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What Would Your Robot Say?

6/26/2014

Last August, I read that Kirobo, the first robotic astronaut arrived at the International Space Station. The doll-sized humanoid robot weighs about 2 pounds, speaks Japanese, and has been heralded as the first robot to speak in space. When powered up, its historic greeting was, “On August 21, 2013, a robot took one small step toward a brighter future for all," paying homage to Neil Armstrong’s moon landing speech.

While I understand and appreciate the sentiment behind the message, the SF fan in me wanted to hear something else. I would have been “over the moon” happy if the first words from a robotic astronaut were “Hello Dave” honoring instead, Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick’s HAL9000 robot. After all, both Kirobo and HAL9000 have facial recognition, speech recognition, and natural language processing capabilities. Lest you think of HAL9000 only as the villain, the computer saved the day in Arthur C. Clarke’s 2010: Odyssey Two.

If you could write the first words a robotic astronaut would speak in outer space, what would they be? I would love to hear your responses.

You may be interested in the following SciFi Writing Topics…
6 Tech-based Writing Prompts
5 Books for Aspiring SciFi Writers

…and general SciFi articles.
SciFi Writers – The Shamans of Modernity
SciFi and the Dangerfield Effect
SciFi Authors and Editors as Agents of Change
What Would Your Robot Say?
What Were the First SciFi Stories You Read?
Earth Day – April 22, 2014

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Musings on NASA’s Asteroid Retrieval Mission

6/22/2014

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As I read the recent NBC News article about NASA’s proposed Asteroid Retrieval Mission, I couldn’t help but think about Sam Kepfield’s story, Open for Business, in the Far Orbit Anthology. Sam’s story about capturing an asteroid and bringing it back to earth is so timely it could have been ripped from today’s headlines. It also shows us that good science fiction doesn’t have to be about some far off future or set in the far reaches of the universe. It can happen around the corner, down the street, or in our back yard.

In addition to NASA’s plans to snag an asteroid, two companies, Deep Space Industries and Planetary Resources have announced measured initiatives to begin asteroid prospecting operations using small CubeSats and off-the-shelf technologies. Open for Business floats effortlessly on this sea of current events. The story reads like mid-century science fiction but there is a twist. Rather than following the steely-eyed lead scientist, the author gives us a more human story by making the point of view character a slightly neurotic attorney.

Anyway, these are the things that went through my mind while reading the NASA story.

Other Far Orbit posts featured on this blog:

Musings on NASA’s Asteroid Retrieval Project and Sam Kepfield’s “Open for Business”
Bear Essentials by Julie Frost
Composition in Death Minor by K.G. Jewell
Spaceman Barbecue by Peter Wood
Far Orbit Interview on SciFi4Me.com
Great News from Sporadic Reviews!
Guest Blog on Fantasy Café (they wanted to hear about Grand Tradition SciFi
Good Choice Reading Interviews Far Orbit Authors Tracy Canfield, Jacob Drud, and Kat Otis
My intro for the Far Orbit Anthology
Launch Day!!!
Inspiration… perspiration… exhilaration…

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SF Authors and Editors as Agents of Change

6/21/2014

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We all know about the technological links between science fiction and invention. Technologies from submarines to cell phones to the internet were first described in science fiction stories and engineers went on to build these devices. Identity theft, once the stuff of science fiction, is not fiction in today’s interconnected world. So yes, science fiction writers and their imaginations can be agents of change in our rapidly evolving technology-driven world. In the face of these feel-good emotions about SF, William Gibson has written that SF writers can’t predict the future and they certainly don’t get it right all the time. While he certainly has a valid point, SF writers do present a number of technological possibilities that sometimes become self-fulfilling prophesies. Computer scientist Alan Kay, is quoted as saying “the best way to predict the future is to invent it."

Less has been written about the role SF writers play in shaping how we feel about science and the future. Stories are powerful things and humans are hard-wired to learn from stories and storytelling. Good storytelling creates strong emotional hash tags that anchor actions and outcomes in our brains forever. If we really are what we consume, a storytelling diet rich in decay, despair, and the evils of science will certainly influence how we, as readers, perceive the world. For this reason, I tend to agree with recent comments and editorials from Elizabeth Bear and Neil Stephenson that we need more optimism in SF. Granted, we may be facing a chicken or egg dilemma on this one. Are we reading depressing stories because we feel we live in depressing times or do we feel we live in depressing times because we read depressing stories?

