Cyberspatialniche

It’s EXTREMELY unusual to find a satisfying blend of science fiction and pop cinema these days, but Pitch Black is a film that could stand up in either category. Set around a classic crash-landing, survival plot, Pitch Black mixes elements of horror, suspense, and even moral redemption into 90 minutes of frenetic fun. From the beginning, this movie shocks you into it’s universe of morally challenged characters by an outstanding crash-landing sequence that stands alone in all sci-fi films. Once landed, the plot and universe only thickens with new dangers (both within and without) and new scenic wonders.

The use of color in this film is also remarkable as the director tries to accurately depict a desolate world with three suns of varying color. I can’t think of any other movie (including Star Wars) that convincingly depicts an alien world so well. This realism adds a sense of strangeness that amplifies the running fear of new dangers and situations ahead.

If there is any other film that Pitch Black could be compared with, it would have to be Ridley Scott’s masterpiece Alien. Since that films release in 1979, no other film has come close to realizing the terror or suspense that Scott yielded so aptly – except Pitch Black. Though still not quite up to the level of Ridley Scott, Pitch Black will both challenge and entertain you, and will leave you in fear of running out of light.

Having recently finished Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, I decided to continue in exploring this innovative author of cyber-punk science fiction. Where Snow Crash explored the ramifications of virtual, distributed reality and an overly franchised political landscape, The Diamond Age seeks to explore how nanotechnology will shape the ability of humanity to redefine society.

The basic premise is this – a poor, young girl comes into ownership of an interactive primer that changes her life in many ways. Stephenson follows in the tradition of Dickens and Gibson, weaving an interesting tale of technology and society and how the two interact. Set in a future where nations have been replaced by “philes” of similarly-minded people, The Diamond Age both challenges the reader to ponder technology’s implications and project himself into the moral situations faced by the characters. How far would you go to make your children’s future better? How much would you give up to see another go farther?

Stephenson stands out right now for realistically painting the effect of technology on society. What’s even scarier is how soon such technology might be commonplace, and how sweeping the changes to society might be. Read it with an open mind, and don’t let the style hold you back from this or other works.

I’ve read quite a number of science fiction novels, but the Sparrow is only the second to masterfully blend religion and science to produce a morally compelling work. The Sparrow is essentially about the role of God in mankind’s destiny and that of another alien race, forcing the reader to ask himself what he believes and why he believes it. The novel is the story of the Jesuit missionary Emelio Sandoz and his journey to an alien world to spread the word of God and make contact with the alien race. This journey tests Sandoz’s beliefs by subjecting him to the apparent absence of God, forcing him to reasses his own beliefs for the worse. The Sparrow will both touch your hearts and test your beliefs, challenging you to ask yourself why God does what He does.

With so few good shows on today, it warms my heart for innovators like the Henson Creature Shop to be involved with creating some quality on television. And in spite of the Sci-Fi Channel’s unfortunate decision to canel MST3K (see last month), I applaud them for their faith in programming good science fiction like Farscape. Essentially, Farscape is the story of John Crichton, an astronaut scientist who’s propelled across the universe into an alien part of the galaxy. In this story, he is caught up with several escaped prisoner aliens travelling together in the living ship Moya on the run from some human-like military commander whose brother Crichton has killed accidentally. Confused yet? Farscape succeeds in drawing the viewer away from the human-centered, Star Trek-eque universe and transporting them into a totally alien universe. This approach was somewhat successful in Lost in Space and is even more so in Farscape. The masterful writing, combined with the top-notch CGI, and complimented with the all-together alien music make Farscape an adventure to not only follow but also support. Because in this age of soulless, crap-as-television Farscape is truly a diamond in the rough.

Most science fiction that you have read/seen/heard is wrong, or at least woefully underoptimistic! At least, that is what Ray Kurzweil believes, and his book The Age of Spiritual Machines will permanently alter your dreams of the future. And what sets this book apart from the myriad of futurist fantasy is Kurzweil’s credentials. This is the same Kurzweil that invented the swiss-army synthesizer, the K2000. This is also the same Kurzweil that invented the leading speech-to-text recognizer of today, the very recognizer to which he dictated the entire book. But what are Kurzweil’s predictions? Just a sample…in twenty years, virtual reality will be commonly used to augment day-to-day interactions…in thirty years, machine intelligence will be both ubiquitous and more advanced than human intelligence…and in a hundred years….well, man will have merged with his robotic creations. Whoa…that’s some revolutionary stuff! But those are only a few of the amazing benefits that technology can offer us. Read the book to discover the rest. And be prepared to question his view of reality, and whether or not it’s a reality you want to live in. The future may coming quickly, but it also has yet to be written.

There exists only a small subset of television shows that can accurately be classified as science fiction. Among those shows, only a select few can be compared against the majesty and imaginative depth of the great science fiction authors such as Asimov, Clarke, Herbert, and Niven. Babylon 5 is one of these shows, arguably the greatest science fiction show ever created. Throughout its five year arc, Babylon 5 evolved from a story about a space station to a sweeping epic about mankind’s fate among the stars. If you have a free hour each weekday, I strongly urge you to watch the reruns of Babylon 5 on Tuner Network Television (TNT). While these episodes run chronologically across about a five month period, you don’t have to wait until the arc starts again. Jump right in and fight to catch up with the myriad of subplots and themes. If you need help, just check out the numerous fan pages on the internet for summaries of the backstory.

This novel marks the first science fiction novel for Wilson, and what a remarkable novel it is! Starting out as a kind of alternate-history take on the early 20th century, Darwinia gradually delves into some profound concepts of reality and destiny. To say any more would give away too much, but be prepared for some interesting realizations that place this novel soundly in the science fiction genre.