Kris Kelvin, Snow, Gibrarian, and Sartorius are all puzzled and perplexed; as other educated and intelligent residents of Station Solaris–a sophisticated scientific laboratory–have been before them. They are stumped and bewildered by their interactions with the planet Solaris, with the ocean that covers its surface, the one that plays host to mimoids and symmetriads andContinue reading “Wittgenstein’s Lion And Solaris”
Tag Archives: science fiction
Black Mirror’s Third Season Nosedives In The First Episode
Black Mirror used to be the real deal: a television show that brought us clever, scary satire about the brave new dystopic, over-technologized world that we are already living in. It was creepy; it was brutal in its exposure of human frailty in the face of technology’s encroachment on our sense of self and ourContinue reading “Black Mirror’s Third Season Nosedives In The First Episode”
‘Eva’: Love Can Be Skin-Deep (Justifiably)
Kike Maíllo’s Eva makes for an interesting contribution to the ever-growing–in recent times–genre of robotics and artificial intelligence movies. That is because its central concern–the emulation of humanity by robots–which is not particularly novel in itself, is portrayed in familiar and yet distinctive, form. The most common objection to the personhood of the ‘artificially sentient,’Continue reading “‘Eva’: Love Can Be Skin-Deep (Justifiably)”
Parable of the Sower: Octavia Butler’s Parable
Octavia Butler‘s Parable of the Sower, the richly symbolic and subversive.story of Lauren Olamina, a prophet in the making, one finding her voice and her people in the midst of an America whose social order is collapsing around her, grows on you. The story line is sparse: the US’ accumulated social, political and environmental dysfunctionsContinue reading “Parable of the Sower: Octavia Butler’s Parable”
Ghost From The Machine: Once Again, The Dead Return
Matt Osterman‘s Ghost from the Machine (2010)–originally titled and known internationally as Phasma Ex Machina–is touted by its marketing material as a ‘supernatural thriller’. A low-budget indie, it uses a cast made up of genuine amateurs who sometimes look distinctly uncomfortable and self-conscious on camera, and wears its modest production values on its sleeve. The story sounds hokeyContinue reading “Ghost From The Machine: Once Again, The Dead Return”
Mankind as Deluded Sisyphus
As the apocalypse closes in again on humanity in Walter M. Miller Jr.’s A Canticle For Leibowitz, Joshua, who has been ‘chosen’ to ‘escape’ into space, leaving this world behind, wonders about the cyclical nature of human history: The closer men came to perfecting for themselves a paradise, the more impatient they seemed to become withContinue reading “Mankind as Deluded Sisyphus”
Ridley Scott’s Promethean Stinker
I often disagreed with Roger Ebert‘s rating of movies. Sometimes, our disagreement would be a simple matter of Ebert being a little too kind, a little too forgiving. The latest instance of this discord may be found in our differing assessments of Ridley Scott‘s Prometheus. Ebert gives it four stars. I don’t. I found Prometheus toContinue reading “Ridley Scott’s Promethean Stinker”
Why The Talking Dead is a Bad Idea
Last night, I declined to watch the Oscars and chose The Walking Dead instead. If you’re going to watch zombies, why not watch a more interesting group of them? Snark aside, I had not seen most of last year’s crop of nominees, other than the mildly diverting Argo, and more to the point, I’ve burned outContinue reading “Why The Talking Dead is a Bad Idea”
‘If It’s Dead, Kill It’: The Second Compendium of the Walking Dead
Last year, I discovered The Walking Dead (the television series and the comic book). Like most fans of the television series, I’m all caught up now with the second half of the third season. Given the disappointing nature of the first two episodes of the second half, I’m glad that I have something else toContinue reading “‘If It’s Dead, Kill It’: The Second Compendium of the Walking Dead”
The Extravagant, Space-Time Distorting Business of Time Cleaning
This morning Jason Read of the University of Southern Maine posted the following photograph on his Facebook page (due to Tom McGlynn, to whom I owe thanks for letting me reproduce it here). Jason added: Just looking at it makes me want to write a bad science fiction novel about the unglamorous, dangerous, and low-payingContinue reading “The Extravagant, Space-Time Distorting Business of Time Cleaning”
Samir Chopra 