scholarly journals Postcards from the future

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 12-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristin Miller
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Southern California ◽  
Northern California ◽  
Bay Area ◽  
The Future ◽  
Science Fiction Films ◽  
Photo Essay ◽  
The Way

This article contemplates the way Northern and Southern California have been used in science fiction films since the 1970s. Continuing a trend the author traces to the 1940s novels Earth Abides and Ape and Essence, Northern California represents possible utopian futures while Southern California represents dystopia. The article includes a photo essay featuring science fiction film stills held up against their filming locations in Los Angeles and the Bay Area.

Waste

2019 ◽  
pp. 119-150
Author(s):  
Marissa K. López
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Nuclear Waste ◽  
South Texas ◽  
Colonial Mexico ◽  
The Moon ◽  
Mass Graves ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Future ◽  
Similar Disease

Chapter 4 opens with a discussion of the mass graves of unidentified immigrants discovered in South Texas in 2014. How, confronted with these decayed, dismembered border bodies, can literature and art move us beyond horror into a more just tomorrow? To answer, the author turns to two Chicanx science fiction novels: Morales’s The Rag Doll Plagues (1992) and Pita and Sánchez’s Lunar Braceros (2009). Morales’s novel begins in colonial Mexico with a tale of La Mona, an unidentified plague similar to AIDS, and ends in a Los Angeles of the future, now known as LAMEX, beset by a similar disease curable only by the infusion of blood from “pure” Mexicans and threatened by waves of trash, which have taken on the characteristics of an animated organism, rolling in from the Pacific. Lunar Braceros, about nuclear waste workers of the future living on the moon, presents trash as a similarly transformative threat. Both novels offer conflicted visions of the human body as simultaneously of and apart from the land, a vulnerable but powerful catalyzing agent for change. The author frames this chapter with analyses of works in Mexican Canadian digital installation artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s Relational Architecture series.

Epilogue Imagining future cities

2020 ◽  
pp. 115-124
Author(s):  
Carl Abbott
Keyword(s):  
Big Data ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
The Future ◽  
Technological Developments ◽  
Science Fiction Films ◽  
The Ideal ◽  
Future Visions ◽  
City Planners

“Imagining future cities” contrasts the idea of the human city with the robot city, an idea that is never far away from the cities of the future we see in science fiction films. As some of these future visions demonstrate, the ideal city contains elements of both the human and robot city and is powered by big data and technological developments, as well as human connections and recognizable hubs like the bar, bazaar, and branch library. As well as function and commerce, city planners of the future will need to remember the roles of community and interaction in keeping cities alive.

Review of the bivalve genus Plicatula from Cretaceous and lower Cenozoic strata of California and Baja California

1997 ◽  
Vol 71 (2) ◽  
pp. 287-298 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard L. Squires ◽  
Louella R. Saul
Keyword(s):  
New Species ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
Lower Cretaceous ◽  
Southern California ◽  
Upper Cretaceous ◽  
Baja California ◽  
Middle Eocene ◽  
Baja California Sur ◽  
Northern California ◽  
Three New Species

The Cretaceous and early Cenozoic species of the shallow-marine, warm-water bivalve Plicatula from California (United States) and Baja California (Mexico) are reviewed, and three new species are named. All of these species are representatives of Plicatula and not of the closely related taxon Harpax, which is associated with high-latitude and cool-water regions. The earliestknown Cretaceous species of Plicatula from the study area is P. variata Gabb, 1864, from Lower Cretaceous (Hauterivian Stage) strata in northern California, and our studies show it to be conspecific with Plicatula onoensis Anderson, 1958.Plicatula allisoni new species is from Lower Cretaceous (Albian Stage) strata in Baja California, Mexico. Plicatula modjeskaensis new species is from Upper Cretaceous (Turonian Stage) strata in the Santa Ana Mountains, southern California. A possible new species from the same strata is also mentioned. A poorly preserved specimen of Plicatula? sp. is known from Upper Cretaceous (upper Campanian to lower Maastrichtian) strata in northern California.The only Paleocene species of Plicatula from the study area is P. ostreiformis Stanton, 1896, from lower Paleocene strata of Lake County, northern California, and our studies show it to be conspecific with Ostrea buwaldana Dickerson, 1914. The only previously described Eocene species of Plicatula from the study area is P. juncalensis Squires, 1987, from lower middle Eocene (“Capay Stage”) strata of Los Angeles County, southern California. Plicatula surensis new species is from middle lower Eocene (“Capay Stage”) strata in Baja California Sur, Mexico. In addition, there is a Plicatula? sp. from Eocene strata of Baja California Sur, Mexico.Although Plicatula is of uncommon occurrence north of Baja California, its thermophilic trait makes it useful in recognizing periods of warm climate.

scholarly journals O-bi, o-ba: Koniec cywilizacji – postpiśmienny świat Piotra Szulkina

1970 ◽  
pp. 273-284
Author(s):  
Maciej Pietrzak
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Written Word ◽  
The Way ◽  
Adam Mickiewicz

