Tag: science fiction

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Oh, THERE’S My Flying Car

When the pandemic first hit, many people joked that we had become the Jetsons. After all, many of us work over monitors. We’ve got wristwatch computers and flat-screen TVs. We even have electronic assistants and housecleaners, even if they’re named Alexa and Roomba rather than Rosie.

But there was always one big exception. One that rose to the level of a meme.

“Where’s my flying car?”

Well, the favorite sci-fi staple may finally be waiting in the wings (er, so to speak). The Associated Press recently reported that the Alef Aeronautics Model A has received its airworthiness certification from the Federal Aviation Administration. Ironically enough, it’s still waiting for its highway certification, but if that goes ahead, the Model A could hit the market in 2025.

Er … yay?

I’m a sci-fi geek. (I know, you’re shocked.) So part of me does find it cool. But I’m also a long time Front Range resident. And so, I have to ask the obvious question.

“Flying cars? Have you seen the way people drive when they’re on the ground?”

OK, curmudgeon moment over for now. But it brings up a couple of useful reminders.

The first is that, even with the most amazing technologies, there are always tradeoffs. The automobile came as a godsend to many large cities, where horse manure had become a serious public health hazard. (New York City alone had to deal with 100,000 tons per year at one point in the 1880s.) Nobody had yet anticipated that we’d also have to deal with carbon emissions, drive-throughs on every corner, and people who head for the grocery store at 70 mph with no turn signals.

But in a way, that’s the easy one. We make changes constantly in our world and we’ll make more. And while we regularly create problems, we also create possibilities. If we can see what needs doing, and we’re willing to seek a solution, we’ve got a chance.

But that brings up the bigger challenge: us.

To put it simply: technology can change rapidly. Human nature doesn’t change much at all.

Go back to ancient Rome and you’ll find parents complaining about how their kids have lost all respect for authority. (And probably kids complaining about how their parents are out of touch.)  Step back even a century or two, and you’ll see people saying how morality is doomed because of the movies … or the waltz … or novels. And of course, we’ve all heard how customer complaints for bad service go back to the Bronze Age.

We still hope, worry, fear and wonder. We’re still capable of the most amazing bursts of creativity and the most idiotic bursts of stupidity imaginable. The tools can enhance that, but they don’t replace it. Even recent developments in AI are still set against a context of our wants, our anxieties, our priorities and our deep-seated need to see what Bart Simpson would have looked like in Shakespearean times.

That means we have choices to make. We always have. If we ignore everything except our own wants, needs and impulses, no tool ever invented will make things better. But if we reach to our neighbors with open hearts, if we let ourselves actually see the world instead of just the parts we like … well. That’s when we and our tools can work from the best of us.

It just takes a willingness to look to the horizon.

And while you’re looking, watch out for that Model A in the wrong lane.

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It’s a Mad, MAD Future

It’s a Mad, MAD Future

I remembered Al Jaffee the Fold-In Genius. I had forgotten Al Jaffee the futurist.

In case you think I’ve gone MAD, let me explain.

You may have seen the obituaries that went around recently proclaiming the death of MAD magazine cartoonist Al Jaffee at the age of 102. The impish Al was a key part of the magazine’s snark and satire, especially after creating the Fold-In … a back cover drawing that would set up a question, only to reveal a new drawing with a punchline answer when folded together. (“What favorite of both kids and parents is guaranteed to be around forever? … Discarded disposable diapers.”)

But as one CBC story reminded me, Jaffee also drew parody ads for the magazine, using a familiar Madison Avenue approach to promote completely outrageous things.

You know, like a phone that remembers what you just dialed even when you don’t.

Or a razor with multiple blades.

Or … well,  you get the idea.

I’m not saying that Jaffee had a pipeline to the future. Plenty of his ad gags turned out to be just that, products that were laughable then and now. But there were just enough hits to be a little scary. And that nails a basic truth: if you want to see what’s coming next, it helps if your glasses are a little cockeyed.

