Science Fiction

R F Kuang, Xiran Jay Zhao and Neil Gaiman were ruled ineligible for the 2023 Hugo Awards in 2023 despite receiving enough nominations.

I just finished this and figured it was worth sharing.

"After taking down the man responsible for his best friend's death, Stuart Ramey finds himself left with a multimillion-dollar fortune in Bitcoin. It's a desperate bid by Frigg, a rogue A.I. program created by the killer, to keep itself from being fully deactivated."

Who's interested?

We took a trip through decades of the genre and came up with a list of the most important and best hard science fiction movies of all time. They are the essence and the foundations of the book of sci-fi rules that's still being written as we, the audience, become much more self-aware of our relationship with technology, the future, and whatever those two will bring.

I am personally against it despite Sam Esmail's involvement (I really liked Mr. Robot). It's not that I don't think it could be a good show, it's that NBC has plenty of other properties from former science fiction shows they could redevelop, but they're redeveloping this one instead.

If they want to reboot a show for the third time, why not V considering the first reboot was so disappointing? Or maybe go for the 90s nostalgia and reboot SeaQuest DSV or Earth 2.

And then there's all the Sci-Fi Channel/SyFy properties they have at least some stake of ownership in.

I realize asking for something original is asking too much these days, but can't we at least do something other than Battlestar Galactica every 20 years?

I'm willing to be open-minded and give the show a chance if it gets produced, but I don't think it should be produced in the first place.

Original link

Over the last few years my family and I have binged all of Star Trek, then moved on to Star Trek adjacent shows like The Orville and Stargate. At the moment we're not really watching anything sci-fi. I was wondering if anyone had recommendations for similar shows (or maybe some books) that fill the void left by Star Trek. In particular I really like the episodes that deal with interacting with other civilizations, diplomacy, and exploration more-so than say, an anomaly episode.

Read it recently, somewhat influenced by a post about John Scalzi on the sub, just wanted to share my thoughts and ask what you guys thought.

Minor spoilers ahead.

My opinion about the book wavered as I read it. It went somewhat like this

• Covid setup, cringe
• Oh, secret society, Kaiju, cool
• Why do these guys constantly bitch with each other like they are kids from Stranger Things?
• Chill, everyone is a megachad and bad guys get fucked
• The culmination, meh, nothing original

And then I read the author’s notes about the book and realized that this was my favorite part.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/10219373

The book Tales The The Mos Eisley Cantina is an anthology published in 1995. It covers the lives and times of the various characters we glimpsed inside the Mos Eisley in A New Hope.

One of the more notable figures was Greedo, the bounty hunter who tried and failed to take down Han Solo. Greedo’s story, titled A Hunter’s Fate, was co-written by Tom and Martha Veitch. Tom was a big figure in 1990s Star Wars EU, having started Star Wars expansion into comics with both Tales Of The Jedi and Dark Empire, so I was excited to see what his Greedo short story had in store.

The story started with a young, just barely teenage Greedo living on a jungle world. He lived with his mother, brother, and a small group of other Rodians. It was an idyllic and peaceful life, but young Greedo often suspected that the adults were keeping secrets. And they were, because the truth was that Greedo came from a Rodian clan that was being hunted extinction by a rival clan which had taken power. It wasn’t long into the story that the enclave of Greedo’s people were found by the rival clan, with many of the hunted being killed and only a small number escaping again to the stars. Greedo, his mother, and brother were among the few of his clan who managed to escape again to the stars, and eventually settled on the planet of Nar Shaddaa. Nar Shaddaa was very different than the jungle Greedo had originally been raised on. It was an urban planet with a sprawl of buildings and landing pads stack atop each other, crime was rampant, and even the Empire’s ability to protect power was tenuous. Fast forward a few years and Greedo has become a young punk. Swiping swoop bikes, pickpocketing, and spitting off over overpasses. He fit right in with the juvenile delinquents of the planet, but he wanted more. One day he got the chance, as by happenstance, a pair of bounty hunters across his path were accosted by a third, known as Gorm, who was looking to settle a debt. The altercation turned violent and the pair were about to dissolved by the imposing Gorm when Greedo picked up fallen blaster and shot Gorm in the back. The stunned pair of bounty hunters took Greedo in, and one in particular, named Goa become Greedo’s new mentor in the business of bounty hunting. All of this made me sympathetic to Greedo, he had a life constantly upended and on the run. Ending up on a planet of crime, it was only natural he fell into becoming a criminal, and with a desire for greatness he was blinded into taking a career path of violence to get it.

