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It goes without saying that climate realists around the world believe Nobel Laureate Al Gore used false information throughout his schlockumentary "An Inconvenient Truth" in order to generate global warming hysteria. On Friday, it was revealed by ABC News that one of the famous shots of supposed Antarctic ice shelves in the film was actually a computer-generated image from the 2004 science fiction blockbuster "The Day After Tomorrow."

Now a fixture at Department of Homeland Security science and technology conferences, SIGMA is a loosely affiliated group of science fiction writers who are offering pro bono advice to anyone in government who want their thoughts on how to protect the nation. The group has the ear of Department of Homeland Security Undersecretary Jay Cohen, head of the science and technology directorate, who has said he likes their unconventional thinking. Members of the group recently offered a rambling, sometimes strident string of ideas at a panel discussion promoting the group at the DHS science and technology conference. Among the group’s...

As news of Arthur C. Clarke's death spread through communities of scientists, writers and science fiction fans, many people shared their memories of how the visionary writer, inventor and futurist inspired and influenced them. Clarke is famous for his book, "2001: A Space Odyssey" (he also co-wrote the screenplay for the subsequent movie), for coming up with the idea for the communications satellite and for predicting space travel long before humans left Earth. "I think the passing of Arthur C. Clarke is really epical," said Alan Stern, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate. "There is no one of his...

When I was about 18, I went to a science-fiction bookstore in Berkeley, Calif., to attend a book signing by Harlan Ellison. I had a couple of well-thumbed paperback collections for Ellison to sign, and was totally unprepared for the long line of fans, many of them bearing 10 or 15 pristinely preserved hardcover books. The college-age woman in front of me had just such a pile, but was carrying something else too. When she got to the front of the line, she cleared her throat and thrust something toward Ellison. "Mr. Ellison, I wrote a story and you're in...

Where have all the sci-fi films gone? Those simple, thought-provoking speculative tales about how people respond to something new, what kind of moral choices they make, keeping traditions in the face of technological change. Essentially, the kind of films that were thought provoking and story/character driven - Day the Earth Stood Still, Planet of Apes, 12 Monkeys, Minority Report (more action though but good), etc. The "Superhero and Fantasy Genre Craze" since Spiderman and LOTR has really eaten up a lot of support for original sci-fi works to film... For 2008, we have two horror/slasher types "I Am Legend" (Omega...

The Sci Fi Sounds Quiz: Identify sounds from science fiction movies and TV. How much of a Sci-Fi geek are you?

Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. I ran a story a few days back about Kirk and the Kobayashi Maru test that features in JJ Abrams' STAR TREK. It was about how Kirk cheated his way out of a no-win situation (in this case he used his sexual man-charms on a lovely cadet and got her to alter the programming). It was a rumor from an untested source, but a regular source quickly followed up the story with a confirmation. Not only that, but I also got a quicky review of the complete script, which I've cut and pasted below. It's decidedly...

[spoiler alert] ...the story had been changed in a not quite so subtle manner. The first indication was in a flashback near the beginning of the movie when Smith and his family were praying together. That doesn't happen very often in Hollywood-produced movies. Then, when a surviving mother and her son found Smith, the woman indicated that she had been called by God for that purpose. Smith was skeptical, having spent years trying to find a way to reverse the effects of a "cancer cure" that had mutated and killed most of the human population and turned the remaining members...

He was a onetime utopian socialist who became an assertive right-winger, a libertarian nudist with a military-hardware fetish, a cold warrior who penned an Age of Aquarius sensation with a hero who preached free love. He won admiration from Ronald Reagan, who enlisted his ideas in his "Star Wars" missile shield, and Charles Manson, who was captured with the novel "Stranger in a Strange Land" in his backpack. He predicted the European Union and invented the water bed. But Robert A. Heinlein, the California-based science-fiction writer who stood over the midcentury decades like a colossus, casts a different kind of...