John Campbell and many other editors have shown that editors too, can be agents of change in science fiction and society. In my role as volume editor and Far Orbit anthologist, I was uniquely positioned to set the tone for the anthology. Rather than writing about my preferences for more optimism, I decided to pay people for their optimistic SF stories. It seemed like a win-win solution to me. The result is Far Orbit: Speculative Space Adventures – a new anthology that’s science positive, fun to read, and embodies many of the elements found in classic, Grand Tradition science fiction. Long story short, we put our money where our heart is.

I hope Far Orbit finds a place in your heart too.

Far Orbit is available in Paperback and electronic versions from
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Books-A-Million
Goodreads
!ndigo
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Independent Bookstores

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Far Orbit Interview on SciFi4Me.com

6/12/2014

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The other night, I had a chance to talk about the Far Orbit anthology with Jason Hunt from SciFi4Me on blogtalk radio. Jason also interviewed Far Orbit author Wendy Sparrow (“A Game of Hold’em”) about her contribution and her new upcoming book. You can learn more about Wendy by listening to the interview and visiting her website: http://wendysparrow.com.

The site was having serious technical difficulties. The interview started late and Far Orbit author Eric Choi (“From a Stone”) was locked out completely. It was a pity, because I was looking forward to hearing what Eric had to say. Eric is the first winner of the Asimov Award (now the Dell Magazines Award) and he is an Aurora Award winner for his anthology “The Dragon and the Stars.” Eric is an aerospace engineer who worked on the Phoenix Mars Lander meteorology payload and he was among the final forty candidates (out of more than 5,000) vying to become the third cadre of Canadian astronauts. Eric is currently co-editing the forthcoming a hard SF anthology “Carbide Tipped Pens” with Ben Bova which will be published at end of the year by Tor books. You can find out more about Eric by visiting his website: http://www.aerospacewriter.ca/

You can listen to our abbreviated interview by following the link below. Please move ahead to the seven minute mark to skip over Jason’s exasperated and valiant efforts to vanquish the Google gremlins who were gleefully pulling wires and connection thingies from his control board. Note to self: Need to invent a better digital bug spray.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/scifi4me/2014/06/11/scifi4me-live-from-the-bunker-140610

Thanks, Jason. I enjoyed talking with you and Wendy.

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Early Reading Experiences

6/4/2014

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Up North Stories. Books and reading were an important part of my childhood experiences. As a young boy, I read a mish-mash of science fiction, adventure, mysteries, and military fiction stories.

My family didn't have much money and our small town library only had a few science fiction titles, so we swapped books. Lots and lots of books.

One of my neighbors and a few of my dad’s friends were voracious readers and every month or so, Dad would bring home a grocery bag filled with dog-eared paperbacks. The bags exuded that wonderful aroma of musty-dusty shelves and old paper. For me, the bags were equal parts reality and magic. Every cover was a doorway to distant lands, new sights, and new adventures. Grocery bags brought Heinlein, Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Bradbury, Eric Frank Russell and so many others into my home and my imagination.

I can still remember my delight when I pulled the first head-to toe (tête-bêche) book from the bag. The back cover of the first book was actually the front cover of the second book, but rotated 180 degrees. How cool was that?

Because so many people contributed to the bag, the contents often included a mixture of other titles and genera. Sometimes there was a paperback classic such as Ivanhoe, a Western horse opera or two, Doc Savage stories, or a Mickey Spillane book. Special bags would have one or two yellowed copies of pulp SciFi magazines like Astounding or Amazing Stories.   I don’t know if it was my imagination or reality, but the older yellowed books always seemed lighter than the newer books.

With this sharing program, I always had five or ten books waiting for me. I read the books and returned them to the bag. When the bag was full, I swapped it with my neighbor for a bag of his books. My dad would take my neighbor’s books and swap them with his friends. I never really knew how far this sharing circle extended, but I was grateful for its existence.

You may be interested in these Up North Story posts
New Feature: Up North Stories
Skinny Dip
Radio and the Fabric of our Lives
Early Reading Experiences

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What Would Your Robot Say?

Musings on NASA’s Asteroid Retrieval Mission

SF Authors and Editors as Agents of Change

Far Orbit Interview on SciFi4Me.com

Early Reading Experiences

@BascombJ

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What Would Your Robot Say?

Musings on NASA’s Asteroid Retrieval Mission

SF Authors and Editors as Agents of Change

Far Orbit Interview on SciFi4Me.com

Early Reading Experiences

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