After that Greedo had a short run in with Han Solo, who embarrassed him by seeing right through Greedo’s subpar pickpocket skills. This set up Greedo to have a grudge on Solo. While I understand that Greedo and Solo do need some way of having known each other, since they recognized each other in the Mos Eisley cantina, I felt this exchange was a little bit clumsy. Of all the ship garages on Nar Shaddaa Greedo happens to hang out at the one where Solo comes to get his ship fixed, and then later Greedo goes to Tatootine completely independently of Solo, but happens to end up there at the same time. It was an instance that made the galaxy feel a bit too small.

I quickly got over that when Greedo decided to go in for a big payday with his mentors. Greedo knew about a rebel cell that was operating out of the same hidden city level that his clan had taken refuge in. The Empire was paying big for information on rebel forces, and once Greedo turned it in, he got paid and the Empire sent in a strike force. However, the rebels were surprisingly well prepared. They had a ion field artillery gun waiting in a building, which fired and nearly instantly sunk the Imperial strike force landing ships. It was a great action scene. It appeared to be a total rebel victory, and a good feeling for the reader. The protagonist Greedo got a paycheck, and the Empire got whomped. The the Imperial spider walker showed it. It wasn’t named, but it had to be a massive MT-AT which has a double laser cannon atop each of its eight legs, and another laser cannon on its head. The Imperial walker didn’t bother trying to insert more troops to make a controlled sweep of the rebels, but fired alpha strikes to demolish the entire area.

Greedo watched from afar, knowing that his family lived on the same city level as the rebels. It had gone from a victory to a tragedy. Greedo didn’t know if he had caused his family’s death from that distance, and he had no time to check if they were alive or dead before his mentor Goa was rushing him to a starship. The bounty hunters were fleeing en masse before the agitated Empire started asking hard questions to Nar Shaddaa’s underbelly. Maybe Greedo’s family was alright, but it was probably better not to know.

Greedo ended up on Tatooine, and eventually in front of Jabba who was offering various bounty contracts. One of them was for Han Solo, and Greedo eagerly took it. His mentor Goa seemed mildly reluctant for Greedo to go after such an infamous target for his first job, but was ultimately supportive after Greedo insisted. Goa had originally had thoughts about just scamming Greedo, but although he internally continued to say it was all he was doing, he was legitimately helping Greedo and watching his back. After Greedo had a few failed attempts at collecting the money Solo owed, he got Jabba to allow a hit on Solo instead. Greedo planned to finish the job. Inside the Mos Eisley cantina Greedo watched Solo as he negotiated with a pair of passengers. While he waited, Goa was seated with a pair of Rodians. This was their first appearance in the story and Greedo didn’t have time to react before his opening to corner Solo appeared.

Goa watched from his table as Solo unholstered his blaster under the table. He could have jumped in, and perhaps would have jumped in if it were not for the two Rodians seated with him. Solo blasted Greedo. Goa left for the local spaceport and got his payment by the Rodians, who were of the clan that was hunting Greedo. They had the mission to see that Greedo died, and had paid Goa to ensure it happened. Goa took his payment, though finally admitted out loud he wasn’t proud of it. Kind of a heartbreaking story of a bounty hunting career cut short by quiet betrayal.

And that’s the end of Greedo’s tale.

Except.

There’s another story in the book. The bartender’s story, titled Be Still My Heart by David Bischoff, and it adds just a little bit more. It follows, of course, the bartender, who is named Wuher. He is kind of a pathetic guy. He has a deep passion for bartending, and he wants to be taken seriously.

It’s hard for a human to be taken as a proper bartender by many of myriad species, who think humans are incapable of tending to their palettes, but Wuher tries hard both to educate himself and to distill drinks in the basement of the cantina. He constantly gets verbal abuse simply for being a human bartender, and takes out his resentment on droids, the only beings around who are lower on the social totem pole than he is. Every day he keeps working, and his special project is to distill a liquor that will please Jabba the Hutt himself. If Wuher can make it as Jabba’s bartender, he will truly have proved himself. Wuher’s efforts keep getting close to what he imagines will be the perfect blend for Jabba, but they are always missing that proper x factor. That something that is pungent, earthy, and just a hair meaty. Something decadent to a Hutt.

