1 September 2014

Birthdays
Michael Adamthwaite b. 1981 (Nerds and Monsters, Arrow, Horns, Once Upon a Time, Supernatural, Fringe, Sucker Punch, Behemoth, Riverworld, Twilight: New Moon, Smallville, Reaper, Watchmen, Flash Gordon [TV], Stephen King’s Dead Zone, Dead Like Me, 10.5, Stargate SG-1, Jeremiah)
Camille Chen b. 1979 (Grimm, American Horror Story, Touch, Meteor [TV], Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over)
Adrienne Wilkinson b. 1977 (Star Trek: Renegades, Nobility, Charmed, Angel, Xena)
Scott Speedman b. 1975 (Underworld: Evolution, Underworld)
Burn Gorman b. 1974 (Game of Thrones, Pacific Rim, The Dark Knight Rises, Torchwood)
Jhonen Vasquez b. 1974 (Invader ZIM)
Maury Sterling b. 1971 (Extant, Dollhouse, Charmed, Star Trek: Enterprise, Angel, Dark Skies, Outbreak)
Ricardo Chavira b. 1971 (Warehouse 13, Piranha 3D)
Padma Lakshmi b. 1970 (Star Trek: Enterprise)
Zak Penn b. 1968 (writer, Pacific Rim 2, Alphas, The Avengers, The Incredible Hulk, X-Men: The Last Stand, Elektra, X-Men 2)
James Nguyen b. 1966 (Birdemic 1 and 2)
Joe Jusko b. 1959 (artist, Marvel Comics)
James Rebhorn b. 1948 died 21 March 2014 (Coma [2012], The Adventures of Pluto Nash, From the Earth to the Moon, Independence Day, Cat’s Eye)
Beau Starr b. 1944 (Stephen King’s Dead Zone, Final Days of Planet Earth, The 4400, Earth: Final Conflict, Relic Hunter, Total Recall 2070, Halloween 4 and 5, V, Knight Rider, The Powers of Matthew Star)
Zito Kazann b. 1944 (The X Files, Angel, Charmed, Buffy, Sliders, Waterworld, The Flash, Werewolf [TV], Automan, Tucker’s Witch, Knight Rider, The Greatest American Hero, The Six Million Dollar Man)
Don Stroud b. 1943 (Little Bigfoot, Babylon 5, The Alien Within, Carnosaur 2, Cyber Seeker, Frogtown II, Quantum Leap, Super Force, Hyper Space, The Powers of Matthew Star, The Incredible Hulk, The Amityville Horror)
C. J. Cherryh b. 1942 (won 1982 Hugo for Downbelow Station and 1989 Hugo for Cyteen)
Judy Levitt b. 1940 (InAlienable, Babylon 5, Star Trek: Generations, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Moontrap, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home)
Lily Tomlin b. 1939 (The X Files, The Incredible Shrinking Woman)
Ron O’Neal b. 1937 died 14 January 2004 (Hyper Space, Beauty and the Beast [1987], Knight Rider, The Greatest American Hero, The Final Countdown, Brave New World)
George Maharis b. 1928 (Superboy, The Sword and the Sorcerer, Logan’s Run [TV], Bionic Woman, Look What’s Happened to Rosemary’s Baby, Death in Space, Journey to the Unknown, The Satan Bug)
Yvonne De Carlo b. 1922 died 8 January 2007 (American Gothic, The Munsters)
Vittorio Gassman b. 1922 died 29 June 2000 (Quintet)
Betty Blythe b. 1893 died 7 April 1972 (She [1925])
Edgar Rice Burroughs b. 1875 died 19 March 1950 (author, John Carter)

Last year, the Picture Slot went to Yvonne De Carlo as Lily Munster, both as a fabulous babe and as the most iconic genre role of anyone on our list. This year, I went with a Frazetta illustration of John Carter, Warlord of Mars, just as a reminder the story existed before it was turned into a massive failure at the box office.

