<p>I believe it’s the VERY BEST escape from the harsh realities of life, including the LAST EVIL WEEK before RD decisions (as long as you don’t get serious and real-world with tales of abductions, greys, reptilians, and other depressing subjects):</p>
<p>Current Favorite Sci-Fi TV Show: Stargate SG1
Favorite Characters: T’ilc and Anubis
Past Favorite Sci-Fi TV Show: Star Trek Generation
Favorite Characters: Data and Q
Favorite Recent Sci-Fi Movie: Chronicles of Riddick
Favorite Sci-Fi Movie of All Time: Star Wars, original opening day at HUGE screen theatre - woo-hoo!
Favorite Author: Cordwainer Smith
Favorite Short Stories: A Planet Named Shayol, On the Storm Planet, The Game of Rat and Dragon
Fantasy Book/Movie: (Was there ever any other? LOTR, of course)</p>
<p>However, I’m an Active member of the Science Fiction Writers of America, though I would decline the “freak” category. No novels yet but a double-handful of short stories. My lists would be…ah…different, but that’s what makes for horse races and politics.</p>
<p>Another major SF fan here (I prefer ‘SF’ to ‘sci-fi’, just a personal bias).</p>
<p>Not so hot on TV/movie versions of SF, they mostly come out way worse than the book. Whole bunch of favorite authors, including Cordwainer Smith, Elizabeth Lynn, Theodore Sturgeon, Orson Scott Card.</p>
<p>Okay, have you guys <em>really</em> never seen “Babylon 5”?</p>
<p>Because it is totally the greatest Science Fiction TV show ever (I would posit just the best TV show ever, in fact)… when compared with Star Trek, where alien species can breed with each other and the government is wonderful and problems last one episode, and Stargate SG-1, where aliens all speak English (but WRITE in different languages) and cultures in different galaxies still wear suits with ties… there is absolutely no comparison to the amazing, perfectly-planned-out, no plot holes, exactly two (small) continuity errors in 5 years, elaborate mythology and background story that is Babylon 5.</p>
<p>Mmmm, well, I like Dr. Who…the TV series [not so much the made-for-TV movie with the 8th Dr.]. I haven’t seen the new series with the 9th Dr. I never read any of the books.</p>
<p>H and kids really like Cordwainer Smith. I like Randall Garrett and Charles Williams.</p>
<p>LotR–I ordered it from a book club in high school [I believe it was shortly after the first “legal” copies started being published in US] and couldn’t get into it all. I’d never read any fantasy, and I just couldn’t find my way through it. I lost or gave away my paperback copies sometime in college. I urged my children to read it as they were coming up, and they loved it; but I never picked it up myself again until the day after I saw FotR the first time. I started reading in the morning, and we almost had no supper or clean laundry for about five days, because it took me that long to read all the way through all six books. I wondered why on earth I’d waited 30 + years to read it!</p>
<p>Favorite SF movie: BLADERUNNER (the Director’s cut)</p>
<p>Favorite TV Show: mmm. I suppose Trek Classic. I’m generally too impatient with TV. I don’t think I can sneak THE PRISONER in under the tent. DR. WHO has its moments.</p>
<p>Authors: Roger Zelazny, David Brin, Harry Turtledove, Avram Davidson, selected Heinlein, selected Andre Norton (died within the past two weeks), some William Gibson, some Phillip Jose Farmer, Ellen Kushner, Steven Brust, Kim Stanley Robinson, John Brunner, Vernor Vinge, Greg Benford, Greg Bear, Gene Wolfe, Gordon Dickson, Poul Anderson, some Barbara Hambly…there’s enough there to keep someone reading for a year or two, a balance of heavy and light, science fiction and fantasy.</p>
<p>I’m a Sci-Fi fan all the way, although more towards the direction of Star Trek (watched most of them) Star Wars (watched most of them + read the books) and Stargate SG-1 (watched most of the episodes… isn’t it cool that Jack was promoted to Brg. Gen?)</p>
<p>(Are non-parents allowed to post here? >_>)</p>
<p>Current Favorite Sci-Fi TV Show: Stargate SG-1/Stargate: Atlantis
Favorite Characters: Teal’c and O’Neil (and Daniel, but those two together most of all!)
Past Favorite Sci-Fi TV Show: Farscape
Favorite Characters: Zhan
Favorite Recent Sci-Fi Movie: Hitchhiker’s Guide (c’mon, of course it counts!)
Favorite Sci-Fi Movie of All Time: Fifth Element
Favorite Author: Neil Gaiman
Favorite Short Stories: I’ve read so many great ones lately, I can’t pick! (Most are from Analog or Fantasy & Science Fiction)
Fantasy Book/Movie: Good Omens</p>
<p>I would give an awful lot to be able to go to the Nebula awards this year, consequently. They’re in Chicago (awesome city), the grand master is going to one of the most influential (for me) SF/F writers (Anne McCaffrey), and the toastmaster is my favorite author ever (Neil Gaiman). Alas… ;_;</p>
<p>Favorite current show: Stargate SG1
Favorite Character: Carter (hey, I was a physics major in college, what can I say); Ba’al
Favorite Author: Ray Bradbury (now my D’s favorite, too)</p>
<p>Cordwainer Smith. Haven’t heard that name in, in, … 40 years, and I think he was deceased then. He wrote about animals being used as surrgates for labor and body parts? Did he also write about the weapons store?</p>
<p>Currently, rereading Azimov’s robot-foundation series and relating them to our (USA) psychohistory.</p>
<p>sluggbugg - S and I have watched the 5th Element about 20 times, super movie!</p>
<p>TheDad - Bladerunner is probably my all-time favorite, even though the opening of Star Wars was the best “Experience” - I’ve seen Bladerunner about 30 times and am not tired of it yet.</p>
<p>(There are just not enough good science fiction movies.)</p>
<p>I just reread all the Hitchhiker’s Guide books - prepped, equipped, and ready for May 2!</p>
<p>itstoomuch - Norstralia is the one novel, and Smith wrote a bunch of short stories. In addition to his unique imagery and gifts for conversation, the rhythms of his language are powerful and evocative. Paul Linebarger was a sort of renaissance diplomat, very well educated, who wrote under this pseudonym. He was a highly intelligent and thoughtful individual whose writing poses a number of fundamental philosophical and religious questions without sacrificing the clarity of his characters, surprising story lines, or emotional expression. </p>
<p>What has come to be especially relevant today about his work is the concept of the engineered chimera - central to the plot references that his stories contain along a several thousand year timeline. He posits a race of intelligent “underpersons” created from animal DNA - dogs, cats, goats, snakes, turtles, etc. - who closely resemble humans, employed as servants to mankind. Over the course of the stories, it becomes clear that due to the pressures of survival under which the underpeople exist - versus the somatic, brain-controlled, artificially extend lifetime existence of the human race - the underpeople become more ‘human’ than the humans themselves. He has been cited in more than one bioethical article lately (I believe he died in 1964 or '65).</p>
<p>Favorite Sci Fi Movie: Star Wars episodes IV and V.
Favorite Sci Fi Caharater: Vader (he has the best one liners)
Favorite Sci Fi series: Star Trek, the Next Generation
Favorite Sci Fi series character: I like the chemsitry. Picard and Q are always fun…so are Data and Jordi. </p>
<p>I cannot wait for the summer. Star Wars III seems to be a vast imporvement over episodes I and II. I have seen Hayden Christensen develop as an actor over the last couple of years. I think he is ready to play Anakin. And the script, I am told, is a seriously better than the scripts of I and II. Here’s hoping. I also want to see War of the Worlds.</p>