Science Fiction Fans- Don't Miss "Caprica"

[manxman]

This suggestion is not necessary for the viewers of the "Battlestar Gallactica" series that just ended last year on the Sci-Fi Channel- you all know it as one of the best series ever broadcast. The new series "Caprica" is a "prequel" and my bet is that it will be another great Sci-Fi series.

Also, don't miss "The Plan" coming in the next week or so also on Sci-Fi Channel- this was a great sequel that tied up all of the secrets of the original 5-year series. I bought the DVD, and was glad that I did because of all of the extra features on the disc.

WHAT?? manxman talking about Science Fiction? I've been a member of the Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Association since 1976.:D

[EXWRX]

Wow! Totally didn't expect this post from you! I have the DVD of Caprica. I'm not looking forward to it was much as I did BSG, but it does look like it has potential.

[manxman]

I'm not as "mundane" as you might suppose!

[EXWRX]

Have you seen Firefly? sci fi western that went one season, and then had a movie. If not, I'll bring my copy to the meet.

[manxman]

Oh yes, I saw it in its first run. I really liked it, and hated to see it go away. It was weird, though, to see anachronisms like Winchester Lever-Action Carbines being carried by guys on space ships. The actor who played the Captain/ship owner has been in a lot of other TV roles, but Firefly was the last time that I have seen Ron Glass, made famous by his role on "Barney Miller", (the black character) in any role on TV or movies.

Count on it, if it is GOOD quality Sci-Fi, I have read the book, seen the movie, or have watched every TV episode. Same with fantasy and horror. Too bad the good horror books get garbage representation as movies. Unfortunately, I will miss "Avatar" in the theaters. Our male wolf, Dirty Harry, is slowly on his way out of this world. He is so old and weak that someone has to stay at home to help him when he can't get up. So, I will see "Avatar" when it comes out on DVD. Don't know what they will do about the 3-D effects for home theater viewers.

In the '70s, I belonged to a literary discussion group made up of UCLA and Cal-Tech post-grad students- the L.A. County Mythopoeic Society. To be eligible for membership, you had to at least be a fan of Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy. I had been collecting Sci-Fi and horror books since the early '60s, and my tastes were a lot harder-edged than Tolkein. I actually went to several Star Trek conventions with some of these people, and shook hands with Shatner and all of the original cast . And played "Dungeons and Dragons" before computer games ever existed- we played with dice,to build characters and get into/out of different scenarios. All of which makes me sound like some resurrected 4000 year-old mummy.

[EXWRX]

I never went to any of the Conventions, but I have been a sci fi/fantasy fan since I can remember. I started out on Narnia, graduated to Tolkien, and then to everything I could get my hands on.
Some notable books
Flight of the Dragonfly by Robert L. Forward was good, hard science fiction. The sequels took a good thing way too far. He also wrote a book on life existing on the surface of a Neutron Star (called Dragon's Egg)
Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove was a book about South Africans getting ahold of a time machine and sending several hundred thousand AK-47's back to the South in the Civil War.
Armor by John Steakley is a book that I've read repeatedly about a war against 8 foot tall insectoid aliens that are referred to as ants. Great action sequences and a much better read than how I'm describing it.

Also my friends and I made up a Role Playing game in Highschool and college. We actually produced 20-30 copies of our rulebooks, so technically, I'm a published author. :P

[manxman]

I never went to any of the Conventions, but I have been a sci fi/fantasy fan since I can remember. I started out on Narnia, graduated to Tolkien, and then to everything I could get my hands on.
Some notable books
Flight of the Dragonfly by Robert L. Forward was good, hard science fiction. The sequels took a good thing way too far. He also wrote a book on life existing on the surface of a Neutron Star (called Dragon's Egg)
Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove was a book about South Africans getting ahold of a time machine and sending several hundred thousand AK-47's back to the South in the Civil War.
Armor by John Steakley is a book that I've read repeatedly about a war against 8 foot tall insectoid aliens that are referred to as ants. Great action sequences and a much better read than how I'm describing it.

Also my friends and I made up a Role Playing game in Highschool and college. We actually produced 20-30 copies of our rulebooks, so technically, I'm a published author. :P
Well, Sci-Fi being as expansive as it is (now), you will no doubt forgive me for being unaware of the authors/books that you mentioned. I got started with Robert Heinlein and Harlan Ellison, and about 800 other authors. BTW, if you know Robert A. Heinlein ("Stranger in a Strange Land', "Puppet Masters", "Glory Road", "Waldo"), I'll bet that you didn't know that he wrote a lot of his books while a resident of Scotts Valley, CA. Your reference to the 8 foot ants sounds like "Glory Road". And talk about Sci-Fi authors who get way too carried away, read some of Philip Jose Farmer's stuff. That guy went absolutely CRAZY in his old age, but they published him anyway.

