6 May 2014

Birthdays
Dominic Scott Kay b. 1996 (Pirate of the Caribbean: At World’s End. They Call Him Sasquatch, Power Rangers Wild Force, Minority Report)
Freddie Boath b. 1991 (The Mummy Returns)
Adrianne Palicki b. 1983 (From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series, GI. Joe: Retaliation, Supernatural, The Robinsons: Lost in Space, Smallville)
Kyle Cassie b. 1976 (Fringe, Andromeda, Stephen King’s Dead Zone, Jake 2.0, Stargate SG-1, Nightman)
Kavan Smith b. 1970 (Supernatural, Almost Human, Eureka, Red: Werewolf Hunter, Stargate [TV], The 4400, Battlestar Galactica, Blade: The Series, The Time Tunnel [2006], Jeremiah, Smallville, Mission to Mars, Escape from Mars, The Crow: Stairway to Heaven, Buffy)
Robert Floyd b. 1967 (Dark Angel, Sliders, Godzilla [1998])
George Clooney b. 1961 (Gravity, Spy Kids, Batman & Robin, From Dusk Till Dawn, Return to Horror High)
Carlos Lauchu b. 1961 (The Silencers [1996], Stargate)
Michael O’Hare b. 1952 died 28 September 2012 (Babylon 5, The Trial of the Incredible Hulk, C.H.U.D.)
Gregg Henry b. 1952 (Dollhouse, Slither [2006], Star Trek: Enterprise, Firefly, Star Trek: Insurrection, M.A.N.T.I.S., Werewolf [TV])
Alan Dale b. 1947 (Dominion, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Once Upon a Time, Beauty and the Beast [TV movie], Lost, Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, Star Trek: Nemesis, The X-Files, The Lost World [TV], Space: Above and Beyond, Time Trax)
Richard Eyer b. 1945 (The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, The Invisible Boy, Invasion U.S.A.)
Jack Sharkey b. 1931 died 28 September 1992 (author, Ultimatum in 2050 A.D.)
Gordon C. Davies b. 1923 died 1994 (artist)
Orson Welles b, 1915 died 10 October 1985 (writer/actor, Necromancy, War of the Worlds [radio])

Today's list has two honest to Odin movie stars (George Clooney and Orson Welles), a lead actor in a long running show (Michael O'Hare from Babylon 5), several child actors (besides the youngest two on the list, Richard Eyer was a child star in the 1950s) a few Oh That Guys and one fabulous babe. I was tempted to put in a shot of Adrienne Palicki as Wonder Woman, but that show never got off the ground, sad to say. Forgoing all those picks, we have instead an illustration of Gordon C. Davies for the Starship Troopers wargame from the 1970s. He was very prolific and also did covers for books by Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, Roger Zelazny and many others.


Many happy returns to the living on the list and to the dead, thanks for all the memories.

Movies released
Thor released, 2011  
 

Predictor: Geoffrey Hoyle in the 1972 book 2010: Living in the Future, illustrations by Alasdair Anderson

Prediction:  The air all around the house is cleaned and correctly humidified every hour.

Reality: I don't know exactly how to grade this prediction. There were buildings with air filtration back when this book was written, but I would say that this prediction means everybody's modern homes would have such conveniences. I will grant that apartments and homes built after 1970 as a rule have fans and filters in the bathrooms and kitchens, but I'm not sure that counts as "cleaned and correctly humidified"everywhere. Perhaps out undead architect friend can weigh in on this. 

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

This month will be the last featuring the predictions of our buddy from 1905 T. Baron Russell. Let's see how he envisions the 21st Century once again.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!
 

