NotesâOdysseus was a groundbreaking larp production that was originally run in 2019 and again as remastered version in 2024.
Massive team of volunteers transformed an elementary school into a living, breathing space ship and took over 600 players from 30 different countries to an unforgettable journey through the stars.Unfurl
NotesLast year, hundreds of players inhabited a spaceship on the run, scrambling to keep one step ahead of the enemy. The sci-fi larp Odysseus was inspired by Battlestar Galacticaâs â33â, but where that episode only lasted 45 minutes, Odysseusâ players worked, fought, ate, and slept in-game for fifty non-stop hours.FeedEmbedUnfurl
NotesTechnology is the active human interface with the material world. ... We have been so desensitized by a hundred and fifty years of ceaselessly expanding technical prowess that we think nothing less complex and showy than a computer or a jet bomber deserves to be called âtechnologyâ at all. As if linen were the same thing as flax â as if paper, ink, wheels, knives, clocks, chairs, aspirin pills, were natural objects, born with us like our teeth and fingers â as if steel saucepans with copper bottoms and fleece vests spun from recycled glass grew on trees, and we just picked them when they were ripe...Unfurl
NotesGigaNotoSaurus (the webzine, edited by LaShawn Wanak) publishes one longish fantasy or science fiction story monthly. Longish meaning longer than a short story, and shorter than a novel.FeedEmbedUnfurl
Notes Hopepunk is a subgenre of speculative fiction, conceived of as the opposite of grimdark. Works in the hopepunk subgenre are about characters fighting for positive change, radical kindness, and communal responses to challenges. Unfurl
NotesWe're a writing focused subreddit welcoming all media exhibiting the awesome potential of humanity, known as HFY or "Humanity, Fuck Yeah!" We welcome sci-fi, fantasy, and all other stories with a focus on humans being awesome!Unfurl
NotesIt began centuries ago. Due to our physiology and the fact that our world contains a single continent, we never gave priority to developing long range communications. Our mind was one and we knew what all saw and felt. But as we developed and the laws of nature made themselves known to us, we stumbled unto radio signals. EmbedUnfurl
NotesI had been a teenage McCaffrey completist, but once Iâd read Sassinak â an engrossing space opera about planet pirates, orphan enslavement, naval training, in-ship subversion and space heroics with the totally magnificent Commander Sassinak (her only name) â I put the Dragons of Pern into a box and moved off into space with Elizabeth Moon.FeedEmbedUnfurl
NotesThe lesbian rankings contained herein are based on highly subjective criteria you will undoubtedly disagree with. It includes opinions from esteemed sources like your pal and mine Sally, who has seen all the Star Treks, as well as Autostraddle writers Al(aina), Kayla, and Senior Editor Carmen, the only three Autostraddle team members who wanted to join my Star Trek Slack Channel.FeedUnfurl
NotesAs you can see, even if it was possible to build a deflector shield generator of virtually infinite strength, the overall effectiveness of the system would still be limited by good old-fashioned structural limits. Ultimately, the survivability of a shielded spacecraft against physical impacts could (and would, given sufficient shield strength) conceivably come down to a set of bolts holding a shield generator onto the ship's spaceframe. This example highlights the severe problem with most attempts to rationalize sci-fi technologies, which is that people tend to look for the strongest link in the chain, not the weakest link in the chain.Unfurl
NotesThe official Blu-ray has seven mini-featurettes. Seems kind of bare bones for such a major summer release, eh? Indeed it does, because Paramount has divvied up all the other features â including the commentary tracks with the cast and director J.J. Abrams, and several additional featurettes â have been given exclusive to the Target release, the Best Buy release, and the iTunes download. Meaning 1) if you buy the normal version you're getting less than half the special features created for the home video release, and 2) if you want all of them you're going to need to purchase at least three separate versions.Unfurl
NotesYou may never get to drink at the Cantina â but you can still visit some real-life watering holes that celebrate your favorite stories. We've already shown you science-fictional bars we'd like to visit and people whose homes are based on spaceships, but here are real joints that boast a TARDIS, AT-ATs or the Martian landscape.Unfurl
NotesIf you've never read any of his books, read one of his books. Then read another. Even the bad ones were good, and the good ones were astonishing.FeedUnfurl
NotesWhat I cannot quite wrap my mind around is how the mind which wrote such a beautiful meditation on empathy can be the same one that argues for the violent overthrow of the American government because of its failure to ban gay marriage and to outlaw homosexuality generally.Unfurl
NotesThese kinds of ethical and paradoxical questions alone could potentially make Continuum not only a good time travel show, but maybe, just maybe, a sci-fi cop show that intelligently critiques its own existence.FeedEmbedUnfurl
