What are your favorite Sci Fi concepts?

[hippokrene]

Lightsabers.

[Kazz Wylde]

Quantum Blades

[psikeyhackr]

Psychohistory

[killhus]

clones and copies of people, augmented humans, virtual reality, people switching bodies

Walter John williams, "voice of the whirlwind"

Richard K Morgan, takeshi covacks series

Tony Ballantine, "Recursion"

Neal asher, everything he wrote

Allastair Reynolds, everything

[NickeeCoco]

I'll read just about anything as long as it contains some biting social commentary. Specifically, I prefer science fiction that deals with the relationship of humans and technology. I like realism and grittiness.

[Colonel Worf]

Time travel and extremely far futures where everything is unrecognizable.

[psikeyhackr]

I'll read just about anything as long as it contains some biting social commentary. Specifically, I prefer science fiction that deals with the relationship of humans and technology. I like realism and grittiness.

I just recently started listening to an audiobook of Asimov's Foundation trilogy. Apparently there is no cultural phenomenon like television in the series. But Asimov released the first book in 1951 and I don't know when he started writing it. But one of the things he wrote in the book was that a significant technological change could affect the validity of Hari Seldon's equations. So has television already affected psychohistory? I think it clearly has.

So can we now combat television with the internet?

It is the ideas from sci-fi that can stimulate action in the real world that makes it very interesting. The SF writers that are producing more than just adventure stories can influence the real world.

http://blogs.psychologytoday.com/blo...-psychohistory

I can easily see why psychologists would love Asimov's Foundation series.

But it sounds like he was talking about netbooks back in 1988.

Isaac Asimov on Bill Moyers World of Ideas pt 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CwUuU6C4pk

Isaac Asimov on Bill Moyers World of Ideas pt 2 ***
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJAIERgWhZQ

Isaac Asimov on Bill Moyers World of Ideas pt 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEHtt5sGbTw

He is talking about computers and education at the beginning of #2.

psik

[worldmaker]

Exploring ideas and suggesting/teaching solutions.

It's not just an adventure, but a way to challenge possible problems of the future and explore solutions.

All the world's problems can be solved, if we search far enough.

[Kyanzes]

Exploration, alien encounters. E.g. derelicts investigated, old ruins on remote planets discovered, chance encounters in space etc.

[intensityxx]

Time-travel, ordinary people with superpowers, logic or physics twists, downloading personalities, space opera, alien biology and "anthro"pology, BDOs (big dumb objects), sensawonder, sociological or gender/feminist metaphors, sexuality, post-apoc, cyberpunk, singularity and post-singularity, hard sf, soft sf, alternate universes, completely alien cultures, virtual reality, exploration, AI, religion, near-future, far-future, nanotech, thriller/suspense...

Pretty much everything except steampunk, alternate history, and dinosaurs.

[mistermann]

i gotta say an aggressive alien invasion is my number one, independence day/war of the worlds style where the entire world is affected by it.

Also post-apocalyptic is great stuff too, like the new Terminator.

[megamanbanana]

also anything involving the destabilization of human equilibrium like Jurassic Park, 28 days later, or even the transformer movie.

[psikeyhackr]

also anything involving the destabilization of human equilibrium like

Low cost cool Tech.

LOL

[weirdside]

I love generation ships (but not with incredibly crazy, hard sci fi concepts) and first contact stories. For generation ship stories, I can't mention any because I haven't read any good ones. For first contact stories, I really liked Sagan's Contact.

[bloggeratf]

Would have to go with anything that sheds light on the distant future. I always find it fascinating to discover how the humans have turned out 1000s of years in the future.