring for those movie fans who don’t care for Arthur Clarke or his novel, but it sure makes an engrossing read for those who do the opposite. It contains lots of compelling and illuminating details about the origins of at least one masterpiece. Since there is in this book quite a bit about the movie, I have to make something clear in the beginning: the extravagant praise usually accorded to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey I have always found frightfully perplexing. Now, I wish there was other say to say it, but there isn’t: the movie is perfect crap! What exactly its classical status rests upon is an absolute mystery for me. It is a visual tour de force all right, but that’s just about the only asset it might possibly have; except perhaps that some of its music is among the greatest ever composed; if, indeed, the movie has brought to more receptive ears the famous opening of Richard Strauss’ magnificent tone poem Also Sprach Zarathustra, that’s something; actually, this opening is famous more because of this movie than because of anything else, I think. As for the visual side, it is not nearly as impressive today as it must have been in 1968, of course, but it has aged surprisingly well. So much for the good sides though. For otherwise the movie is one failure after another. To begin with, a good many people have complained that when they saw it before the book, they didn’t understand the ending at all only later did the novel make it clear. This is as expected for the ending is an incomprehensible mess. What’s worse, the pace is appallingly slow imagine a spaceship landing that lasts for full ten minutes, during which you can appreciate Strauss’ famous waltz An der schf6nen blauen Donau, another musical masterpiece from the soundtrack; but even the greatest music cannot make the scene less tedious. The whole cast is downright horrible. Keir Dullea is as dull as a Dave Bowman as one could