The Six – My List of Underrated Science Fiction Movies

/7 Comments/in , /by

Led by the Star Wars and Star Trek franchises, science fiction films have always been a staple for moviegoers. Unfortunately, while there have been many celebrated films, there have been quite a few pretty good films that were underrated on release. Even worse, some of these have been largely forgotten, as new films – chock-full of the most up-to-date special effects and the newest stars – fill the cinemas and queue up for bingeing on the streaming channels. In hoping that you might take a chance on some of these underrated films, here’s a list of six of some of the most underrated science fiction movies.

The Thing (1982). Directed by John Carpenter, and starring Kurt Russell, Wilford Brimley, and Keith David. A remake of Howard Hawks’ The Thing From Another World (1951) and based on the novella Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell, Jr. In the winter of 1982, a twelve-man research team at a remote Antarctic research station discovers an alien buried in the snow for over 100,000 years. Once unfrozen, the form-changing alien wreaks havoc, creating terror as it becomes one of them. But who?

Dark City (1998). Directed by Alex Proyas, and starring Rufus Sewell, Kiefer Sutherland, William Hurt, and Jennifer Connelly. A man struggles with memories of his past, which includes a wife he cannot remember, and a nightmarish world without a sun, the Dark City, which gets re-shaped into a new metropolis every night.

Equilibrium (2002). Directed by Kurt Wimmer, and starring Christian Bale, Sean Bean, and Emily Watson. In a futuristic world, emotion is outlawed and human behavior is controlled by a drug, Prozium, that hinders emotion. Clerics are officials trained in the martial arts gun kata, in charge of finding and eliminating potential threats to the regime. When one Cleric does not take his dose of Prozium, a whole new world is opened up to him and he takes on the establishment that he's supposed to be working for.

Like what you're reading?

If you're enjoying this list of top sci-fi movies, why not join the DSF community for more awesome content? You'll get to be notified whenever a new top 10 list, or any other articles of interest goes up on our site. It's free to sign up and you'll also get recommendations for new releases and discounted ebooks from our expert editorial team, from bestsellers to hidden gems.

Moon (2009). Directed by Duncan Jones, starring Sam Rockwell, Kevin Spacey, and Dominique McElligott. Astronaut Sam Bell has a quintessentially personal encounter toward the end of his three-year stint on the Moon, where he, working alongside his computer, GERTY, sends back to Earth parcels of a resource that has helped diminish our planet's power problems.

Coherence (2013). Directed by James Ward Byrkit, and starring Emily Baldoni, Maury Sterling, and Nicholas Brendon. Strange things begin to happen when a group of friends gather for a dinner party on an evening when a comet is passing overhead.

Snowpiercer (2013). Directed by Bong Joon Ho and starring Chris Evans, Jamie Bell, and Tilda Swinton, based on the French graphic novel Le Transperceneige by Jacques Lob and Jean-March Rochette. In a future where a failed climate-change experiment has killed all life except for the lucky few who boarded the Snowpiercer, a train that travels around the globe, a new class system emerges as Curtis Everett leads a group of passengers from the lower-class rear to the more gentrified front of the train.

These are all amazing films to experience, and I’m sure you can think of a few other underrated films that science fiction aficionados should be aware of. Maybe I haven’t heard of them either, and I should have a watch… Let me know in the comments or in the DSF Reader Group on Facebook and I’ll share them sometime in the future!

Samuel Peralta
Samuel Peralta is a physicist and storyteller.

He was recognized as a Best American Science Fiction & Fantasynotable author for his work, Hereafter. His book projects have hit the Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller lists, and have hit #1 in the speculative fiction charts on all major ebook platforms – Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, Apple iBooks, and Kobo.

Samuel's works have been published in numerous anthologies and magazines, including Lightspeed, Canyons, Beyond the Stars, UnCommon, Existere, OCHO, Seedpod, Undercurrents, and Fictionaut.

He is the creator and series editor of the acclaimed Future Chronicles series of speculative fiction anthologies, with every title rising, in turn, to the top of the Amazon bestseller lists.

You can follow Samuel on Facebook, Twitter and his website.

The Top 10 YA Sci-Fi Book or Series of All Time

/1 Comment/in , /by
There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.” – Ray Bradbury

We agree! No matter what section of the library or bookstore books come from, let's just keep reading them, okay? Okay!

Who knew that the world of young adult fiction could be so filled with contention? As with many of our polls, there was plenty of debate around the selections, but this time, the debate had more to do with whether or not individual titles actually qualify as young adult fiction, rather than the merit of the titles themselves as being masterful works, worthy of recognition. For the most part, there seemed no doubt as to the caliber of each of the nominated books or series, but perhaps because the lines have blurred so much between adult and young adult fiction over the last decade, we couldn't reach a consensus on what objective criteria a book requires to fit this particular category. Nevertheless, we posted the second poll based on the results of the first, and thanks to the hundreds of you who voted, we have now arrived at our top ten.

