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[Frumple]

... y'know, I just realized you're basically pulling a robotech/macross, there.

[Yoink]

...or the unrequited love between the deformed fetus-AI stuck in a ship and her muscle/diplomat.

Is this Anne McCaffrey? What book is that, it sounds hilariously weird.

[Flying Dice]

...or the unrequited love between the deformed fetus-AI stuck in a ship and her muscle/diplomat.

Is this Anne McCaffrey? What book is that, it sounds hilariously weird.

A blatantly out-of-context description of The Ship Who Sang, which is in the most complete form a collection of five stories reworked into a novel (the first of which provided the name).

Actually not terrible, but definitely kinda weird. Basically in that 'verse, in the future when kids are born with all sorts of physical deformities that would keep them from living normal lives (because prenatal screening is for LOSERS) they stick them in life support tanks, stunt their growth, and train them to be biological brains for space ships, stations, and cities, then usually pair them with a counterpart who helps take care of stuff that needs a physical body.

Not totally a raw deal, but yeah, weird as hell and the inevitable emotional/romantic attachments go straight into la-la land.

[misko27]

Is there any sci-fi out there that isn't dystopian in some way? it seems like you're more likely to find one without weird, not well written sex scenes, then a Utopia-based one that's a actually Utopia.

Well the thing is that writers write about things they know about. We already have pseduo-dystopias, predystopias, and things that are generally pretty shitty and whose shittiness, when extended to its logical conclusion by the power of the pen and the imagined possibilities of future science, are arguably more shitty than the sum of their parts. Thus there are infinite dystopia.

By contrast, a nice thing extended infinitely is not necessarily still nice. A nice thing made x10000000 better/more-efficient is not necessarily x10000000 as nice, and possibly much less nice. Thus, while dystopia is easy to write, writing utopia requires either a philosophy degree, a swastika tatooed somewhere on your person (substitute any totalitarian idealist ideology here), or overwhelming naivety.

Though I still have bouts of mild reflexive terror every time someone mentions Firefly. Goddamn anthony, goddamn publishers trying to play that thing off as sci-fi. I mean, I guess it technically was, but blegh.

It's why we have words like "Space Opera".

Frankly the entire phrase "Science Fiction", while accurate, is meaninglessly vague. I mean Science Fiction? I mean what the fuck is that? What if it's a fictional story about scientists doing some fake-but-entirely-within-the-realms-of-today science? That's science fiction (in that it's fiction about science)! There's science fiction where the science fiction is purely a vehicle for one thing or another; whether it be philosophical speculations, or a vehicle for a bandits-and-cowboy story IN SPACE; then there's the super-detail oriented stories focused on the immeasurable scale of a galactic conflict or something, or just honest speculative projections about where humanity will be in five-ten-fifty-hundred-thousand-million years. And all these things share the same label. It's ridiculous.

[MaximumZero]

I took a selfie (which I shared in the photo share thread.) I look good in it, but I'm meh about myself, so whatever.

I've now been accused of photoshopping it by multiple people, to my face. I didn't, and I honestly don't see how they came to that conclusion. I dun geddit.

[Eric Blank]

They're just jelly.

[hector13]

u so seksee.

me luv u long thyme.

I'm not really seeing the photoshopped nature though. It looks a little artsy, but then again I'm so pragmatic I probably wouldn't know artsy if it headbutted me.

[Edmus]

I'd just say it has good subject matter with excellent lighting.
(Don't take selfies under flouros guys, plz)

[Amperzand]

My left eye is exuding copious goo. Vhat de faak.

[MaximumZero]

I'd just say it has excellent lighting.
(Don't take selfies under flouros guys, plz)

I agree with this.

[palsch]

Is there any sci-fi out there that isn't dystopian in some way? it seems like you're more likely to find one without weird, not well written sex scenes, then a Utopia-based one that's a actually Utopia.

Iain M Bank's stuff was explicitly based around a utopia, but he always wrote on the edges of it - the conflicts with other civilisations and the misfits who left - because, "everyone had everything they wanted and there was lots of sex," gets boring after the third chapter (especially when you mostly fade out on the sex). So you find someone for whom that isn't enough and have them leave, or follow someone who isn't part of the Culture as they interact with its agents. There is plenty of grimdark around the outside for books to happen in. Hell, one of the books is largely set in technological hell. Literally.

One of the big things he recognised is that a utopia that enforces conformity is going to become a dystopia pretty quickly, so you have to allow conflicts and dissent as part of the design. Just make them not matter for 99.99% of the citizens, then write about the remainder. Or just use the existence of the utopia as a background to write about the rest of the universe.

[Yoink]

Just watched a film in which a well-known actor played quite an unexpected role.
I was just going to come right out and say "X played a Y," but that would have spoiled the surprise, so.    

[Tack]

Movie title

[Yoink]

Green Room   

[Jopax]

Heard good things about that one, keep forgetting to watch it xD

In WTF related events. What is this it makes negative sense from whatever angle you approach it...