The Trojan Twinkie caper BY DAVE BARRY I'll tell you when I start to worry. I start to worry when ''officials'' tell me not to worry. This is why I am very concerned about the following Associated Press report, which was sent to me by a number of alert readers: 'RICHLAND, WASH. -- Radioactive ants, flies and gnats have been found at the Hanford nuclear complex, bringing to mind those Cold-War-era `B' horror movies in which giant mutant insects are the awful price paid for mankind's entry into the Atomic Age. Officials at the nation's most contaminated nuclear site insist...

Science Fiction has a lousy record of predicting the future. In the 1930s, for example, it was widely held that by 1970, toga-clad descendants of the Depression Generation would be living in giant art deco cities full of speeding Dymaxion Cars and dining on food pills. In the '50s and '60s, it was rocket belts and atomic-powered flying cars we were supposed to be enjoying by 2000. And today? In almost every extrapolation of the future I've read lately, the ultimate fate of mankind is uploading -- the transference of consciousness from biological to digital substrates. Such uploads, it is...

So did you read the latest Christian novel? You know, the romance. You know, the historical one. Oh, then there was the other one that made me think, "Boy, all my unsaved loved ones will be so sorry they got left behind." Thus, you can summarize the vast majority of well-known Christian novels. Many new authors are stepping into this mix, but none take a bigger leap than Frank Creed, author of Flashpoint, the first novel in what promises to be a series called, "The Underground," the first ever Christian Cyberpunk series. Cyberpunk movies such as Blade Runner and The...

Star Trek — the Kirk version — was the first television show I ever watched regularly. By age three, I had become convinced that, just as mid-afternoon was naptime and early morning was breakfast time, Sunday nights were always and forever to be designated as Star Trek time, and I began a lifelong interest in all things science fiction. My social life has been in decline ever since. To a small town, midwestern boy still learning to read picture books, Star Trek seemed both awesomely exciting and delightfully familiar. On one hand, I revered Kirk, Spock, and McCoy as space-faring...

2007 Hugo Awards Announced Published on 1 Sep 2007 at 4:22 am. No Comments. Filed under Worldcon, Results. The results of the 2007 Hugo Awards, as announced at Nippon 2007, the 65th World Science Fiction Convention, in Yokohama, Japan, on September 1st 2007, are as follows: Best Novel: Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge [Tor, 2006]Best Novella: “A Billion Eves” by Robert Reed [Asimov’s Oct/Nov 2006] Best Novelette: “The Djinn’s Wife” by Ian McDonald [Asimov’s July 2006]Best Short Story: “Impossible Dreams” by Tim Pratt [Asimov’s July 2006]Best Related Non-Fiction Book: James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B Sheldon by...

In the opening of any book today that involves origins, dinosaurs, ECT. you can always expect to see the term billions of years as they know for a fact. Like some one was there to record this event. Well here is another fine example of the evolutionist religious belief. From the book Natural Wonders of the World, by P.J. Banyard, Page 6 Once there was nothing. There was no space and there was no time. (Now you will have to understand this if there is nothing the laws of conservation of energy state you can not create or destroy matter,...

Two recent studies demonstrate how the hysteria about alleged "global warming" has resulted in wasted research money. As I noted in the previous post, meteorologists have trouble predicting weather conditions a day or two in advance. They cannot possibly predict what will happen decades in the future. Attempting to predict the future based on science based assumptions is called "science fiction". I've been interested in science fiction for over 40 years. I've even attempted to write some. Science fiction writers make assumptions about reality, including future technology, and then base a work of fiction about it. The "Star Trek" family...

Levitation has been elevated from being pure science fiction to science fact, according to a study reported today by physicists.   In theory the discovery could be used to levitate a person In earlier work the same team of theoretical physicists showed that invisibility cloaks are feasible. Now, in another report that sounds like it comes out of the pages of a Harry Potter book, the University of St Andrews team has created an 'incredible levitation effects’ by engineering the force of nature which normally causes objects to stick together. Professor Ulf Leonhardt and Dr Thomas Philbin, from the University...