As always, these top ten lists are not meant to be all-inclusive or definitive, but give a great finger on the pulse of our communities interests and favorites. Want to see who missed out? Here's the original nomination list from the blog.

Without further ado, based on the combined nominations and votes here on the Discover Sci-Fi blog and the Facebook group, here are your top choices for the best multi-book sci-fi series of all time.

10. Star Kingdom by David Weber

One of the indisputably YA submissions to our poll is David Weber’s Star Kingdom Series. The Star Kingdom series is set in the Honorverse and the books are technically prequels to the main series, starring Stephanie Harrington, a distant ancestor of Honor Harrington. 

Stephanie Harrington absolutely hates being confined inside her family's compound on the pioneer planet of Sphinx, a frontier wilderness world populated by dangerous native animals that could easily tear a human to bits and pieces. Yet Stephanie is a young woman determined to make discoveries—and the biggest discovery of all awaits her: an intelligent alien species.


Read the first book A Beautiful Friendship  here on Amazon.

9. The Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison

In ninth place on our list is The Stainless Steel Rat written by Harry Harrison who is also the author of Deathworld, Make Room! Make Room! (filmed as Soylent Green), and many other famous works of Science Fiction. Harrison wrote the first Stainless Steel Rat book in 1985 and continued through 2010; he died in 2012.

James Bolivar diGriz goes by many aliases, including "Slippery Jim" and "The Stainless Steel Rat," and is "one of science fiction’s most beloved rogues." He is a futuristic con man, thief and all-round rascal. He is charming and quick-witted. He is also a master of disguise and martial arts, an accomplished bank robber, a criminal mastermind, an expert on breaking and entering, and (perhaps most usefully) a skilled liar. Master of self-rationalization, the Rat frequently justifies his crimes by arguing that he is providing society with entertainment; and besides which, he only steals from institutions that have insurance coverage. He displays a strong sense of morality, albeit in a much more restricted sense than is traditional. For example, diGriz will steal without compunction, but deplores killing.

A fine example for youth, indeed!  

Read The Stainless Steel Rat  here on Amazon.

8. Ringworld by Larry Niven

The submission of Larry Niven’s award winning Ringworld was yet another that had some people in our community vexed, those members conveying they felt that it was written with an adult audience in mind. Many seemed to acknowledge that while it is true that many science fiction lovers cut their teeth on Niven’s beloved work, it is also true that just because a book is appropriate for some young adult readers doesn’t mean that the book was written for them.  Regardless, the work made it through to the second round of voting where it wound up in eighth spot on our list. 

Ringworld follows the unforgettable adventures of Louis Wu, accompanied by a young woman with genes for luck, and a captured kzin – a warlike species resembling 8-foot-tall cats -- are taken on a space ship run by a brilliant 2-headed alien called Nessus. Their destination is the Ringworld, an artificially constructed ring with high walls that hold 3 million times the area of Earth. Its origins are shrouded in mystery.

Get your copy of Ringworld  here on Amazon.

7. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

The first Hunger Games book came out just over 10 years after the first Harry Potter, and held huge appeal to a young adult audience looking for something to fill the void left behind by their beloved Potterverse. Collins gruesome epic did not disappoint these readers, nor the millions of adult readers who picked up the series as well.  In August 2012, the series ranked second, exceeded only by the Harry Potter series in NPR's poll of the top 100 teen novels, which asked voters to choose their favorite young adult books. On August 17, 2012, Amazon announced The Hunger Games trilogy as its top seller, surpassing the record previously held by the Harry Potter series

The Hunger Games universe is a dystopia set in Panem, a North American country consisting of the wealthy Capitol and 12 districts in varying states of poverty. Every year, children from the districts are selected via lottery to participate in a compulsory televised battle royale death match called The Hunger Games.  A prequel novel, titled The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, about the early days of Panem and The Hunger Games is written and will be released on May 19, 2020

Get your copy of The Hunger Games the first book in the Hunger Games Trilogy, Here on Amazon

6. Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein

Though considered a coming of age novel, the inclusion of Heinlein’s best-selling Starship Troopers into this poll had some fans scratching their heads. Perhaps fitting as this Hugo award winning book is no stranger to controversy!  

Starship Troopers was submitted to Scribner's for publication as part of Heinlein's juvenile collection and it's rejection brought to an end to that series of novels. It was later published by Putnam and became enormously controversial because of the political views it seemed to support.

The novel opens with Rico aboard the corvette transport Rodger Young serving with the platoon known as "Rasczak's Roughnecks". The platoon carries out a raid against a planetary colony held by Skinnies. The raid is relatively brief: the platoon lands on the planet, destroys its targets, and retreats, suffering two casualties in the process. One of them, Dizzy Flores, dies while returning to orbit.... 

Starship Troopers has been referred to as a coming of age story for Rico, as he matures through his tenure in the infantry. His training, both at boot camp and at officer candidate school, involves learning the value of militarism thus inviting the reader to learn it as well.