A lot of us live lives that assume tomorrow will be just like today, only with stranger music. From one angle, that doesn’t seem unreasonable. After all, we’re learning from experience and building reflexes, so we extrapolate from what we already know.

That works for a while … until it doesn’t. Even on a personal scale, we know this. A healthy life can change without warning. A job can go away or mutate beyond recognition. Yesterday’s friend can be tomorrow’s memory. Those kind of shocks hit hard.

And on a larger scale? Many science fiction authors have warned that they write great stories but poor prophecies. One ironic example: Isaac Asimov’s “Foundation,” a series of stories about experts in reading the future, had a galactic society with practically no computers. (He would eventually rectify that in the 1980s.)

Sure, sometimes something clicked. But the biggest successes have often come from writers who didn’t take the subject too seriously. Who were willing to be outright silly, in fact.

Take “A Logic Named Joe,” a hilariously screwball story from the 1940s that also happened to anticipate personal home computers, linked databases, natural-language queries and parental controls.

Or “The Jetsons,” where videoconferencing was so common that even doctor’s visits were done remotely.

Or of course, Al Jaffee, who thought he was kidding when he mock-advertised a stamp that would save you the trouble of licking it.

What can I say? Sometimes it pays to be weird.

In fact, it can be downright liberating.

It’s not natural for many of us. After all, it’s risky to break with what “everyone knows.” Most of us don’t like the idea of looking silly or taking a step into the unknown.

But the unknown comes whether we’re ready or not. And sometimes yesterday’s conventional thinking proves to be sillier than even the most satirical writer could have dreamed.

We don’t know everything. And when we admit that – when we leave ourselves open to new possibilities, however strange – that’s when we can start to build a future.

Maybe Al taught us well. Look at the picture in front of you, sure … but be willing to fold it up to see the answer you need.

It’s a MAD idea. But it just might work.

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An Andy-dote to Dystopia

My tastes in science fiction have gotten extremely Weir-d.

You probably know Andy Weir’s work, even if you don’t recognize his name immediately. It hasn’t been that long since his first novel, “The Martian,” was all over Hollywood. The tale of an astronaut stranded on the Red Planet captured movie audiences as surely as it held readers spellbound with his struggle to survive (while keeping his ability to wisecrack intact, naturally).

Well, now Andy’s back in a big way. His latest book, “Project Hail Mary,” pretty much hijacked me for the night –“Sleep? What’s that?” – and left me with no regrets for the extra caffeine in the morning. It’s hard to say too much without giving everything away, since the story reveals its secrets one layer at a time, but suffice to say that waking up on a spaceship without any memory of who you are or why you’re supposed to be there is one of those situations that makes being a Martian castaway look positively comfortable.

Why do I get so into Weir? Part of it is because he’s a “hard” science fiction writer in an age where that’s less common than it used to be, a teller of tales where science and engineering are both key plot points and useful tools. A friend joked that Andy tricks people into reading textbooks by disguising them as novels, which is more complimentary than it might sound. Put simply, he makes science cool.

But there’s more to it than that. For me, what really makes Andy Weir stand out is that his stories are hopeful.

In an age where dystopia sells, that’s no small thing.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not interested in cotton-candy visions of the future where life is perfect and everyone has their own jet pack. (Well, maybe the jet pack.) In a world that’s gone through crisis after crisis – biological, ecological, political, social – stories of utopia sound hollow or even a little desperate. The trouble is that most dystopias are just upside-down utopias … which to me, makes them about as interesting.

I’m not alone in this. Isaac Asimov once wrote that the two were flip sides of the same coin: that the chorus of “everything is bad, bad, bad” was just as monotonous as the chorus of “everything is good, good, good.” Stories are about change, while utopias and dystopias are a sign of paralysis. An ideal society has no way to change except for the worse, while a dystopia has frequently lost the ability to change. (Indeed, the few in the genre that I do care for, such as “The Hunger Games,” are stories where the possibility of change and improvement are re-awakened.)

