The Maelstrom of Violence

[Kinser79]

(08-31-2017, 10:45 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I've read the book but not seen the movie.

The movie is quite good but you have to have an attraction to sci-fi type movies to really like it. My son and boyfriend weren't impressed but I thought it was pretty awesome even if the director essentially pushed the mockery of fascism pretty hard. Honestly it is the type of film that really could only have been made in the 1990s.

 

Quote:He and Schmitz did strong ladies before strong ladies became a thing.

Strong ladies are often good if they are done correctly. When they are done poorly they essentially act like men who just happen to have tits and a vagina. An other one of my hobbies is reading Harry Potter fanfiction, we have a trope called "Herman Granger" where the character of Hermione is done so poorly and unfeminine as to really be essentially a man. In that can the character was clearly female, though have to admit that JKR didn't really pull off the heterosexual friendship well. Not that a woman really could be expected to. Male friendships and female friendships are inherently of a different nature.

As my brother in law put it once "Men are mean to each other but don't mean it; women on the other hand, are nice to each other but don't mean it."

Quote: He pushed libertarian politics and perspective fairly hard.

He definitely did that.
 

Quote:He also came at a time not far beyond the barnstormer, where a lot of people could build a near state of the art aircraft in their garage.  This resulted in a common science fiction shtick that anyone could build a space ship in their garage.

True perhaps, but building a space ship is most akin to living in a submarine. I guess you could say I was an aquanaut. That being said due to the environment of deep space being more like that of deep water it is more difficult to build to build a completely sealed pressurized structure that won't leak the precious oxygen into space or the ocean. That being said there have been garage built submersibles but they in general act more like diesel-electric dive boats than a modern nuclear submarine.

Quote:  This meshed well with a notion that if you could see the smoke from your neighbor's chimney, it was time to move on.  Inhabitable Earth like planets were a dime a dozen.  The frontier was often endless.

Given recent advances in the detection of exoplanets that is moving into the realm of science rather than science fiction.

Quote:In a way, NASA's space with hoards building craft in huge corporate clean rooms, and people constantly looking over the astronaut's shoulder is far less romantic.

I don't know about romantic, but it lacks a certain pizzazz that good science-fiction requires. It is like the notion of being on a submarine is far more romantic than the reality. The reality is more closely akin to living in a tin can for months on end without the ability to wear deodorant (because it interferes with the oxygen scrubbers). Needless to say you get used to the smells of your shipmates or you attempt to burn out your sense of smell.

Quote:  Collin's Carrying the Fire gives a much better notion of space flight as often practiced.  How do you carry fire?  Very carefully.  There are so many things that can go wrong catastrophically.  This could change as technology makes space more familiar, but still now it is a structured environment.

Possibly, but I'm of the opinion that humanity must develop space flight and eventually colonize other celestial bodies if we ever plan to survive as a species. First target of course is going to be Luna of course.