ABC has scheduled Masters of Science Fiction for Saturdays at 10:00 ET beginning August 4. Six episodes were produced but apparently ABC is showing only four of them. Hopefully, the other episodes will be online. The series host is Professor Stephen Hawking. It looks like the show has good production values. Official site (includes clips)ABC site for the seriesA review from Reuters that criticizes ABCIMDb info

It is 2057, and the Sun is failing, causing the Earth to enter an ice age. A spacecraft, the Icarus II, with a crew of eight, is launched as a last hope, carrying a massive bomb with a thermonuclear payload equivalent to the mass of Manhattan in order to re-ignite the Sun... (Wikipedia) No, I'm not reviewing the movie here. I haven't seen it and don't plan to see it. However, it seems to be getting some buzz so I thought I'd see if anyone else here wanted to comment on it. The movie was originally released in Europe, including...

...As Arthur C. Clarke put it: "Almost every good scientist I know has read science fiction." And the greatest writer who produced them was Robert Anson Heinlein, born in Butler, Mo., 100 years ago this month. The list of technologies, concepts and events that he anticipated in his fiction is long and varied...

I'm not BSing you. They're really doing a new Bionic Woman. What's next? A new My Mother, the Car? http://www.nbc.com/Fall_Preview/Bionic_Woman/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bionic_Woman_(2007_TV_series)http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0880557/

...UC Berkeley has the world's premiere collection on Mark Twain — and Yale an unmatched trove of rare medieval manuscripts. But for research on Capt. Kirk, Frankenstein or Harry Potter, nothing tops the 110,000-volume Eaton collection at UC Riverside, the world's largest library of science fiction, fantasy and horror books...

Anti-terror chiefs have turned to authors of time travel, inter-galactic warfare and out-of-this-world gadgetry in the fight against Al Qaeda.

The following is an old story (1974) but probably not very well-known. I came upon it recently, by chance, because of the upcoming release of the new movie 'Next' which is based on a Philip K. Dick short story called 'The Golden Man'. Although I'm a big fan of PKD, I had not read The Golden Man and wanted to check it out before the movie opened. The few collections of PKD short stories I have did not contain The Golden Man, so I found a collection entitled The Golden Man that was published in 1980. This collection, of course,...

Nippon 2007 Hugo Nominees

In the film Star Wars, Luke Skywalker gazed at a twin sunset from his desert homeworld The dual suns that rise and set over Luke Skywalker's homeworld in the film Star Wars may be more than just fantasy, according to data from Nasa.In a classic scene from the 1977 movie, the hero gazes into the distance as two yellow suns set on the horizon. Nasa's Spitzer Space Telescope has found that planetary systems are as common around double stars as they are around single stars, like our own Sun. Details of the research have been published in the Astrophysical...

The stamps were launched by Star Wars characters Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia are among the characters featured on a set of US stamps marking 30 years of the Star Wars films.A set of 15 stamps is being issued as a poster, and members of the public will be asked to vote for their favourite. The set will go on sale on 25 May, shortly after the basic US postage rate is raised to 41 cents (21p). Earlier this month, 400 postboxes were decorated to look like R2-D2, the robot from the landmark sci-fi saga. The US...

Is there anybody out there? Give the question some thought before you answer, because it’s more perilous than it seems. Deny the possibility of a universe populated with intelligent extraterrestrials that can speak and mate and battle with humanity, and the science-fiction canon collapses; more than a century’s worth of novels, from “The War of the Worlds” to “Old Man’s War,” would find their speculative foundations swept out from underneath them. But admit to a sincere belief in the remotest potential for alien life, and prepare to be fitted for a straitjacket; a recent survey conducted by Baylor University found...

