Kevin's Watch

Sometimes its interesting to just go back to basics. I just finished Asimov's I Robot (the movie is a complete deviation from the spirit of the short story collection) reread. I think that its refreshing to look at his interpretation of the future. So many times these days robots are out of control, killers, deviants. He looked at the development of robotics with an optimistic point of view. He was so clever in his three laws. What a genius to have written this in the mid fifties. It still holds up except for things like "reels of tape and feeding the computer punch cards" I also remember in his book Caves of Steel how humans had developed to abhor personal contact, preferring to communicate via tv screens. How prophetic.

I wonder what he would have thought about todays robot stories/movies. ie terminator.

Not to nitpick or anything, but it was totally The Naked Sun where humans abhored personal contact

But the classics are always the best. What I liked about Asimov and the like is that the protagonists weren't a bunch of bumbling idiots like you see in a lot of sci-fi/horror films these days.

i thought it was both. it was a series - detective series. Maybe I'm wrong. I had a crush on Daneel Steel, he was a robot detective. (I always could pick the unavailable men )

I seem to recall Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 also predicted a future where households had wall-sized TV screens, and people plugged themselves into their own entertainment devices. I only read the book once way back in school, so I'm not sure.

lorin wrote: I wonder what [Asimov] would have thought about todays robot stories/movies. ie terminator.

I wish someone had asked Arthur C. Clarke that question as well. Maybe someone has and I just haven't come across his answer. I'm just thinking that no other sf author (save Asimov) had been more associated with the subject of intelligent machines than Clarke.

Fahrenheit has huge "wall screens" - sokmetimes on more than 1 wall, so you get the feeling of being surrounded. On them they just show meaningless and unsubstantial soap like dialogues, allowing the viewers to participate.

The people also laways had "sea-shells" in their ears exposing them to easy listening muzak.

When I read it with my year 12 studnts last year I once again discovered that the vision of a world where no one is reading books, everyone always has ear phones on and is watching crap on TV does not come across as a dystopia anymore. It's already everyday life.

Vader wrote:When I read it with my year 12 studnts last year I once again discovered that the vision of a world where no one is reading books, everyone always has ear phones on and is watching crap on TV does not come across as a dystopia anymore. It's already everyday life.

...not to mention the government targeting an unsuspecting individual/group and claiming they found "the enemy of the state" as they parade them in front of the gullible public...

...oops, did I say that?

Menolly wrote:

Vader wrote:When I read it with my year 12 studnts last year I once again discovered that the vision of a world where no one is reading books, everyone always has ear phones on and is watching crap on TV does not come across as a dystopia anymore. It's already everyday life.

...not to mention the government targeting an unsuspecting individual/group and claiming they found "the enemy of the state" as they parade them in front of the gullible public...

...oops, did I say that?

Right on, Menolly.

That scenario brings me back to Orwell's 1984, the single most chilling book about the future I've ever read.

if Bradbury, Clarke and Asimov so correctly prophesied todays future, in 30 years which of todays authors will we look back on and say he or she so correctly predicted tomorrows future?

Ok, that's a little convoluted but you get my drift.

lorin wrote:if Bradbury, Clarke and Asimov so correctly prophesied todays future, in 30 years which of todays authors will we look back on and say he or she so correctly predicted tomorrows future?

Ok, that's a little convoluted but you get my drift.

Michael Moore


(just kidding)

matrixman wrote:

Menolly wrote:

Vader wrote:When I read it with my year 12 studnts last year I once again discovered that the vision of a world where no one is reading books, everyone always has ear phones on and is watching crap on TV does not come across as a dystopia anymore. It's already everyday life.

...not to mention the government targeting an unsuspecting individual/group and claiming they found "the enemy of the state" as they parade them in front of the gullible public...

...oops, did I say that?

Right on, Menolly.

That scenario brings me back to Orwell's 1984, the single most chilling book about the future I've ever read.

For me, the scene in Fahrenheit 451 where the helicopters track down and kill the innocent man out walking his dog, and claiming that was Montag, to depict a successful "hunt" of a "threat to the state" is what represents the scenario I described, even more than Nineteen-eightyfour. Absolutely chilled me to the bone, even though Montag was then able to slip underground relatively safely after that. But I was around 12 years old when I read it, and relatively unaware of such things going on in the world...

Bradbury had a babysitting holograph so big and real (in the short story The Vild) that it ate the kids!

"That scenario brings me back to Orwell's 1984, the single most chilling book about the future I've ever read.[/quote]"


Orwell was a visionary, he completely understood the relationship between power and human nature, and also forsaw the 'War on Terror' which is a complete nonsense.

lorin wrote:if Bradbury, Clarke and Asimov so correctly prophesied todays future, in 30 years which of todays authors will we look back on and say he or she so correctly predicted tomorrows future?

Ok, that's a little convoluted but you get my drift.

Tad Williams.

William Gibson, Walter Jon Williams, Tony Daniel