the brilliance of Arthur C. Clarke

[adorshki]

No love for H.G. Wells here?

"The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth". Magnificent. Technology gone awry. Even presaged the "cloning" debate:

Research chemist begins search for growth-promoting compound (HGH, anybody?):

"After a year of research and experiment, he finds a way to make what he calls in his initial enthusiasm "the Food of the Gods", but later more soberly dubs Herakleophorbia IV. Their first experimental success is with chickens that grow to about six times their normal size on an experimental farm at Hickleybrow, near Urshot in Kent (where H. G. Wells was born and raised).[3]

Unfortunately Mr. and Mrs. Skinner, the slovenly couple hired to feed and monitor the chickens, allow Herakleophorbia IV to enter the local food chain, and the other creatures that get the food grow to six or seven times their normal size: not only plants, but also wasps, earwigs, and rats.[4] The chickens escape, overrunning a nearby town."

The chicken episode, genius! I was laughing out loud.

Gets real dark when the compound works its way through the food chain producing giant children. (Where I saw the same issues raised by cloning r):

What to do, what to do. What happens when they grow up?

Verne. "The Mysterious Island". The movie was pretty darn good, too, lots of great Harryhausen work.

The bird:

The crab:


The bees:

And the Nautilus:

Asimov used to write a monthly column in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

One month was dedicated to proving why a certain planetary alignment depicted in "2001:" Another was about why giant critters are impossible, as their mass increases beyond the capabilities of their structures to support. Most critters are already at their optimum (current) evolutionary size. But I can't remember him ever making me laugh.

 

[GAD]

A new movie adaptation of Frank Herbert's Dune appears in theaters in about a week. Another book that affected me deeply.

Turns out that Dune has been on military reading lists for quite some time:

'Dune' Foresaw—and Influenced—Half a Century of Global Conflict

From Afghanistan to cyberattacks, Frank Herbert’s novel anticipated and shaped warfare as we know it.

www.wired.com

Lets hope this version of Dune is better than the first film. Sting and Patrick Stewart, anyone?

I just finished re-reading Dune for probably the sixth time in preparation for the movie. This is the first time I've read it in probably 30 years and while I still love it, the 1984 movie kind of ruined it for me. What I didn't remember is that the obnoxious voice-overs in the movie ("Arrakis--Dune--Desert Planet!") are almost verbatim from the book since Frank Herbert constantly inserts the thoughts of characters into paragraphs, and after mocking the 1984 film for decades that's all I could hear in my head as I read the book.

His world(universe)-building is second to none, but his prose isn't the greatest.

 

[chazmo]

Well, that movie does give us geeks something to laugh about, GAD!

 

[Guildedagain]

1973 and all the girls were reading Dune, so I became very interested. It's about big worms ;]

 

[fronobulax]

I just finished re-reading Dune for probably the sixth time in preparation for the movie. This is the first time I've read it in probably 30 years and while I still love it, the 1984 movie kind of ruined it for me. What I didn't remember is that the obnoxious voice-overs in the movie ("Arrakis--Dune--Desert Planet!") are almost verbatim from the book since Frank Herbert constantly inserts the thoughts of characters into paragraphs, and after mocking the 1984 film for decades that's all I could hear in my head as I read the book.

His world(universe)-building is second to none, but his prose isn't the greatest.

I read Dune back in the day but it didn't grab me enough to even remember that there was a movie circa 1984.

I read Lord of the Rings 7 or 8 times in high school. Then I read National Lampoon's Bored of the Rings. I went to read LOTR again and could not do it. In my head, I kept substituting the satire's character names.

 

[5thumbs]

I read Dune back in the day but it didn't grab me enough to even remember that there was a movie circa 1984.

I read Lord of the Rings 7 or 8 times in high school. Then I read National Lampoon's Bored of the Rings. I went to read LOTR again and could not do it. In my head, I kept substituting the satire's character names.

Like the wizard Goodgulf?

 

[walrus]

I also found Dune difficult to read. Lord of the Rings, however I've read more than once. I simply never read Bored of the Rings, which apparently was a good move!

walrus

 

[GAD]

I was a hardcore SciFi guy until junior year in high school when I tool a Fantasy Literature class (I took SciFi the semester before). That opened me up to The Hobbit, A Wizard of Earthsea, The Lion the Which and the Wardrobe, and a couple of others I don't recall at the moment.

The Lord of the Rings trilogy is comprised of three amazing books about walking with some wizards and stuff thrown in here and there to keep things interesting enough to get you to read the next section about walking.