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

 Predictor: George Orwell in Nineteen Eighty Four, published 1949

Prediction: In late summer, Hate Week is celebrated.

Reality: For the most part, I like to present a new prediction every day, but I'm repeating this from early September of last year because I love George Orwell's work. We don't pick one set week out of every year to hate our enemies, though if you look it up on Google you'll see several college sports rivalries consider the run-up to the big game a sort of Hate Week. In terms of politics, Hate Week goes on all year now, with websites like Raw Story and others giving left wingers the stories of people they should despise and The Drudge Report and others giving right wingers the same. We also get the occasional international outrage that we are supposed to get indignant about, like Boko Haram or ISIS or the downing of a plane in the Ukraine. Orwell was not very accurate on details, but there's a reason he deserves to have his name turned into an adjective, as the tone of our political discourse certainly has the feel of his book.

Never to be Forgotten: 
Stan Goldberg 1932-2014
Comic artist Stan Goldberg worked most of his career at Archie Comics, but in the early 1960s he was at Marvel, and as a colorist he decided the color schemes of many of Marvel's most famous characters, including the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Thor and the Hulk. He is also the artist in one of the oddest crossover issues in comics history, Archie Meets The Punisher, which I have trimmed and made this month's splash illustration.

Best wishes to the family and friends of Stan Goldberg. He is never to be forgotten.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

It's time for FM-2030 to give his bold vision of a world that works exactly as he wants it.


Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!

4 April 2014

 Birthdays
Heath Ledger b. 1979 died 22 January 2008 (The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, The Dark Knight, The Brothers Grimm)
Natasha Lyonne b. 1979 (4:44 Last Day on Earth, Blade: Trinity, Modern Vampires)
Barry Pepper b. 1970 (Battlefield Earth, Sliders, Highlander [TV])
Lisa Hammer b. 1967 (The Venture Brothers, Frankenstein and the Creature from the Blood Cove)
David Cross b. 1964 (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Men in Black II, Small Soldiers)
Robert Downey Jr. b. 1965 (Avengers, Iron Man, Incredible Hulk, A Scanner Darkly, The Shaggy Dog, Weird Science)
Hugo Weaving b. 1960 (The Hobbit, Cloud Atlas, Captain America: The First Avenger, Transformers, The Wolfman, Lord of the Rings, V for Vendetta, The Matrix)
Phil Morris b. 1959 (Smallville, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Dark Planet, Babylon 5, Star Trek III; The Search for Spock, Star Trek)
Tim White b. 1952 (artist)
Dan Simmons b. 1948 (won 1990 Hugo for Hyperion)
Craig T. Nelson b. 1944 (The Incredibles, Creature, Poltergeist, Wonder Woman, Flesh Gordon, Scream Blacula Scream, The Return of Count Yorga)
Kenneth Mars b. 1935 died 12 February 2011 (Weird Science [TV], Lois & Clark, M.A.N.T.I.S., Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, The Twilight Zone [1986], Misfits of Science, Project U.F.O., Wonder Woman, Young Frankenstein)
Anthony Perkins b. 1932 (The Black Hole, On the Beach)
Andrei Tarkovsky b. 1932 died 29 December 1986 (director , Solaris [1972])
Peter Vaughan b. 1923 (Game of Thrones, Brazil, Time Bandits)
David White b. 1916 died 27 November 1990 (Bewitched, The Incredible Hulk, Wonder Woman, The Amazing Spider-Man [1977], The Six Million Dollar Man, My Favorite Martian, Twilight Zone)
Richard Coogan b. 1914 died 12 March 2014 (Captain Video and his Video Rangers)

Last year, the Picture Slot went to Hugo Weaving. This year it's Robert Downey Jr. This is an incredibly deep list of actors, but those two are not only well-known, but their roles in genre films are as well known as anything else they have done. Just because of my idiosyncratic interest, I might go with a picture of Trianna from The Venture Brothers on another 4th of April. Heath Ledger as The Joker is another possibility and I might get in a Game of Thrones mood and put up Peter Vaughn as Maester Aemon.

