Grok This: Forget The Business Books, Go Sci-Fi To Stoke Your Imagination(techcrunch.com)
techcrunch.com
Grok This: Forget The Business Books, Go Sci-Fi To Stoke Your Imagination
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/05/grok-this-forget-the-business-books-go-sci-fi-to-stoke-your-imagination/
19 comments
I had this thought a few months ago. I decided to read every Nebula / Hugo winner. I would also add, listening to good comedy albums and playing board / video games often.
I worked at a company where the President loved, Loved, LOVED pop business books. He hopped on every trend, told Seth Godin's stories as if they were his own (has a purple cow w\ the company logo, etc), and even tried to create a style of management based on Survivor.
When "seeking" knowledge he looked away from rigorous research and observation to the Amazon top lists.
I've never seen unhappier employees.
I worked at a company where the President loved, Loved, LOVED pop business books. He hopped on every trend, told Seth Godin's stories as if they were his own (has a purple cow w\ the company logo, etc), and even tried to create a style of management based on Survivor.
When "seeking" knowledge he looked away from rigorous research and observation to the Amazon top lists.
I've never seen unhappier employees.
Do you really need to read entire sci-fi novels to extract whatever cool ideas they may have? In terms of getting ideas for startups, 99% of a novel is probably irrelevant and it might be better to have a resource that just gives you the 1% that matters.
You, my friend, have completely missed the point.
Any given idea in sci-fi (are they going to make us refer to it as syfy now?) may or may not be particularly useful in and of itself. Most ideas is sci-fi are completely impractical anyway, so why fret about it?
Art / literature / music / what have you are not resources that can be mined. You can't freebase Heinlein (though I like the thought) or take a bump of Ernst.
Follow your interests, experience works as a whole, and don't expect to be changed.
I would argue that the difference between sci-fi and pop business is that few people truly enjoy business books (not to mention the fact that most business books have a shelf-life of 12 minutes.)
They read them because they believe that they will put them on the path to, well, I don't know what. True there's wisdom to be had out there, but, you usually can't buy it for $19.99+S/H, regardless of genre.
You can read "Time Enough For Love" or just the "Notebooks of Lazarus Long."
You can drink wine with your friends or dash your brains out with 190-proof Everclear.
The value is in the experience, not the proof.
1) Live life.
2) Don't be a douche.
3) Stop thinking about money.
4) Be genuinely interested in what you do.
5) Profit.
Any given idea in sci-fi (are they going to make us refer to it as syfy now?) may or may not be particularly useful in and of itself. Most ideas is sci-fi are completely impractical anyway, so why fret about it?
Art / literature / music / what have you are not resources that can be mined. You can't freebase Heinlein (though I like the thought) or take a bump of Ernst.
Follow your interests, experience works as a whole, and don't expect to be changed.
I would argue that the difference between sci-fi and pop business is that few people truly enjoy business books (not to mention the fact that most business books have a shelf-life of 12 minutes.)
They read them because they believe that they will put them on the path to, well, I don't know what. True there's wisdom to be had out there, but, you usually can't buy it for $19.99+S/H, regardless of genre.
You can read "Time Enough For Love" or just the "Notebooks of Lazarus Long."
You can drink wine with your friends or dash your brains out with 190-proof Everclear.
The value is in the experience, not the proof.
1) Live life.
2) Don't be a douche.
3) Stop thinking about money.
4) Be genuinely interested in what you do.
5) Profit.
http://www.bobgod.com/lazaruslong.html
"Yield to temptation; it may not pass your way again."
"Yield to temptation; it may not pass your way again."
that sounds like that show "the office" gone wrong. i'd hang myself
I've read about half that list, and half of what remains is on my list. But it's a pity Charles Stross's Accelerando isn't on there. You can read it online for free here: http://www.accelerando.org/book/.
Don't, though, it will just make you miserable.
(Do, but be prepared for a very dystopian and worryingly likely feeling future)
(Do, but be prepared for a very dystopian and worryingly likely feeling future)
Miserable? It had the opposition effect on me. I found it inspiring. What a fantastic future if we can develop that sort of technology. Of course a novel has to have a few things go wrong to make a compelling story but I don't see them as being inherent in the possibilities being presented.
I'm just looking forward to conversations with sentient networks of Russian lobster brains.
There are countless books that could go on this list, but you have to start somewhere. This is a good place to start. The books on this list are all worth reading, though I'm sorry to say that I found that the Foundation Trilogy had aged really badly :-( I'm glad I read it 3 times as a child, because I doubt I'll be reading it again...
I'd add a couple of modern authors to the list. Vernor Vinge has been mentioned. Another interesting one is Charles Stross (I recently came out of reading Accelerando... full of interesting ideas). I found Paulo Di Filippo's short stories generally great too.
Ultimately, you have to make your own list, from your own personal tastes and journeys. This is definitely a good starting point, though (at least as far as Science Fiction is concerned).
I'd add a couple of modern authors to the list. Vernor Vinge has been mentioned. Another interesting one is Charles Stross (I recently came out of reading Accelerando... full of interesting ideas). I found Paulo Di Filippo's short stories generally great too.
