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Stumble Findings: 19 of the Greatest Science Fiction Book Series

Along with Fantasy, Science Fiction is one of my all-time favorite genres. Maybe it's the badass future technology, or the wide-arching storylines that can span millenia. Or maybe its the fact that the future, by its nature, cannot be known, so the creators of sci-fi works essentially have a no-rules sandbox in which to do their world-building. 


It is difficult to describe why Science Fiction gives me such a sense of exhilaration and awe, but Tim at PopCrunch's description does a noble job of doing just that:


"Science Fiction writers—much like their cousins over in Fantasy—are renowned for being able write volume upon volume of prose, great tracts of novels, seemingly without end. Often these tomes are filled with nothing so much as overly lengthy location descriptions and predictable plots. However, some of the true greats of Science Fiction have surpassed the limits of the form, and created vast inter-twined plots set across multiple novels, and multiple time periods."


Admittedly, I have not read a few of the series on this list (to my shame, Asimov's Foundation Series is amongst them) but I will definitely sink my teeth into all of them, and many more, before I kick the bucket. 


And, without further ado, here is Tim's list of the 19 Greatest Science Fiction Book Series.




Enjoy!

Legitimate Thoughts: Space Opera, Afterall

Howdy buckaroos (and buckarettes)! For those of you wishing for a life of swash-buckling adventure on the high seas of space, you're in luck! After years of being told by skeptics that our planet is the habitable exception to a cold and barren rule, scientists from the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC) and the Carnegie Institute of Washington have discovered the first potentially inhabitable world outside our solar system. 

Granted, this isn't the first extra-solar planet found, but it is the first to be right smack in the middle of its sun's Goldilocks zone--the crucial orbit no too far or close to the sun where water can exist in its liquid form. And if there’s something you must know about water, it’s that it is necessary for just about everything needed to support life.

You see, we here on earth take water for granted. It's everywhere. It's in our air, our oceans, and on the floors of subway stops and public restrooms everywhere (urine is 80%+ water). So it's understandable that we don't grasp just how stacked the odds were against us having liquid water. Indeed, just a bit closer or farther in our orbit and the Big Blue would either be a frozen wasteland like Siberia or a barren desert like Death Valley, respectively. 

Of course, don't go wanking off to Avatar (again) just yet. Just because it's in the Goldilocks zone doesn't mean it has life, it just means it has the potential for it. All of you budding space cowboys and cowgirls out there can still dream, but it is also highly unlikely that the technology to reach this glorious Earth 2.0 will exist in our lifetime (it is a wopping 20 light-years away).

So much for your career as a bounty hunter..

This will never be you. 

Still, if this planet is in fact habitable then even if we ourselves are unable to warp drive our way over, we can at least settle one debate that has been raging in the media ever since hippies first started digging holes in the ground and going to town: There is a Plan B.

So yes! we can in fact pillage and rape our planet for years to come, because once it’s spent, we’ll have a perfectly good new one to pillage and rape all over again.

Cheers,

Touch

Short Story: For a Breath I Tarry, by Roger Zelazny

"

"They called him Frost. Of all things created of Solcom, Frost was the finest, the mightiest, the most difficult to understand. This is why he bore a name, and why he was given dominion over half the Earth."

For those of you unfortunate enough to not be acquainted with this literary giant, Roger Zelazny was one of the best science fiction writers of all time. His magnum opus, arguably, is the Chronicles of Amber series, as well as the novel Lord of Light. 

If these bodies of work seem a bit too meaty for first time readers, however, then you are in luck! One of the gems I have found over the years is his story--actually a novelette-- "For a Breath I Tarry. I must say, this novelette had a more profound emotional effect on me than most of the full length novels I have read, an effect which has scarcely lessened with each rereading.

The premise is that man has destroyed himself in some unnamed conflict, but the machines he built to serve him are still trying to fulfill their duties to their deceased creators. One of these, Frost, is different from the other machines.

"He was a processor of data, and more than that.
He possessed an unaccountably acute imperative that he function at full capacity at all times.
So he did.
You might say he was a machine with a hobby.
He had never been ordered _not_ to have a hobby, so he had one.
His hobby was Man."

You can read the ENTIRE story here: Full Text

I promise you, it is well worth the 15 minutes it takes to read!

Stumble Findings: Colonizing the Universe--With Nuclear Bombs

"Of all the dreams of the golden years of the 20th century, in which flying cars would be be crossing the skies of technologic utopias, one of them actually had serious chances of becoming reality exactly as imagined in cheap sci-fi comics. Shortly after stepping on the Moon, we would be colonizing Mars, visiting Saturn and the satellites of Jupiter, all in gigantic spaceships hundreds of meters long, with thousands of tons and hundreds of astrounauts. Huge permanent colonies would be established in other planets and even Alpha Centauri would be at our reach.

It would all be possible through one project: Orion."

Wow.

Check this shit out.

:D Good, interesting, awesome article.

P.S. paper is not done yet. :'(

-Nero Thanes