Re: [ih] Fiction->History

[Larry Sheldon]

On 9/24/2015 10:56, Bill Ricker wrote:

On Wed, Sep 23, 2015 at 10:27 PM, Larry Sheldon 
wrote:



Fiction->History


​There are two sorts of SciFi (aside from the Fantastic) - those that
aren't facts yet​

​but likely will be if we persevere, and ​those that could be facts if we
screw things up even worse. Those writing near-term SF are well advised to
leverage  William Gibson's aphorism "The future is already here - it's just
not evenly distributed" to sniff out what is in the labs and the pockets of
the early adopters.



​
In 1977 there was a book titled “The Adolescence of P-1” (Thomas Joseph
Ryan)



I thought I remembered this was either serialized or first appeared as a
novella in one of the magazines before release as a book, but Google finds
no proof of that? Odd.
There was a flurry of pre-cyber-punk AI / rogue-programmer stories in
Analog in the late 70's, i recall one featured a female hacker but i forget
the title, and that it was the month before or after P-1 so it seemed a
trend.


I guess I had forgotten how much there is--I was a Heinlein reader 
sub-teen but in general lost interest in SciFi--this book and "Contact" 
(and maybe "Broca's Brain") are the only ones that come to mind since 
then (unless you want to include George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Ayn Rand, 
and George Lucas).


I mentioned "P-1" here because it is the only one of the lot (that I can 
remember) where the _network_ is a (the) major protagonist.

 ​


--
sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Juvenal)

Re: [ih] Fiction->History

[Miles Fidelman]

Larry Sheldon wrote:

On 9/24/2015 10:56, Bill Ricker wrote:

On Wed, Sep 23, 2015 at 10:27 PM, Larry Sheldon 
wrote:



Fiction->History


​There are two sorts of SciFi (aside from the Fantastic) - those that
aren't facts yet​

​but likely will be if we persevere, and ​those that could be facts 
if we
screw things up even worse. Those writing near-term SF are well 
advised to
leverage  William Gibson's aphorism "The future is already here - 
it's just
not evenly distributed" to sniff out what is in the labs and the 
pockets of

the early adopters.



​
In 1977 there was a book titled “The Adolescence of P-1” (Thomas Joseph
Ryan)



I thought I remembered this was either serialized or first appeared as a
novella in one of the magazines before release as a book, but Google 
finds

no proof of that? Odd.
There was a flurry of pre-cyber-punk AI / rogue-programmer 
stories in
Analog in the late 70's, i recall one featured a female hacker but i 
forget

the title, and that it was the month before or after P-1 so it seemed a
trend.


I guess I had forgotten how much there is--I was a Heinlein reader 
sub-teen but in general lost interest in SciFi--this book and 
"Contact" (and maybe "Broca's Brain") are the only ones that come to 
mind since then (unless you want to include George Orwell, Aldous 
Huxley, Ayn Rand, and George Lucas).


I mentioned "P-1" here because it is the only one of the lot (that I 
can remember) where the _network_ is a (the) major protagonist.


Clark's "Dial F for Frankenstein" -- "deep in his heart, he knew that 
the telephone bell had tolled for the human race." :-)



--
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.    Yogi Berra