Notes The rules are very simple but are very vast. There are over 300 rules and counting; we have rules for every episode and all of the movies. They are called rules but they operate more as guidelines: drinking this much at once may have fatal consequences and is discouraged.Unfurl
NotesNovelist Iain Banks might be better known as Iain M Banks, the pen name under which most of his speculative fiction is published. Of this oeuvre, his Culture series is most widely celebrated, depicting a utopian, galaxy-spanning civilisation whose citizens (when they arenât meddling in the affairs of lesser races) have plenty of time for gaming.FeedUnfurl
NotesNow maybe you can see how science could have a successor: thalience would use objective truth as an artistic medium and merge subjectivity and objectivity in a creative activity whose purpose is the re-sanctification of the natural world. To believe in an uplifting and satisfying vision of your place in the universe, and to know that this vision is true (or as true as anything can be) would be sublime. Thalience would be an activity worthy of post-scientific humanity, or our own biological or post-biological successors.Unfurl
NotesHowever, below the cut, I'm going to put some bullet points for those of you who've read "Rule 34", just to draw your attention to some aspects of the novel that you might otherwise have skidded past.FeedUnfurl
Notes âOur authors and readers have been asking for this for a long time,â said president and publisher Tom Doherty. âTheyâre a technically sophisticated bunch, and DRM is a constant annoyance to them. It prevents them from using legitimately-purchased e-books in perfectly legal ways, like moving them from one kind of e-reader to another.âFeedEmbedUnfurl
NotesMass Effect is epic. It's the product of the best parts of Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica and more with a protagonist who could be the love-child of Picard, Skywalker, and Starbuck. It's one of the most important pieces of science fiction narrative of our generation. Mass Effect goes so far beyond other fictional universes in ways that you may not have yet realized. It is cosmic in scope and scale.Unfurl
Notesthe only way for the compound to be more soluble than it already was would be if it dissolved before it came in contact with the water. He decided this would be a good basis for another short story, and then realized this represented the perfect way to deal with his concerns about scientific writingUnfurl
NotesMany people have been clamoring for me to post an âofficialâ Ready Player One soundtrack. I hate to be the cause of any sort of clamoring, so I compiled this list of nearly every song mentioned or referenced in the book, in roughly the order they appear. If you havenât finished reading the book yet, here there be spoilers. Unfurl
NotesProlific novelist Kevin J. Anderson has made no secret of his love for prog rock â and now he's taking his prog-rock fixation to the next level. He announced on his Facebook page that he's writing the novel version of Rush's new album, Clockwork Angels.
Writes Anderson:
After dropping hints for a while, finally the big announcement, a new project unlike any other I've ever done...and something that I consider very cool.
Most of you are aware of my long-standing friendship with Neil Peart, the drummer and lyricist from the legendary rock band Rush, as well as how much Rush has influenced my work. My first novel Resurrection, Inc. was closely inspired by the Rush album Grace Under Pressure, and I can point to dozens of other novels and stories that bear a clear Rush influence.
For more than twenty years, Neil and I have wanted to collaborate on something MAJOR, a way we could tie together our imaginations, and at last that's happening.
I'm writing the novelization of Rush's forthcoming album Clockwork Angels, their first new CD in five years. Imagine if someone had written the novel of The Wall, Tommy, or Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band when those classic albums were released. For Rush fans, CLOCKWORK ANGELS is that project.
I worked together with Neil to flesh out the epic story told over the course of the music, as well as the artist Hugh Syme whose paintings fill the CD booklet. In a young man's quest to follow his dreams, he is caught between the grandiose forces of order and chaos. He travels across a lavish and colorful world of steampunk and alchemy, with lost cities, pirates, anarchists, exotic carnivals, and a rigid Watchmaker who imposes precision on every aspect of daily life. To whet your appetite, Rush released the first two tracks, Caravan and BU2B - listen to those songs to get an idea of the story's beginning.
I'm writing the chapters now, incorporating the lyrics into the narrative, and having a fantastic time. More details to come, but for now-to quote a line from Caravan: "I can't stop thinking big."
[via Vintage Vinyl News]
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NotesI've been struck particularly by two things missing from the DS9 universe--one unpredictable in the 1993-99 span of the series, and one predictable but unattractive from the creators' standpoint.
