8 Comments
User's avatar
Eric Walle's avatar

I’ve enjoyed reading countless science fiction books since I was a teen, fascinated by the depiction of future societies, technologies and ecologies.

I haven’t seen the movie “Dune”, but thought the book was excellent. FWIW, here’s a list of other works that stand out in my memory:

Walter M. Miller, Jr.

A Canticle for Leibowitz

John Brunner

Shockwave Rider

Stand on Zanzibar

William Gibson

Neuromancer

Neal Stephenson

Cryptonomicon

SeveNeves

Mary Doria Russell

The Sparrow

I’m looking forward to reading Murderbot!

Expand full comment
Taylor Walle's avatar

Thanks, Uncle Eric! Another friend recommended Neal Stephenson as well. This is an awesome list!!

Expand full comment
Eric Walle's avatar

Brunner’s, especially, may have become dated, but still are worth reading for the concepts.

Expand full comment
Catherine's avatar

Oh man, loved this!

Have you seen "Her"? I feel like it holds those questions of both mystery-in-sci-fi and the human-AI relationship in interesting ways. (As an added delight, I also heard an interview with Spike Jonze where he said the main aesthetic inspiration for their futuristic costume design was Orange Julius.)

And ready whenever you are to form our local band, Galvani and His Frogs.

Expand full comment
Taylor Walle's avatar

Okay but I want to be one of the frogs. And yes that’s an interesting point re Her! I saw it when it came out…which now seems a long time ago. I’m curious how I would think about it in our current age of ChatGPT.

Expand full comment
LMG's avatar

Thank you! I had so much fun reading this piece. By the way, have you tried sci-fi by Ted Chiang? The film Arrival is based on his work. I really like Chiang’s short story collection Exhalation.

Expand full comment
Taylor Walle's avatar

I haven’t! Thank you, that’s such a good suggestion!!

Expand full comment
Matthew Loar's avatar

Yay, Murderbot!!!

Expand full comment