(curious about the title of this page? go here)
Resources that might be relevant to your semester projects
New New York, via Doctor Who — helpful for Matt?
Telltale Games — helpful to Charlie?
The End (game); Speak, Memory (AI created replace a friend who has died) — helpful to Stacy?
Second Person Present Tense — short story by Daryl Gregory — helpful to Sigrid?
Perdido Street Station, a novel by China Miéville — especially elements about people remade with animal appendages, limbs, etc. as punishments — for Sophie?
In the novel Still Here, by Lara Vapnyar, a character creates an app that let’s the deceased “speak” through their aggregated social media profiles — useful for Stacy?
Relevant News and Other Sundries
Wired magazine’s fiction issue (December 2016) has a lead-off story by N.K. Jemisin.
Cool project that Sigrid’s friend did at the Met with interactive/AR art stuff called “Missing the Megafauna”
The World Wide Cage — how the Internet isn’t liberating anyone but is actually constraining and confining and limiting us
Pointing to science fiction’s Big Themes: Maria Popova (of the Brain Pickings blog) writes about the new book Pinocchio: The Origin Story. It’s a children’s book, but that doesn’t compromise its provocative message. — Robin
Our timing is a little uncanny; how is it that our Science Fiction class debut coincides with the 50th anniversary of “Star Trek”? For your reading pleasure and general edification, I give you this essay in today’s New Yorker magazine. Enduring lessons indeed!
And this: the remarkable story of Gene Roddenberry, illustrated by Matthew Inman (@Oatmeal). — Robin
Adding to our ongoing conversation about genres (and their lack of usefulness), I recently came across the subgenres catagories of cyberpunk and biopunk. — Sigrid
There’s Going to Be a Whole Line of Doctor Who-themed Mr. Men Books
Human?
Frankenstein (book, film(s))
Dracula (book, films)
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Bladerunner
The Left Hand of Darkness
RUR
Planet of the Apes
I Am Legend (story, film)
Less Than Human, a book by philosopher David Livingstone Smith. The themes he explores connect to many of the conversations we’ve been having in class throughout the semester.
Machine?
I,Robot (book, film)
Ex Machina
Metropolis
Ghost in the Shell
Black Mirror, 2.1 “Be Right Back”
The Island (2005 Michael Bay film; stars Scarlett Johansson, Ewan McGregor, Djimon Hounsou) // Could also be listed under Human
The Pentagon’s ‘Terminator Conundrum’: Robots That Could Kill on Their Own — The New York Times, October 25, 2016; a companion piece discusses SF sources of our ideas about AI; many of them have been in our discussions this semester
Xenos
Alien
Prometheus
The Martian Chronicles
John Carter of Mars (books, film)
The Blob (1958 film; Steve McQueen’s movie debut)
Golden Record 2.0 — Science Friday, October 7, 2016
Are We Alone in the Universe? Podcast from the New York Academy of Sciences. Includes mention of the Fermi paradox
Intersectionality
Urban/Spaces
Neuromancer
Snow Crash
Perdido Street Station
Dhalgren
The Word for World is Forest (book, film — Avatar)
Attack the Block
The Vanishing City — documentary about “old” and “new” New York
Downsiders — they live in the sewers
Dystopia/Utopia
1984 (book, film)
Brave New World
Fahrenheit 451 (book, film)
Children of Men
Brazil
Minority Report (book, film)
Dogma/Doctrine
Ender’s Game (book, film)
Starship Troopers (book, film)
Dune (book(s), films)
Time/Space
Time Machine (book, film)
2001: A Space Odyssey (book, film)
Star Wars
Sci-Fi Culture
Stranger Things via SNL (October 8)
Lengthy and lovely profile of Ursula K. Le Guin in the New Yorker magazine.
Other?? Etc.??
Stars in my Pocket Like Grains of Sand
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Book and Radio)
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
World War Z
Marvel Comics
Marvel Cinematic Universe
DC Comics
DC Extended Universe
Sigrid’s Favorites
Orphan Black
TO BE CATEGORIZED
Earthsea Trilogy
The Scar
Embassytown
Un Lun Dun
Railsea
The Foundation Series
Oryx and Crake
The Handmaid’s Tale
The Wind-Up Girl
The Golem and the Jinni
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe
Children of the Sky
The Magician
Wicked
Station Eleven
Stranger in a Strange Land
The Dog Stars
The Hyperion/Endymion novels
Canticle for Liebowitz
Flatland (1st-ever sci fi novel?)
We
Raising Stony Mayhall
St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves (Karen Russell)
Strikebreaker (Asimov)
The Garbage Collector (Bradbury)
Akira
A Trip to the Moon
Twelve Monkeys
Moon (cloning)
Star Trek 2 (eugenics, terraforming)
Robocop (cyborg)
Iron Giant
A Scanner Darkly
Inception
The Blob
Andromeda Strain
E.T.
Back to the Future
Men in Black
Dr. Strangelove
Black Mirror
Dr. Who
Star Trek
Battlestar Galactica
V
Twilight Zone
The Prisoner
Orphan Black
Continuum
Firefly
Sense8
Mass Effect series
Portal
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
Doom
Starcraft
Bioshock Series
Borderlands 2
The Martian (book, film)
Solaris (book, film)
War of the Worlds (Book, Radio Play, Film(s))