Long story short, this is a heck of a list. Many happy returns to all the living, and to the dead, thanks for all the memories.


Movies released
The Adjustment Bureau released 2011
  

Predictor: George Orwell in 1984, published in 1949

Prediction: On 4 April 1984, Winston Smith begins writing his diary

Reality: As an accurate prediction, 1984 is not very good. As speculative fiction, it's a masterpiece.

I told this story last year, but it bears repeating. I first got the idea for This Day in Science Fiction about twenty years ago and I thought it would be a day calendar with fun facts and predictions. Back then, researching sci-fi with exact dates was much more of a challenge, and I would go to the library and skim through books at high speed, hoping an exact date would show up. Of all the books I skimmed like this, including Asimov, Clarke, Bradbury, Larry Niven, William Gibson and many more, 1984 was the only one that made me slow down and read. I would start a paragraph and I'd want to read to the end, and that would make me want to read the whole chapter. Quite simply, I was reading the others as research, but I read Orwell for the pleasure of reading.

Orwell drank himself to death, a sadly common form of slow suicide back in the mid 20th Century. But damn, could that motherfucker write.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!


The regular schedule is again interrupted from a prediction about 2018.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!

2 September 2013

Birthdays
Salma Hayek b. 1966 (Spy Kids:Game Over, From Dusk Till Dawn, Dogma)
Keanu Reeves b. 1964 (The Matrix, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure)
Samuel A. Peeples b. 1917 died 27 August1997 (writer, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan)Mel Stuart b. 1928 died 9 August 2012 (director, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory)

When a fabulous babe is in the Picture Slot, I often look for somewhat modest photos that are not Cleavage Forward. I did not do this with Ms. Hayek because... reasons.

It's hard for me to believe Keanu Reeves will be 50 next year. I still think of him as a not very bright twenty something. I could be kind and say that's a testament to his acting skills, but you and I know that isn't true.

Many happy returns of the day to the living.

Prediction: In late summer, Hate Week begins.

Predictor: Nineteen Eighty Four, written by George Orwell in 1948

Reality: We haven't turned it into a special week's holiday every year, but a lot of politics today reminds me of Orwell's Two Minutes Hate. Right now we are being told why we should hate Syria, right wingers have Fox News and talk radio beating a constant drum of hatred towards Obama and the Democrats and websites like Talking Points Memo, Daily Kos and Media Matters are always digging up disgusting behavior from right wingers and Republicans, either media figures or politicians.

It gets exhausting.

Looking ahead one day... INTO THE FUTURE!

A prediction about 1999 from a 1989 TV show.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!

10 April 2013

 Birthdays
Alex Pettyfer b. 1990
Jamie Chung b. 1983
Max Von Sydow b. 1929

If I was using the Photo Slot = Pretty Girl Rule, you would now be looking at a picture of Jamie Chung from Sucker Punch. If I wanted a pretty boy instead, Mr. Pettyfer from I Am Number Four and In Time would be an excellent choice. But sometimes even a dirty old man looks at a list of names and says "There is exactly one great actor in that list" and today was one of those days. He had a long and brilliant career before his first genre film Flash Gordon in 1980 and has done several since, including Minority Report in the century.

Many happy returns to all concerned.

Prediction: Winston could not definitely remember a time when his country had not been at war, but it was evident there had been a fairly long interval of peace during his childhood, because one of his early memories was of an air raid which appeared to take everyone by surprise. Perhaps it was the time when the atomic bomb had dropped on Colchester.

Predictor: George Orwell in 1984, published 1949

Reality: On Sunday of this week, I posted a map of the world governments according to 1984. Oceania's center I assume to be the United States, Eurasia looks like an expanded Soviet Union and Eastasia is China and some surrounding countries. Orwell does not give any detailed explanation of how the world went from the late 1940s to the world of 1984, but obviously there were more wars of expansion and the wars to control the Disputed Territories have been fought ever since.

