Well, I hate to admit it, but it is possible that there is (one) such a thing as telepathy and (two) that the CETI project's idea that we might communicate with extraterrestrial beings via telepathy is possibly a reasonable idea--if telepathy exists and if ETIs exist. Otherwise we are trying to communicate with someone who doesn't exist with a system which doesn't work.
On January 24th, Apple computers will introduce Macintosh. And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like 1984.” – Old Hollywood film director Sir Ridley Scott’s classic “1984” Apple Macintosh commercial, first aired 15 Dec. 1983, Top Ten Commercials of All Time, 2050 edition“Well, it all did lead to 1984.” – Goli, the tek-lord, 2089
...[T]he only means I have to stop ignorant snobs from behaving towards genre fiction with snobbish ignorance is to not reinforce their ignorance and snobbery by lying and saying that when I write SF it isn't SF, but to tell them more or less patiently for forty or fifty years that they are wrong to exclude SF and fantasy from literature, and proving my arguments by writing well.
[The Void Which Binds] actual but unaccessible presence in our universe is one of the prime causes for our species elaborating myth and religion, for our stubborn, blind belief in extrasensory powers, in telepathy and precognition, in demons and demigods and resurrection and reincarnation and ghosts and messiahs and so many other categories of almost-but-not-quite satisfying bullshit.
I maintain that cultural sensitivity should be replaced by cultural awareness. Awareness implies research, consideration, thought, and judiciousness....Sensitivity denies equal access to language. It segregates and censors based on the background of the writer rather than the content of the story. No society can embrace cultural sensitivity and retain full capacity for freedom of speech.
And strange were the tales of the pond in the meadow,And eager we listened with eyes opened wideTo Those tales often told by poor Mary the widow,Who lived in a cottage the meadow beside.Play not, my dear boys, near the pond in the meadow,The mermaid is waiting to pull you beneath;Climb not for a bird’s nest, the bough it may sliver,And the mermaid will drag you to darkness and death.
Arkady looked at the other man. he felt that he was actually seeing him as a physical being for the first time.....He tried to imagine that body with Bella, with any woman, and found the idea...not repulsive exactly, but incomprehensible. How would it work exactly? And how would either of them, knowing nothing of their lover's body, needs and desires, ever be able to satisfy the other?
All brightness was gone, leaving nothing. We stepped out of the tent onto nothing. Sledge and tent were there, Estraven stood beside me, but neither he nor I cast any shadow. There was dull light all around, everywhere. When we walked on the crisp snow no shadow showed the footprint. We left no track. Sledge, tent, himself, myself: nothing else at all. No sun, no sky, no horizon, no world.
He takes two steps back. Closer to the portal.I can't stop myself. "Ben," I call. And I'm not even embarrassed about how helpless my voice sounds.Don't go."I'll come back for you." He takes another step back. "I promise."Stay."Janelle Tenner," he says. "I will always fucking love you." And then he takes one more step back. Into the portal.And the blackness swallows him whole.
I had said that Le Guin's worlds were real because her people were so real, and he said yes, but the people were so real because they were the people the worlds would have produced. If you put Ged to grow up on Anarres or Shevek in Earthsea, they would be the same people, the backgrounds made the people, which of course you see all the time in mainstream fiction, but it's rare in SF.
The Artificial’s speech pattern was an idiosyncratic mix of awkward and colloquial. It was unexpectedly endearing. “I just have good instincts. Mostly I love being in space.” But you are not ‘in’ space. You are in your starship and your starship is in space. It is not so different than being on a planet. “Oh, Valkyrie, you have no idea.” Tell me then.
normal is an opinion from a man just like the rest of us, to function just like society is an idea, that to limit and bound reality to make life convenient was fascinating to one soul. then soon to his lot, what is called evil or insane is what people feel is too much or sacrilegious to look for, the unknown. I liked it, I am called a monster, for being what god only knows.― Tashie McKay
I don't think humanity just replays history, but we are the same people our ancestors were, and our descendants are going to face a lot of the same situations we do. It's instructive to imagine how they would react, with different technologies on different worlds. That's why I write science fiction -- even though the term 'science fiction' excites disdain in certain persons.
Zombies are not just fictional creatures that devour the flesh of the living. They also include those who follow the words of others without thinking for themselves. This world is falling apart. I don’t think anyone can disagree with that. People live in their twenty-mile-radius realities and don’t notice the world happening around them, until it finally breaks down their front door.
Мы будем делать Добро из Зла, потому что его больше не из чего делать.