One day, in the early morning hours on his way to keep working on his liquor, Wuher was stopped in an alley by a droid. It was called C2-R4. It was a small droid roughly based on the body style of an astromech, but with a bewildering number of parts allowing it to perform catalytic fuel conversion, enzymatic composition breakdown, bacterial composting acceleration, and chemical diagnostic programming as well as meal preparation, toaster oven, bang-corn air-popper, and blender.

Wuher kicked the droid away and went on to work. Wuher tended bar and watched as Greedo was shot through by Han Solo’s blaster. Seeing that sight changed something in him, and he rushed back to save that droid he had seen earlier. Wuher had decided to change his ways. No longer rejecting and discriminating against all droids, he brought little C2-R4 into the safety of his basement. He had seen the light. Because C2-R4 could break down organic material, which made it perfect for breaking down pieces of Greedo’s greasy, earthy, oily corpse and concentrating it into an enzyme that Wuher added to his liquor to produce the final touch for the perfect liquor for Jabba. Right about the same time Luke and Han were getting their medals for blowing up the Death Star, Greedo’s severed head was hanging in the bioalchemical alcove over a celebrating Wuher.

And that’s the real end of Greedo.

That’s a lot to process. I liked both stories put together. The first did leave me sad, and the second, well its been a week and I still don’t know if I can articulate what I feel, but it is quite an unexpected post script to the short career of Greedo. Star Wars can go to some dark places, but still end up enthralling.

This post is also an article on my blog, where I've got lots of other stuff too.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/10214401

Star Wars is driven by aesthetics. Part of the look of the franchise that is front and center has always been the blasters.

For me, there are a lot of things that go into making a Star Wars blaster look like it fits into the setting. First is that most of the blasters and accessories use real life guns as a basis, and since the original trilogy came out between 1977 and 1983, the kinds of props that could be made in that real life era cemented what looks like it belong in Star Wars; a super modern tactical gun or accessory made in the 2000s is going to stick out like a sore thumb.

While aspects of the original gun are going to show through, it usually isn’t obvious for a casual viewer on a quick glance to pick up what is under all the greeble. After that is kind of an x factor about the greeble and prop construction. A good Star Wars blaster usually looks more metal, with maybe a hint of wood, than plastic in construction. The lines and aesthetic should fit the user. A dignified character who doesn’t normally fight should have something smaller and more ornate while a battle harder trooper has something mass produced, and a low life type should have something that looks worn and cobbled together.

I limited to just live action appearances. I looked through all of the live action Star Wars material- the nine main movies, Rogue One, Solo, Andor, Book Of Boba Fett, Ashoka, Kenobi, and The Mandalorian and picked out five of the best and worst examples of Star Wars blasters. It was hard to narrow down the list, and there was a lot of examples that just barely missed the cut. This list is all personal and subjective opinion, with a lot of guidelines but as always aesthetic judgments are never an objective exercise. I’m also going to mostly pick on props which I know caught my eye when I watched the movies and shows, since there are plenty of lower quality props that stayed in holsters or were only vaguely in the background, for those I figure out of sight and out of mind compared to props that spent more time in the middle of the frame.

Starting with some of the best Star Wars blasters.

1. Han Solo’s DL-44

Han’s DL-44, based on a real life C96 Mauser, is iconic for the character and a perfect example of balancing letting the real prop underneath show through with adding just the right amount of greeble. One of the most recognizable parts of a C96 is its long, thin barrel.

The DL-44 prop totally breaks up the appearance of the barrel by hiding most of it underneath a massive muzzle cone. A long sniper scope on the side breaks up the top of the gun in A New Hope, and a stubbier but fatter telescope as a scope did the same in Empire Strikes Back. In both cases the original shape and elements of the top like the distinct adjustable sight of the C96 are largely obscured. A few fins and random metal bits glued on later, and a blaster almost as famous as its user is made.

2. Mando’s IB-94 blaster pistol

The next blaster very smartly looked at what worked about the DL-44 and took notes. Din Djarin’s blaster is based on the 1894 Bergmann pistol.

