ALTERED CARBON Netflix Series Update

What's the best TV show you've never seen?

Here is a link updating the information on the Altered Carbon series we in the Fictionados are highly anticipating. This post lists several cast members including James Purefoy of The Following fame who will be playing Laurens Bancroft.  The website is Deadline.com. Takeshi Kovacs fans will find this interesting. Click HERE to read all about it.

And HERE is another link to all Deadline.com articles about Altered Carbon.

The Netflix Altered Carbon site lists 2017 as the tentative release date.

Coincidentally—According to the Vancouver Sun the series starts shooting today, November 14th.

This is surely going to prompt me to Power- Read™ this entire series before the series premieres.

HOW GREAT SCIENCE FICTION WORKS by Gary K. Wolfe

Lectures of Professor Gary K. Wolfe

Quotes from the lectures:
The Golden Age of Science Fiction is Twelve
Fantasy takes place on a world. Science Fiction takes place on a planet.
Science Fiction deals very directly with the consequences of human actions.

If you have never listened to any of the lecture series from the Great Courses group you owe it to yourself to spend a little time and go through one of these systematic courses. This one on Science Fiction is a serious treatment of the subject that will give even the most familiar fan something to contemplate. hearing these leacures brought me back to the reading experiences of a lifetime of Science Fiction reading. For my, these lectures help to reinforce my own thoughts and opinions concerning Science Fiction—not all of which agree with the Professor. Gary K. Wolfe delivers a systematic series of talks on common Science Fiction themes that are a great aid to help the student in forming one's own opinions and help cement these ideas in the memory. I think that if my friends who do not read Science Fiction could listenn to these lectures they would acquire at least an appreaciation to what Science Fiction readers find appealing in the genre.

Below I have listed, for my own benefit for future revew, the titles of the twenty-four 30 minute lectures. Reviewing them you will find the subject matter that Professor Wolfe tackles in his course.

Lecture / Chapter Topics
1. Mary Shelley and the Birth of Science Fiction
2. Science Fiction in the 19th Century
3. Science Fiction Treatments of History
4. Evolution and Deep Time in Science Fiction
5. Utopian Dreams and Dystopian Nightmares
6. The Rise of the Science Fiction Pulps
7. The Golden Age of Science Fiction Stories
8. The Spaceship as a Science Fiction Icon
9. The Robot from Capek to Asimov
10. The Golden Age of the Science Fiction Novel
11. From Mars to Arrakis—The Planet
12. The Science Fiction Wasteland
13. Invasions, Space Wars and Xenocide
14. Religion in Science Fiction
15. Science Fiction's New Wave
16. Encounters With the Alien Other
17. Environmentalism in Science Fiction
18. Gender Questions and Feminist Science Fiction
19. Cyberpunk and the 1980s
20. The 1990s—The New Space Opera
21. The Artifact as a Science Fiction Icon
22. Science Fiction's Urban Landscapes
23. Science Fiction in the 21st Century
24. The Future of Science Fiction

EXTINCTION AFTERMATH: The Extinction cycle Book 6 by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

Narrated by Bronson Pinchot

When Things Get Tough—The Tough Settle Down

This is a more contemplative episode in the Extinction Cycle books than any of  the previous installments.  This doesn't fit the typical model for a zombie novel; which are usually non-stop action shoot-em-ups. This book is an attempt to develop the characters and show their humanity in the face of horrific circumstances. In this I do not think it entirely succeeds. The situation of a zombie apocalypse where 99% of the population of the Earth is destroyed—or transformed into "variants" as the case may be—is not an ideal scenario for exploring the sensitive side of the characters. As a result, the human relationship-building exercises seem all to mundane for such a horrible circumstance. I am not saying that people do not react in ordinary ways in extraordinary situations but this type of introspection is not what has been driving the series up until this point. Previous books have been centered around the actions of the warriors and scientists in developing interesting ways to survive. This novel seems to be a departure, a shifting of gears, from the previous offerings. I liked it well enough—thanks largely to the always brilliant voicing of Bronson Pinchot—but cannot say that I would have continued with the series if this had been my first exposure to it.