Greenflame
Jottings on science, religion, technology, pop culture, photography and faith from the Aotearoa New Zealand
Category: Science Fiction
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Scary science fiction is back on the agenda today, as well as Greek mythology crashing into science fiction superheroes. Sapphire and Steel (1979-82) If Children of the Stones scared kids to death, then Sapphire and Steel nailed their coffins well and truly shut. Many nursery rhymes have gruesome or unpleasant origins, but this took it…
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In this post we are sent spiralling into the 25th century to join a 1930s spaceman dragged into the 2400s via 1979. Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979-81) In 1979 Buck Rogers blasted across our TV screens as media companies attempted to cash in on the buzz generated by Star Wars. For some…
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Part 2 of childhood science fiction influences. This time the action hero we all wanted to be, the programme is possibly the scariest children’s TV show ever, and then we go swimming. The Six Million Dollar Man (1973-78) Steve Austin – astronaut, secret agent, bionic man. We all wanted to be him in the playground.…
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I’ve been reading, watching and playing with science fiction media ever since I can remember. In part, that’s from growing up as the manned missions to the moon were happening. I have a distinct memory of my mother getting me … Continue reading →
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The final part of starting points for reading science fiction with religious themes. The Chaplain’s War – Brad R. Torgersen (2014) This is effectively military science fiction in a similar vein to Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War (1974), Keith Laumer’s Bolo universe (1976-2010), Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers (1959), and Jack Campbell’s The Lost Fleet (2006-2010) series. Here…
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The third part of the theological science fiction starting point list (Part 1and Part 2). Contact – Carl Sagan (1985) The American cosmologist, Carl Sagan, penned this novel, originally meant to be a film script, which examines humanities first contact with extraterrestrial intelligence. Sagan described himself as agnostic, with his Gifford Lectures (which focus on…
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Following on from Theological Science Fiction – Starting Points (Part 1) and Theology and Science Fiction here’s the second part of the starting points for theological science fiction. The Sparrow (1996) and The Children of God (1998) – Mary Doria Russell In the tradition of James’s Blish’s A Case of Conscience, these two novels feature a Jesuit expedition to the…
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A few weeks back I did a guest lecture on “Science, Technology and Human Being” in the Laidlaw postgraduate course R202 God’s World: Theology and Science and Theology. I framed my discussion using a trajectory through science fiction starting with Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” through to contemporary narratives, focusing on the hopes and fears expressed about…
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By its very nature science fiction is speculative, providing a safe space to ask critical questions about our current world within imaginative environments used to focus upon those questions. As theologian Stephen May comments, [s]uch invention can either suggest a universe as strange as possible (with equally strange creatures inhabiting it), or one like ours…
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One of my first encounters with science fiction literature was through the anthologies of science fiction short stories in school and public libraries. It was in these that I first encountered Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clark, Isaac Asimov, Robert Silverberg, Andre Norton, James Blish, Ben Bova and others to name but a few. These anthologies…