Get your copy of Starship Troopers here on Amazon.

Like what you're reading?

If you're enjoying this top 10 list, why not join the DSF community for more awesome content? You'll get to be notified whenever a new top 10 list, or any other articles of interest goes up on our site. It's free to sign up and you'll also get recommendations for new releases and discounted ebooks from our expert editorial team, from bestsellers to hidden gems.

5. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

It is no surprise the beloved multi-award winning classic A Wrinkle in Time made our final list and further, it is no surprise it managed to rise to the top five, as it was one of the few selections on the list whose eligibility for consideration as a YA novel was not one of contention.

Aside from being a multi-award winning science fiction book written by a woman and featuring a female protagonist, the book is notable because it was rejected by at least 26 publishers before it was picked up by Random House.  

A Wrinkle in Time is the first novel in the Time Quintet, a series of five young adult novels written by Madeleine L'Engle. The series follows the adventures of Meg Murry, her youngest brother Charles Wallace Murry, their friend Calvin O'Keefe, and her twin siblings Sandy and Dennys Murry. Throughout the series, the friends band together to travel through space and time as they attempt to save the world from the grasps of evil.

Get your copy of A Wrinkle in Time here on Amazon.

4. Heinlein's Juveniles by Robert Heinlein

Robert Heinlein's Heinlein’s Juveniles stole the show in the first poll, so much so that we felt the need to combine the individual entries and the entry for ‘Heinlein’s Juveniles’ into one in order to allow for more diversity in the final poll. Between the entries, in the opening poll they won over 170 votes—almost four times as many as the next runner up.  Amazing! Given that show of support in the opening round, it is surprising, to say the least, that it didn’t fare better in the deciding poll. Were we betting people, we might have bet the collection would have easily taken the top spot. To see that it didn't make it into the top three in the final round is a bit of a mind-bender.

The twelve novels that comprise the collection were published by Scribner's between 1947 and 1958, and together tell a single story of space exploration. A thirteenth—Starship Troopers, which landed in sixth spot on our list—was submitted to Scribner's but rejected and instead published by Putnam.      

Careful and exciting science, witty, smart dialog, its lessons of responsibility and the transition from “boys” to “men” have made Rocket Ship Galileo one of Heinlein’s most influential books since its first publication in 1947. The importance of this classic in attracting young people to careers in science and technology, as well as developing abiding interests among all its readers in spaceflight, has been widely noted.

Get your copy book 1 in Heinlein's Juveniles collection, Rocket Ship Galileo,  here on Amazon.

3. Ender's Game/Ender's Shadow by Orson Scott Card

Orson Scott Card's wildly popular and award winning books Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow  were submitted together and turned out to be a selection of great contention for this particular poll. Like so many of the other selections on this list, many in the DSF community felt that while the books are a favourite among young adult readers—and while each story does centre on a young boy—the stories themselves were perhaps too mature to be classified as young adult. Regardless, the books advanced to round two of voting and eked their way into the top three.

Set at an unspecified date in Earth's future, the novel presents an imperilled humankind after two conflicts with the Formics, an insectoid alien species they dub the "buggers." In preparation for an anticipated third invasion, children, including the novel's protagonist, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin are trained from a very young age by putting them through increasingly difficult games, including some in zero gravity where Ender's tactical genius is revealed. Is Ender the general Earth needs?

Is Ender the general Earth needs? Pick up the award winning Ender's Game here on Amazon

2. Foundation by Isaac Asimov

Here in second place, we have Asimov’s Foundation, which was yet another controversial entry! Many of you acknowledged that you'd read the foundational Foundation as young adults, some even crediting the award-winning work as being what made you fall in love with reading in general and with science fiction, specifically. Maybe so, folks argue, but that doesn't mean it is a young adult novel. Be that as it may, it struck a chord with so many of you as young readers that it based on your votes, it rocketed to second spot in our poll. 

Called forth to stand trial on Trantor for allegations of treason (for foreshadowing the decline of the Galactic Empire), Seldon explains that his science of psychohistory foresees many alternatives, all of which result in the Galactic Empire eventually falling. If humanity follows its current path, the Empire will fall and 30,000 years of turmoil will overcome humanity before a second Empire arises. However, an alternative path allows for the intervening years to be only one thousand, if Seldon is allowed to collect the most intelligent minds and create a compendium of all human knowledge, entitled Encyclopedia Galactica. The board is still wary but allows Seldon to assemble whomever he needs, provided he and the "Encyclopedists" be exiled to a remote planet, Terminus. Seldon agrees to these terms – and also secretly establishes a second Foundation of which almost nothing is known, which he says is at the "opposite end" of the galaxy.