Dystopias have a use as tools – the alarm bell in the night of dangers that await if action isn’t taken. But a steady diet of them steals hope, implanting the idea that there is no action to be taken, simply pain to be endured.

And if that’s truly the case, what’s the point of a warning?

Especially when a story has the power to do so much more.

Stories are an evocation of who we are. They let us struggle with our fears and reach for our dreams. And yes, at their best, they teach hope … not that good stuff will always happen to those who deserve it, but that with work and effort, it’s possible to make things different.

That’s not the same as a guaranteed “happy ever after.” Some heroes fail. Some tales are tragedies. Some victories are won at a cost, for either the people involved or the world around them.  But the struggle is there. The possibility is there. In our stories and in ourselves.

In an often dark time, I’ll take that glimmer of light offered by Weir and others like him. It just may lead somewhere worth going.

And that’s an Andy thing to have.

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Sliding Through 2020

OK, who else remembers “Sliders?”

One … two … all right, you can put your hands down. And if you need to take 20 seconds to wash them, I’ll wait.

For those of you in the great majority, “Sliders” was a 1990s TV show about alternate histories where every week, the heroes would step out of a wormhole into an unfamiliar reality. Maybe it would be a world where Egyptian pharaohs still ruled … or where the American Revolution never happened … or where humanity had been replaced by androids. (You know, as opposed to being replaced by voice-mail trees and self-check-out stands.)

Each week would have its own weirdness. And no matter how hard the heroes tried to find their way home, the world would keep becoming unrecognizable, frequently and without warning.

Doesn’t sound familiar at all, does it?

Yeah, you can stop laughing now.

If anything, “Sliders” looks a little conservative now. Reality turning upside down once a week? I think most of us would  kill for something that dull and predictable. Lately, we seem to have been bouncing around like a ping-pong ball in a clothes dryer, always in motion but not really getting anywhere. I mean, who would have thought we’d be in the timeline where Australia burning down was just the opening act?

Maybe we should have been warned when the Chicago Cubs won the World Series four years ago. But I digress.

We keep trying to find “normal.” And like our heroes, we’re not having much luck. Even when a vaccine or a cure finally arrives for the pandemic, some pieces of the new normal will likely stay. Maybe we’ll keep seeing fewer people drive 40 minutes to work and more of them walk 10 seconds to the living room. Maybe masks will become the new cutting edge of high fashion, with the new styles announced each spring.

And maybe, just maybe, we’ll realize that normal isn’t what we think it is.

Oh, we like to believe we know it when we see it. After all, normal is what you grew up with, right? And then the next generation comes along and laughs, gapes, or shakes their head.  “You did THAT? You didn’t know THIS? And Mom, who let you out of the house with that hairstyle?”

The simple truth: every age is a chaotic one. Granted, some are more obvious than others, whether it’s the Depression years of the 1930s or the 2020 That Refused to Die. But even in the best of years, nothing stands still. It’s only memory that turns a time into a perfect photograph, with all the stress and injustice conveniently filtered out.

Things will change. We will not always like it. But we’ll always have to be ready for it, so that we can do the best we can with what we’ve got.

Together. Eyes open. Not just hunkering down and hoping to ride it out, but staying aware and putting in the work that hope demands.

It won’t be easy. It may be painful. But if we watch out for each other, if we adapt, if we learn – then just maybe some of those changes can be for the better.

And what we survive, we’ll survive as a community. Even in 2020.

But if I see a pharaoh marching in next week, I’m talking to the screenwriter.

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The Doctor and the Professor

In some ways, the Doctor and the Professor couldn’t seem more different.

The Doctor looked toward a fantastic future, built among the stars and shared with a race of mechanical men. The Professor looked toward a mythical past, sheltered amidst the trees and hills and shared with beings older than mankind.

One wrote at high speed in a utilitarian style that kept the stories coming and coming. The other labored over each word, considering the history of every drop of color and whisper of wind.

