20 things you (probably) didn't know about Science Fiction

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Nope.

She was born Alice Mary Norton, and legally changed her name to Andre Alice Norton in 1934. "Andrew North" was a pen name she used, as was Andre Norton and Allen Weston.
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Dennis

Ah, my memory isn't as good as I though it was. thanks.

Dale

[carld]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

More trivia probably known to most of you:

1. Andre Norton is a pen name for Alice Mary North. She wrote other books under here own name but considered that the audience for SF wouldn't buy books written by a woman.

Dale

That's really odd. I've always read Andre as Andrea and thought the writer was a woman. It never occurred to me that it the name was supposed to be male, though I see it obviously now. Amazing what blind spots you can discover.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by carld

That's really odd. I've always read Andre as Andrea and thought the writer was a woman. It never occurred to me that it the name was supposed to be male, though I see it obviously now. Amazing what blind spots you can discover.

I always read her name as Andre, but never thought she was male. Of course, I discovered her work as a kid many years after she changed her name. SF was still considered largely for boys, but I don't recall feeling it odd that a woman had written some of the work I read.

In the late 60's, Playboy published an Ursula Leguin story, as by "U. K. Leguin", and did not publish a picture of her in the contributor's page up front where they blurbed the authors in the issue. SF fans still snicker about that, because Playboy published work by women and men, and it was apparently the fact that the story was SF that made them decide to be coy about the author's gender.
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Dennis

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

H. G. Wells' book Things To Come, published in 1933, accurately predicted the beginning of WWII in 1940, with involvement by all the major countries of the world. (In that book he also predicted air raids on England, gas warfare, air conditioning, commercial televivion, and videotape recording.)

Hugo Gernsback's book RALPH 124C 41+, published in 1925, predicted:

• Television
• Wireless power transmission
• Televised phone calls
• Transcontinental air service
• Scientific research funded by the U.S. government
• Photographs transmitted by radio
• Sliding doors that are automatically controlled
• Solar cells and energy in practical use
• Sound movies
• Mass transmission of entertainment programs to the home
• Practical use of Earth's heat to produce steam
• Synthetic milk and foods
• Artificial cloth
• Voiceprints used for identification
• Tape recorders and recordings
• Spaceflight

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

H. G. Wells' book Things To Come, published in 1933, accurately predicted the beginning of WWII in 1940, with involvement by all the major countries of the world. (In that book he also predicted air raids on England, gas warfare, air conditioning, commercial televivion, and videotape recording.)

Available here in a CC edition:
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/w/wells/hg/w45th/

And the classic film made of it is available for download here:
http://www.archive.org/details/ClaCinOnl_ThingsToCome
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Dennis

[exvaxman]

I always tought the shortest published SF was 4E Ackerman's
"Earth's Report Card" "F"

[Sparrow]

There's mild controversy about "Cosmic Report Card: Earth" because the text can't be understood without the title- so is it really a one-letter story?

Another one-character story is "If Eve Had Failed to Conceive" by Ed Wellen (Orbit 15, ed. Damon Knight)

"."


(As "." is smaller than "F" - maybe Wellen beats Ackerman.)

Incidentally, "Cosmic Report Card: Earth" can be downloaded from http://www.lulu.com/4forry for £3.44 (print version £6.47) - does that make it the most expensive SF story ever sold in terms of price per letter?

[vivaldirules]

Six-word short SF stories: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.11/sixwords.html

My favorite is by Ursula K. Le Guin:

Easy. Just touch the match to

Oh, no! I have just posted a complete modern work of fiction and have ignored any and all copyrights. Sorry, Ursula. By the way, I love almost everything I've read of yours, particularly The Lathe of Heaven. You write my kind of SciFi.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

Another one-character story is "If Eve Had Failed to Conceive" by Ed Wellen (Orbit 15, ed. Damon Knight)

"."

Co-incidentally, a period (".") is exactly what was painted on a canvas and reputedly sold for one million dollars. The painting's title: The End.

I wonder if that makes the painting science fiction?

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

2. Not a singe SF author predicted that the first moon visit would be televised.

In that vein, I've been trying to find a list of other significant technologies or developments no SF author has predicted. Haven't found one yet...

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

2. Not a singe SF author predicted that the first moon visit would be televised.

Heinlein did. Well okay, he predicted that it was possible. It didn't happen in his story because of mass limitations in the rocket.

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

In that vein, I've been trying to find a list of other significant technologies or developments no SF author has predicted. Haven't found one yet...

How about the miniaturization of computers? From what I recall computers in strories from the '50s and '60s were leviathons stuffed to the gills with valves and flashing lights that squawked a lot.
We didn't get diddy computers in stories until they emerged in real life - but I could be wrong.

Also don't think many writers predicted that half the population of the 21st century would be using their telephones to *type* messages to each other

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

How about the miniaturization of computers?

Nope, Isaac Asimov covered that one in his Foundation series. Because of limited resources, the Foundationers were eventually able to shrink their computers down to the size of handheld devices, the size of a paperback book, I believe.

Originally Posted by Sparrow

Also don't think many writers predicted that half the population of the 21st century would be using their telephones to *type* messages to each other

I think you're right there... I doubt too many SF writers have imagined that people would use cellphones for text messages, watching TV, playing games, downloading porn, or listening to music!

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Nope, Isaac Asimov covered that one in his Foundation series. Because of limited resources, the Foundationers were eventually able to shrink their computers down to the size of handheld devices, the size of a paperback book, I believe.

He also had a character using voice recognition technology to write a school paper, rather before such things were available in the real world.
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Dennis

[carandol]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

In that vein, I've been trying to find a list of other significant technologies or developments no SF author has predicted. Haven't found one yet...

I'm not sure anyone predicted that after we landed on the moon, people would get bored and not bother going to any other planets, and that increasingly sophisticated robot probes would be used instead. Landing on the moon was always the precursor to a Moon Base and trips to Mars and Venus, and asteroid mining. It'll probably happen eventually, but it was supposed to be in my lifetime, dammit!