Get your copy of Foundation, here on Amazon

1. Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey

Handily taking top place in this poll is Anne McCaffrey's award-winning series Dragonriders of Pern. This series has long been a staple among young adult readers with a love of adventure and, of course, of science fiction. While the larger series may not have been written specifically for young adult readers, within the series there is a trilogy that indisputably was. The Harper Hall Trilogy is a series of three novels, targeted at young adults, set within Anne McCaffrey’s beloved and bestselling Dragonriders of Pern series, it is a seminal work and a must-have for any fantasy or science fiction fan of any age. 

Here we meet Menolly as she navigates her way as the first journeywoman Harper in the history of Pern; and fellow student Piemur whom is secretly asked to leave Harper Hall, drafted by Masterharper Robinton to embark on a dangerous mission to the Southern Hold.

Get started with the first book in the Harper Hall Trilogy, Dragonsong, here on Amazon

And so, we have more to think about...

We opened our inquiry with the idea that well written young adult novels have broad appeal and the capacity to capture the hearts of adult readers; where we have landed as a result of submissions, which were reflective of the experience of our readers as young adults, is the idea that—go figure—literature aimed at adult audiences can also provide immense value and hold everlasting meaning to a younger demographic. Octavia Butler was right and her words bear repeating: "Good stories are good no matter how they're categorized." Whether or not we can agree on what constitutes young adult fiction (could the categorization have as much to do with trends and marketing than anything else?), it seems we CAN agree on what constitutes a good story. The books and series that made the top ten are worthy classics likely to appeal to readers from age 12-112 and we hope that if you haven't read them yet, you'll make a point of picking them up.

*All book-related copy in this post was pulled from Amazon & Wikipedia, unless otherwise credited.

What Are the Best Sci-Fi Titles Written by Women?

/6 Comments/in , /by
"I came into science fiction at a very good time, when the doors were getting thrown open to all kinds of more experimental writing, more literary writing, riskier writing. It wasn't all imitation Heinlein or Asimov. And of course, women were creeping in, infiltrating." —Ursula K. Le Guin

Even while many regard Mary Shelley's Frankenstein as the first work of science fiction, the world of sci-fi is overwhelmingly dominated by men, writers and readers alike.  If you take a peek at NPRs (now very outdated) Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy Books, you'll find you have to scroll down to number 20 before you hit a title written by a woman. Much has been written on the topic of representation, and while it's important, that is not what we are aiming to discuss today. Today is about celebrating the women of science fiction.

While the numbers of women publishing in science fiction may be small, among them there are some truly outstanding writers; women who have conceived of some of the smartest, most well-written works science fiction has to offer. The best of these skillfully weave social commentary into narratives that are both gripping and artfully written. In advance of International Women's Day, this week's poll asks you to consider titles in science fiction written by women. Which ones might be considered the very best?  Add your nomination(s) below and then vote on your favorite(s).

We base our lists on the votes and nominations from this blog and our Facebook Reader group, and we want to hear your opinion!

​

What is the Best Sci-Fi Title by a Woman Writer?
  • Add your answer
Results

What are the Best YA Sci-Fi Books or Series?

/5 Comments/in , /by
“Good stories are good stories, no matter how they’re categorized.” —Octavia Butler

Why yes, we YA!  What about you?

Generally—or perhaps historically—speaking Young Adult works were written for audiences in the 12-17 age range. Even while the popularity of YA fiction has grown across all age ranges over the last decade, some adults still snub YA fiction, writing it off as lacking the maturity necessary for a grown up audience. We know however, that a great YA novel or series can be sophisticated and well written enough for the discerning reader of any age. This, for starters, requires the author to have a little faith in the younger generation and their capacity to attend to a multi-layered narrative. It requires them to choose interesting themes and write those themes in a way that is accessible while also having depth; and, it requires them to choose their language with care. Failing that, it requires them to write something appealing to youth, while sparking something like a sense of adventure (for example) that might provoke the adult reader's feelings of nostalgia. Or, it could just be down right fun. In today's world, sometimes that is plenty; sometimes that is more than enough.

This week's poll asks for you to ponder young adult science fiction books and series. Which ones might be considered the very best?  Add your nomination(s) below and then vote on your favorite(s).

We base our lists on the votes and nominations from this blog and our Facebook Reader group, and we want to hear your opinion!

​

What are the best young adult science fiction books or series of all time?
  • Add your answer
Results

Interstellar Earth

/1 Comment/in , /by

There have been many books and movies illustrating the idea that the Earth is part of an ecosystem of asteroids and comets, moons and planets that all spin around our sun.

What hasn’t been explored as much is the effect of an ecosystem on a much larger scale—the effect exerted on the Earth by objects in our interstellar and even intergalactic neighborhood.

How’s that possible? 

Sitting and reading this, you might think you’re not moving--but you are.

Let’s start with the Earth rotating around its axis like a spinning top. Our planet is eight thousand miles in diameter, or about twenty-four thousand miles around its equator, and one rotation each twenty-four hours means you’re moving at a thousand miles per hour as you speed around the Earth’s axis.

And we’re not stopping there.