Also, hazardous operations in industry are done by mechanical "hands" that are operated by humans at a control console safely isolated at a remote location. Those mechanical "hands" and their controls are called "Waldos" after Heinlein's book, published in the early '60s.

A lot of the books and short stories in my library became episodes of "The Twilight Zone", "Night Gallery", and "The Outer Limits" TV series.

I have tried to avoid becoming the "Sid 6.7" of these forums, but it is nice to discuss weird fiction literature with someone UNLIKE another forum, whose members wouldn't recognize a real book if it flew off a table and smashed their face.

I read the books that became the series of movies that starred Anthony Hopkins as "Hannibal Lecter", and waited up to ten years to have the stories made into spectacular movies. The wait to see "Lord of the Rings" made into the spectacular trilogy was well worth the looonnnggg wait.

The lack of interest, and ability, in reading results in the illiteracy, and stupidity, that you see in some other forums. It's that illiteracy that makes my fuse so short on those forums. If you can't read, why are you posting your misspelled, no grammar bullshit on car forums?? Non-native English speakers are excused from my derision.

[EXWRX]

I tried to read Farmer, and just decided he wasn't for me. I cut my sci fi teeth on some old E.E. Doc Smith books my dad had in the study. I read the whole lensman series and it just snowballed from there.

[manxman]

Because of my similarity in age to your dad, I also collected some of the Doc Smith stories as a teenager, but found them to be a little silly and simplistic- like a comic book but without the art. Farmer's "Riverboat" series was among his best works, and even got made into a half decent TV movie. But his last few books seemed to indicate a severe mental illness- I don't even know if he's still alive.

For Sci-Fi and Horror fans, here's a short list of great authors:

Fred Saberhagen- "Book of Swords" series
Jack L. Chalker- "Well of Souls" series
Frank Herbert- "Dune" series, and dozens of other titles
Tim Powers- "The Stress Of Her Regard"
Dan Simmons (Sci-Fi & Horror)- "Carrion Comfort", "Song of Kali", "Fall of Hyperion" and dozens of others

Crime Fiction-
John Sandford- the "Prey" series
James Lee Burke- "In The Electric Mist with Confederate Dead" and at least a dozen more "Dave Robicheau"-New Orleans crime novels

I could list over 1000 titles, but if you are a reader, any and all of the above will take over your life until you finish the last page.

[EXWRX]

I read the book of Swords series, The first Dune book. I got bogged down in the second. I've read the prequels being done by Kevin Anderson and Frank Herbert's son. Nice plots and some great twists. I've read Dan Simmon's Hyperion series. I'll have to check out the other books on your list. That should keep me busy for a week or 10. :D I read all the time. If a customer puts me on hold at work and I'm not actively trying to figure out their issue, I open my book. I have skills at walking and reading simultaneously.

[manxman]

Yeah, the Dune series did kind of bog down in the middle book. I met Frank Herbert at a book signing, and got his signature on "White Plague". Also met Dan Simmons in San Jose and got him to sign several of his books/

I didn't mention Stephen King, Dean Koontz ("The Watchers"), and the team of
Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child "A Murder of Crows" and a dozen others.

Also, one of the best non-fiction books I have read in the last ten years was "Devil In The White City" about America's first mass murderer who operated in Chicago during the 1893 World's Fair. There are more fascinating historical facts in that novel than any that I can remember.

I neglected to mention King and Koontz because I figured that they go without saying in horror author discussions. If I am not driving or watching TV, I am reading. As a kid, we didn't have computers or video games, so when I was not building guns, bombs and rockets in my back yard, or working on cars after I turned 15, I was reading. I even had a library in the tree house that I built.

BTW, Fred Saberhagen wrote "The Berserkers" series of books that were real Sci-Fi, and better than the Swords fantasy stuff, and I am certain that the series concept was the basis for the Cylons in the later BSG series (not the old garbage BSG crap of 15-20 years ago).

[claymore]

As a kid I read the same Si-fi books as you but slowly got away from them in my later years. But it's great to see some of the stuff they predicted coming to be in our time like all the stuff with computers and sneding probes all over the universe.

