"Open to interpretation" means the same thing as "undefined behavior in the C programming language": i.e. only overly pedantic programmer nerds stick to the assertion that it could mean "anything." When a work is said to be open to interpretation, it means that the author has their expressed opinion, but that it may also suggest other things about the author that they are not willing to admit about themselves. For example, no interpretation of Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game" will draw the conclusion that Card is a fan of Jurassic Park, or that he takes his tea with three sugars, or any…
I think expectations we have of an age are indeed part of it. I started my education in Eastern Europe, and we got Physics and Biology as dedicated subjects in grade 5, with formulas and proofs etc. So when we did "inclined slope" in Canada in grade twelve, in what was for many their first true "Physics" class (and this was AP!), it did indeed feel like we were about 6-8 years too late. --- To reminisce and meander seemingly pointlessly on a personal anecdote - I remember reading "Ender's Game" when I was 18, and initially thinking "what BS, this guy doesn't know how to write kids, they…
Science fiction (novels, short stories, or by the 1950s films, and 1960s telvision) doesn't have a primary goal of predicting the future but rather of selling entertainment. To the extent it is speculative, it's almost always discussing contemporary circumstances sufficiently distant setting (in time and space) to be able to comment on it in a way which both minimises social censure and reaction and gives a potential for a fresh perspective (in the best cases). Of course, much of it is simply, or at least largely, escapist space opera / space westerns (Buck Rogers, Star Wars, Battlestar…
> It seems to me that the New York Times is just complaining that they can't control the political narrative anymore because the proles can now decide for themselves what news they will read. Thoughts? Well, there have always been different sources of media contending for the narrative. My grandpa used to read both the Washington Times, which he saw as basically true news; he also read the Washington Post (affectionately: "the com-Post") because he wanted to keep an eye on the other team's plans. What is novel here is that there are now random teenagers in Macedonia just totally making…
I received this email from Hattrack today: Want to Be in Battle School? Open Casting Call for Extras in New Orleans This Weekend Ender's Game open casting call being held at the Hilton Garden Inn located in the Warehouse District of New Orleans on Saturday, January 14th from 11am to 3pm. Alexis Allen, along with Batherson Casting, are seeking bright and talented kids and teens ages 10-17 of varying ethnic background for the feature film production of Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game"; based on one of the most famous science fiction novels of the last 40 years. The film stars Harrison…
I haven't read this, thanks for bringing it to my attention. BIG ENDER'S GAME SPOILERS AHEAD. EG as anti-fascist text: Buggers represent a perceived existential threat. Humanity gets together and forms a single government which lives on past the threat. The first criticism of the new world order is in the very beginning, in which you learn that Ender is the son of parents of a persecuted religious minority sect that wants to have more than the allotted number of children (I read this as a libertarian viewpoint). The biggest anti-fascist gut punch comes when you see things from the Queen's…
I stopped when the author wrote that "Orson Scott Card (Ender’s Game) — wove [his] worlds with far-right, reactionary, and even outright fascistic themes and heroes." This is just not at all an accurate read of Ender's Game. The later books, sure -- i.e. the character in one of the Shadow of the X books who says that the purpose of life is to reproduce and that he himself suppressed his homosexuality to fulfill this purpose (???) -- but Ender's Game's themes, while religious, are downright anti-fascist. Thiel actually has said the thing that you quote [0] (though perhaps I'm misunderstanding…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Fire_Upon_the_Deep https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Deepness_in_the_Sky It's easy to categorise these as wonderful and well written space opera, but that undersells them. Their author (Venor Vinge) invented the idea of the Singularity, and worked as a computer science professor. Both won both the Hugo Award. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ender's_Game As good as people say it is. Most of Richard Morgan's works (esp the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takeshi_Kovacs series). Not his fantasy books though. For fantasy books, Patrick Rothfuss is doing good stuff.…
I'm aware that hard science fiction is a no true Scotsman sort of thing. But some of these books have no place on this list. Enders Game is a lot of great things, but hard science fiction is not one of them. I've never heard anybody describe it as such. The sequels get pretty into metaphysical, religiousy weirdness. They are excellent reads, but not hard sf. And Three-Body Problem.... This one is interesting because it often gets billed as hard science fiction, but it's about as hard as unset Jell-O. That it's derivative, full of tired tropes and utterly devoid of character development is…
Same with Ender's Game. They are playing war games but they're actually real. He sacrifices his units and commits genocide (xenocide) at the same time. Something he probably wouldn't have done had he known. > Nobody has to take ethics during undergrad anymore I guess... My undergrad wasn't in CS but my grad was. I was incredibly surprised to find that ethics isn't a requirement in most CS programs. That's a sharp contrast to traditional engineering and the hard sciences. CS people seem to love philosophy, yet I'm surprised not so much about this subset. We'll spend all day talking about…