High Strangeness
@bickernicks.bsky.social
A full-cast audiobook podcast about a skeptical ufologist, a Cape Cod reporter, an alien-obsessed cult, and a very odd golden retriever. A fast sci-fi comedy of mystery, satire, and absurdity—Vonnegut meets Adams. #HSaudiobook https://linktr.ee/HSaudiobook
H.G. Wells didn't invent the Invisible Man. Stories of invisibility go back to ancient Greece, folklore, and fairy tales. What Wells did invent was the first scientifically plausible invisible man, transforming a magical fantasy into one of science fiction's greatest ideas.
Here's supposed to be the big ending to the Invasion stage play. We leave 'em singing! I found motion captures of multiple dance moves and applied them to 3D aliens. Can you spot the different moves? (The Time Warp is one of them) #delusionsofgrandeur #WhyWouldIGiveAShitAboutAnyOfThis?
Voltaire imagined visitors from space. Robert Potter imagined aliens secretly infiltrating Earth. Kurd Laßwitz imagined Martian colonies. But it was H.G. Wells who fused these ideas into the modern alien invasion novel. #AckAckAck #SlimWhitman
Another part of the Invasion stage play was this evil character making his demands to the people of Earth ala The Corbomite Maneuver alien vis-à-vis Star Trek. The play's objective was to parody every Sci-Fi troupe out there. Coming to a theatre near you? #Iguessnot
Arrival and Ted Chiang’s Story of Your Life share the same brilliant idea—but ask very different questions. The movie asks if you’d choose love knowing it ends in tragedy. The story asks something stranger: if you truly knew the future, could you even choose to change it? #ScienceFiction #TedChiang
This is one element from a very different stage play I attempted to get off the ground called "The Invasion" - a mental invasion by MAGA conspiracy wingnuts. Image War Of The Worlds breaking out during a live improv stage performance. You can't? Neither could my actor friends. #notgonnahappen #nope.
The heart of 2001 began with Arthur C. Clarke's The Sentinel (1948). Kubrick reshaped the story into a cinematic masterpiece, leading Clarke to remark that it was "far more Kubrick's story than mine." Yet the central mystery—an ancient alien artifact waiting on the Moon—remained intact.
Nobody predicts the future perfectly—not even Isaac Asimov. Some of his biggest misses are just as interesting as his biggest hits, and they remind us how difficult technological forecasting really is. #fuzzyface
HAL wasn't the first fictional artificial intelligence. Decades before modern AI, science fiction introduced machines that could hold conversations, solve impossible problems, and even outthink humanity. Here's a look at the AIs that saw the future first.
We'll get back to the Sci-Fi book stuff in a minute...
H.G Wells got the atomic bomb right. World government, rational politics, and human nature? Not so much. Even the greatest futurists are shaped by the hopes and assumptions of their own time. Predicting technology is hard. Predicting people is even harder.
What the hell is Robby supposed to do with the girl anyway? Wouldn't he be attracted to Maria from Forbidden Planet? #robothumping
Pre-1940 robot fiction established many of the ideas that still shape modern AI and robotics. These stories introduced robots as workers, intelligent machine life, human-machine hybrids, emotional companions, and sympathetic protagonists. #ashisagoddamnrobot
There were a couple more of these. #utterobscurity #unknownauthor #dontgiveashitabout
Before H.G. Wells, time travelers slept, dreamed, or got knocked out. Stories like Rip Van Winkle and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court moved people through time, but usually by magic/accident. He changed everything by turning time travel into a machine. #SciFi #HGWells #TimeTravel
No dragons in this book either. www.amazon.com/dp/B0CNZQDCKL #nofuckingdragons
Went to N.H. to promote my funny sci-fi novel set in New England. How many scif-fi books are even SET in New England? I was gonna sell out. Paid for a standee and everything. Nobody even made eye contact. The guy next to me wrote a fantasy novel about dragons. Sold multiple books. #godfuckingdamnit