The Earth itself is orbiting the sun at a speed of about 67,000 mph. The sun is rotating around the Milky Way’s galactic core at about 518,000 mph, the Milky Way moving around the center of gravity of our Local Group of galaxies at 90,000 mph and the Local Group is moving relative to our Super Cluster at a speed of about 1.35 million mph.

So how fast are you moving while sitting still?

As best as we can estimate, you’re moving at about 540 miles per second. If you went back in time by a year, you would need to travel more than twice the distance to Pluto to get back to the same physical spot in space you are now.

Over time, spaceship Earth travels a lot of distance.

And all that “space” out there isn’t empty, but kinda cloudy. As in, giant molecular cloudy. There are upwards of 8000 giant molecular clouds in our galaxy, ranging from twenty to two-hundred light years across, and as the Earth and sun orbit the Milky Way, we tend to run into “cloudy” galactic weather every few hundred millions years.

The effect can be dramatic, depending on the density and composition of the cloud, leading to kinematic heating and seeding of our atmosphere to form clouds, probably leading to “snowball Earth” scenarios where ice extends all the way to the equator--which scientists now think has happened at least once or twice. The timeline might seem impossibly huge, but in the time that complex life has existed on Earth, about a half billion years, we have completed two complete orbits around Sagittarius A (the supermassive black hole at the center).

In fact, many of the events we’d attributed previously to chance, like the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs, might not be random at all, but the direct result of the interstellar interactions the Earth has with passing stars or giant molecular clouds. In school, we’re taught that the closest star, apart from the Sun, is Proxima Centuri, at just over four light years away. It may seem like the interstellar neighborhood is static. 

But it’s not.

Like what you're reading?

If you're enjoying this article, why not join the DSF community for more awesome content? You'll get to be notified whenever a new review, top 10 list, or any other articles of interest goes up on our site. It's free to sign up and you'll also get recommendations for new releases and discounted ebooks from our expert editorial team, from bestsellers to hidden gems.

In February of 2015, researchers were amazed to realize that just 70,000 years ago, near enough in time that our direct ancestors would looked up in the sky and seen it, Scholz’s star, a red dwarf, passed about a half light year from us. 

This led to a flurry of data crunching, leading scientists to discover that, for instance, four million years ago, a giant star, more than twice the mass of the sun, passed less than a third of a light year from us, and in just over a million years from now, another star will pass at just over a hundredth (yes, a hundredth) of a light year from our sun, grazing the solar system itself and affecting the orbits of the planets.

Scientists are now speculating that Sedna, the 10th planetoid of the Sun, the one after Pluto, isn’t even an original planet of our Sun. It was captured from a passing star over a billion years ago, when our solar system collided with an alien star’s planetary system. Hundreds of objects in the Kuiper Belt, the collection of planetoids past Uranus, are believed to have been captured from passing stars. 

And, of course, we had our the first interstellar visitor, ‘Oumuamua, which transited the solar system in 2017, followed close on its heels by the second, 2I/Borisov, in 2019. Which leads to the realization that we’re literally floating amongst interstellar debris, some of which is settling onto the Earth as we flash through space.

So we are continually mixing together with others stars and interstellar objects, and not on a time scale of billions of years, but on a regular basis every few million years—some scientists now even think that alien stars transit our solar system’s Oort cloud as often as every few hundred thousand years.

The gravitation effects of passing stars change the orbits of the planets over the course of millions of years. A change in Earth’s orbit might have triggered one of the biggest global warming events in its history. A massive ice age, started 35 million years ago, might have also been caused by another shift in Earth’s orbit, and that this same event disturbed the asteroid belt enough to precipitate several large asteroid impacts, one of which formed the Chesapeake Bay. 

And we haven’t even talked about the 95% of “stuff” floating around us, dark matter, that we can’t see or detect, other than knowing it’s there from its gravitational signature. With upgraded sensors and increased power in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in 2015, the world’s most powerful particle accelerator, many scientists had hoped to see evidence of dark matter.

But they’ve found nothing so far. 

Despite all of our technology and hundreds of years of peering into the cosmos, we still have no idea what makes up the vast majority of our universe. 

It was Stephen Hawking who first proposed that the missing dark matter may be in the form of invisible “primordial” black holes that were formed when our universe itself was created in the Big Bang.

Primordial black holes might have formed when the Big Bang created a super-dense soup of particles, with densities high enough to spontaneously form black holes. Recent research results using the Kepler satellite have restricted the size range of possible “black hole dark matter” candidates, but it is still a viable theory. 

Some theorists think it’s possible that these intermediate-sized primordial black holes coalesced into the super-giant black holes that form the cores of galaxies, with the left over matter of the universe cooling around them to form stars. If so, some of these primordial black holes might still be wandering the cosmos, ejected at high speeds from galactic cores during the process of merger by something called gravitational recoil.

Which leads back to one of my books.

If you want to read more, my series Nomad details the effects of a close encounter with a primordial black hole, and you can read the whole series in a discounted box set that was just released this week. Click here to check it out.

