#scifi in perspective

[charzea]

commission art! proud of how it turned out <3

[vickyvicarious]

it's so fascinating to see how one of bram's ways to signal that the characters are modern and in tune with new science ends up horribly dating the book and making them all look worse to modern readers (i'm talking about the physiognomy thing)

Yes, absolutely! It's really interesting. In this case it's much worse because physiognomy is such an inherently racist and flawed idea. And that feels much more like something they could have realized. It forcibly reminds modern readers of the different culture these characters belonged to and the prejudices they either actively held or at the least passively accepted.

But it's not the only instance of the passage of time making certain details feel a lot different than they were meant to for contemporary readers. For example, Jack's phonograph is pretty new and exciting technology. Mina gets excited to see it today! But within the 1890s the shift from wax cylinders to flat discs began to happen, leading to gramophones and eventually record players. At the time this story is set (likely somewhere in the 1893-1897 range) the two technologies co-existed, but records were what eventually took off on a massive scale and phonographs with cylinders are seen as more of a prototype. This is something that might be less notable to modern readers since both are old technology to us, but it's a shift that happened not too long after the book was published. And of course the famous blood typing discovery...

When it was originally published, several critics disliked the book for being too modern, something they thought didn't suit a vampire story. Of course, the very contrast between modernity and ancient monsters was intentionally a major theme. And yet the passage of time changes our perspective on that theme. It's really fascinating to consider this stuff from 100+ years on.

[ad-astra-per-aspera-1389]

So...what do we think of the way lab rats handled Taylor's disability? Personally, I think they did a decent job narratively. They steered away from "this is a sci-fi type of show so we can just 'fix' the disability". The visor Douglas made for her basically functions like a cane would, except its more compact and on her face, but all it does is tell her when an obstacle is in front of her...like a cane would. She's still blind. That doesn't go away. Taylor goes on missions again as the hero she is, even with her disability. She's disabled and she can go on missions.

I say narratively because there were a few comments about "a newbie, a quitter and a blind girl!" and with how Leo wanted the doctors to "fix it", but as far as Leo's comments go, he mostly felt guilty about his actions altering her way of life forever, which it did.

Seriously, what do we think? I'm not physically disabled myself, but I'm taking a class where we talk about this stuff and I was reminded of this Taylor plotline recently. I've been thinking about this all day.

[writing-prompts-for-palestine]

#188

The apocalypse as witnessed from the community of a koi pond.

—

Today’s campaign:

Sameer Al Khaldi, from 90-ghost.

$7,817/$50,000[16%]

[ahsoka-in-a-hood]

Is there already a classification name for creatures who evolved with solar energy as a base energy source (even if it's several degrees of predation removed for them personally, like us) vs creatures evolved with geothermal energy as a base energy source?

I'm mostly thinking in scifi alien terms- in a widely populated galaxy like star wars for example, there could be many planets where the main source of energy is the planet itself, and it seems like a fun basic classification. But technically this does also exist even within just Earth, up to a point (a few species living on the ocean vents), so those words might exist already...

[thematicparallel]

72% exordia update. i'm not convinced seth knows what to do with anna's character. i know there's a short story many years back (that i once tried to read when i was in the grip of baru cormorant but quickly lost interest in) so i do think seth has a set ending for her arc, at least in this book. after chapter 29, i think we're only getting back to her story ever so slowly, the one they wrote in that short, after all the fucking meandering between erik & clayton. obviously this is a multi-pov story; i get that. but this book is also deeply unfocused, like if you started reading Monster Baru Cormorant first instead of Traitor. it's definitely acquired taste & i'm still deciding if I Like It, but It's Not Good or if It's Really Good, but I Don't Like It

[pencilbrony]

Seconds before finger

[maze-of-tones]

[maggiecheungs]

can you guys recommend me some of your favourite sff books released in the past few years? bonus points for books by authors of colour!

[ruckis-vandalizes]

Wind it up, watch it spin, all the lies come round again 🤖

[thecentrium]

I think the best part of the babbledrogs’ translation gas as a mechanic of the setting is that any weird dialogue bits that wouldn’t normally make sense with the worldbuilding can just be considered the translation contextualizing for an earthling point of view

[i-just-want-to-destroy]

Then, what are you really, o turbulence? Where do you hide your face?

Supernova: Kesatria, Putri, dan Bintang Jatuh (Supernova: The Knight, The Princess, and The Falling Star), Dee Lestari

[banamine-bananime]

all the things i want to read do not exist because i am still either writing them or just imagining them. the injustice. truly life is a nightmare.

[truerecruta]

"Your ride's over. Time to die."

[maze-of-tones]

[opossum-disaster]

/Spinning her in my head viciously, giving myself brain damage/

Look at her. Look at mah gal...