I have come to understand that I like the process of thinking about interesting science fiction technologies and their impacts on the worlds and cultures much more than I like the actual writing.  The planning part of the story allows you to think at a much higher level – you can think about society and galaxies as a whole, rather than individual characters, their motivations and aspirations.  So far, I haven’t been very proficient at creating a compelling connection between the impacts of the government, technology geography, etc. of a world with the individuals who would interact with them.

I have tried and tried to write at this high level, but I’m not sure if can be done by anyone who is not a science ficition master.   Writing at this high level, I find myself trying to emulate Asimov’s Foundation trilogy, and obviously failing miserably.  I am going to continue to capture any interesting thoughts or ideas that I have hoping that in the future I may be able to pull it all together but in the short time I am going to be pursuing a new medium to serve as my creative outlet

I just watched the trailer for the upcoming Bruce Willis film Surrogates, and the concept is pretty interesting.  To be honest, I am not familiar with the original comic book series that it is based on, the concept seems rather interesting:

I’m not sure how interested I am in yet another Bruce Willis action film however, the state of the world in the film is more than enough to get me to see the film.  To me, it seems a little bit like the Matrix, without the artificial virutal reality world. It seems that in Surrogates people are able to do whatever they want, whenever they want without the usual physical limitations. It’s fascinating to think about living in a world where you can we whoever you want, and do whatever you want without any sort of ‘real world’ implications on yourself. It raises so many thoughts about how this would effect our humanity and day to day lives if we are not achored in a world with direct consequences for our actions

I am interested in learning much more about the technology, and how society changed to make this so prevalent. Who made the surrogates? How were they sold/given to people?  How do the real people manage never leaving the house? and How did society come to accept this?

The computer generated elements look absolutely beautiful, even in Quicktime. The colors looked amazingly vivid, so it seems that at the very least the movie will be very pretty on the big screen. In particular I found the flying beings that the Aliens were riding, and the lush vegetation to be absolutely striking.

But I found it very jarring as it switches between the computer generated elements and the live action. Cameron has said that the split will be about 60/40, however the trailer does not seem to represent that ratio. In this teaser, I think that it looked like the computer elements were tacked on – it did not seem like they were all of one world. This especially struck me in the scene where the aliens are awaking in some sort of laboratory (just past half way).

I hope that Cameron is able to pull this off, but as of now I’m not entirely sure if I’m going to be buy into the hype. I am interested in seeing a full length, conventional trailer that makes some more of the real plot points evident. Reading summaries of the plot online, it seems on the surface to be an archetypal story.

What fascinates me in particular is the point of divergence between recorded history and this timeline, which is outlined in the prelude of the book which surrounds General Lee’s Special Order 191 which outlined plans for an invasion of the north.

• In recorded history a Confederate messenger lost the order, The orders were found by Union soldiers, and was key to the Union victory at the Battle of Antietam.
• In How Few Remain, the orders are instead recovered by another Confederate soldier. McClellan is caught by surprise, enabling Lee to achieve victory and eventual independence from the United States.

This seemingly inconsequential event in the course of history has drastic consequences to all the history after it. Abraham Lincoln lives and is a professional orator expounding the writings of Karl Marx, the French and English are strong allies of the Confederates, George Custer and John Pope are almost demonized as they lead a US mission to quell a Mormon rebellion in Utah, among other important changes to history.

I find it fascinating that such a small event could have such an incredibly large impact. It seems similar to stories (does anyone know one in particular?) of a time traveller going back in time, only to swat a fly that is pestering him without thinking twice. When he returns to his own time, he finds it drastically different from when he left. The fact that something so small can have such far reaching effects really makes one think about how the drastically our future could be changed by a minor decision or action that we wouldn’t even think twice about.

Turtledove is able to make this alternate history incredibly believable If you’re not too caught up in the individual actions and personalities of these historical figures, the characters as they are laid out in the book operate in a very logical manner. All the historical figures used as characters are key to the plot – avoiding the common pitfall of alternate history novels interspersing cameos for the sake of setting the historical scene. The reader is left believing that this is exactly what would have happened had the Civil War ended in this way.