There aren't that many exact dates given in 1984. One of the recurring themes is the unreliability of memory. My memory is good enough to recall that this is the seventh day of Orwell Week - and my reliable labels back me up.  There is so much more that is worth discussing in the book, from Hate Week and Two Minutes' Hate to the books that influenced Orwell to write this and the writers who owe him a debt, but I'm going to stay true to my self-imposed deadline and make this the last of the Orwell posts for now. I will certainly return to it... IN THE FUTURE!


Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE! 




Back on our regular schedule, Thursday is a prediction from Arthur C. Clarke, and we celebrate the birthday of the best looking toaster ever.

Join me then... IN THE FUTURE! 

9 April 2013

Birthdays

Elle Fanning b. 1998
Kristen Stewart b. 1990
Dennis Quaid b. 1954

Ms. Fanning's best known genre work is Super 8 and Mr. Quaid's is The Day After Tomorrow. I reluctantly give the picture slot to Ms. Stewart and since I did so, it had to be a picture of her using all her acting ability, which means biting her lower lip.

To be fair, when she was much younger, she was very good in Panic Room.

Prediction: He wrote: Thoughtcrime does not entail death. Thoughtcrime IS death.

Predictor: George Orwell (writing through his protagonist Winston Smith) in 1984, published in 1949

Reality: Google thoughtcrime and look at the images. All over the political spectrum, people accuse their rivals of wanting to institute thoughtcrime. Left wingers accuse the right of turning opposition to the Iraq War into thoughtcrime. Right wingers often turn Obama into Big Brother. People way out on the fringe think Holocaust deniers are persecuted martyrs to be equated with Galileo. Some libertarians consider hate crime statutes to be akin to thoughtcrime.

In my view, people should calm down about this. As someone who opposed the Iraq invasion, I can state for a fact that the millions of people who protested the war were not locked up and put in detention centers. We were just ignored, the war happened anyway.  The people who fear Obama brings Communism and re-education camps are worrying about something just as unlikely.

Because we don't live in Orwell's dystopia, the things that look most like thoughtcrime to me are the ways people are excluded from groups for failing to follow the party line on important topics. Ever since Al Gore released An Inconvenient Truth, the political polarization on the issue of climate change has become more pronounced. Admitting climate change exists is something near heresy in the right wing culture, even though some of their heroes - notably the late Margaret Thatcher and just yesterday Arnold Schwarzenegger in a guest op-ed in the Los Angeles Times - accept the scientific consensus. Last decade, Newt Gingrich was on board with the idea of combating climate change, though he recanted when he ran for president. Neither of these positions is the considered opinion of a serious intellectual. Mr. Gingrich will follow money to Hell's Ditch and back.

A few weeks ago, I went to a talk by a climate scientist in San Francisco, and on the bus trip back to the East Bay, I sensed a lot of discomfort when I brought up that temperature increases and increases in CO2 levels are not moving in lockstep and that the areas with the most warming have nothing to do with population density. I was in no danger of being locked up but inside the group on that bus, I was engaged in thoughtcrime.

We live in a polarized time politically, but it's not as cut and dried as it feels when some topic has people screaming at one another across a chasm of opinion that appears impossible to bridge. The change in public opinion on gay marriage in the past twelve months is a near perfect example. Obama's famous "evolution" on the topic was announced just last May, and a nationwide counter-demonstration of people waiting hours in line for "fast food" was last August. Since then, Chick Fil-A has decided to stop funding anti-gay marriage groups, which must make all those people who stood in line wonder what the hell was the point of wasting an afternoon.

To sum up, thoughtcrime (or crimethink, as Orwell uses later in the book) is not an accurate prediction of our present culture, but it is a metaphor worthy of closer inspection, which nicely describes why Orwell is still worth reading.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE! 

A date other than 1984 shows up in the book, and luckily for us, Orwell gets this one wrong as well.

Join me then... IN THE FUTURE!

