When the number of days before you grow less than the number of days behind you, your perspectives change. I’m still young at 56, but not as young as I was at 38. Aging is a real trip. I see science fiction much different today than at 13 or 38, and I have to be careful not to sound too negative. Only the very best SF works on me anymore, so I might be too quick to dismiss lesser work. But this aging cynicism has its advantages too - it makes me work much harder to be inspired and that is good for me. It’s important to never give up.

By the way, are your kids into reading?

Jim

The Robot story above sounds like fun. I read your other posts on Science Fiction and here’s my take. I agree with you that’s hard to find that same spark reading Science Fiction today as when I was a young adult. I’m 38. I think the main thing today is that it’s hard to find that same sense of wonder in anything like I did growing up. The interet and all the cable tv channels have made some much information available instatiously and computers can do so much now that these items seem to have taken away the magic of discovery in so many things. It’s hard to find that sense of wonder. I see it mostly through my kids eyes now ( ages 8 & 11 ).

The more I read; the more my imagination is kept alive though. Movies and tv just can’t compete with reading for me. The last few years I’ve tripled my reading output fueled by discussions with my best friend and others and it’s charged me up more and more on daily basis and really made me a happier person. Science Fiction and Fantasy stories being the main fuel for my fire. I steer more to character driven stories myself more so than idea stories.

Growing up I too often ignored classics so now I’m trying to retify that. Recent Science Fiction stories I’ve enjoyed in the last few years are: The Rolling Stones by Robert Heinlein, Friday by Robert Heinlein, Hunter’s Moon by George RR Martin, Gardner Dozies, and Daniel Abraham, Foundation by Isaac Asimov, The Minority Report from Phillip K. Dick, and Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card and every story out by John Scalzi.

Recent fantasy stories I’ve enjoyed: A Game of Thrones by George RR Martin, American Gods by Neil Gaiman, Stardust by Neil Gaiman, and The Time Travelers Wife by Audrey Niffenger.

I wish you luck in rekindling that flame. I need to get back to reading The Stainless Steel Rat from Harry Harrision now.

Sheckley was just one of those odd things where I saw a couple of authors I like talking about how great his short stories were and lo and behold there was that volume from SFBC. You are correct, there are some wonderfully humorous stories there, but there were some really good serious ones as well.

I listen to audiobooks on occasion, not near as often as my wife or my best friend, both of whom travel alot for their jobs. It is a shame that libraries don’t, or can’t, stock these better and yet I am often pleased with what my friends can find. Not sure if you liked Scalzi or not, but if you did the entire trilogy is wonderful. If you listen to Ghost Brigades and like it you might be interested in short story he wrote from the viewpoint of Jane Sagan called, The Sagan Diary. It was a limited edition from Subterranean Press but the neat thing about it is that several female authors agreed to record various chapters and it is available for free:

http://www.scalzi.com/whatever/004836.html

I daresay that it would make no good sense unless you’ve read or listened to Ghost Brigades first.

His book Android’s Dream is a separate story that you might be interested in. It is much more along the lines of humorous stories like Bill the Galactic Hero, although better written in my opinion. It also has a caper element to it that is quite fun.

I am certainly a fan of Ms. Austen’s works and most of the films inspired by her works. It has been forever since I’ve read Northanger Abbey and was disappointed to have missed the recent PBS version of it. I have Vinge’s Rainbow’s End on my To Read shelf.

I hadn’t thought about the visual benefits of the Kindle. I am kind of old fashioned in that I am hesitant about reading novels in non-traditional formats…I just love the feel of the book in hand. However vision issues, which I will be dealing with myself someday, make that avenue of reading a lot more attractive.

First of all, I do most of my reading by listening, and most SF books do not come out on audio. I can supplement my listening by reading my Kindle, which magnifies prints and turns ebooks into large print books. My old eyes can’t handle long stretches of normal print anymore. The audio limitation is good because it prescreens a lot of books - usually only the better books get audio productions.

For instance I just finished Old Man’s War by John Scalzi a couple weeks ago. Vernor Vinge’s Rainbow’s End just came out, so I might try it. Currently I’m listening to Northanger Abby by Jane Austen which is about a gothic book fan two hundred years ago. I might go to Xenocide by Orson Scott Card next or I might try Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? or Proust was a Neuroscientist. Selection is limited with audio, but it’s often good.

I’m glad you discovered Robert Sheckley. He’s like the Gary Larson of SF humor. Carl, I’m like you in that I’m rediscovering SF and trying to find the new stuff, as well as reacquaint myself with the classics. My Classics of Science Fiction page is stuck twenty years in the past and I would love to find the time and methods to find the best SF books of the last couple decades.

Jim

I’m probably not the very best science fiction fan in that I don’t buy into the idea that science fiction is getting stagnant, is failing, etc. But the reason really comes down to the fact that story is more important to me than ideas. That isn’t to say that I don’t get thrilled by the ideas, provided they are well put forth and their is still a semblance of a story there, but in the end the story has always been of utmost importance. That is probably why my absolute favorite science fiction is either more space opera-ish or more character driven (for example I just read Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead this past month for the first time and I was so taken up with the characters that I still cannot stop thinking about them).

On the other side of the coin the internet allows me (all of us) to get in on current conversations about science fiction and being a fan I consider myself one of the torch carriers for the next generation…I want to do my part to promote an interest in science fiction. To do that I really want to try to keep up with newer novels and the shorter fiction in the mags so that I can have an idea of what is going on now and can engage in intelligent conversation.

So after typing all that I guess I see how the ideas really are important to me, it is just that many of the ideas I am discovering for the first time are ones that you and your friends discovered long ago (Foundation novels, The Stars My Destination, etc). As much as I’ve enjoyed a few of the newer books I’ve read this year (The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman, Hunter’s Run by Martin, Dozois, Abraham), I get an extra thrill out of reading the classics. I love that sense of history and nostalgia that comes from reading books that were written before I was born and that thrilled the generations of science fiction lovers that came before me.

Books like Mindswap by Robert Sheckley, or Bill, The Galactic Hero by Harry Harrison gave us weeks of loud talking and laughing. If we found a great story in Galaxy or Analog we’d pass it around. I miss the days when I knew people who read the monthly SF mags. The internet is bringing that back.

Jim

Intriguing ideas. Of course the first thing I thought of when reading your ideas of sending the robots on ahead was that there is certainly a story there. They go out, make this great world, then get to thinking, ‘hey, do we really want the humans coming here and screwing things up? No? then let’s get ‘em!’.

On a slightly more serious note, it is interesting to think that had we as a people been more forward thinking about developing alternative fuel sources, more energy efficient products, etc. that maybe it wouldn’t be such a huge financial burden for governments to be looking at exploring and populating the galaxy. Sure, it is wishful thinking to some degree and I certainly care about my suffering fellow man (and, on occasion, my sufffering self!), but I wish more was being spent on space related projects. It is probably just the kid in me that still wishes I could take that ‘one small step for man’.

Maybe in my middle age I should start taking some robotics courses so that I can go up with your pave-the-way robots and keep them company!