Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Reid Picks: 5 Things Grateful for About Science Fiction

I'm participating in Jeffrey Beesler's World of the Scribe's "Early Bird Thanksgiving Blogfest" and am asked to blog about what I am most grateful for.

If you ask people what they appreciate the most, I assume you'll get a lot of answers such as God (if they're religious), family and friends. For me, that also is true, but in this case, I decided to make a list of five things related to science fiction that I'm grateful for, and at the same time, honor Thanksgiving, which seems to have been overshadowed by Christmas more than ever this year.

Here is what I'm grateful for about science fiction (in no particular order):

1. The Golden Age of Science Fiction, an era from the late '30s to '50s that saw great works from Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, Poul Anderson, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, Hal Clement, and others.

2. 20th Century Fox for taking a chance on George Lucas' Star Wars film and for giving Lucas the film's marketing rights, which he sure took advantage of to make the Star Wars franchise a huge success.

3. Shōji Kawamori, who created the story for the anime The Super Dimension Fortress Macross, which later was used with Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross and Genesis Climber Mospeada to create Robotech, one of the first shows to introduce anime to the U.S. and spur American interest in it.

4. The creation of hyperspace travel for science fiction, because if there was no faster-than-light travel, than there wouldn't be much interstellar travel.

5. Mystery Science Theater 3000, because if you can make science fiction fans laugh at films in that genre, then it truly doesn't matter how character Mike Nelson "eats and breaths and other science facts."

13 comments:

  1. Interesting choice of things to be thankful for. With numbers 1 and 2, the science fiction genre landscape was forever changed, for the better of course.

    Great post!

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  2. Great list! ah, thank you MST3K for giving old B scifi movies new life and for giving me lots of laughs.

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  3. Number 4 is a great on to be thankful for.

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  4. Interesting post and nice to meet you too. I am grateful for all you SciFi lovers, because without you I wouldn't know anything about science as perceived by scifi.
    Nancy
    N. R. Williams, fantasy author

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  5. Mystery Science Theater 3K!! Excellent choice. Making bad science fiction movies endurable.
    Happy Thanksgiving!

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  6. Wow! I've really been out of the sci/fi genre loop.
    Thanks for giving me some places to check out what I've missed.

    Happy Thanksgiving.

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  7. I love your list. Great choices! :)

    Happy Thanksgiving!

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  8. What an awesome look back at science fiction.
    Happy Thanksgiving

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  9. Not hard to see where your heart lies. I love my Encyclopedia of Science fiction! I enjoy sci-fi, but have never tried to write it, but I will, so I'm following you in the hope of getting some of the atmosphere!

    Happy Thanksgiving!

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  10. Thank you, everyone, for your comments, and Happy Thanksgiving!

    Jeffrey: Thanks for doing the blogfest. I enjoyed it.

    Budd and Alex: It's good to know you enjoy MST3K. I plan to blog about the show Saturday.

    Summer: I can't imagine some of the greatest science fiction stories without hyperspace.

    N.R.: Being thankful for science fiction fans is an excellent choice! I wish I had included that. Thanks for following!

    Mary, Liz, and Lynda: I appreciate your response. Keep enjoying science fiction, and thanks for following, Lynda.

    L'Aussie: I wish you success in writing science fiction. Thanks for following!

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  11. Thank you not only for the excellent list, but also for making me realize my own sci-fi deficiencies. (I'd never even heard of Anderson, Clement, or Kawamori.) And of course, now I have to go find some MST3K to watch, since it's been almost a year since the last time (and I wouldn't even call Manos: Hands of Fate sci-fi).

    Hope you have a great Thanksgiving, whether or not your turkey comes out of a food replicator!

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  12. OMG! I love MST3K too! So thankful that Mike and Joel have kept up the tradition even though the show is no more - Riff Trax and Cinema Titanic.

    Hope you had a great Thanksgiving. So glad Jeffrey sponsored this blogfest.

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  13. Nate -- "Manos: The Hands of Fate" ... although one of MST3K non-science fiction movie entries, it was a awfully good episode, don't you think? Thanks for following! P.S. My food replicator created chicken for Thanksgiving instead of Turkey. Have any spare parts to fix it?

    Bluestocking -- Thanks for mentioning RiffTrax and Cinematic Titanic. I agree.

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