Hope you’ve enjoyed this little spin!

Matthew Mather

Matthew Mather
With over a million copies of his books sold, translated into eighteen languages, with 20th Century Fox now developing his second novel, CyberStorm, for a major film release, Matthew Mather’s books are sold worldwide.

He began his career at the McGill Center for Intelligent Machines, then started several high-tech ventures in everything from computational nanotechnology to electronic health records, weather prediction systems to genomics, and even designed an award-winning brain-training video game. He now works as a full-time author of speculative fiction.

You can follow Matt on Facebook, Twitter and his website.

Are we living in the Matrix?

/2 Comments/in , /by

Are we living in the Matrix?

​I don’t mean the actual Matrix, run by maniacal robots using humans as batteries while we live out a simulacrum of life on Earth. But rather, the concept that our reality isn’t really ‘real.’

This concept is a provocative one on so many levels, and the truth is that there is just so much of science that has been leading us in this direction lately.

A significant group of futurists and renowned scientists firmly believe that we are living in a simulation: Elon Musk, Neil Degrasse Tyson, and even myself, but that’s not really a good reason for you to buy into the theory, nor am I necessarily proselytizing, but let’s take an objective look at some of the evidence:

The Mandela Effect

This was incorporated into a few popular books and movies, but if you’ve never heard of it, the Mandela Effect is the phenomenon where a collective group of people misremember events in history. The classic example is that a lot of people claim to remember Nelson Mandela dying in the 80s when in fact he died in 2013. Some people claim that this is evidence that our simulators are actively traveling back in time and altering history, or at least, evidence that there are parallel universes, which itself is a concept with strong ties to a simulated reality. A quantum computer simulation would likely simulate multiple variations of events in order to arrive at a desirable outcome. The question is what is considered desirable, and to whom?

The Fermi Paradox: Where Are All The Aliens?

Maybe there aren’t any—in this simulation. We might be the only civilization in what only looks like a vast universe. What about those points of light you see in the sky that we call stars? They could just be part of the backdrop of the simulation, a way to fool us into thinking we’re a part of something much bigger than we actually are. Simulating the rest of the universe at a great distance from us is actually relatively easy. There isn’t a lot of detail that we can see with telescopes. It’s not like we can actually travel to Alpha Centauri and go walk around on its planets. The sheer vastness of space and the difficulty we have in crossing those distances might just be an element of the simulation that’s designed to keep us contained in a manageable space, one that doesn’t overtax the resources of whatever supercomputer is running it all.

The Double-slit Experiment

Photons fired at a screen through two slits in a copper plate produce an interference pattern on the screen, behaving like a wave and passing through both slits at the same time. But if we conduct the same experiment under observation (remote, human, mechanical—doesn’t matter who or what is observing the photons): the photons behave like particles, and only pass through one of the slits, leaving no interference pattern on the screen. Electrons exhibit the same strange behavior. So what’s happening? Some say that this effect is the code of the simulation conserving resources by only simulating what it needs to. Video games today do this to great effect, only rendering what you can see at any given moment.

Like what you're reading?

If you're enjoying this article, why not join the DSF community for more awesome content? You'll get to be notified whenever a new top 10 list, or any other articles of interest goes up on our site. It's free to sign up and you'll also get recommendations for new releases and discounted ebooks from our expert editorial team, from bestsellers to hidden gems.

Computers and Video Games Are Advancing Rapidly

In just a few short decades, we’ve gone from 2D games like Space Invaders, Pong, and Pac-Man to this:

theHunter: Call of the Wild

Given another 50 or 100 years, video games will become indistinguishable from reality. Seeing this trend in 2003, Nick Bostrom, a philosopher from the University of Oxford, put forth a compelling argument for the idea that we might all be living in a simulation. He used the principles of statistics and logic to support his argument, but the basic gist of it was that it’s easy to imagine how members of an advanced civilization would have the ability to create a simulated world like ours, but not just one such world—they would be able to create many, many simulated worlds like this one.

Nick Bostrom, therefore, argued that the vast majority of realities would be artificial ones, simply because there is only one ‘real’ world, and it cannot be multiplied or used to spawn new ones. But advanced civilizations can certainly create thousands or even millions of simulated universes within one real universe. So, statistically speaking, it becomes more likely that we are living in a simulated reality rather than a real one. Bostrom suggested that perhaps we are living in an ancestor simulation created by a far future version of humanity.

There Are Error-Correcting Codes in the Fundamental Equations of String Theory

Theoretical Physicist James Gates thinks he’s found error-correcting computer codes in the equations of string theory. These types of codes are common in web browsers, and in the error-correcting memory of computer servers, but what is error-correcting code doing in the base code of our universe?

