Tim Pratt recently won the 2007 Hugo Award for best short story with Impossible Dreams. The story’s main character, Pete, is a huge movie buff that stumbles across a new video store in his neighborhood. He doesn’t seem to understand how he missed the store before, but ventures in and finds an odd selection of movies which he though had been canceled, or made by different directors with different actors. What follows is an interesting commentary on movies which either were never made, were lost, or simply done differently. This is a truly awesome story with an excellently planned ending. It was a pleasure to read from start to finish. From the writing it either the author is a huge movie buff or his writing is so good that you’d never even suggest he wasn’t passionate about movies. Visit the link above and read the full story at Asimov’s Science Fiction.
Impossible Dreams by Tim Pratt
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The Stars, Like Dust by Isaac AsimovThe Stars, Like Dust by Isaac Asimov
Timeline discussion:
Here are a couple quotes — “Atomic warfare had done its worst to Earth. Most of it was hopelessly radioactive and useless.” and “The radioactivity of the soil was a vast sea of iridescent blue, sparkling in strange festoons that spelled out the manner in which the nuclear bombs had once landed, a full generation before the force-field defense against nuclear explosions had been developed, so that no other world could commit suicide in just that fashion again.” — The Stars, Like Dust (more…)
Humans to become immortal cyborgs within 20 years?Humans to become immortal cyborgs within 20 years?
About a year an a half ago, I reviewed The Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray Kurzweil. I never did get around to reading his slightly newer book, The Singularity is Near. I just ran across an article that quotes him as saying
I and many other scientists now believe that in around 20 years we will have the means to reprogram our bodies’ stone-age software so we can halt, then reverse, aging. Then nanotechnology will let us live for ever.
He goes on to describe a number of medical advancements that seem unbelievable. He doesn’t really expand on how many people, or rather WHO will have access to this technology. We can’t very well have billions of immortal cyborgs running around for eternity, now can we? I think that those denied immortality, or at least extended life-spans, would wage war against those that would keep the technology for themselves.
Credit: Telegraph via Geekologie
Note: For those of you not familiar with Geekolgie, be sure to check that blog out. I added it to my newsreader about 2 months ago and it keeps me entertained every day!
Daneel Olivaw, Guardian of HumanityDaneel Olivaw, Guardian of Humanity
R. Daneel Olivaw is my favorite character from the Robot and Foundation Universe created by Isaac Asimov. The R stands for “Robot,” but he became much more than that over the course of the Robot and Foundation series. Hari Seldon from the Foundation Novels ranks a close second, but my heart goes to Daneel and the Three Laws of Robotics. I’m amazed at how many twists can be made based on three relatively simple rules of behavior. Daneel starts as one of the first humaniform robots, but eventually evolves into much more complex being.
The following discussion is filled with spoilers for the entire Robot and Foundation series, so read it with that in mind. (more…)