By choosing such an obscure basis, the design is already off to a great start. Most people wouldn’t be able to name the Bergmann without looking it up, and the rounded lower body already looks like it belongs in Star Wars. The pistol has the general sense of looking like a revolver but without a cylinder, it already looks like a revolver that’s been tweaked by a prop artist. On top of that basis, the IB-94 was created with the addition of a muzzle cone, some huge rear sights, and a bit strangely replacing the default hammer with one that looks almost like that from a C96. Perhaps just a nod to the inspiration found from Han Solo’s blaster.

3. BlasTech E-11 blaster rifle

Another blaster that is synonymous with Star Wars is the Imperial E-11. Seen in all three movies of the original trilogy in both the hands of Stormtroopers, and turned against them by the heroes. This blaster used the British Sterling L2A3 submachinegun as a basis. Like the Sterling’s predecessor, the Sten gun, the most eye catching feature was the left side magazine.

The E-11 did away with that, only having a very short stubby magazine as a powercell. That simple change did a lot to change the look, but beyond that fins were built to cover the most visible top part of the heat shield, and scopes from Sherman tank guns were fitted on top by way of a specially installed rail for the E-11.

I want to take a quick aside to give a special mention to rebel DH-17 blasters, since they also used the L2A3s as a basis, and managed to look very different from the opposed E-11s by the addition of a large metal cover that replaced the entire original heat shield, and the mounting of the distinct and cool in its own right Armson OEG gunsight.

4. Boba Fett’s EE-3 carbine

This blaster first appeared in Empire Strikes Back, where visually it only looks so-so. Not great, not distracting.

When it comes back in Return Of The Jedi however, it has gotten a major glowup and become a fantastic and mean looking blaster.

Based on a real life Webley & Scott 37mm flare gun, it starts out with a promising foundation.

The basic silhouette resembles a revolver at a glance, but with a stock that is unusual even by pistol stock standards, and a massive barrel. The original barrel has been elongated and given cooling fins to create the appearance of a blaster carbine that almost certainly has a disintegration setting.

5. SE-14r

The SR-14 series of blaster had its first appearance all the way back in A New Hope. Despite the bartender’s protests it was brought out during the altercation between Luke and a pair of low lives in the Mos Eisley cantina.

The SE-14 is based on a lesser known Swiss submachinegun, but it goes a long way to change the shape further by entirely removing both the stock and barrel, along with removing the magazine.

The result is a blaster that is vaguely handgun sized but doesn’t resemble any real handgun. My favorite version of the SE-14 is the SE-14r used by Lando Calrissian in the Solo movie. It is chrome plated, and the scope has been moved forward a bit to make the entire thing look a bit more properly put together. It has a mystery muzzle device which I assume is for shooting down police helicopters.

Overall a completely fitting blaster for a character that wears a bright yellow shirt to a gunfight.

Now on to some of the low points in blaster props.

1.Sonn-Blas SE-44C blaster pistol

The SE-44 first shows up in The Force Awakens, and it is almost like a summary of all the things not to do to design a good blaster. The basis is a Glock pistol, which is polymer and distinct looking.

A Glock is a pistol designed too late to have shown up in the original trilogy (technically possible for ROTJ, but unreasonable). What is used to disguise the pistol is even worse, its just an off the shelf carbine conversion kit for real Glocks.

Most examples of the SE-44 have the conversion kit be colored white, prominently signaling that it is polymer instead of metal, and allowing the audience to get a good look at the picatinny rails it has installed. Up top there is a tiny front sight block from an AR-15. I don’t know if it is a casting or a 3D print, but aside from the downsizing it is clearly an exact copy, even including the gasblock. It’s kind of amazing because these miniature sights were not something taken off the shelf due to laziness, but something that must have been custom built or specifically sourced. Sticking some sort of scope or scope-like object up top would have been less work and looked better. All around the SE-44 is just a dud of a blaster.

2. Sonn-Blas F-11D blaster rifles

A blaster based on the iconic E-11, what could go wrong?

Just like the SE-44, it has a lot of white colored parts to give it a very plastic iPhone aesthetic. Out of place in Star Wars, and specifically weirdly out of place for an Empire that was supposed to have been defeated and is surviving on the rim. Some of the F-11Ds are fitted with stocks, which exacerbates the problem by making the buttstock also be visibly plastic and coloring the cheek riser white. Normally I’m not going to focus on realism when it comes to blaster bits in Star Wars, but it is impossible not to notice the cheekriser. Look at that cheek riser, and then look at First Order Stormtrooper helmets.

