The Spaceship powered by Typewriters
May 10th 2008 12:32
So it all started with Star Wars for me, that was the beginning like many of my generation the way we discovered Sci - Fi. Star Wars figures allowed me to play out any adventure that I could imagine.
And as I grew up in the 80s I was treated to the movies, tv and comic books by some very talented people.
But behind all this was a group of men and women who were to me mostly invisible, the people who wrote the science fiction and fantasy novels that had explored the depths of imagination.
Now I had read some sci -fi. Deathworld by Harry Harrison and one of my favorite short story collections "With friends like these" but that was in my teens till fantasy noticed the small ant that was my interest in Sci - Fi and stomped on it
I heard a story that Frank Herbert ( Author of Dune ) got together with several other writers and decided that they would not sue George Lucas as he had clearly used there work to create Star Wars.
But if you think about it the tales that had been told for decades started to really bare fruit in with Star Wars and are still baring fruit today.
So for the past 8 years I have started a quest to discover the great works of Sci - Fi that I have heard mentioned over and over again when people involved in the TV, Film and Comic Books that I love talk about and those works that are considered Iconic in the field.
I started with Dune, and realised that there was a depth of story telling there that I had never imagined, I moved on to Orson Scott Card's enders series, Then to Asimov's Foundation, returned to one of the few writers that I had read years before Alan Dean Foster with the Ice Rigger books (Not the best work by a great author) and then Alfred Bester's the Demolished Man.
I have read books that have been confronting for me (Stephen Donaldson's Gap Series, Vurt by Jeff Noon) and books that I have not been able to finish. Neuromancer, Pedadio Street Station.
But I have also explored new writers Sean Williams and Shane Dix Evergance Trilogy (Awesome) and Elisabeth Moon's series that combines space ships and fox hunting ( The Sorano Series)
I am currently reading the Saga of the Seven sons by Kevin J Anderson and interested to see how it develops.
But what strikes me is those men and women that wrote in the 50s, 60s and 70s (I don't even want to think about HG Wells writing his books long hand) who wrote these amazing tales on a simple typewriter.
Now I am a writer and I could never imagine what it must have been like with an old type writer having to write in many ways without a net.
As I sit here at my computer and write on virtual paper I cant help but romanticize the idea of a type writer, a simple mechanical device banging out a tale of high tech high adventure.
I will never forget reading an interview with William Gibson ( yes he wrote a book I could not finish, doesn't mean I don't appreciate a man who created a new genre) saying that he wrote all his early work, stories of high tech worlds dripping with computerized sophistication on an old type writer.
That is the spirit of those writers who are mainly invisible to a lot of geeks who don't take the time to read the original tales that tales of deep space high adventure. What I have discovered is that those of us who don't go out of our way to read the classics miss out on some of the most astounding works that show us places that we never imagined.
The spaceships powered by Typewriters.
And as I grew up in the 80s I was treated to the movies, tv and comic books by some very talented people.
But behind all this was a group of men and women who were to me mostly invisible, the people who wrote the science fiction and fantasy novels that had explored the depths of imagination.
Now I had read some sci -fi. Deathworld by Harry Harrison and one of my favorite short story collections "With friends like these" but that was in my teens till fantasy noticed the small ant that was my interest in Sci - Fi and stomped on it
I heard a story that Frank Herbert ( Author of Dune ) got together with several other writers and decided that they would not sue George Lucas as he had clearly used there work to create Star Wars.
But if you think about it the tales that had been told for decades started to really bare fruit in with Star Wars and are still baring fruit today.
So for the past 8 years I have started a quest to discover the great works of Sci - Fi that I have heard mentioned over and over again when people involved in the TV, Film and Comic Books that I love talk about and those works that are considered Iconic in the field.
I started with Dune, and realised that there was a depth of story telling there that I had never imagined, I moved on to Orson Scott Card's enders series, Then to Asimov's Foundation, returned to one of the few writers that I had read years before Alan Dean Foster with the Ice Rigger books (Not the best work by a great author) and then Alfred Bester's the Demolished Man.
I have read books that have been confronting for me (Stephen Donaldson's Gap Series, Vurt by Jeff Noon) and books that I have not been able to finish. Neuromancer, Pedadio Street Station.
But I have also explored new writers Sean Williams and Shane Dix Evergance Trilogy (Awesome) and Elisabeth Moon's series that combines space ships and fox hunting ( The Sorano Series)
I am currently reading the Saga of the Seven sons by Kevin J Anderson and interested to see how it develops.
But what strikes me is those men and women that wrote in the 50s, 60s and 70s (I don't even want to think about HG Wells writing his books long hand) who wrote these amazing tales on a simple typewriter.
Now I am a writer and I could never imagine what it must have been like with an old type writer having to write in many ways without a net.
As I sit here at my computer and write on virtual paper I cant help but romanticize the idea of a type writer, a simple mechanical device banging out a tale of high tech high adventure.
I will never forget reading an interview with William Gibson ( yes he wrote a book I could not finish, doesn't mean I don't appreciate a man who created a new genre) saying that he wrote all his early work, stories of high tech worlds dripping with computerized sophistication on an old type writer.
That is the spirit of those writers who are mainly invisible to a lot of geeks who don't take the time to read the original tales that tales of deep space high adventure. What I have discovered is that those of us who don't go out of our way to read the classics miss out on some of the most astounding works that show us places that we never imagined.
The spaceships powered by Typewriters.
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