Syllabus & Book List for Sci-Fi Newbies

in Literature, Sci Fi | September 1st, 2010

Always want­ed to read sci­ence fic­tion? But nev­er knew where to start? io9, a blog ded­i­cat­ed to futur­ism and sci-fi, has you cov­ered. Today, they pub­lished a handy sci-fi syllabus/reading list “intend­ed to intro­duce the novice stu­dent … to the major themes in the genre, as well as books and authors who are rep­re­sen­ta­tive of dif­fer­ent eras in SF lit (includ­ing the present day).” The io9 read­ing list breaks down a vast body of sci-fi lit­er­a­ture into six use­ful cat­e­gories – 1) Foun­da­tion­al Works/Classics, 2) Utopias and Dystopias, 3) Robots, 4) Aliens, 5) Space Trav­el, and 6)  Sci­ence Fic­tion as Polit­i­cal Phi­los­o­phy. Wells, Love­craft, Hux­ley, Orwell, Dick, Asi­mov, Gib­son, Hein­lein, LeGuin – they’re all on the list.

Relat­ed FYIs: you can find many of HP Love­craft’s writ­ings online here. Thanks Julie for the recent heads up.

Also, you can down­load an audio ver­sion of Hux­ley nar­rat­ing A Brave New World here.

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Iron Man: The Science in Science Fiction

in Film, Sci Fi, Science | May 18th, 2010

As Robert Bly not­ed in his book, The Sci­ence in Sci­ence Fic­tion, some of the most intrigu­ing sci­en­tif­ic ideas have orig­i­nat­ed not in labs, but in sci-fi books and movies. With Iron Man 2 hit­ting the screens, Sid­ney Perkowitz, a physi­cist at Emory Uni­ver­si­ty, talks about whether the sci­ence in the new pop movie has any roots in sci­en­tif­ic real­i­ty – or, for that mat­ter, whether it might inspire any new sci­en­tif­ic think­ing down the road. He offers his thoughts above. In addi­tion to writ­ing Hol­ly­wood Sci­ence: Movies, Sci­ence and the End of the World, Perkowitz sits on the advi­so­ry board of the Sci­ence and Enter­tain­ment Exchange, a Nation­al Acad­e­my of Sci­ences pro­gram that tries to bring more sci­en­tif­ic accu­ra­cy to mass mar­ket enter­tain­ment.

Thanks Nicole for the tip on this one.

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Kurt Vonnegut Reads from Slaughterhouse-Five

in Audio Books, Literature, Sci Fi | March 31st, 2010

Kurt Von­negut’s Slaugh­ter­house-Five was pub­lished back in 1969, and the anti-war sci fi nov­el quick­ly became a clas­sic. (The book now appears, for exam­ple, on Time Mag­a­zine’s list of All Time 100 Nov­els.) Whether you’ve read the nov­el or not, you’ll want to check this out. Harper­Collins has post­ed online a record­ing of Von­negut him­self read­ing a lengthy pas­sage from the work. And he does it with the “casu­al irony that com­ple­ments the nov­el­’s won­der­ful­ly eccen­tric tone.” You can stream Von­negut’s read­ing in the fol­low­ing for­mats:  .au for­mat (4.5 Mb), .gsm for­mat (900 Kb), .ra for­mat ( Mb). (Sor­ry a straight­for­ward mp3 is not avail­able.) Also, if you want some more Von­negut, feel free to down­load his 1962 sci fi short sto­ry, 2BR02B, which is oth­er­wise list­ed in our col­lec­tion of Free Audio Books.

Note: Audible.com offers a ver­sion of Slaugh­ter­house-Five nar­rat­ed by actor/writer Ethan Hawke. You can down­load it (or any anoth­er oth­er book) for free if you start a free 14 day tri­al. It has no strings attached. Get some more basic details here.

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Twilight Zone Radio: Download Free Episodes

in Sci Fi, Theatre | March 11th, 2010

The Twi­light Zone aired between 1959 and 1964, and it became one of Amer­i­ca’s icon­ic tele­vi­sion shows. Although the pro­gram end­ed long ago, the show lives on today … on the radio. Air­ing on 200 sta­tions across the US, Twi­light Zone Radio dra­ma­tizes Rod Ser­ling’s clas­sic scripts for today’s radio audi­ences. And it does it with help of actor Sta­cy Keach, the show’s host, and celebri­ties (Jason Alexan­der, Ed Beg­ley Jr., etc.) play­ing lead roles in the dra­mas. You can catch the show on the radio (find your local radio sta­tion here). Or, right now, you can down­load three free episodes of past shows. Each runs about 40 min­utes, and, if you find your­self hun­ger­ing for more, you can always pur­chase indi­vid­ual episodes from the Twi­light Zone Radio archive for $1.95.