There are readers, and then there are fans. Readers offer condolences when a favorite author falls ill. Fans offer bone marrow. Robert Jordan, author of the best-selling Wheel of Time series, has fans. And if you want to understand them, take a look at his blog. Since last spring, when he announced he had a rare blood disease called amyloidosis, Jordan, 58, has been chronicling his life-and-death struggle online. Whenever he's well enough to write, he thanks the fans who sent care packages, and those who donated to the Mayo Clinic, in Rochester, Minn., where he is being treated. Then...

The guy who wrote it is a pinko, but you might like to take the test anyway. :)

The libertarian novelist, journalist, humorist, and philosopher Robert Anton Wilson died at about 4:50 this morning, Pacific Coast time. As far as I'm aware, the last thing he wrote was this, posted on his blog last Saturday: Various medical authorities swarm in and out of here predicting I have between two days and two months to live. I think they are guessing. I remain cheerful and unimpressed. I look forward without dogmatic optimism but without dread. I love you all and I deeply implore you to keep the lasagna flying. Please pardon my levity, I don't see how to take...

Some who play a part in changing the world are hardly recognized. Jim Baen, who has died following a stroke at the age of 62, science-fiction editor and founder of the U.S. science-fiction publisher Baen Books, was one such. His role as a cultural warrior was a proud one. He contributed very significantly, below the radar of sociological and cultural commentators, to the strengthening of Western culture. He also did something not many cultural warriors, and not many publishers, can claim: he may have contributed directly and significantly to the West winning the Cold War. ... In November, 1980, with...

In this episode, Khan is commenting to Kirk on how, even though technology has advanced, humans haven't. If anyone has that quote, I'd love to have it. Thanks.

...When the U.S.S. Enterprise first blasted off in 1966, only its principal characters — William Shatner’s Capt. James T. Kirk, Leonard Nimoy’s Mr. Spock and DeForest Kelley’s Dr. Bones McCoy among them — might have expected devoted fans. But as Trekkies observe the show’s 40th anniversary this year, they are celebrating not just the stars but also the background actors who manned the starship’s controls, beamed down to alien planets and, if they played red-shirted security guards, often got torn apart by a monster or dematerialized by a Klingon...

Just came back from the movie theater from seeing Idiocracy. It is directed by Mike Judge and had limited release due to offending some people and litigations filed by Costco, Fuddruckers, and Starbucks. It almost got shelved for good as a result. Actually, it is a really funny movie. Private Joe Bowers and a prostitute named Rita are frozen and are forgotten and fast forward to 500 years later. America has gotten dumber. All the dumb people reproduce like rabbits. The world is infested with litter and people are dumb. Bowers and Rita are the smartest. The world reminds me...

Denvention III will be the 66th World Science Fiction Convention. It will be held August 6 - 10, 2008.

The Hugo Awards for best science fiction works in 2005 were presented Saturday, August 26, 2006 at the 64th World Science Fiction Convention, LACon 4, in Anaheim, CA. Best Novel: Spin by Robert Charles Wilson (Tor) Best Novella: "Inside Job" by Connie Willis (Asimov's January 2005) Best Novelette: "Two Hearts" by Peter S. Beagle (Fantasy & Science Fiction October/November 2005) Best Short Story: "Tk'tk'tk" by David D. Levine (Asimov's March 2005) Best Related Book: Storyteller: Writing Lessons and More from 27 Years of the Clarion Writers' Workshop by Kate Wilhelm (Small Beer Press) Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form: Serenity Written...

It's in Anaheim, California this year and it starts tomorrow. Is anyone here attending?

There have been several science fiction threads floating around in the near past - and I thought it would be good to hash out the books. Here are my thoughts: Almost anything by Larry Niven is worth it - especially stuff from the Known Space series. Jerry Pournelle is also good, but under-rated. His Janissaries books were a good read, along with Starswarm. RAH - most of his books are very enjoyable. His later stuff (which some consider his classics) I didn't like at all, especially that one about a guy getting his brain transplanted in a womans body. I...