Nobody uses social media, and nobody wastes time.FeedUnfurl
NotesA BBC team have been working closely with Dr Venn's team to help recover the signals. BBC Television historian Peter Wells, explained "We now know these are original broadcasts. So far we have recovered about 7 weeks of old television signals from space. Every day in our lab is like traveling back in time. And speaking of which we have just started the digital recovery of signals that contain lost Doctor Who episodes.FeedUnfurl
NotesThere's nothing better than a wild UFO conspiracy theory â unless it's a UFO theory that wraps in a debunked comet, the Catholic Church, and Star Trek: The Next Generation.
...
So will YOU be ready when Jesus of Borg arrives?
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NotesBut fans of the current Doctor, Matt Smith, could be disappointed, as Yates said that the film would be "quite a radical transformation" from the latest BBC1 series which ended in October.Unfurl
NotesXXITâs plot revolves around a beautiful âBioCloneâ from the future who travels to San Francisco to rescue the humans whose DNA she shares. The short filmâs acting may be standard issue, but the visuals point toward a promising future for low-budget sci-fi. The crew shot the production on the streets of San Francisco using six handheld cameras that cost $20,000 apiece.Unfurl
Notes I spent a half year writing software art to generate special effects for Tron Legacy, working at Digital Domain with Bradley "GMUNK" Munkowitz, Jake Sargeant, and David "dlew" Lewandowski. This page has taken a long time to be published because I've had to await clearance. A lot of my team's work was done using Adobe software and Cinema 4D. The rest of it got written in C++ using OpenFrameworks and wxWidgets, the way I've always done it with this team ;) Uniquely however, Digital Domain's CG artists were able to port my apps over to Houdini for further evolution and better rendering than OpenGL could ever provide. Special thanks to Andy King for showing me that what seasoned CG artists do at DD is actually not so far off from what's going on in the Processing community. FeedUnfurl
NotesThe hero has cornered the vicious monster. It's taken out everyone who has confronted it thus far, and the hero seems like no exception.
That's when the hero, rather than drawing a sword, pulls out his cue cards. He begins a speech about the good things in life, the wonders of good, how Humans Are Special and the monster should respect that, yadda yadda, could someone hit the mute button please?
And it works. This hideous monster surrenders, lets itself die, chooses to Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence, disappears in a Puff of Logic, or what-have-you. FeedUnfurl
NotesFiled under: Sci-fi, Business models, Previews, News items, Star Trek Online, Free-to-play The economy of free-to-play games can be a tricky business. Usually, they're managed by keeping a strict distinction between in-game currency and purchased currency, but Star Trek Online is taking a slig...Unfurl
NotesHe goes on to explain that science fiction, in the twentieth century, was too triumphalist and focused on a white American future, and lacked real details to go with its shiny ideas. "I wanted to see dirt in the corners," says Gibson.Unfurl
NotesJames Tiberius Kirk: lover, explorer, chanteur, a veritable 23rd-century bon vivant. Captain Kirk has many fine traits, but his martial prowess is perhaps most deserving of our fear and respect. Here are 10 fighting maneuvers that should be enshrined by Starfleet as "The Decalogue of Whooping Ass."Unfurl
Welcome
The Collective Ambition Behind Odysseus, a Game-changing Sci-fi Larp â mssv
DNA Lounge: 17-Mar-2025 (Mon): Wherein I get big into papercraft.
Ursula K. Le Guin â Ursula on Writing: A Rant about "Techonolgy"
Home - GigaNotoSaurus
Hopepunk - Wikipedia
Collaborating with Anne McCaffrey: An interview with Elizabeth Moon â Kate Macdonald
Every Major Female "Star Trek" Character, Ranked By Lesbianism | Autostraddle
Star Wars vs Star Trek Technology: Shields vs Physical Impacts
BBC News - Author Iain Banks has terminal cancer
What happened to Orson Scott Card? - Salon.com
Will Continuum Destroy the Sci-Fi Police Procedural? | Tor.com
Iain Banks: My Favourite Game - Edge Magazine
Thalience â KarlSchroeder.com
Spoilers - Charlie's Diary
Tor/Forge E-book Titles to Go DRM-Free | Tor.com
BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | 47 year old television signals bouncing back to Earth
Doctor Who film being planned | Television & radio | guardian.co.uk
Michael J. Fox performs Johnny B. Goode at Parkinson's benefit
Talking the Monster to Death - Television Tropes & Idioms
Gameforge lays off 100, Star Trek: Infinite Space looking shaky | Joystiq
Finally on DVD: Captain Power and Skeleton Warriors
Star Trek bathrobes
TARDIS Teapot
VOLTRON: The End - (Live action short directed by Alex Albrecht)
