• You are currently viewing our forum as a guest, which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community, you will have access to additional post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), view blogs, respond to polls, upload content, and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free, so please join our community today! Just click here to register. You should turn your Ad Blocker off for this site or certain features may not work properly. If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us by clicking here.

I need a sci-fi fix

Mycroft

The elder Holmes
Joined
Jun 7, 2007
Messages
1,068
MBTI Type
INTP
Enneagram
5w6
Instinctual Variant
so/sp
With Battlestar Galactica between seasons, I'm dyin' over here! Anyone have any recommendations?
 

Natrushka

Pareo cattus
Joined
Jun 7, 2007
Messages
1,213
MBTI Type
INTJ
Do you mean movie, TV series, books?

Which season of BG are you on, Mycroft?
 

Mycroft

The elder Holmes
Joined
Jun 7, 2007
Messages
1,068
MBTI Type
INTP
Enneagram
5w6
Instinctual Variant
so/sp
Any of the three. (Although books are the most difficult for me to procure.)

I'm totally caught up on BSG, hence my conundrum.
 

Natrushka

Pareo cattus
Joined
Jun 7, 2007
Messages
1,213
MBTI Type
INTJ
There's a new movie out, Sunshine - more 'science', but garnering good reviews.

BsG, I still have that damned song stuck in my head and it's been m-o-n-t-h-s. Only five? more to go. <sigh>
 

Natrushka

Pareo cattus
Joined
Jun 7, 2007
Messages
1,213
MBTI Type
INTJ
Have you been watching Lost? That might be another good one, especially if you can watch the episodes one after the other (and not have to wait weeks and months like some of us had to :ggrrr:) It isn't 'sci-fi' it's 'weird-fi' but it's very entertaining / engrossing. It does come after BsG and Deadwood, if I had to rank them all, though.
 

Mycroft

The elder Holmes
Joined
Jun 7, 2007
Messages
1,068
MBTI Type
INTP
Enneagram
5w6
Instinctual Variant
so/sp
The Watchtower cover? Yeah that rocked.
 

Mycroft

The elder Holmes
Joined
Jun 7, 2007
Messages
1,068
MBTI Type
INTP
Enneagram
5w6
Instinctual Variant
so/sp
BSG and Next Gen are my two favorite shows. I keep hoping they'll make one more decent Next Gen movie and give the franchise a dignified send-off.

Anywho, thanks for the recommendations!
 

Mycroft

The elder Holmes
Joined
Jun 7, 2007
Messages
1,068
MBTI Type
INTP
Enneagram
5w6
Instinctual Variant
so/sp
I honestly haven't read much sci-fi. I typically stick to non-fiction when I read. Otherwise my Jness gets me to feeling all guilty for "wasting" time. However, even I need to relax my grey matter sometimes, and I can justify an hour or so staring blankly at the 'set.

Edit: I realize how absurd this is since I could just as easily spend that same hour reading. So! Book recommendations also still welcome.
 

Varelse

Wait, what?
Joined
Apr 25, 2007
Messages
1,698
MBTI Type
INTJ
You could probably start with some short story collections as well, to give you an introduction to various authors. Hugo or Nebula collections would be good choices. Another one is the SFWA Grand Masters-three volumes with stories in by the Grand Masters. These cover earlier SF (e.g., Clarke, Heinlein, Bester).

As far as novels go, some of my favorites are Hyperion, Speaker for the Dead, The Carpet Makers (Andreas Eschbach), and I also liked Babel-17. The Demolished Man is also a personal favorite, but I'm not sure how much you'd like Bester, and his works tend to be hard to find anyway.
 

JivinJeffJones

New member
Joined
Apr 25, 2007
Messages
3,702
MBTI Type
INFP
There is a collection of Philip K Dick short-stories in 3 volumes somewhere, you should definitely try that out. Really interesting ideas (short-stories are good for that), and you have a natural stopping point for reading if you don't want to "waste" too much time. Top sci-fi. I think there's a new PK Dick movie adaptation out with Nicholas Cage in it right now. "Next", I think it's called.
 