Conclusion

I could go on and on about this, but I won’t bore you with endless speculations and implications based on scraps of evidence. I’ll write a book about it, instead ;). But whether you believe we could be living in a simulation or not, I encourage you to think about the bigger questions behind that idea. Ironically, they’re the same questions we’ve been asking since the dawn of time: why are we here? What is the possible purpose of it all? Is there a God? I’ve come up with a few disturbing possibilities as to the why of it below:

  1. We’re prisoners from a far future society of humanity. We’re being rehabilitated in a relatively short-term (insert your hypothetical lifespan here) simulation, or else we’re just here to separate us from the ‘real’ reality and the ‘real’ people in a humane way that doesn’t allow us to hurt anyone. Our degree of suffering down here might even be commensurate with some type of sentence or eye-for-an-eye justice system.
  2. We’re bored immortal post-humans (humans who have uploaded their consciousness to android bodies, or to a supercomputer) living in a metaverse of countless different simulations. So why all the pain and struggle in this particular simulation? Maybe we got bored of having it easy. Think about it: if you never had to struggle, never felt pain, never suffered, would you appreciate anything anymore? A simulation like this one might be the equivalent of thrill-seeking for an immortal intelligence. That said, I don’t think anyone would choose to be a starving child in Africa. It’s possible that some of the people on Earth are the equivalent of NPCs in a game (non-player characters), which means that they only appear to suffer and aren’t really real, but that’s a dangerous line of thinking to incorporate into an actual philosophy of life. You don’t know who might be real and who isn’t, so you can’t make any assumptions without committing grave errors in judgment. Plus, this is just a wacky theory, so yeah. There’s that.
  3. Humans digitize and become immortal machines. Then what? How do you have kids? You can’t. You could program them, but they would have no notion of what it’s like to be a human. It’s likely that you would find them and their worldview utterly alien to your own (having once been a human yourself, you have that context as a base level of programming that underlies your decisions and personality). So this simulation could be a way to train and educate the ‘children’ of a race of post-human androids in matters of empathy, humanity, mortality, etc.

And finally, you may or may not be religious, but if what we think is reality is actually simulated, then there is a creator behind it all. And if this is a simulation, then any version of supernatural events becomes quite possible. Not only that, there could be a super intelligence behind it all, an AI that created the simulation and governs it. That AI would be God by all of our classical definitions. And if that AI also runs the ‘real’ world / base reality as some kind of benevolent ruler, then it would be a kind of God in that reality, too. Of course, there could be an evil AI as well. Maybe some rebels who didn’t like how things were being run in the metaverse programmed their own super-intelligent AI to run things differently. Sounds familiar somehow… I’m not saying that’s what’s going on behind the curtains, but the fact is that anything is possible.

​Unfortunately, there’s no way to find out for sure without dying first. Don’t worry, I promise I won’t say I told you so when we’re all back in the base reality again.

Until then, my advice is to be the best version of yourself that you can, because one of the more frightening possibilities is that we are all prisoners in here, and if that’s so, then proving our successful rehabilitation might be the only way we’re ever getting out.

​Jasper Scott is a USA Today bestselling author of more than 20 sci-fi novels including the best selling First Encounter, The New Frontiers trilogy and Dark Space series. With over a million books sold, Jasper's work has been translated into various languages and published around the world.

Jasper writes fast-paced books with unexpected twists and flawed characters. He was born and raised in Canada by South African parents, with a British heritage on his mother's side and German on his father's. He now lives in an exotic locale with his wife, their two kids, and two chihuahuas.

You can follow Jasper on Facebook, Twitter and his website.

Review—Gemini Man

/0 Comments/in , /by

​​​Bobby’s Rating - 6 out of 10

Currently available on the streaming services.

​Gemini Man, not a great movie, but not a bad one either.

It starts with the frequently used thriller trope of the rogue operative who gets crosswise with the shadowy government agency he works for, and then the agency decides to kill him. Throw in an unexplained and much younger version of the hero, and suddenly you’ve got a clone in the movie, and voila, it’s SciFi.

BFD? Maybe.

But let’s be real for a sec’. Any of us who likes these kinds of flicks knows how the trope works. We’ve watched it a thousand times, and we always come back for more. In a world where most of us are just trying to keep out of trouble at work over the missing TPS cover sheets, indulging the fantasy for a few hours that we’re the haunted hero who must reluctantly shwack the boss to make the world right again, is pretty appealing. I mean, I’m no psych professor, but is this really the whole point of these movies—cathartic indulgence of the boss-killing fantasy? Thankfully, only the most whacked among us ever Goes Postal in the real world.

Anyway, I’m getting off the subject of the movie… kind of.

I guess what I’m saying is, I don’t watch these movies because I want to leave the theater (get off the couch for us who watch a streaming vid in the living room) and feel inspired to contemplate my place in my family/world/relationship. I want escapism and fun. Gemini Man does a decent job with that.
​

Pros:

The action scenes were good, not great, but good. I did, however, dig the chase/shoot-em-up scene through Cartagena. It felt like watching a T-1000 in a Will Smith mask chase an old Will Smith through a 1052-count box of HDR crayons. The colors—WOW!