A stock is bad enough with Stormtrooper helmets, but a riser is just preposterous and most importantly: Distracting to look at.

3. Andor’s Rebel AK blasters

During the Aldhani raid, the rebels use blasters that are largely made from underfolding AK rifles.

Strangely a lot of work has been done to the rear of the props by incorporating MP-40 receivers to them, but it does almost nothing to change the overall silhouette. The most recognizable parts of the guns like the the handguard, gastube, and the sights are almost untouched. While there is some kind of filler material inside the triangle of the frontsight, all it really does is draw attention to the original shape rather than disguise it. The magazines are either 20 round AK magazines with very thin disguising, or prop magazines that follow the same shape as real ones. In any case, the final result is a blaster that is recognizable as a specific real world gun to even a casual observer.

Perhaps the idea was that in real life there is a connotation between rebels and AKs, and the Andor show wanted to leverage that, but honestly the show wouldn’t have suffered if they’d used something else. I still would have believed I was looking at rebels if they were using something more Star War appropriate.

4. BlasTech DLT-19 heavy blaster rifle

Going all the way back to A New Hope, the DLT-19 has always bugged me for how conspicuous the basis is. If you have any interest in World War 2, you’ve seen an MG-34.

It is a very memorable looking machinegun, and the DLT-19 does almost nothing to disguise it. There are a few cooling type fins added, which does give it some visual commonality with the E-11, but otherwise it’s just an MG-34.

The bipod is even still attached in A New Hope.

The DLT-19 comes back for a cameo in the hands of a bounty hunter in Empire Strikes Back, but its real next appearance is in Rogue One.

There the bipod has finally been removed, a scope (which appears unusable with an Imperial helmet on), and various accessories resembling lights or aiming devices have been attached around the barrel shroud. An improvement, but still pretty underwhelming to take a well known and distinct weapon, and make almost no attempt to disguise it.

5. M-45 Repeating Ion Blaster

The M-45 is similarly egregious for taking a well known real weapon, the M60, and basically doing nothing to hide it.

While the barrel has an appropriate looking sleeve fitted over the M-45, the blaster is mostly viewed with the trigger and receiver in view, betraying exactly what it is.

I’m well aware that this is very likely a visual reference to Full Metal Jacket.

I like Star Wars to be Star Wars, and keep it away from so blatantly incorporating out of place props for the sake of a reference.

That ends my list, and dive into what I think are some of the best and worst Star Wars blasters.

A huge thanks to imfdb who I used for research, and from whom I shamelessly took photos from to write this up with.

This post is also an article on my blog and I encourage you to take a look, I've got lots of other stuff there too.

While I didn't care much for "Rebel Moon", this blog post from a graphics designer who worked on the movie details the meticulous process of designing the fonts and typefaces to reflect the different aspects of its world.

I've just finished reading the last of the books, and I'm pretty excited to see what they do with the series.

https://www.sciencefictions.org/p/science-fictions-links-december-2023

@sciencefiction
@science

I really love sci-fi novels and I read a lot of books. I read 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson a while back and that book is particularly interesting to me. Rather than each chapter advancing the narrative of the story, there were occasional breaks where a chapter would have a list of semi-random words which just gave the vibe of what's happening, or some history of a scene, or a recipe for how to build an asteroid.

There's another book that I have heard of but neglected to write the name down, where the reader of the book is a character within the book, and the narrator speaks directly to you (but not a choose-your-adventure style book).

All of this got me interested in finding other books, preferably sci-fi or maybe fantasy, where the concept of being a book is played with and new ideas are tried. Any recommendations?

I've read the first two books and enjoyed them both. I enjoyed the TV series. But I see there are nine novels and eight novellas in the series, and I know the book series goes on longer than the TV series. I'm curious: is the quality fairly consistent or, like a lot of longer book series, does it degrade over time?

Edit: Thanks everyone! Sounds like the vast majority of folks enjoyed all of the books - enough that I'll probably read them all. I have other books on my reading list, so I might take breaks and read some of those in between.

I really appreciate all the responses. Thank you all. Upvotes all around!