I look forward to seeing how this timeline progresses in Turtledove’s Great War Trilogy which shows the alternate history of World War I. I will post my thoughts on those other novels as I finish them.

In order to help me get on the right track, I have signed up for a creative writing course at a local college. I haven’t written any fiction seriously since high school (7 years ago) and even then it always seemed like a chore to me. I hope that this will help me with the structure to create an interesting story. Also, it has been a good 3 years since I have learned in any sort of ’school’ setting and I am hoping that learning in a more structured environment will help me succeed and help prevent this writing bug as another failed creative effort.

I’m going to try my best to share some of my journey on here – win, lose or draw!

I don’t foresee this as being a possibility – a “precipitating event” seems like too easy of an answer for what the future of sports might look like., especially in this often fearful post 9/11 world.  With the increase of ticket prices, and the brand new crop of upscale stadiums it seems that the demand for these tickets will only increase in the foreseeable future.

Sure,  an attack of this magnitude would effect the crowds at sporting events the short term, but think about  how society as a whole got back to ‘business as usual’ in the aftermath of 9/11. It was a  terrible, devastating attack but it did not stop people from going to the targets of the attack – New York City or large public/office buildings.  It would take something very far reaching (world wide?) and devastating to affect the deeply ingrained love of sports of an average person on a permanent basis.  There is a emotional, almost primal need for  fans to gather in groups to share their excitement and common interest in the sports/teams.

Overall, although the games and rules might change based on technology and state of society- think of the zero-gravity Battle School of Ender’s Game, or perhaps the high flying antics of Harry Potter’s Quidditch –  I simply can’t foresee our culture getting away from our attachment of seeing and being seen at sporting events.

I  think that if anything, the stadiums in the future are going to be bigger and better in order to maximize the amount of revenue that can be generated .  Even today,  there are a number of NFL teams who could almost sell as many seats as they wanted if they could do it at a reasonable price, and ensure a positive viewing experience for the fans.  If they were able to build stadiums of 250,000 plus seats, many of these teams could leverage the crowd for a real ‘home field advantage.

Rather that partaking in virtual reality at home ala video games to enjoy sports at home like the article outlines, I see professional sports leveraging technology to  allow for in seat virtual reality to allow the viewer to see what they want, from where they want –  by almost being their own television director with any angle your heart desired. This would allow them to see all the action, and share the experience with others as well.

Please post your thoughts on the future of the specetator experience.

Overall, Peter Jackson and Neill Blomkamp created an incredibly compelling world that left me wanting more. The beginning of the movie starts out in documentary style which sets out the backstory. They outline the story of how the Aliens came to Earth, and the incredible tensions that are ongoing between the Aliens and the local population. While this is a great way at getting all the facts out in a hurry to really give you a sense of the world, it felt somewhat forced to me. I would much rather be shown gradually the ’state of the world’ in a science fiction movie in order to feel like I’m really a part of the ‘future’, rather than having all the backstory over explained at the beginning of the film . After all, I imagine that first contact would be a remarkable news story of which everyone would be extremely well versed in the intricate details. A documentary on the subject wouldn’t necessarily need to rehash everything.

Although the backstory might have suffered, the movie masterfully created compelling aliens that you end up siding with and feeling sorry for. I don’t remember another movie that was effective at creating aliens that were so believable. There ignored all the usual silly alien cliches – there were no odd tentacles, or diamond shaped eyes that we’ve seen so many times before. That being said, the Prawns definitely look like Aliens – but vulnerable, exploited Aliens. This is helped by the creation of the multinational company MNU which is responsible for herding the Aliens into the slums and at the same time attempting to exploit their technology for military game – in the end the ‘Prawns’ ended up feeling more human than the humans.

When I first saw the previews of this film I was concerned that there would be an obvious social commentary forced upon the viewer. While the attempts to drawn comparison between the treatment of the ‘Prawns’ and South Africia’s own apartheid of recent memory are clear – they are not overdone. About 30 mins into the film I had pretty much forgotten that the film was set in South Africica at all.

Overall, I would highly recommend this film as a must-see for any any science fiction movie fan. While the ending is fairly obvious about 1/2 way through the movie, getting there is an exciting journey. The ending sets up a potential sequel, District 10 and I am already looking forward to it!