8 April 2013

Birthdays
Taylor Kitsch b. 1981
Katee Sackhoff b. 1980
Emma Caulfield b. 1973

Mr. Kitsch was on Friday Night Lights, but his best known work in genre is in X-Men Origins:Wolverine. He was also the lead in John Carter, a project he would likely just as soon forget. Ms. Sackoff's best known work in genre is in Battlestar Galactica. As usual, I use the cute girl = picture slot rule.

Edit: I had Emma Caulfield's birthday written down wrong. It's today and she should count as a cute girl, too. Next year, I'll have a picture of Anya from Buffy instead of Starbuck from Battlestar.



 

Prediction: 1984 will see the publication of the 11th edition of the Newspeak Dictionary

Predictor: George Orwell in 1984, published in 1949

Reality: Orwell was fascinated with language and invests a lot of thought and ink into how language would have to change in a society like Oceania. We learn about the new language Newspeak through the character Syme, played in the 1984 version of the film by James Walker. As Syme tells us, it is not so much about creating new words as it is about destroying old ones, limiting the ways that people can think by getting rid of words that express thoughts the party rejects.

1984 is not a comic novel, but Orwell throws in a few smiles along the way with his choice of words. Winston is forced to perform a morning exercise routine with an instructress monitoring his progress and that of many others through the telescreen. The exercises are called The Physical Jerks, a phrase Elvis Costello appropriated in the song Living In Paradise. Syme explains that the rhythm of Newspeak is very important, that words tend to be two or three syllables with a clipped sound. A skilled orator in Newspeak creates a rhythm that carries the listener along, with no time to think about anything else besides what is being said. Words will no longer have shades of meaning and listeners will not have time for their minds to wander.

I've read the book several times, this time around reading it on Kindle, which makes it easier to search. Early in the book, Winston uses the word thoughtcrime, which describes the great sin of Oceania, having an idea antithetical to the principles of IngSoc (Newspeak for English Socialism). Later in the book, the word crimethink is introduced, the same as thoughtcrime in meaning but with more of the clipped rhythm Orwell decides is vital. Syme explains the Newspeak word duckspeak, which can be an insult or a compliment, the way the new language makes a fluent speaker sound like a quacking duck. It is worth noting that while Orwell says Newspeak is meant to get rid of ambiguity, he still comes up with new words that have multiple meanings. Even while trying to invent a language that limits thought, Orwell himself can't help but play with the language, one of the traits that give his writing such power.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

Crimethink. Try not to commit one between now and next we meet. I fully expect you to fail.

Join me then... IN THE FUTURE!

7 April 2013

Birthday
Heath Ledger b. 1979 died 22 Jan 2008

Mr. Ledger's best known work in the genre is The Dark Knight, and he was also in The Brothers Grimm and Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, his last film.

Prediction:  As soon as Winston had dealt with each of the messages, he clipped his speakwritten corrections to the appropriate copy of the Times and pushed them into the pneumatic tube. Then, with a movement which was as nearly as possible unconscious, he crumpled up the original message and any notes that he himself had made, and dropped them in the memory hole to be devoured by the flames.

Predictor:  George Orwell in 1984, published 1949

Reality:  So much stuff this little paragraph brings up. 

First off: Pneumatic tubes!  A while back, I joked that The Holy Trinity of Mid Century Futurism were flying cars, moving sidewalks and food in pill form. Well, I have to lose that trinity bit because pneumatic tubes are just as important. I might very well stumble on some other thing that is just as iconic.

The main part of the prediction is the memory hole, a place where facts go to die. Winston Smith's job was re-writing old sources of information so that it all agreed with whatever the current official version of the truth was.

Needless to say, we don't live in the future Orwell predicted. This map of Oceania, Eurasia, Eastasia and the Disputed Territories is not the way the world is split up. We don't have a state run by a single party that always needs to rewrite the past to show they are infallible in the present.

This does not stop some people from believing the past has been doctored, that some unnamed soul is doing the same kind of work that Winston Smith did in the novel. If you believe that Obama was not born in Hawaii, you have to believe his various birth certificates and this announcement in the Honolulu newspaper are frauds perpetrated recently to re-write the past and all copies of the "original" papers have been sent down the memory hole.

