The Road Not Taken

Short story by Harry Turtledove, 1985

Whenever most of us picture extra-terrestrial beings with the capabilities of visiting Earth from light-years away, it is assumed that all of their technology vastly exceeds that of our own. But what if only their space travel technology outdoes us and nothing else? Would that make the alien race stupid, or us stupid for not finding faster-than-light travel before such things as cell phones and machine guns?

Harry Turtledove asks this question in this spectacular short story that left me with so many questions about our own technology and evolution as humans. I found this gem in Orson Scott Card's anthology, "Masterpieces: The Best Science Fiction of the Century" but you can read it online here through pastebin.com.

 

The Nine Billion Names of God

Short story by Arthur C. Clarke, 1953

An American computer company gets a strange request from a Tibetan monk to procure for a him a large number of computers. The monk says his monastery requires the computers to speed up the process of going through what he says are all 9,000,000,000 possible names of God--a process that would take thousands of years without the use of these computers (which would only require a couple of months). The two assistants that are sent to Tibet to help with the use of these computers become quite unnerved when they find out why the monks want to go through all these possibilities.

Strangely enough, I first came across this story as required reading when I was a student in a Catholic middle school. I was greatly intrigued. I pondered the dramatic ending for weeks to come as I waited for sleep to come at bedtime. 

It's a really quick read and well worth the ten minutes or less it should take to complete. You can find it right here, online.

I found the photo of Yumbulagang Monastery (appropriately from Tibet) at "Within the Crainium". Its author, "joke du jour", said it reminded him of the monastery from this story and it really did to me, too. I mean look at this photo as you read the story, and all given details from the text seem completely accurate to those of the photo! Anyways, I hope you enjoy.

Well that about wraps it up for today's science fiction. I hope to keep these posts regular but, alas! Another semester of college is just around the corner. However, I will do my best to persevere, fellow Robo-Nerds.

Space out!

--Liam 

The Last Question

Short story by Isaac Asimov, 1956

What happens when we run out of fossil fuel energy? Well I guess there's always solar power if nothing else. But what happens when the Sun dies? Or when ALL of the suns die? Isaac Asimov (who may in fact be the best sci-fi writer of all time) has the characters in this short story asking the same question. For, as depressing as it sounds, the universe will one day end. Right? Fortunately, the characters in this book have Multivac, an all-knowing computer (like a less funny version of Deep Thought from "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"). Over a long span of time, several humans ask Multivac if there is any way to "reverse entropy" and stop the eventual fadeout of the universe. Is there an answer? You'll have to read the story to find out. 

Luckily it's online right here and here, depending on which font and size you prefer.

I found this story through StumbleUpon. After scrolling through to get an idea of length (by the way it's not terribly long for a short story, but perhaps a bit for the inexperienced online reader) my eyes became intrigued by the breaks in the story and variation of character names. When I finally got to reading it I was blown away by Asimov's extremely far-reaching predictions and the believability that they held. A great read.

By the way the artwork above is by ~Dragonfly22 and was found on DeviantArt with the artist's explanation.

Star Wars: Tales of the Bounty Hunters

Anthology edited by Kevin J. Anderson, 1996

If you've seen Star Wars: Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back...OK let's be real, you've seen it. Remember that short scene with all of the bounty hunters on Vader's ship? The authors that took part in this anthology had enough from that scene to write pages on these guys. Not only do you learn where each of these villains come from, but their (mostly) futile attempts to catch Han Solo during Episode V are described as well. If you read the whole book, you get five totally different stories, only sharing the aforementioned scene from Episode V in common (and a few other encounters between each other).

I found this book at a hospital on a "free books-shelf" [AWESOME]. What's neat about this collection is you don't have to read the whole book to enjoy it. I did, of course, but each story is great by itself too. If you're not a big Star Wars fan the first "tale", IG-88's "Therefore I Am" by the editor, is an awesome sci-fi story by itself. You don't really need to know anything about the Star Wars universe to get it and it's classic homicidal robot madness. If you ARE a Star Wars fan I would recommend the second story in the anthology, "Payback", Dengar's tale. It includes a fair amount of lore on Han Solo's past as well as other locations during Episode V and was definitely my favorite in the book.

I've seen this book in most bookstores and it's not expensive. It's definitely worth a look for at your local library at least!

Well that is all for today's posts, Space Homies. I hope to bring you more next week.

Until then,

Space Out!
--Liam