NoahFence

New member
Joined
Jun 23, 2007
Messages
288
MBTI Type
INTP
I too wait with breathless antici....pation for BSG to resume in January. I too have found Lost to be a lovely little head trip. I'd say it qualifies as SciFi...though set in a contemporary world, there is some crazy meta- crap happening to those poor shmucks that is just awesome to watch unraveling.

Other shows, hmm, I assume you've already hit Farscape and Firefly?

As for movies, the only one I can think of offhand is Primer, can't say enough good stuff about that one.
 
Joined
Jun 6, 2007
Messages
7,312
MBTI Type
INTJ
I honestly haven't read much sci-fi. I typically stick to non-fiction when I read. Otherwise my Jness gets me to feeling all guilty for "wasting" time. However, even I need to relax my grey matter sometimes, and I can justify an hour or so staring blankly at the 'set.

Edit: I realize how absurd this is since I could just as easily spend that same hour reading. So! Book recommendations also still welcome.

Absurd or not, this is my exact thought process. I read nonfiction almost exclusively because reading fiction feels indulgent, but I will watch TV for nothing but entertainment. The only explanation I can think of is that we're conditioned that reading is educational and TV is frivolous, so when we read it's "work time" and when we watch TV it's "play time". Which is silly and outdated in the midst of both trashy novels and thoughtful television.
 
Joined
Jun 6, 2007
Messages
7,312
MBTI Type
INTJ
I also have a movie recommendation, "Pi". It's not sci-fi strictly speaking, it's more of a mathematical thriller, but it scratches the same itch. Here's a plot summary I nicked from IMDB:

In Manhattan, behind six locks, lives Max Cohen, a mathematician and computer whiz. Since staring at the sun at age six, he's had terrible headaches; plus, he can't abide human contact except with an aging professor, and he's obsessed with finding numeric patterns. His current obsession is the stock market; his theories bring him to the attention of Wall Street traders. He also keeps running into Lenny, a fast-talking Hasidic who fronts for a cabal that wants to rediscover long-lost mathematical mysteries in the Torah. Neither group is benign, and they pursue Max as his hallucinations and headaches worsen. Does nature offer any solutions? Can Max find them?

I do offer one caveat: The movie is in black and white and cost about ten bucks to make, and it looks it. So if grainy film and poor production values bother you, it might not be the movie for you.
 

Ivy

Strongly Ambivalent
Joined
Apr 18, 2007
Messages
23,989
MBTI Type
INFP
Enneagram
6
I also have a movie recommendation, "Pi". It's not sci-fi strictly speaking, it's more of a mathematical thriller, but it scratches the same itch. Here's a plot summary I nicked from IMDB:

In Manhattan, behind six locks, lives Max Cohen, a mathematician and computer whiz. Since staring at the sun at age six, he's had terrible headaches; plus, he can't abide human contact except with an aging professor, and he's obsessed with finding numeric patterns. His current obsession is the stock market; his theories bring him to the attention of Wall Street traders. He also keeps running into Lenny, a fast-talking Hasidic who fronts for a cabal that wants to rediscover long-lost mathematical mysteries in the Torah. Neither group is benign, and they pursue Max as his hallucinations and headaches worsen. Does nature offer any solutions? Can Max find them?

I do offer one caveat: The movie is in black and white and cost about ten bucks to make, and it looks it. So if grainy film and poor production values bother you, it might not be the movie for you.

Pi was a great one. Also I saw it at the Angelika in Manhattan which made me feel super-cool. :wubbie:
 

Natrushka

Pareo cattus
Joined
Jun 7, 2007
Messages
1,213
MBTI Type
INTJ
Strange. I absolutely refuse to read nonfiction unless it's for research. I enjoy my nonfiction as an escape. But then, other than a few TV shows I don't watch much - at least not compared to the norm.
 

The Ü™

Permabanned
Joined
May 26, 2007
Messages
11,910
MBTI Type
INTJ
Enneagram
5w6
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
I always fancied Firefly -- I have it on DVD -- and, of course, Serenity.
 

Natrushka

Pareo cattus
Joined
Jun 7, 2007
Messages
1,213
MBTI Type
INTJ
Yep those are good ones, too, Uber.

And then there are the classics... Babylon 5 was one of my all time faves.
 
Top