Science Fiction and Computing

Science Fiction and Computing
Author: David L. Ferro
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 330
Release: 2011-09-29
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0786489332

The prevalence of science fiction readership among those who create and program computers is so well-known that it has become a cliche, but the phenomenon has remained largely unexplored by scholars. What role has science fiction played in the actual development of computers and computing? And likewise, how has computing (including the related fields of robotics and artificial intelligence) affected the course of science fiction? The 18 essays in this critical work explore the interrelationship of these domains over the span of more than half a century.

Science Fiction Prototyping

Science Fiction Prototyping
Author: Brian David Johnson
Publisher: Morgan & Claypool Publishers
Total Pages: 190
Release: 2011-02-02
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1608456560

Science fiction is the playground of the imagination. If you are interested in science or fascinated with the future then science fiction is where you explore new ideas and let your dreams and nightmares duke it out on the safety of the page or screen. But what if we could use science fiction to do more than that? What if we could use science fiction based on science fact to not only imagine our future but develop new technologies and products? What if we could use stories, movies and comics as a kind of tool to explore the real world implications and uses of future technologies today? Science Fiction Prototyping is a practical guide to using fiction as a way to imagine our future in a whole new way. Filled with history, real world examples and conversations with experts like best selling science fiction author Cory Doctorow, senior editor at Dark Horse Comics Chris Warner and Hollywood science expert Sidney Perkowitz, Science Fiction Prototyping will give you the tools you need to begin designing the future with science fiction. The future is Brian David Johnson’s business. As a futurist at Intel Corporation, his charter is to develop an actionable vision for computing in 2021. His work is called “future casting”—using ethnographic field studies, technology research, trend data, and even science fiction to create a pragmatic vision of consumers and computing. Johnson has been pioneering development in artificial intelligence, robotics, and reinventing TV. He speaks and writes extensively about future technologies in articles and scientific papers as well as science fiction short stories and novels (Fake Plastic Love and Screen Future: The Future of Entertainment, Computing and the Devices We Love). He has directed two feature films and is an illustrator and commissioned painter. Table of Contents: Preface / Foreword / Epilogue / Dedication / Acknowledgments / 1. The Future Is in Your Hands / 2. Religious Robots and Runaway Were-Tigers: A Brief Overview of the Science and the Fiction that Went Into Two SF Prototypes / 3. How to Build Your Own SF Prototype in Five Steps or Less / 4. I, Robot: From Asimov to Doctorow: Exploring Short Fiction as an SF Prototype and a Conversation With Cory Doctorow / 5. The Men in the Moon: Exploring Movies as an SF Prototype and a Conversation with Sidney Perkowitz / 6. Science in the Gutters: Exploring Comics as an SF Prototype and a Conversation With Chris Warner / 7. Making the Future: Now that You Have Developed Your SF Prototype, What’s Next? / 8. Einstein’s Thought Experiments and Asimov’s Second Dream / Appendix A: The SF Prototypes / Notes / Author Biography

Machines that Think

Machines that Think
Author: Isaac Asimov
Publisher: Lane, Allen
Total Pages: 627
Release: 1984
Genre: Science fiction, American
ISBN: 9780713916850

Science Fiction and Computing

Science Fiction and Computing
Author: David L. Ferro
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2011-05-17
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780786445653

The prevalence of science fiction readership among those who create and program computers is so well-known that it has become a cliche, but the phenomenon has remained largely unexplored by scholars. What role has science fiction played in the actual development of computers and computing? And likewise, how has computing (including the related fields of robotics and artificial intelligence) affected the course of science fiction? The 18 essays in this critical work explore the interrelationship of these domains over the span of more than half a century.

The Computer Connection

The Computer Connection
Author: Alfred Bester
Publisher: ibooks
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2010-02-11
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0671039016

Alfred Bester's first science fiction novel since The Stars My Destination was a major event—a fast-moving adventure story set in Earth's future. A band of immortal—as charming a bunch of eccentrics as you'll ever come across—recruit a new member, the brilliant Cherokee physicist Sequoya Guess. Dr. Guess, with group's help, gain control of Extro, the supercomputer that controls all mechanical activity on Earth. They plan to rid Earth of political repression and to further Guess's researches—which may lead to a great leap in human evolution to produce a race of supermen. But Extro takes over Guess instead and turns malevolent. The task of the merry band suddenly becomes a fight in deadly earnest for the future of Earth.

Satan

Satan
Author: Jeremy C Leven
Publisher: Dissertation.com
Total Pages: 500
Release: 2000-11-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780595745494

Alas, poor Satan. He's not happy. No one seems to like or understand him; people have got him all wrong. And his relationship with God is a hostile one. Unloved and misunderstood, he's come back to Earth in search of a psychotherapist; he's prepared- if cured- to deliver the all-important Great Answer. In Jeremy Leven's wildly original comic novel, we follow the Prince of Darkness through his seven amazing therapy sessions. And we watch him grow increasingly well adjusted while his therapist, the unfortunate Dr. Kassler, descends deeper and deeper into hell.

Machines that Think

Machines that Think
Author: Isaac Asimov
Publisher: Holt McDougal
Total Pages: 648
Release: 1984
Genre: Fiction
ISBN:

Moxon's master--The Lost machine--Rex --Robbie--Farewell to the master--(etc.).

The Cosmic Computer

The Cosmic Computer
Author: H. Beam Piper
Publisher: DigiCat
Total Pages: 166
Release: 2022-11-13
Genre: Fiction
ISBN:

Conn Maxwell is designated to travel to Earth from the colony world of Poictesme, a world desperate for regeneration following an intersystem war, to try and identify the location of the super computer Merlin, which many of the colonists believe is hidden somewhere on the planet and which they see as their salvation.

The Cosmic Computer

The Cosmic Computer
Author: H. Beam Piper
Publisher: 谷月社
Total Pages: 136
Release: 2015-11-08
Genre: Fiction
ISBN:

Thirty minutes to Litchfield. Conn Maxwell, at the armor-glass front of the observation deck, watched the landscape rush out of the horizon and vanish beneath the ship, ten thousand feet down. He thought he knew how an hourglass must feel with the sand slowly draining out. It had been six months to Litchfield when the Mizar lifted out of La Plata Spaceport and he watched Terra dwindle away. It had been two months to Litchfield when he boarded the City of Asgard at the port of the same name on Odin. It had been two hours to Litchfield when theCountess Dorothy rose from the airship dock at Storisende. He had had all that time, and now it was gone, and he was still unprepared for what he must face at home. Thirty minutes to Litchfield. The words echoed in his mind as though he had spoken them aloud, and then, realizing that he never addressed himself as sir, he turned. It was the first mate. He had a clipboard in his hand, and he was wearing a Terran Federation Space Navy uniform of forty years, or about a dozen regulation-changes, ago. Once Conn had taken that sort of thing for granted. Now it was obtruding upon him everywhere....