What is your favorite Gerry Anderson show?

I came up with a list: Metropolis, When Worlds Collide, Flash Gordon(1940s,1980) War of the Worlds(1953,2005) The Matrix Series Soylent Green Planet of The Apes Series Star Trek(the even ones especially the "Wrath Of Khan) The Omega Man Colossus: The Forbin Project Close Encounters ET Damnation Alley 2001 War Games The Day After A Clockwork Orange Slaughterhouse Five Star Wars(especially "The Empire Stike Back") Blade Runner(The Director's Cut) Dune Silent Running Alien and Aliens The Terminator and The Terminator II The Blob Honorable mention:Attack of the Killer Tomatoes

What is your favorite Science Fiction television series? My Favorites 1.Babylon 5 2.Time Tunnel 3.Star Trek(All Of them) 4.Space:1999 5.UFO 6.Adventures of Lois and Clark 7.Seaquest DSV(only some of them) 8.Land of the Lost(though loosely science fiction) 9.Planet of the Apes(Television series and Movies) 10.Max Headroom

The essay below was originally written in the early Spring of 2001: With the passing away of LEXX ends an intriguing albeit tawdry experiment in Sci-fantasy. One that breaks with conventions, or should I say cliches of TV sci-fi of the 90's . The politically correct pabulum, the multicultural indoctrination, the BladeRunner motifs, and not the least; the steroid mutated superbabes that can punch the lights out of men, but never get punched back in return !? How about creating a new sci-fi anthology with none of the puerile baggage of Rod Serling, Rockne Obannon, Michael J. Stracinsky, etc .....

. . .Jim Baen, editor and publisher of Baen Books, had a stroke last evening and is in a coma. His wife and children are at his side at a hospital. The family requests no cards or flowers at this time. Prayers, however, are a very different matter, and much appreciated. Updates at Baen's Bar, Waiting Room Conference You will have to create an account to read status, but it's free and spam-free. . . The Bar

'It is the duty of all respectable people to keep their names out of the paper." So the film producer, director and scriptwriter Val Guest, who has died aged 94, was told by his father when he announced that getting the part of the village idiot in a play called Unholy Orders would be the harbinger of fame. Guest Sr was to be disappointed; his son went on to get into the papers as the writer of more than 70 films, and the director of more than 50 - including Expresso Bongo and The Day the Earth Caught Fire. Article...

This week I did an amzing discovery that I’d like to share with my fellow Vernians: an audio recording of an interview with Jules Verne by a Dutch journalist! A couple of days ago, I received an email from a Mrs Rina Appel from Amersfoort, a town not far from where I live. Among the inheritance left by her aunt, who passed away last year, she had found a small wooden crate containing five wax cilinders, each wrapped in a leather case. On the crate was a handwritten label that read “Jules Verne 1903”. The crate had belonged to Rina...

The seminal science-fiction movie Forbidden Planet, starring Leslie Nielsen as starship Commander Adams and Anne Francis as Altaira, premiered on the big screen in March 1956 and celebrates its 50th Anniversary this month. In the movie, the crew of the United Planets starship C-57D goes to investigate the silence of a planet's colony only to find two survivors and a deadly secret that one of them has.

WARSAW, Poland -- Stanislaw Lem, a popular science fiction writer whose novel "Solaris" was filmed twice, died Monday in his native Poland, his secretary said. He was 84. Lem died in Krakow, Wojciech Zemek told The Associated Press. Zemek did not give other details or the cause of death, citing only Lem's advanced age. Lem was one of the most popular science fiction authors of recent decades to write in a language other than English, and his works were translated from Polish into more than 40 other languages. His books have sold 27 million copies. His best-known work, "Solaris," was...

What a week for Star Trek actors. Leonard Nimoy (Mr. Spock) turns 75 today. His colleague, William Shatner (Captain Kirk) turned 75 this past Wednesday.

Awards to be presented at: Go to the site to view the list.