The real delimiter is that you go back to the good stuff over and over again. The trash you may enjoy once, but you don’t rent the DVD twice when it is just Sci-Fi.

KPG

I have no problem with anyone hating those crappy movies that try to appeal to Sci-fi fans, but you must remember that those shows are usually bland and forgettable. Sci-fi audiences tend to remember good shows like StarTrek, twilight-zone, invader zim, etc.

Your average Science fiction fan can easily see through bad films and knows not to pay attention to them.

(PS, don’t bring up Twilight or New Moon, those are only popular because their just soft core porn for teen age girls. )
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You have to understand the difference (as I see it) between sci-fi and Science Fiction.

I hope there are lots of Science Fiction films.

I hate the schlock sci-fi movies that are just thinly disguised horror movies with special effects and some poorly done futuristic element. I don’t watch them. I don’t need them.

Science Fiction is so much more powerful than sci-fi.

So when I talk about sci-fi, I mean the badly done Hollywood movies. When I talk about science fiction, I mean books written by people like Heinlein and Asimov. Only a very few movies like The Day the Earth Stood Still and Forbidden Planet can really be called Science Fiction.

The cats think it is fun to knock the laptop onto the floor when I ignore them, so the thing has stood up to some real abuse. The DVD/CD doesn’t eject without help anymore and the wifi switch mysteriously turns itself off. I am on my third power supply. Other than that and the moaning, it is a great little machine, even if it is very heavy for a laptop.

The best of them all was the little Toshiba Tough Book (Chinese Let’s Note). I changed the key caps into English and installed a driver so it behaved like it was not born in China, but after I replaced the failed hard drive I started using the Qosmio. I can’t find the little guy now. I might be in the blue truck, but I’ve looked in all the obvious places. I have the old Dell Latitude in my bag. I bought a new battery for it so I can use it on the bus. It has only 512M ram and runs very slowly, but that’s pretty good since it is almost 10 years old. I am going to take the Symantec antivirus off, since that takes so much memory and slows it down. I will use the Microsoft Security Essentials, which is not as good, but it doesn’t slow the machine and it’s free.

The moaning has stopped and the thing is running cool again, so either the cat hair cleared out of the fan or it is going to explode any second now.

The Helmsman is fairly modern, written in the 1980s and takes place in the far future.

The Rings of Ice was written in 1974, but it is not hard SF at all. I takes place in the future. I read it was Anthony’s first book, published after he had written Sos the Rope and other stories established him as an important writer.

Although, I wish I had picked “Brain Wave,” since you describe it as being the best of the three. Oh, well.

Well, anyway. You said that these books were published in the 1950’s? Do they suffer from relying on since-proven-wrong events as plot devices? I mean, are characters’ behaviors based on Freudian ideas, do the characters get “mutant powers” from frolicking threw a toxic waste dump, that only brilliant writers with original script ideas make it in Hollywood, or anything like that?

I want to know if the life lessens that these stories are based around still hold true today.

/)_/)
(‘.-’)
/(“)(“)

The Helmsman was good enough that I read two more books in the series. It is pretty standard military SF, but it rings true. If you like action adventure, this is the right book.

I read the Anthony book 35 years ago and I wasn’t that excited by it. It was a good read, though, even if I don’t remember much about it. Piers Anthony is mostly known for fantasy now, but these early SF books are his better work.