22 April 2014

Birthdays
Amber Heard b. 1986 (Zombieland)
Michelle Ryan b. 1984 (Metal Hurlant Chronicles, Cockneys vs Zombies, Doctor Who, Merlin, Bionic Woman, Jekyll, The Worst Witch)
Francis Capra b. 1983 (The Strain, Touch, Clear Skies 3, Heroes)
Gemma Whelan b. 1981 (Game of Thrones, The Day They Came to Suck Out Our Brains!, Gulliver’s Travels, The Wolfman)
Eric Mabius b. 1971 (Outcasts, Resident Evil, The Crow: Salvation, Millennium)
Sheryl Lee b. 1967 (Vampires)
Jeffrey Dean Morgan b. 1966 (Watchmen, Jonah Hex, Supernatural, Star Trek: Enterprise, Angel, The Burning Zone, Sliders)
Brooke McCarter b. 1963 (The Lost Boys, The Twilight Zone [1987])
Catherine Mary Stewart b. 1959 (The Witches of Eastwick [TV], Night of the Comet, The Last Starfighter, Mr. Merlin)
Ken Olandt b. 1958 (Total Reality, Digital Man, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Leprechaun, Super Force, V)
Joseph Bottoms b. 1954 (Wishman, The Black Hole)
Steve Englehart b. 1947 (author, Marvel, DC, Max August)
Jason Miller b. 1939 died 13 May 2001 (The Henderson Monster, Vampire (1979), The Exorcist)
Richard Marquand b. 1938 died 4 September1987 (director, Return of the Jedi)
Jack Nicholson b. 1937 (Mars Attacks!, Wolf, Batman, The Witches of Eastwick, The Shining, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Terror, The Raven, Little Shop of Horrors)
Eddie Albert b. 1906 died 26 May 2005 (Time Trax, The Girl from Mars, The Twilight Zone [1986], Dreamscape, Beyond Witch Mountain, The Devil’s Rain, Escape to Witch Mountain, The Borrowers, The Outer Limits [1964], Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea)
Byron Haskin b. 1899 died 16 April 1984 (director, The Outer Limits[1964], Robinson Crusoe on Mars, From the Earth to the Moon, Conquest of Space, The War of the Worlds [1953])

Okay, I'll say it. There is one person here much more famous than the rest of the list: Jack Nicholson. More than that, while he has had a long career, he has done genre roles all throughout it, from his early days working for Roger Corman to playing The Joker in the first big budget Batman. I would also like to point out that regardless of the ways he has abused his body, he is still alive while Jason Miller and Richard Marquard, born just two years and one year after him, are already dead. Jack has some crazy wicked luck working for him.

And yet, the Picture Slot goes to Michelle Ryan from the reboot of Bionic Woman because... pretty.

Also iconic.

Many happy returns to all the living on our list and to the dead, thanks for all the memories.
 

Predictor: Geoffrey Hoyle in the 1972 book 2010: Living in the Future, illustrations by Alasdair Anderson

Prediction: The alarm clock wakes you up to music. No chairs, no tables, no beds. The bedroom is an office, the kitchen is a living room. With so many people in the world, there can be no wasted space.

Reality: Say hello to our new Tuesday regular, Geoffrey Hoyle, son of the physicist Sir Fred Hoyle, not to be confused with the British actor Geoff Hoyle who was in The Lion King on Broadway. Hoyle co-wrote a lot of the science fiction his dad worked on and in 1972 made this children's book. If you want to see the whole thing at a single go - just 31 pages with nice big illustrations and text re-written at the bottom for readability - you can click on this link to a website created by Daniel Sinker. Thanks, Daniel!

The book is this amalgam of capitalist progress, socialistic living situations and a feeling of a pleasant post-apocalyptic hellhole. If somebody is serious about taking away my chairs and tables, I would consider it time to exercise my Second Amendment options, if you know what I mean. As for my bed, I sleep in a La-Z-Boy lounger, which has been great for my back. Still, space is nowhere near at the premium Hoyle considers early on.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

We travel backward in time to 1905 to another British version of the brave new world that awaits us.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!

1 October 2013

Birthdays
Stephen Collins b. 1947 (Star Trek: The Motion Picture)
Richard Corben b. 1940 (Illustrator)
Richard Harris b. 1930 died 10/25/2002 (Harry Potter)

A short list of birthdays today, but we get both a Star Trek and a Harry Potter hit. No disrespect to Mr. Collins, but when I saw the first Star Trek, I knew the new characters were just going to be in the way, no matter how pretty they were.