On a relat­ed note, be sure to see our pre­vi­ous post: Orson Welles Vin­tage Radio

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The War of the Worlds: Orson Welles’ 1938 Radio Drama That Petrified a Nation

in Radio, Sci Fi, Theatre | December 15th, 2009

Back in the late 1930s, Orson Welles launched The Mer­cury The­atre on the Air, a radio pro­gram ded­i­cat­ed to bring­ing dra­mat­ic, the­atri­cal pro­duc­tions to the Amer­i­can air­waves. The show had a fair­ly short run. It last­ed from 1938 to 1941. But it made its mark. Dur­ing these few years, The Mer­cury The­atre aired The War of the Worlds, an episode nar­rat­ed by Welles him­self that led many Amer­i­cans to believe their coun­try was under Mar­t­ian attack. The leg­endary pro­duc­tion was based on H.G. Wells’ ear­ly sci-fi nov­el, also called The War of the Worlds, and you can lis­ten to the clas­sic radio pro­duc­tion here, or above.

The Mer­cury The­atre also adapt­ed a series of oth­er major nov­els, includ­ing Drac­u­la, Trea­sure Island, and The Count of Monte Cristo. And then there’s Dick­ens. In 1938 and 1939, The Mer­cury The­atre pro­duced two ver­sions of Charles Dick­ens’ A Christ­mas Car­ol. In the 1938 ver­sion (get mp3), Welles played the role of Scrooge. The 1939 ver­sion (mp3) fea­tures Lionel Bar­ry­more (yup, the grandun­cle of Drew Bar­ry­more) play­ing the same role. You can lis­ten to these shows and oth­ers at this web site ded­i­cat­ed to The Mer­cury The­atre on the Air.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Orson Welles Meets H.G. Wells in 1940: The Leg­ends Dis­cuss War of the Worlds, Cit­i­zen Kane, and WWII

The Dead Authors Pod­cast: H.G. Wells Com­i­cal­ly Revives Lit­er­ary Greats with His Time Machine

Orson Welles Explains Why Igno­rance Was the Genius Behind Cit­i­zen Kane

Var­i­ous films direct­ed by (or star­ring) Orson Welles can be found in our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

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Richard Dawkins on “The Greatest Show on Earth”

in Sci Fi | October 7th, 2009

Richard Dawkins, the promi­nent Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty biol­o­gist, has fol­lowed up The God Delu­sion (2006) with The Great­est Show on Earth (Sep­tem­ber, 2009). After hav­ing made the case for athe­ism, Dawkins now looks to debunk “Intel­li­gent Design” and lay out the sheer vol­ume of evi­dence sup­port­ing evo­lu­tion. Above, Dawkins reads pas­sages from his book and then talks about evo­lu­tion and why, rel­a­tive to oth­er sci­en­tif­ic the­o­ries, it tends to meet so much oppo­si­tion. The video comes from the Guardian where you can also find a review of Dawkins’ new book.

Note: you should be able to down­load Dawkins’ book for free (in audio for­mat) through Audible.com’s stand­ing offer. Details here.

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Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book, Read by Neil Gaiman

in Audio Books, Books, Sci Fi | October 1st, 2008

Sci-fi author Neil Gaiman has the right idea. After mak­ing his well-known nov­el Amer­i­can Gods freely avail­able online last year, he has gone the extra mile again in releas­ing his new nov­el, The Grave­Yard Book. In brief, he has just kicked off a nine day book tour, and each day he’s read­ing a chap­ter that you can lat­er watch on the web. You can watch all of the videos above. And find more read­ings here:

Hear Neil Gaiman Read Aloud 15 of His Own Works, and Works by 6 Oth­er Great Writ­ers: From The Grave­yard Book & Cora­line, to Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven & Dick­ens’ A Christ­mas Car­ol

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

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Free Download of Cory Doctorow’s Graphic Novels

in Art, Books, Sci Fi | June 9th, 2008

Quick fyi for Boing­Bo­ing read­ers .… Cory Doc­torow has just released com­ic adap­ta­tions of his award-win­ning sci­ence fic­tion sto­ries — Futur­is­tic Tales of the Here and Now. You can down­load them here for free, or buy the col­lec­tion on Ama­zon.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Down­load free copy of Shake Girl

17 Free and Down­load­able Graph­ic Nov­els


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