Robert J. Sawyer: "A Galaxy Far Far Away" My Ass! (2/3)

[robertedge]

There's a lot of Starwars fundamentalist here, who i dont think want to hear people blaspheming their sacred text..... How quintessentially religious.

[oevega200]

Wells was a smart guy, too bad he was so fascist.

Verne, on the other hand, was the inspiracion for the Space Race. Not too bad.

[jackdeath]

@oevega200 Wells a fascist. LOL! Boy, talk about stupid!

You do know that H. G. Wells presented the United Kingdom's declaration of war against Germany in 1939? For a fascist, he sure hated the Nazi who burned all his book in Berlin years before the war. I much doubt Wells was anything more than a Fabian socialist and supporter of the Labour Party. Fascist, my ass!



[GoGoVengo]

Actually, outdated technology has it's practical aspects. Take for example the double barrelled LeMat revolver. the concept could easily inspire future underslung pistol attatchments.

[robertjsawyersucks]

Jules Verne did not invent the idea of the submarine.

The Nautilus was directly inspired by the French submarine Plongeur, a crewed, compressed air driven submarine that was commissioned until 1935. Jules Verne studied it extensively to design his sub, and invented very little (except the Nautilus was much bigger).

Robert J. Sawyer has no deep knowledge or understanding of sci-fi. Just more proof that the Hugo Awards mean diddly-shit.

[bademployee]

i am ofically rocked..................... wow

[nealasher]

So that would be the H G Wells who believed in eugenics?

[makidtrej]

I once read that Verne was not a sci-fi author,that he wa,s at much, a "tech-fi" author. I don´t agree, let´s take in consderation that technology is apllied science... his novels were fictional, therefore he IS SCI-FI. I also strongly disaegree that Verne´s novels are now obsolete or as said in this video, expired. In schools they will make you read at least, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. Both, Wells and Verne are classic reading nowadays, there is no use in trying to discredit any of them.

[Rietto]

The thing is, though, Welles did it overall better, where I guess Verne could be the father of 'Hard Sci-Fi'. Which tends, in general, to fail at being compelling towards human issues or feeling. Lots of technical specs, though. =P

[CoryTheRaven]

I like Sawyer's lecture overall, but he's so dead wrong about Verne. He's repeating the same mythology about Verne as a writer of technology and completely missing the social commentary... often social satire... in books like 20,000 Leagues, From the Earth to the Moon, and Around the World in 80 Days. He is a Frenchman after all, cut from the same society as Hugo, de Bergerac, and Voltaire.

Hopefully some day the rediscovered Verne will filter down to Sci-Fi authors...

[Rietto]

Since the entire lecture is about how Sci-Fi is supposed to involve social commentary, I doubt he believes there was no such aspects in Verne's work.