Young, CGI-face Will Smith looked 100% real in almost every scene. The technology that does this is maturing quickly, and it leads me to speculate what the future of the movie biz will look like when the stars never have to age, never get fat, in fact, are never less than perfect. And how does that turn into unrealistic self-perceptions out here in the real world?

Oops, I’m off the topic again. Back to the movie…

In the big climax battle, when the URT© (Urban Riot Tank) shows up with its spiffy-fast missiles and shreds a convenience store with its mini-gun and laser-like tracer rounds, I was double-dawg-diggin’ it. I liked the proto-robocop super-soldiers who were just fodder for Will and his sidekick-chick to shoot with perfectly aimed shots.

Will Smith in the lead—well, I’ve always liked Will Smith, but he’s a likable guy. I think for most movies, he just shows up on set and says, “Hey ya’ll, I’m feeling kinda lazy, so I’m just gonna act like me in this this time around,” and the director says, “Cool, dude. Action.” For the most part, Gemini Man felt that way.

Overall, though, the movie does an excellent job at being what it is. 

But of course, we have to look at the cons too.

Like what you're reading?

If you're enjoying this review, why not join the DSF community for more awesome content? You'll get to be notified whenever a new top 10 list, or any other articles of interest goes up on our site. It's free to sign up and you'll also get recommendations for new releases and discounted ebooks from our expert editorial team, from bestsellers to hidden gems.

Cons:

After I watch a movie like this, I sometimes wonder if the producers were sitting around saying, “Hey man, we’ve got a big budget for special effects, we signed Will-Fucking-Smith to star, and we’ve got a gold-plated formula/trope and an interesting premise. That’s good, right? I mean, Jimmy’s nephew can write the script. I heard he got a C+ on his spelling test, so the kid is literate. What more do we need?”

Some of the dialogue was silly. But I’m not going to judge too harshly there. I mean, I’m a writer, too. Lots of silly shit sounds good in my head when I’m in the heat of the story, but doesn’t sound actual-silly until I re-read it six months later. You know, after I’ve published. So it goes.

Most of the stuff that happens in the movie seems to happen as an excuse to set up an action scene or a trip from Georgia, to Cartagena, or Budapest, or any other exotic locale the budget can stand, because we audience members expect that from the trope. Unfortunately, the story doesn’t really support any of it. It all just sorta happens, ‘cause.

The movie starts a little slow as it gives us a chance to get to know the character and the situation, so we can bond with the hero before the shit hits the fan. I can or can’t be okay with this sort of thing, depending on how well it's done. Maybe for me, I just saw Will Smith being Will Smith, so I figured I already knew him, and I didn’t need to get to know the character he was ‘playing.’ So, this time around, it seemed a little like wasted time.

And while we’re talking about Will Smith, I think he’s played some outstanding roles. He’s demonstrated in numerous films that he is a talented actor. If he’d brought some of that depth to this role (necessarily coupled with a better script), this could have been a GFM© (Great Fuckin’ Movie – you know, like the Bourne Identity, also made with the same trope but different premise). Instead, it wasn’t great, but it wasn’t bad. It was worth an evening on the couch, escaping the rigors of my day—you know, the time I spend trying to come up with non-silly dialogue for the characters in the story I’m writing, trying to meet my dogs’ expectations to let them in and out of the house every three minutes, and trying to remember the cover sheet on my TPS reports.

​* If you feel like I’ve been unnecessarily harsh on a masterpiece, or too easy on a terrible POS, please read my Disclaimers, Caveats, and Excuses page before you flame me.

Bobby Adair is a former programmer, with a long-lived passion - and only recently fulfilled desire - for writing.  He is the author of the Freedom Fire series, the Slow Burn series and the Ebola K series.

One of Bobby's favorite quotes:

“It’s not just about me and my dream of doing nothing. It’s about all of us...Michael, we don’t have a lot of time on this earth! We weren’t meant to spend it this way. Human beings were not meant to sit in little cubicles staring at computer screens all day, filling out useless forms and listening to eight different bosses drone on about about mission statements.”
- Peter Gibbons, Office Space

You can follow Bobby on Facebook, Twitter and his website.

Time to Choose: What Are the Best YA Sci-fi Books of All Time ?

/5 Comments/in , /by

Last week's poll asked for you to consider outstanding science fiction books and series written for Young Adult audiences.  We know there are some amazing books out there that, while geared toward younger readers, are written so well that they appeal to adults, too.  Reading your wonderful submissions was like taking a walk down memory lane!  

But now, it's time to decide.

There were so many great options submitted, and while last week you were free to vote for as many as you'd like, this week, we'll ask you to narrow down your choice to one selection.  Which one do you think is the very best?

*This list is made up by combining votes from this blog and our Facebook group.  Further, we wanted to note that since there was a nomination for Heinlein's Juveniles as a collection, as well as several individual titles from that collection nominated, we combined them into one entry for this poll. 

​

What is the Best YA Sci-Fi Book of All Time
Results