Many happy returns to Mr. Collins and Mr. Corben, and may Richard Harris never be forgotten.

Predictor: Isaac Asimov, predicting life in 2014 as part of the 1964 World's Fair in New York

Prediction: There is an underground house at the fair which is a sign of the future. if its windows are not polarized, they can nevertheless alter the "scenery" by changes in lighting.

Suburban houses underground, with easily controlled temperature, free from the vicissitudes of weather, with air cleaned and light controlled, should be fairly common. At the New York World's Fair of 2014, General Motors' "Futurama" may well display vistas of underground cities complete with light- forced vegetable gardens. The surface, G.M. will argue, will be given over to large-scale agriculture, grazing and parklands, with less space wasted on actual human occupancy.

Reality: Subterranean suburbia is not the world we live in. Here in California, it's something of a rarity for new housing structures to even have basements.

The fear of overpopulation was a major sci-fi theme in the mid 20th Century. When we had three billion people on earth, even trying to think about seven billion felt overwhelming. Now we are over seven billion and if you are the sort of person who has time to read a silly science fiction blog each day (and thank you for doing so), our fears of overcrowding and deprivation haven't come true. In the United States and other developed nations, we made decisions such that our air and water quality are somewhat better than they were in the 1960s.

But we are the species that burns the world to stay warm, and in the 20th Century, we became so clever that we could burn the world to stay cool as well. The billions of more people are not faced with mass starvation as a constant threat, but instead the most scientifically plausible problem we face today is that we are changing the climate with our addiction to petroleum.

Maybe our worst fears for the future will not be as bad as we think. I certainly hope that's the case. But among the reasons that a planet with seven billion people is not a Soylent Green hellhole is that politicians from across the ideological spectrum came together to clean the environment. In the United States, that's not possible with the new version of the Republican Party, a weird mutant mixture of avarice and intolerance and fear, with each of those character flaws seen as the highest virtues.

This month's splash illustration

Every month, I change the small picture at the top of the blog. This month I took a slice of the atomic blimp picture from the 1956 Mechanix Illustrated that I used as a prediction back in August.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

Wednesday means more predictions from T. Baron Russell.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!
 

24 September 2013

Birthdays
Jessica Lucas b.1985 (Cloverfield)
Marc Guggenheim b. 1970 (writer, Green Lantern, Arrow, Percy Jackson)
John Logan b. 1961 (writer, Hugo, Star Trek:Nemesis)

Kevin Sorbo b. 1958 (Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Andromeda)
Brad Bird b. 1957 (director, The Incredibles, The Iron Giant)
Ian Stewart b. 1945 (writer, The Science of Discworld)
Jim Henson b. 1936 died 16 May 1990 (The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth)
John Brunner b. 1934 died 26 August 1995 (won 1969 Hugo for Stand on Zanzibar)
Horace Walpole b. 24 September 1717 died 2 March 1797 (The Castle of Otranto)

Most days the birthday list is dominated by actors, but today writers and directors take up most of the positions, including the late Jim Henson in the Picture Slot. I included Horace Walpole because The Castle of Otranto is considered the first Gothic novel.

Many happy returns to the living on this list.

Movies released
Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga-Hoole released, 2010
 

Predictor: Isaac Asimov, making predictions in 1964 about 2014

Prediction:Windows need be no more than an archaic touch, and even when present will be polarized to block out the harsh sunlight. The degree of opacity of the glass may even be made to alter automatically in accordance with the intensity of the light falling upon it.

Reality: Uh, no. We are seeing a little of the nerd boy "Ooh! Ick! Nature!" side shining from old Isaac here, but the idea that architecture would divorce itself from windows is just crazy talk. Everywhere I've worked, a windowless office is seen as a punishment and a house or apartment without a window is very rare indeed.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

T. Baron Russell gives us his view of the 21st Century from his vantage point in Edwardian England.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!
  