I really like Sanford I have read all his books. I funny enough I am currently reading James Lee Burke's Heart wood but it's not set in New Orleans this time. Steven Leather, Lee Child, W.E.B. Griffin are at the top of my list and one could spend a year reading all the books in all the sections of Griffin.

The used bookstore guy local here loves to see me coming in as I normally trade in and get about 14-15 books a month.

[EXWRX]

I read many of Saberhagen's Berserker series. I think they were the inspiration for the Cylons, Terminators, and almost any machine that hates everything that lives.
Preston and Childs are a great writing duo. I just reread Riptide and I've read Thunderhead a time or two.
I also read Tom Clancy exhaustively. He's one of the authors that I will return to if I need something to read. His books take me a bit to get through and are well written and researched.
Non fiction, the last book I read that has stuck with me is Krakauer's Into Thin Air, about a disastrous Mt. Everest climb. Just reading about what oxygen deprivation does to your thought processes leaves me quite sure that I don't want to go there myself.

[manxman]

You guys make me glad that I started this thread! I expected a reaction from Jeff, also from claymore. Both of you would enjoy ANY of Nelson DeMille's dozen or so novels which are a combination of crime, military & espionage. Also, anything by Dale Brown- "Flight of the Old Dog" series about B-52's being turned into offensive giant fighter planes.

John, James Lee Burke grew up in New Orleans, but lives in Montana now. He has a series of novels set in the Bitteroot Valley with the main character of an ex-Texas Ranger turned attourney. Burke has such a smooth writing style and creates such vivid characters that he is a pleasure to read.

As I said, I could write here for a week solid listing authors and titles of spectacular books, but who needs my library listed on a car forum? I will, however, add to this thread periodically when I come across anything worth mentioning. You two and all other members are invited and encouraged to do the same.

For a combo of military fact and fiction written by people who did what they write about, Philip Caputo has a few well-written books about his experiences as a Marine, and Richard Marcinko writes about the origins and his experiences as a Navy SEAL- he also lambastes the U.S. Military for it's organizational ineptitude.

BTW, Dale Brown is the Tom Clancy of military aircraft-related fact-based fiction.

[EXWRX]

I honestly think we should create a book thread. The title of this one is pretty misleading. I mean talk about thread drift. This thread drifted in post #5 and hasn't come back yet. If you want to move our posts from then on, I think it would be more appropriate.

[manxman]

I honestly think we should create a book thread. The title of this one is pretty misleading. I mean talk about thread drift. This thread drifted in post #5 and hasn't come back yet. If you want to move our posts from then on, I think it would be more appropriate.
Thank you for creating that thread Jeff, but now we will need a separate thread for movies, and another one for TV shows. I forgive myself for diverting the "Caprica" thread to literature, because it received so many replies, and because people who are interested in good quality Sci-Fi movies (not slasher junk) are most likely to be readers.

But for future references to good books, I will reply to your brand new thread.

"A man who does not read good books is no better off than a man who CANNOT read good books": Mark Twain

"Golf is the perfect way to ruin a good walk": Mark Twain

[manxman]

Apparently I am the only member who watched the premier episode of "Caprica". I like it a lot- not the same grabber action of BSG, but it showed how the story of BSG got started, with the creation of the Cylons. I think that this series will be a close second to the quality and originality of BSG. Eric Stoltz and Esai Morales are two of my favorite modern actors, and both are well cast in their roles in this series. I will keep watching.

[EXWRX]

I checked out Caprica on hulu, and so far it looks like they're showing what I have on DVD. If it started out in a super extreme rave club sorta thingie, than it's what I've already seen. If not, then I'll need to play catchup.

[manxman]

Yep- that's it. But if you liked it, you'll have to play catch up with the rest of the series. Your DVD was the first 2 hour episode. The rest will be weekly 1 hour shows on SciFi Channel.

[EXWRX]

I'll be checking out this next episode and hoping that it lives up to the cast they have and the writing of BSG.

[manxman]

I'll be checking out this next episode and hoping that it lives up to the cast they have and the writing of BSG.
Episode 2 is on tonight----------

[EXWRX]

Hmm, it's interesting so far, but I'm not enthralled yet. I'm willing to give it a few more episodes before I make up my mind, though.

[manxman]

I agree that this doesn't grab you instantly as BSG did. It was easy to imagine myself among the survivors of the colonies crammed into decrepit old ships and battling various forms of Cylons for mere survival. Nothing has put me into the story with Caprica yet, but it is well written and acted so far.