The SF Zone

"When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible,
he is almost certainly right.
When he states that something is impossible,
he is very probably wrong."
- Clarke's First Law


I've been a fan of Science Fiction since my very, very early years. In fact, I can probably say that Star Trek was the first TV program I ever watched! I enjoy reading SF novels by favourites like Arthur C. Clarke and the mighty Neal Stephenson (a cyberpunk guy who knows his hacker lore), watching classic films like "2001: A Space Odyssey", "Blade Runner", the Star Trek and Star Wars Films, or great SF TV shows like Star Trek, Babylon 5, Space: Above and Beyond... or shows long since vanished from TV - Blake's 7 (which I can only vaguely recall these days), Star Cops (which most people haven't actually heard of) and the excellent Dr.Who. I'm also partial to rather trashy old B-Movie SF films like "The Day the Earth Stood Still", mainly due to a rather good late-night slot on Channel 4 a few long years ago.

For a few years now I've had a real urge to write a decent Science Fiction story. To date, however, this has led to an abandoned attempt at a CyberPunk thriller, a rather good X-Files plot scribbled on some scrap paper and an idea plus draft chapters for a novel set on Mars (influenced by Kim Stanley Robinson's excellent Red/Green/Blue Mars trilogy, Greg Bear's Moving Mars and FOX TV's Space: Above and Beyond). Major credit for inspiring me goes to Arthur C. Clarke, J. M. Straczinski and Neal Stephenson.

This page is due to be given an overhaul as part of the update to my Science Fiction pages. Feel free to mail me any information, links or suggestions you have. Okay, I've had this message up for a while... but I promise to do some updates very soon. I've been very distracted recently by things, but I'm clear now. Since Geocities have upped the server space to a tasty 6 Mb, I may even begin to work on some dedicated pages - perhaps Arthur C. Clarke, Neal Stephenson and Bladerunner pages might be of interest...


Alien

Apart from the dodgy third film, the Alien films are classic Science-Fiction-Horror. Dark, scarey and powerful.

Art and Artists

A rather skimpy selection of SF and Fantasy Artists on the web:

BladeRunner

"It's too bad she won't live! But then again, who does?" - GAFF

One of the seminal CyberPunk stories, based upon Philip K. Dick's excellent book "Do Android's Dream of Electric Sheep?". Definately one of my all-time favourite films. A possible film sequel has apparently been floating around for some time, with rumours of a possible start next year. In the meantime, K.W. Jeter has written two sequels. The first is entitled "Bladerunner 2: The Edge Of Human" and neatly rounds off some loose edges of the film while introducing some great conspiracy and twists to the story. The other is called "Bladerunner 3: Replicant Night" and offers yet more twists and turns in the dark future of Bladerunner. Highly recommended!

Arthur C. Clarke

Author of such classic SF novels as "2001:A Space Odyssey", "Rendezvous with Rama" and "Childhood's End" amongst many, many others. His works have been a huge influence on me.

Dr.Who

The classic BBC SF Time Travel show. Favourite bad guys? The Cybermen of course! I always had a thing about tin-foil suits, and besides... how can you take the Daleks seriously when they can't even use stairs? *grin*

Red Dwarf

Excellent BBC SF Comedy program. Follows the adventures of the mining ship Red Dwarf (stranded 3 Million Years from Earth) and its crew - Dave Lister, a creature evolved from the ship's cat, Dave's dead room-mate Arnold J. Rimmer, Holly (the ship's computer) and an android called Kryten.

Star Cops

Star Cops was a BBC TV Science Fiction Police series. Not many people seem to recall it, and I haven't been able to track down much in the way of information on this underrated show. There is an episode guide, which I picked up from somewhere (can't recall where though - so I've placed it locally).

Star Wars

I grew up with the Star Wars universe. Going to see the re-issues on the widescreen was an incredible experience and made me realise just how much I'd forgotten how good the films are! The three films must rank as three of the best films ever.

The three prequels are currently in production and, while I doubt they could ever achieve as much as the Star Wars Trilogy, they promise to be brilliant. George Lucas is a genius after all...

Neal Stephenson

Author of such novels as the amazing "Snow Crash" (1992) and, more recently, "The Diamond Age" (1995). Stephenson first came to my attention with the classic cyberpunk novel Snow Crash, which combines a damn good story, great humour and a serious knowledge of hacker lore (unlike certain other famous writers in the genre) in one tasty book. If you haven't read any of his books, try and track down a copy of "Snow Crash" and give it a read, you won't be disappointed...

While on holiday in the US, during 1997, I managed to find a copy of "Zodiac: An Eco-Thriller" (1988), his second novel, which is a fine piece of work... I wasn't a great fan of lobsters before, but I don't think I could look at them in the same way ever again! *grin* If anyone knows where I can get hold of a copy of his first novel "The Big U", please let me know!

Most of the web sites I previously linked to have either moved or been shutdown (one was a highly unauthorised online version of most of the book!). I haven't much in the way of substantial information about Neal or his works, though these links should provide some pointers to short stories and interviews of interest.

Miscellaneous


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[metaljoe@oocities.com]