21 August 2013

Birthdays
Hayden Panettiere b. 1989 (Heroes)
Carrie-Anne Moss b. 1967 (The Matrix)
Kim Catrall b. 1956 (Star Trek)
Basil Poledouris b. 1945 died 8 November 2006 (Composer, Robo-Cop, Conan the Barbarian, Starship Troopers, Cherry 2000, The Twilight Zone (1980s re-boot))

Several excellent choices for Pretty Girl = Picture Slot today and as adorable as Hayden Panettiere is, I still have a soft spot for the original Matrix, blissfully forgetting how bad the sequels were for up to ten to fifteen seconds at a stretch.

Many happy returns of the day to the living.
 

Prediction: Naturally lifts (elevators)... will be everywhere in evidence. The plan of attaining the upper part of a small house by climbing, on every occasion, a sort of wooden hill, covered with carpet of questionable cleanliness, will of course have been abandoned : it is doubtful whether staircases will be built at all after the next two or three decades.

Predictor: T. Baron Russell in A Hundred Years Hence: The Expectations of an Optimist, published 1905

Reality: Umm... no. Elevators weren't brand spanking new in 1905, Elisha Otis having invented the safety elevator in 1852, but buildings were getting taller due to increased use of metal infrastructure. While elevators are common, they do break down on occasion, and I'm not sure I've ever been in a multi-story building that didn't have a flight of stairs. Regardless of Russell's worries about cleanliness, stairs are a reliable back-up system to technology that does screw up sometimes (see The Big Bang Theory for an example) and they have not faded into the past nor are they likely to any time in the future.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

A prediction from a 1982 movie about the lawless hellhole that is The Bronx in 1990.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!
 
   

6 June 2013

Birthdays
Daniel Logan b. 1987 (Boba Fett in Episode II)
Adam Busch b. 1978 (Warren on Buffy)
Lexa Doig b.1973 (Andromeda, Stargate SG-1, V, Continuum)
Paul Giamatti b. 1967 (Planet of the Apes)
Jason Isaacs b. 1963 (Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter series)

Looking at this list of actors, Giamatti is easily the best known, but he almost never shows up in sci-fi or fantasy. (He'll play a Spider-Man villain The Rhino next year.) The role that means the most to fans of the series would likely be Boba Fett. As an aging fanboy, I have to say this is an obsession I do not understand to this day. But I gave the picture slot to Ms. Doig, because if you know her work, it's probably from a sci-fi TV show.

And she's purdy.

Prediction: From the war panic of 1942 to as late as 2020, the tendency of architecture was to crouch. Hardly any mass of buildings erected between 1945 and the end of the century lifts up its head and looks the world in the face.

Predictor: H.G. Wells, The Shape of Things to Come, published 1933

Reality: Wells isn't right about this, of course. There has been a continuing escalation in architecture and the contest to have the tallest building in the world is still in full force. But let's look at the actually clever reasons why he is wrong.

World War I from start to finish will be one hundred years in the past this decade. It's not part of the memory of the living anymore. It's easy to forget that it was unlike any war the world had ever seen before. Writing in 1933, it was impossible for Wells to forget it and he was certain more war was coming. He even got some of the combatants right, Germany vs. Poland and the United States vs. Japan.

So here he is writing this book, correctly foreseeing that more war was coming even though war between modern nation-states was not profitable or glorious or in anyone's long-term interests. Wells took the view that humans just don't learn, or at the very minimum, the lessons take lifetimes.

Well Mr. Wells, it took a while and way too many dead bodies and destroyed cities, but for the most part, we did learn. We've avoided big wars between major industrialized nations since the end of World War II. (Wells didn't see that the war would end so quickly or so decisively.) The U.S. and the Soviets kept pushing limits to see what the other side would allow, the Soviets mostly on land and the Americans mostly in the air with spy missions, but with a little luck and some sense on both sides, we have avoided having a war we can call World War III for about seventy years now.

Does this mean we are in the clear now? That's a prediction I wish I could make. Happily, people can learn. Sadly, people also forget.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

A prediction from a movie that will be released tomorrow.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!