7 posts tagged “sf”
Books: Show us the longest book you've ever read. (All the way through.)
Well, let's say the longest story. In which case maybe:
The Baroque Cycle
or
The Night's Dawn Trilogy
This weekend I have managed to mingle with two distinctly different sets of people. On Saturday I went to the PicoCon SF convention at Imperial college London, on Sunday I went to a Point-to-Point race in the country.
PicoCon consisted of:
- Students
- People wearing black
- Geeky/"witty"/metal T-Shirts
- Old people with long hair
- SF authors
- People smashing rubbish SF merchandise
Point-to-Point consisted of:
- Tweed/Barbour jackets
- Leather wide brimmed hats
- Flat caps
- Black labradors
- Bookmakers
- Young men and women who looked like they should be playing polo
- Jockeys
- A pack of hunting dogs
There seems to be a load of top 10 SF film lists going around at the moment. So here's a personal list of The Top 10 SF films that I haven't seen. The list to choose from seems to be getting longer rapidly as I get worse at actually getting to the cinema. I used to see everything that came out, not just SF, now I'm lucky to see 3 films a year. Oh well.
- Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind - Got it on DVD for Christmas, still waiting for a quiet evening when I'm not tired (which is not very often due to getting up early to write every day).
- 12 Monkeys - Missed it, keep missing it. Film 4 please show it.
- Gattaca - Seen half of it at a friend's house when DVD's were new, then had to leave. Now on my Amazon wishlist.
- The Prestige - I was very excited about it, and then never got to see it. Waiting for the DVD.
- Brazil - Saw some of it when I was younger, didn't like it, would probably like it now.
- Donnie Darko - Have it on DVD, see (1).
- Invasion Of The Body Snatchers - Seen a cheap/rubbish remake, haven't seen the original. Once again, Film 4, please oblige.
- Solaris - The original. I liked the Clooney remake.
- When Worlds Collide - just never seen it.
- Gojira/Godzilla - never seen the original, although seen lots of clips of Godzilla fighting giant Moths etc.
In which fictional world/universe/land/city would you most like to live?
Submitted by glenn is the new chuck.
The Culture (by Iain Banks). I'd find a nice out of the way orbital and kick back in style.
A great post by M John Harrison about how he writes...
Writing should be fun--absorbing, transporting, intense, whatever. It should ambush you. It should be up there with sex, drugs and irresponsible driving. It shouldn’t have anything to do with research or require a degree in finding out about lipstick colours in 1943.
I watched Pitch Black last night on Film Four. I remember it as having a good start but a poor ending. However it surprised me last night. Although the over-exposed first half, with mysteries, a silent Vin Diesel and a cool Claudia Black is far superior to the last half, it's not that bad.
Take out the stupid Vin Diesel comments and it would be even better.
Entertaining.
From the You May Be a Sci-fi Writer test in SCI FI Weekly, I score 50. Which means, apparently, I could be Kim Stanley Robinson. Which is nice.
This despite the fact that I have a PhD in particle physics and have probably forgotten more physics than most people ever learn. Consequently hard-sf isn't the SF I like the best. Burn out!
