skiffy

Sci-fi is dead, long live SF - maybe. Interesting article on Wired daring to suggest that the reason Hollywood sci-fi movies aren't very popular is because they are basically space opera and not real SF. Wouldn't it be great if there were faithful film adaptations of Ursula Le Guin, or Liz Williams, or Karen Traviss, or Ken Macleod, or Alastair Reynolds, or a host of other talented writers of genuine SF? It's very encouraging that The Prestige was made into a film (which I must get around to seeing before it disappears from cinemas), but there are so many more SF novels that would make excellent films, if it weren't for the problem of the Two Cultures. One of the essays in Speculations on Speculation points out that many people simply don't have enough scientific knowledge to understand basic concepts like planets and asteroid belts orbiting stars, and these people simply don't get SF.