have I told you that the medicine is working but my smilies still aren't?

sci-fi group? What a very good idea. An excellent way of taking "normality" and giving it a sideways perspective.

Anyone read Colin Wilson's Spider World series? Any fans of Orson Scott Card's Wyrms?

Er, obviously these are not very good examples of normality looked at in any direction - ;> damn these smilies!

Bill

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Just a minute - :} yes I do believe :{ by George I think I've got it :|

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@*|\..$£%@@@@******splart!

lol, well funny, Bill!

We did actually have a sci fi group for a while but it didn't get much response. Still, that was quite a while ago. I've opened a new sci-fi group up, so let's hope it fills up this time!

Excellent news David, should be a fun place.

Ste
x

Thanks Steve, glad you like the title. Be interested to hear what you think, and I'm really open for criticism, so get stuck in.

I really like sci-fi that brings out the wierdness of things that are happening now, as well as near future dystopias. Have you read Margaret Attwood's Oryx and Crake? Have to admit I found that a little slow. Love her Handmaid's Tale though.

Come on Colin, join up and let's see your 20000 words. Please join. Please. Pretty please.
Sharon

Hi Sharon,

will take a good read and absord it all, in a pure sci-fi kind of way, and tell you what I think. You've hit the nail on the head with the near future dystopias, that's exactly the kind of sci-fi I like. I really like Philip K. Dick's books. They're just weird enough for me.

I've never read Oryx and Crake, try saying that title when you've had a drink!

Yeah Colin, knock our futuristic socks off. Will they even have socks in the future?
Invisible socks, now there's an idea!

Ste
x

I forgot to say, Steve, the residential course I was thinking of is run by the Arvon foundation. You go to Devon for a week and do writng exercises and get to bore a couple of published authors stupid. There is a sci-fi one; the tutors are Chrisopher Priest and someone else whose name I can't recall, or there's an editing one with Maggie Gee and Julia Bell. Still considering the idea at present. Obviously you can't ask them to read much of your work, but I thought I might be able to get a little advice.
Sharon

Sharon, that sounds like a good course. Great to boost up your confidence and writing. The sci-fi one might be really good. Keep me posted on how it develops.

Ste
x

Hi Milou, what sci-fi authors do you admire? I like Philip K. Dick, Harry Harrison, Richard Matheson Isaac Asimov, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, and George Orwell's 1984. Ste x

Hi Ste,

I love Iain M. Banks - his novels manage to have a huge imaginative scope and be very exciting to read. Phillip K. Dick is great, and I love the old favourites like Ray Bradbury, Huxley and so on. But my favourite sci-fi author would have to be John Wyndam. The Triffids is probably the book I've read most times in my life!


milou

Chocky was also rather freaky I thought. The TV series and the book both gave me nightmares as a kid!

JB

Hi Milou,

I've never raid any Iain M. Banks, what kind of sci-fi does he write? Is he the author that has those minimal cover designs with weird shapes and stuff? lol
Ray Bradbury is just too good, he's still churning them out, keeps on getting better. He's like some kind of fine wine!

John Wyndham, I've got Day Of The Triffids, I'll have to read it. I still haven't seen the Freddie Francis film version. One book of Wyndham's, it may be his last, Web, I'd like to read that one. Set on an island or something and spiders decide to take over. Wicked idea.
I read a scary short story by Wyndham ages ago about a man who starts a snail hobby and they slowly take over his life, as well as his house!

Ste
x

I'd definately recommend Iain M. Banks. He puts the M in the name for his sci fi books - Iain Banks books are not sci fi. (Although they're good too!)

He writes about a future society called The Culture, which is spread accross the galaxy. It's a very technologically advanced society - for example, some of the characters in the books are Minds - super intellegent computers in the form of spaceships. The books are huge in scope, and very vivid.

I started with Excession - it's not the first in the series, but it stands alone, and I thought it was brilliant. Consider Phlebas is also a good one to start with.

Are there any other fans of TJ Bass out there? He wrote The Godwhale and Half Past Human. Set in the future where humanity has moved underground to live in Hives. The Godwhale starts with our hero cut in half and his life preserved for future generations to cure:

"Hypertonics dehydrated his tissues and he slipped into cryotherapy torpor."

I really like Bass's use of language, both technical and "medical" (he was a dentist) which give his work a wonderful texture.

Bill