Which brings us to the world we actually live in.  Friend of the blog Leo Lincourt tweeted a link to the Smithsonian's Paleofuture website.  In it, the late Internet pioneer Paul Baran made a remarkable prediction in 1969 that more TV stations could create a media environment where people could find news outlets that would cater to the things they believed were true. Baran mentions the John Birchers and left wing student groups as possible consumers of such media  It's stunningly accurate but I have to sneak it in sideways onto this blog because it did not give a date as to when this would happen.

Thanks to Leo Lincourt for finding this gem.

So we have this split world, mainly cleaved along the lines of conservatives and liberals but actually much more fractured than that. Instead of erasing the past completely, both sides assume in a manner "as nearly as possible unconscious" that the other side is filled with lying scumbags. There are competing versions of the truth on more topics than I can count, and each side is convinced what they read, hear and see through their media outlets is the real truth.

Like a lot of liberals, I have come to hate the "both sides do it" argument. Some recent research suggests conservatives buy into conspiracy theories more than liberals do, but that doesn't mean our side is simon pure. As I study more about climate change, it's obvious both sides completely discount the other. The thing is, there is some data that casts doubt on the idea of man made climate change. A strong example is that the rise in CO2 is undeniable and unprecedented but the temperature increases have not moved in lockstep. Because such questions are often raised by people who think the science community is a money-making scam (another conspiracy theory I can't begin to understand much less accept) questions that should be answered are largely ignored instead.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

A look at Newspeak, the language that will replace English.

Join me then... IN THE FUTURE!

6 April 2013

Birthday
Billy Dee Williams b. 1937

Yeah, Lando Calrissian is 76 years old. I doubt the pornstache and the hair product are having the same effect as they used to.
 

Prediction: "... sentimental songs were produced entirely by mechanical means on a special kind of kaleidoscope known as a versificator."

Predictor: George Orwell in 1984, published 1949

Reality: Besides pop songs, pornography is predicted to be produced mechanically on these large kaleidoscopes. When Winston and Julia first meet, her arm is in a sling and he assumes she had been in an accident with one of the machines. We find out later that she does work in Pornosec, but only manning the machines, as she admits to Winston she is "not literary."

Neither pop songs or porn are produced without human hands touching them, but I understand where Orwell could get the idea it would be possible in the future to grind these things out like sausages.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!


We take a look down the pneumatic tubes to the inner workings of The Memory Hole.

Join me then... IN THE FUTURE!

5 April 2013

 Birthday
Hayley Atwell b. 1982


Ms. Atwell best known work in genre films is in Captain America: The First Avenger.

Never to be forgotten
 
Yesterday, Roger Ebert died at the age of 70 from cancer. He is best known as a film critic and more recently as a very effective user of social media, especially Twitter. These things do not make him an icon in science fiction or fantasy, but reading his obituaries I discovered his first writing was a self published sci-fi fan magazine called Stymie. He also had some sci-fi stories published, including The Molecules of Titan, which is available online courtesy of The New Yorker.

Best wishes to the family and friends of Roger Ebert, from a fan. He is never to be forgotten.

Never to be Forgotten

The comic book artist Carmine Infantino died yesterday at the age of 87. His best known characters created were Batgirl and the modern version of The Flash, whose alter ego was Barry Allen. For a time he was the editorial director at DC Comics and pulled off the coup of getting Jack Kirby to leave Marvel to create new characters and books on his own.


Best wishes to the family and friends of Carmine Infantino, from a fan. He is never to be forgotten.

Prediction: Winston glanced across the hall. In the corresponding cubicle on the other side a small, precise-looking, dark-chinned man named Tillotson was working steadily away, with a folded newspaper on his knee and his mouth very close to the mouthpiece of the speakwrite. He had the air of trying to keep what he was saying a secret between himself and the telescreen.