Pietrzak Maciej, O-bi, o-ba: Koniec cywilizacji – postpiśmienny świat Piotra Szulkina [O-Bi, O-Ba: The End of Civilization – The Postliterate World of Piotr Szulkin]. „Przestrzenie Teorii” nr 32. Poznań 2019, Adam Mickiewicz University Press, pp. 273–284. ISSN 1644-6763. DOI 10.14746/pt.2019.32.14. Piotr Szulkin made his mark in the history of cinema primarily as the author of disturbing visions of the future. His four films made between 1979 and 1985 comprised the science-fiction tetralogy, which is still one of the greatest artistic achievements of this genre in Polish cinema. The subject of the article is the third production of Szulkin’s series – the post-apocalyptic film O-Bi, O-Ba: The End of Civilization from 1984. In the film, the director creates a suggestive vision of a world destroyed as a result of nuclear conflict, in which the original functions of literature and the written word are forgotten. The author article analyzes the way in which forsaken literary artifacts are used in the post-literary reality of the film. An important element of his considerations is also the post-apocalyptic reception of the biblical text, on whose elements the mythology of the film’s world is based.

scholarly journals Robotic surgery: the future is now

2008 ◽  
Vol 90 (9) ◽  
pp. 296-298
Author(s):  
Elaine Towell
Keyword(s):  
Robotic Surgery ◽  
Minimally Invasive ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
The Future ◽  
Operating Theatres ◽  
Science Fiction Films ◽  
Minimally Invasive Robotic Surgery

Once the stuff of science fiction films, the era of robotic surgery is finally upon us and experts predict it is set to revolutionise treatment for patients having surgery. Enthusiastic doctors and engineers have been collaborating since the mid-80s but only now are we seeing the fruit of their labour as cost-effective, safe, minimally invasive robotic surgery finally arrives in our operating theatres.

The Miracle Year: Winter and Spring

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan R. Eller
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Keynote Address ◽  
Bay Area ◽  
Major Market ◽  
The Future ◽  
To Receive

This chapter focuses on Ray Bradbury's auspicious year as a writer during the winter and spring of 1950. Between the fall of 1949 and the fall of 1950, Bradbury submitted major works such as The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man to various publications. His readers were beginning to make little distinction between his science fiction, his fantasy, and his semiautobiographical Green Town stories. Finally, Don Congdon was overcoming major market editorial resistance to Bradbury's stylistic originality and his specialized subjects. This chapter examines Bradbury's remarkable successes during the first weeks of 1950, which saw his science fiction tales “There Will Come Soft Rains” and “To the Future” being bought by Collier's, and “The Illustrated Man” by Esquire. It also discusses other significant developments in Bradbury's career, including a productive publishing visit to New York, his return to California to receive his “Invisible Little Man” award, and make his keynote address at the Bay Area society's annual banquet.

Interview with John Brunner

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jad Smith
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Daily Pattern ◽  
The Future ◽  
John Brunner ◽  
The Way

This chapter presents the transcript of an interview with John Brunner conducted by Steven L. Goldstein. The interview covered topics such as where Brunner gets his ideas; how he goes about putting his ideas on paper; whether he believes that the future will be as bleak as he made it appear in The Sheep Look Up; whether he follows a set, daily pattern in his work; if he knew that his experimental novels such as Stand on Zanzibar and The Jagged Orbit would turn out the way they did; advice that he can give to aspiring writers; his views on the influence of mainstream writers on science fiction; and how he felt when he won the Hugo Award for Stand on Zanzibar.

The Way the Future Was, 1930–1951

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael R. Page
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Fictional World ◽  
Interest In Science ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Way

This chapter looks at Frederik Pohl's first foray into creating a science fictional world by focusing on his youthful adventures in science fiction (SF) fandom. Pohl discovered SF at age ten in 1930. At that time, SF as a defined category of fiction was only in its fifth year, although the genre itself had a much longer pedigree. Hugo Gernsback launched the first SF magazine, Amazing Stories, in April 1926. The first SF magazine Pohl read was the Summer 1930 issue of Wonder Stories Quarterly. This chapter discusses Pohl's discovery of a collection of pulp magazines in 1931 at his uncle's farm in Pennsylvania; his interest in science fiction magazines; his initial attempts at writing his own stories; and his involvement with the group called Futurians. The chapter also describes Pohl's involvement in the literary agency business.

Beyond Eden

2020 ◽  
pp. 95-100
Author(s):  
Jonathan R. Eller
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Space Shuttle ◽  
Human Growth ◽  
Special Effects ◽  
The Future ◽  
Gene Roddenberry ◽  
Science Fiction Films ◽  
Space Age ◽  
New Generation ◽  
Interplanetary Flight

Chapter 13 opens with commentary on Bradbury’s 1980 Omni magazine article “Beyond Eden,” an essay commissioned to support the projected Space Shuttle program. In this essay, Bradbury defined his Space-Age Trinity—God, humanity, and the machines of interplanetary flight. The chapter goes on to document Bradbury’s April 1980 interviews with friends who had achieved prominence in the new generation of science fiction films: producers Gary Kurtz and Gene Roddenberry, director Irvin Kershner, and special effects artist John Dykstra. Bradbury never completed the article on the future of science fiction films that these interviews were intended to support, but he did articulate a maturing sense of Toynbee’s “challenge and response” as a way to focus the kind of human growth required to reach other worlds.

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