FREE/BARGAIN — Science Fiction & Fantasy

[bgalbrecht]

Originally Posted by Richwood

I agree though, to change dates in near contemporary science fiction to try and keep it in the future is dumb and will seldom work. Need a total rewrite to introduce technology advances like personal computers, internet, cellular telephones etc. In 10 years or less need to include self driving cars and who knows what new technology. Science fiction can be so wrong about the future. I remember stories from the 1930s through the 1960s which had engineers in space still using slide rules for doing calculations and huge computers, some still analog. A current cellular phone has far more calculating power than the huge vacuum tube computer I worked on circa 1965, and it was already long obsolete even then.

One of my favorite examples of this is Robert Heinlein's Starman Jones, in which all the spaceship navigation is done with manual readings, then they are entered into a computer after looking up the the decimal to binary values in a book, and when the computer is finished calculating, they convert it back to decimal by looking up the binary to decimal values! I believe that was already obsolete by the time Heinlein wrote it.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by bgalbrecht

One of my favorite examples of this is Robert Heinlein's Starman Jones, in which all the spaceship navigation is done with manual readings, then they are entered into a computer after looking up the the decimal to binary values in a book, and when the computer is finished calculating, they convert it back to decimal by looking up the binary to decimal values! I believe that was already obsolete by the time Heinlein wrote it.

I seem to remember thinking that looking up decimal to binary in a book and entering the binary numbers into the computer then converting the computer's light display back to decimal was a bit silly. But then in 1952-3 when the book was written, it would be quite possible the computer would not have had enough memory to store the lookup tables. Grasping at straws here...

[ratinox]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I seem to remember thinking that looking up decimal to binary in a book and entering the binary numbers into the computer then converting the computer's light display back to decimal was a bit silly. But then in 1952-3 when the book was written, it would be quite possible the computer would not have had enough memory to store the lookup tables. Grasping at straws here...

Computers of the era typically wouldn't and didn't use lookup tables. They used binary-coded decimal storage where decimal numbers were needed. But that's an esoteric-enough factoid that I wouldn't expect someone unfamiliar with assembly programming to know it.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by ratinox

Computers of the era typically wouldn't and didn't use lookup tables. They used binary-coded decimal storage where decimal numbers were needed. But that's an esoteric-enough factoid that I wouldn't expect someone unfamiliar with assembly programming to know it.

What I seem to remember in one scene is that the books were used to look up the binary values for natural logarithms so no decimal/binary conversion needed in the computer (which sounded more like an old electronic calculator than a general purpose computer)

After all, even adders can multiply if they have log tables.

[tlc]

Originally Posted by Richwood

A current cellular phone has far more calculating power than the huge vacuum tube computer I worked on circa 1965, and it was already long obsolete even then.

Even in 90's books, the absence of cell phones and the use of phone booths can be jarring. Jumper (Gould) was one of these.

[dwig]

Originally Posted by tlc

Even in 90's books, the absence of cell phones and the use of phone booths can be jarring. Jumper (Gould) was one of these.

I've encountered this much more frequently in detective / police procedural fiction than in science fiction. I've read a few where key plot devices would be unusable in a story set since cell phones became common.

[cc_in_oh]

Originally Posted by dwig

I've encountered this much more frequently in detective / police procedural fiction than in science fiction. I've read a few where key plot devices would be unusable in a story set since cell phones became common.

OTOH, I'm currently watching the George Gently series set in the 1960's and it's refreshing to see a mystery get solved without resorting to cell phones, DNA analysis, computer hacking, traffic cams, facial recognition or GPS tracking...

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Richwood

I disagree as I have a 1991 copyright hardcover edition which says on the dust jacket "For the first time the original uncut stranger in a strange land" The original released 1961 version had several editor requested cuts made which were restored in the 1991 edition. 160,000 words in the originally published version and circa 220,000 words in the 1991 released version per one googled source.In 1961, when originally published, a science fiction book of the original manuscript length was unheard of. By 1991 long SF and fantasy stories were much more common.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strang...a_Strange_Land

http://www.heinleinsociety.org/rah/w...sstranger.html

Rich, please see post 1301

To one and all: I am well aware that Stranger in a Strange Land was famously edited at time of publication. In 1991, the uncut manuscript edition was published.

My comment was intended as a joke since we were just coming off of a discussion of the revised edition of Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles. I apologize to all readers who were flummoxed or conned into believing that I do not understand what I am talking about.

Henceforth, attempts at humor will either contain a bolded warning message or will be avoided altogether, for my safety and the safety of others.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Richwood

I agree though, to change dates in near contemporary science fiction to try and keep it in the future is dumb and will seldom work. Need a total rewrite to introduce technology advances like personal computers, internet, cellular telephones etc. In 10 years or less need to include self driving cars and who knows what new technology. Science fiction can be so wrong about the future. I remember stories from the 1930s through the 1960s which had engineers in space still using slide rules for doing calculations and huge computers, some still analog. A current cellular phone has far more calculating power than the huge vacuum tube computer I worked on circa 1965, and it was already long obsolete even then.

Stephen King tried this when he put out the complete and uncut edition of The Stand. The dates were changed from 1980's to 1990's. But there were several little things that weren't caught, like the price of items or being paid a dollar for babysitting.

(I edited your post to just include the part I was responding to. Should this post be a success, perhaps down the road the complete and uncut version can be published.)

[DrNefario]

I read an updated version of Chilhood's End not long ago, with the dates advanced and references to Apollo added. It didn't totally work because one of the characters was supposed to have had medical experience from ww2.

[dwig]

Originally Posted by cc_in_oh

OTOH, I'm currently watching the George Gently series set in the 1960's and it's refreshing to see a mystery get solved without resorting to cell phones, DNA analysis, computer hacking, traffic cams, facial recognition or GPS tracking...

I enjoy this as well, but it requires that the storyline be very firmly planted in the appropriate period. Problems arise when the story gets updated and now the plot devices no longer work so well.

It's even worse when issues like the one DrNefario mentions existing in a facelifted version of Childhood's End where they may have been better of updating the wartime experience to 'Nam or even the Gulf War.

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by tlc

Even in 90's books, the absence of cell phones and the use of phone booths can be jarring. Jumper (Gould) was one of these.

I don't really mind this at all, I just think of these stories as a sort of alternate history where cellphones didn't catch on, or valid speculation that they will just be a brief fad.

(Edit: A future without mobile phones, I'd class that as utopian SF.)

[Little.Egret]

Originally Posted by Little.Egret

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[DustyDisks]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Stephen King tried this when he put out the complete and uncut edition of The Stand. The dates were changed from 1980's to 1990's. But there were several little things that weren't caught, like the price of items or being paid a dollar for babysitting.

(I edited your post to just include the part I was responding to. Should this post be a success, perhaps down the road the complete and uncut version can be published.)

God, I hope no other author takes dam near 30 years to compleat his/hers story line. Hell to be left hanging that long. I was lucky I still had his early books, that I had to read before the last in the series just to bring myself up to speed.

If not sorry for your loss..

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by DustyDisks

God, I hope no other author takes dam near 30 years to compleat his/hers story line. Hell to be left hanging that long. I was lucky I still had his early books, that I had to read before the last in the series just to bring myself up to speed.

If not sorry for your loss..

A more modern problem is the author who churns out the first books of a series, looks at the feedback from sales and realizes his/her time would be better spent collecting refundable bottles on the street so the final book in the series never gets written.