And for fans of the fantastic like myself, the New Year hasn’t really started without them. Dr. Isaac Asimov, one of the biggest names in science fiction, born January 2. Professor J.R.R. Tolkien, the godfather of modern fantasy, born January 3.

Am I geeking out here? Maybe just a little. But it really is just that cool.

Part of it, of course, is memory. My love for Tolkien was born in elementary school, reinforced by many hobbit-filled reading nights with my dad where we delighted in every new character and voice. (I still envy Dad’s booming Treebeard, just as I think he always appreciated my attempts at the hardworking Sam Gamgee’s accent.) Asimov’s work I met a little later, encouraged in part by a science teacher who felt that no robotics club was complete without the Good Doctor.

Obviously, I’ve got a lot of company – including the Doctor and the Professor themselves, as it turned out. Asimov was one of the few “modern” writers that Tolkien genuinely enjoyed reading; Asimov, for his part, once mentioned that he’d read The Lord of the Rings five times and was genuinely surprised when his own Foundation series beat it out for a Hugo award. But it’s more than pleasure and nostalgia.

The truth is, there couldn’t be a better way to start the year. Because in doing so, we look toward the truly human.

I know that sounds strange. Asimov solidified robots in the modern imagination, while Tolkien introduced us to hobbits and all their kin. But both writers, even in their most epic tales, built everything on the most simple and basic of human qualities.

In Tolkien’s Middle-Earth, the problems of the world aren’t solved by mighty armies and powerful leaders. Instead, it comes from the compassion and determination of simple folk, knowing they’re not up to the job, but doing their best for as long as they can.

In Asimov’s worlds of the future, the answers don’t come from vast armadas and epic battles – in fact, violence is mocked by one character as “the last resort of the incompetent.” Instead, the key is to use your reason to understand the world and the people around you, knowing that if you can see what the problem actually is, the solution may be simpler than you think.

Heart. Mind. An awareness that other people matter – whatever their origin –  and a disdain for the pride and hatred that often sets them apart.

We still need all of that today. Maybe now more than ever.

And if we let it be nothing more than a fantasy, then we’re writing ourselves a very dark tale, indeed.

So go ahead. Look to the promise of the future. Take heart in the legends of the past. And use the tales of both to see our present moment more clearly. That’s what will give us the humanity to reach beyond the threats and fear that haunt our times – to build a world together rather than destroy it apart.

It’s a vital lesson.

And it’s one the Doctor and the Professor are still waiting to teach.

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The Hole Truth

Who knew that nothing could be so fascinating?

OK, technically a black hole is something. A rather large something, at that. But the image in my mind has always been a bit like the Nothing in The Neverending Story, an unstoppable void that consumes everything in its path. Inexorable. Powerful.

And apparently, beautiful.

Recently, humanity received its first-ever photo of a black hole – darkness surrounded by a burning ring of fire, as though it had been willed into being by a Johnny Cash fan. Millions stopped for just a minute to literally stare into space, and not just because they were still mourning the demise of their March Madness bracket.

Who knew that it would look like this?

I’m still trying to decide why it’s so fascinating. Granted, I’m a longtime space geek, so I find just about anything in the Great Beyond fascinating. But this has – pardon the phrase – a real pull.

Is it the unexpected beauty of it all, like the colors and designs once captured by the Hubble space telescope?

Is it the sense of perspective, the understanding that amazing and marvelous things are happening beyond our reach and influence, the same sense of momentary awe we get at a solar eclipse?

Is it the labor that went into it, the research and invention and collaboration involved? The final photo was a composite of several photos – parts making up the hole, if you will – and the path there required just as many pieces to fit together.

All of it’s true. All of it’s important. But in my own mind, the most stunning piece of all may be the novelty. We had literally never seen this before. We had theorized black holes, modeled them, knew that they existed and how they worked. But no human eye had ever looked on one.

Until now.

