Interesting Scifi

Interesting scifi movies and literature have become a mainstay of contemporary culture. No longer relegated to pulp magazines or low-quality short films tacked on to “real” movies, scifi – or “science fiction” as some aficionados insist it be fully pronounced, has grown into a genre in its own right, with universities dedicating classes and in some cases even degree programs to the art (though usually they insist on prettying it up into “speculative fiction” – as though there were any other kind).

The strange thing is that almost everyone who ridicules the fan with the book covered with rockets and spacewomen has no problem benefiting from the fruits of interesting scifi. The number of scientific advances that have been inspired by science fiction authors is immense. Starting with something as huge as going to the moon. This was dramatized by Jules Verne, who was one of the first to actually create the art form with books like ‘’From the Earth to the Moon’’ in 1865. Other authors before him had speculated on trips to the moon (such as Moliere, Rostand, and even a Japanese folk tale known as ‘’the Bamboo Cutter’’) but what makes Verne’s work more interesting scifi is that he made a serious attempt at explaining the technology in his books. ‘’Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea’’, for example, the inspiration for all modern submarines, was based on either technology that existed at the time or was a logical extrapolation of current research.

That’s a huge example, though, and there are many more prosaic items first imagined in scifi. The waterbed, for example, was first dreamt of by Robert Heinlein in ‘’Stranger in a Strange Land’’, and the designs for many cel phones started out looking like the communicators in the popular TV and movie series ‘’Star Trek’’. The real hook that interesting scifi has on the imagination is that it seems like it just ‘’might’’ be possible – and it is a short step from that into the active planning of inventors and scientists both young and old.

While many science fiction premises, starting with Moliere’s ‘’Micromégas’’ (1752), posit that alien cultures would be more advanced and that a beneficial and utopian future awaits, there are also those authors and other creators who create interesting scifi warnings. Cormac McCarthy's The Road is a post-apocalyptic tale that won the Pulitzer Prize in 2008 and was made into a movie starring Christian Bale. The focus isn't on the disaster, though, but more on the relationship and character of a man and his son.

Another chronic New York Times bestselling author is Dean Koontz, who regularly bridges the gap between science fiction and fantasy, often focusing on the spookier aspects of advanced technology with books like Watchers and "Lightning. In the latter, what seems to start out as a tale about guardian angels turns into an exciting chase through time-traveling electrical storms.

Likewise, the author of the immensely popular Twilight series, Stephenie Meyer, had her debut science fiction novel the Host chosen as the top pick of 2008 on Amazon's genre listing. Moving from vampires to aliens, she turns the trope of "aliens among us" into interesting scifi through her skill at bringing the characters to life and making the reader care.

While much of science fiction has been set in the relatively near future, with current social trends extrapolated to logical (at least, to some) conclusions, there is also the realm of science fiction epics. The most obvious of these is the ‘’Star Wars’’ series of movies (and the following hundreds of novels set in that universe). Unlike other scifi series such as Battlestar Galactica or the Matrix or Star Trek, George Lucas’ universe held no connection to our current world, other than the fact that humans were a part of that galaxy (“far, far away”).

Alternative methods of telling and marketing science fiction have also emerged, with authors like Scott Sigler (Contagious), J.C. Hutchins (7th Son) and Mur Lafferty all releasing their books on audio for free via Podiobooks. This built them up a huge fan base, and when Mur Lafferty released her most recent novel, Playing for Keeps, it shot up to number thirteen on the Amazon lists without any professional advertising.

Other podcasts such as "Escape Pod" also showcase new and interesting work, and can afford to take chances due to the low production costs of the electronic medium. Authors like Cory Doctorow have also pioneered the use of Creative Commons licensing to release their works for free, and much to traditional publisher's surprise, they have sold well when offered in print. In fact, a major scifi publishing house, Baen Books, now offers an extensive e-book library of classic and new science fiction for free.

Regardless of the medium, science fiction is only as interesting as the characters within it. It is the human touch to the fantastic technology that keeps the fans coming back for more.

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