Classics of Science Fiction

How Would You React If An Alien Spaceship Showed Up in Earth Orbit?

Let’s imagine an alien spaceship parked itself in orbit within view of the International Space Station. Let’s also assume the aliens announce themselves by transmitting television signals to every nation on Earth. We’ll also assume they have the technology to use the appropriate Earth language for each nation.

Why Do We Read Science Fiction?

” recommending Blindsight because it featured “creatures with very advanced intelligence but no self-awareness.” I’ve been doing a lot of reading on consciousness, so this did grab me. Again, I struggled to get into the story. Several times, I considered quitting. The novel often presented ideas that got me thinking, but Watt’s style just wasn’t working.

What If Humanity Continues to Evolve for a Million Years?

In yesterday’s post, I claimed humans will never colonize the solar system or explore the galaxy. Whenever I express this doubt, I often get one excellent counterargument. This time, it came from P. F. Nel on my Facebook page.

How Much Science Fiction Should I Collect and Read Before I Die?

I accomplished a task last night that I’ve been hoping to finish for months. It made me exceedingly happy. My goal was to create a digital library of all my scanned pulp and digest science fiction magazines so they could be accessed from any of my computer devices. I have three computers (Windows, Mac, Linux), four tablets (two iOS, two Android), and an iPhone. Last year, I bought a UGreen DXP2800 NAS.

What Would You Talk About With An AI Chatbot Trained on the Works By and About Philip K. Dick?

I’ve had this fantasy for the last few years, since the beginning of the AI boom, of creating a Philip K. Dick chatbot. I envision finding a local LLM with a huge upload capacity. Currently, Claude allows for up to 30 megabytes in a maximum of 20 files. That’s not nearly en