The mightiest pull in space does not belong to a black hole. It belongs to discovery. One of the most famous science fiction franchises of all time even has the concept embedded in its prologue: “To boldly go where no man has gone before.”

Human curiosity is a restless thing, and we have boldly gone in a lot of directions in exploring our world and its phenomena. So much so that we sometimes to live in the midst of an age of wonder – and yawn. As a species, we’re sometimes on the verge of becoming the teenager that’s seen it all, for whom there’s nothing left to do. “Crossed the continents, explored the genome, created the Dairy Queen Blizzard. Oh, well, guess I’ll watch TV.”

But wonder doesn’t die so easily.  It waits, patient and timeless. And a good thing, too. If wonder ever truly ceased to be, that would pretty much be our end as a species – we might still exist, but we wouldn’t truly live.

But it still stubbornly flares to life, light and fire illuminating the darkness. It might originate from something as simple as a tale well told, or as grand as the first glance of a cosmic marvel. But it becomes a reminder that there is still so much to discover, still so much to see. That with a universe to experience, we’ve barely stepped beyond our front stoop.

That’s an exciting potential. It inspires hope that we can be more than who we are, that today’s world may only be the beginning. That the stress of the moment may eventually be consumed by the potential of the moment ahead.

That’s a lot to pull out of a hole.

But sometimes, Nothing really matters.

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Hold the Phone

The Digital Age has its new poster child.

On Wednesday, when most of us were learning firsthand about bomb cyclones, an Australian man got out of his car to find a visitor waiting outside his home – with a bow and arrow at the ready. So the man followed normal 21st century safety procedure.

Namely, he pulled out his phone and started taking pictures.

The archer fired. The arrow was on target. And according to Reuters, the homeowner walked away with barely a scratch.  Why? Because the arrow hit and killed the phone instead.

OK, show of hands. How many of us have wanted to do that to a smartphone, just once?

Thought so.

Our world of tiny phones and big social networks has come up for a lot of mockery over the years, sometimes justifiably so. People have walked into manholes while texting (and then, predictably, tried to sue). Fatal car accidents have resulted from drivers with one hand on the wheel and both eyes on a phone. In our time, we’ve been just an arm’s length away from the manipulations of political saboteurs, the boasts of killers, and even the rise of Justin Bieber.

So is it any wonder that when Facebook and Instagram went kersplat for many people on Wednesday, the mass frustration was mixed with a little joking relief?

“Son, I wasn’t alive for the Donner Party or Pearl Harbor, but I am old enough to remember when both Facebook and Instagram were down at the same time during that terrible winter of ’19,” comedian John Fugelsang joked.

The memes! Will no one think of the memes?

More seriously, though – it’s human nature to be frustrated with the tools we depend on. It was true of the first computer. It was true of the automobile. It was probably true of the first ancient human to deliberately set a branch on fire, and then later discover his teenage son had burned up Dad’s favorite spear. “What do you mean, you wanted to see what would happen?”

But for every frustration, our tools also open a door. Sometimes some pretty amazing ones.

My wife Heather is often stuck at home because of chronic illness. Her phone opens the world to her, allowing her the experience and interaction that her body might otherwise bar.

An acquaintance of mine has a love of reading and a tiny apartment. His devices give him access to a library that would overwhelm a four-bedroom house.

I have dear friends halfway across the country whom I’ve never met, yet “visit” regularly. We’ve shared joys, sorrows, and horrible jokes as easily as any next-door neighbor.

I’m sure most of you could add more. The weather report in a pocket. The research library that’s open at 2 a.m. before a term paper is due.  The chance to quickly learn a home repair, or some language basics, or just figure out the lyric you could never understand on the radio. On and on and on.

Sure, our tech can frustrate. It can be used badly, even horribly. But it doesn’t have to dehumanize. Used well, it can bring us together and open up possibilities that put a science fiction writer to shame.

It’s up to us. It always has been. And that is both a frightening and a wonderful possibility.

The future’s in our hands. What will we make of it?

Hopefully, something a little better than target practice.