Predictor: George Orwell in 1984, published 1949

Reality: Orwell is not a technologically savvy writer, but the speakwrite and the telescreen are two of his predictions of new inventions. The speakwrite did not exist in the 1980s, but machines that turn dictation into text exist today.  One of the manufacturers actually sells a product under the name SpeakWrite. Orwell definitely gets points for this one.

And then there's the telescreen, the TV that is looking back at you. Ho, ho, ho, what tommyrot!  No one would ever allow such a thing to be put in their own home!

That last paragraph was written on a computer connected to the Internet.

Mine doesn't have a webcam, but many do. It's not literally watching me 24/7, but whenever any of us goes online, and huge numbers of people do so voluntarily every day, information about our location, our interests, things we might be interested in buying, etc. becomes available to a lot of people. We aren't living in East Germany, thank Odin, Vishnu and the little baby Jebus, but a lot of popular technology today makes finding our whereabouts much easier than it used to be.

Literally interpreted, I wouldn't give Orwell a passing grade for the telescreen. But looking at 2013 instead of 1984 and considering it metaphorically, he was definitely on the right track.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

In a book not written for laughs, George Orwell makes a joke of a prediction. Considered literally, it's a complete bust, but as a metaphor... this guy was great with metaphors. 

Join me then... IN THE FUTURE!
 

4 April 2013

Birthdays
Robert Downey Jr. b. 1965
Hugo Weaving b. 1960
Dan Simmons b. 1948
(won 1990 Hugo for Hyperion)

Another embarrassment of riches in selection for who gets the picture slot. I'll give it to Downey next year, I promise.

Movies released
The Adjustment Bureau released 2011

 

April 4, 1984: Last night to the flicks. All war films. One very good one of a ship of refugees being bombed somewhere in the Mediterranean. Audience much amused by shots of a great huge fat man trying to swim away with a helicopter after him. first you saw him wallowing along in the water like a porpoise, then you saw him through the helicopters gunsights, then he was full of holes and the sea round him turned pink and he sank as suddenly as holes had let in the water. audience shouting with laughter as he sank.

Author: Winston Smith, as written by George Orwell, the first words of his diary in 1984, book published in 1949

Reality: The reality of the next week of posts is very different from earlier entries, because I declare this Orwell Week. 1984 has dates and predictions of events and technology. Very few of them came to pass, but there are still some powerful metaphors that are worth exploring.

The idea for This Day In Science Fiction first came to me in the 1990s. Back then, I thought it might become a one-a-day desk calendar. With no false modesty, I think it's one of the best ideas I ever had. While some people have done things like it, no one has attempted exactly what I want to accomplish with this.

Back then, the Internet was a wobbly little thing, so all my research was done in libraries. I would pull down books from the shelves and just scan for dates, which is fairly easy because a date like 2001 looks like ALL CAPS, and all caps in published fiction is rare. I sifted through Asimov and Bradbury and Clarke and Heinlein and others, the pages flipping past at a pace where I was barely even scanning. 

Then I got to 1984.

I found myself stopping and reading. The experience was like night and day compared to the other books. Though I had to read it when I was in school, I decided to read it again.

For me, Orwell is a giant, and not only compared to science fiction writers. I am not alone in this opinion. How many writers' names are now adjectives? Off the top of my head, I can think of Shakespearean, Dickensian, Kafkaesque and Orwellian. There are other great writers of course, but they haven't been turned into adjectives. Thinking of favorite writers from the 20th Century, my short list includes Joseph Conrad, James Thurber and Patrick O'Brian.  Is Conradian or Thurberesque a word? My spellchecker says no. My spellchecker did not blink at Shakespearean, Dickensian, Kafkaesque or Orwellian.

And so begins Orwell Week. Instead of quick little jokes or statements of admiration about a successful prediction, I will take ideas from 1984 and write short essays about them.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE! 

We start with the prediction of future technology that Orwell gets right, more or less.
 
Join me then... IN THE FUTURE!