Ultimately, you have to make your own list, from your own personal tastes and journeys. This is definitely a good starting point, though (at least as far as Science Fiction is concerned).
I'm curious why you think the Foundation Trilogy aged badly? I recently re-read Foundation; it's still one of my favorites. It takes a completely unique perspective on the future of human civilization.
Well, it was my impression. It seemed to me that the language and concepts seemed really old, in a way that furiously contradicted its sci-fi nature... When I read Dickens, for example, I don't get a feeling that its thinking is old-fashioned. Although written centuries ago, the thoughts are still fresh and powerful.
When I last re-read parts of the Foundation series (I didn't get through the whole of it), there were so many things there which seemed... passé. Part of it was the language, and part of it was, I guess, the technology.
I think this is the curse of science fiction. Because it gambles on predicting the future, and predicting the future is so damn hard, it invariably diverges from the real future more and more as time passes. And the more it diverges, the more the science seems pointless and outdated.
I shudder to think how "hard sf" novels like "Red Mars" will read in 30 years, when another bunch of major technological revolutions will have come to pass...
When I last re-read parts of the Foundation series (I didn't get through the whole of it), there were so many things there which seemed... passé. Part of it was the language, and part of it was, I guess, the technology.
I think this is the curse of science fiction. Because it gambles on predicting the future, and predicting the future is so damn hard, it invariably diverges from the real future more and more as time passes. And the more it diverges, the more the science seems pointless and outdated.
I shudder to think how "hard sf" novels like "Red Mars" will read in 30 years, when another bunch of major technological revolutions will have come to pass...
I think what you're sensing is that curious aspect of science fiction before the mid-1980s, which is the near-complete absence of computers. I say "near-complete" because computers often still showed up in some token, simple role of administration or navigation, but the general-purpose networked computer as suited to 3D-gaming as it is to wordprocessing as it is to video-conferencing with someone on the other side of the world, all of that in a device that fits in hand, with the associated social changes, is missing from sci-fi until sci-fi authors started to get a sense of just how far Moore's law was going to go.
(And I don't mean to imply that's the endpoint of electronic development either, it's just something I can definitively say that the future, that is, "now", definitively already possesses.)
Now hard sci-fi faces the other side, which is that there's no evidence that it's going to stop before completely rewriting the universe as we know it (see endtime's link to Accelerando).
Asimov lived long enough to ret-con a sort of explanation in, as I understand it ("Robots suppressed computers!", although that still preserves the weird way in which robots were invented long before computers in his universe which makes no sense at all), but the lack of computers is still shot through his fiction and all fiction of that era, with just a few fragmentary exceptions here and there.
(And I don't mean to imply that's the endpoint of electronic development either, it's just something I can definitively say that the future, that is, "now", definitively already possesses.)
Now hard sci-fi faces the other side, which is that there's no evidence that it's going to stop before completely rewriting the universe as we know it (see endtime's link to Accelerando).
Asimov lived long enough to ret-con a sort of explanation in, as I understand it ("Robots suppressed computers!", although that still preserves the weird way in which robots were invented long before computers in his universe which makes no sense at all), but the lack of computers is still shot through his fiction and all fiction of that era, with just a few fragmentary exceptions here and there.
Yes, that's definitely one of the core reasons. It's a bit like reading a "futuristic" novel where everyone has laser weapons in their holster and still travels around on horses... it just makes it very hard to suspend disbelief and enjoy the story, imho.
> curious aspect of science fiction before the mid-1980s,
Star Trek TOS had computers galore. Tricorders, medical bays, the ships main talking computer, I'd argue all those screens and buttons and that thingy Spock looked into were all computers. Not to mention all the computer antagonists and various backdrop pieces.
They also had cell phones.
Star Trek TOS had computers galore. Tricorders, medical bays, the ships main talking computer, I'd argue all those screens and buttons and that thingy Spock looked into were all computers. Not to mention all the computer antagonists and various backdrop pieces.
They also had cell phones.
True, and Star Trek was broadly ahead of the game on that front.
But go back and watch some of the episodes; it's still thin compared to the reality of today, let alone the reality of the future. Communicators that are like cell phones, sure, except that they only do voice transmission. My real-life cell phone is more powerful than my first couple of computers and has the apps to boot... and I have a piece of crap generic cheap cell phone, not even an iPhone. Talking computers that get asked very simple questions and are "working" for several loud seconds. No computer graphical enhancement of anything on the viewscreen (until the movies). Mainframes that generally need to be walked up to and used. The feel of the tech is very different.
Please understand I'm not complaining. This is one place where Star Trek has a legitimate claim to being ahead of the curve (although they pretty much jammed in that one spot and are now way behind) and I tend to be down on Star Trek at this point as my parenthetical shows; my point is that even so, the computers aren't as well integrated into people's lives as they are even today. Obviously, in the 1960s the special effects technology wouldn't have been there even if a time traveler from the real-life 21st century came back and tried to do it right with local tech and on a budget.
But go back and watch some of the episodes; it's still thin compared to the reality of today, let alone the reality of the future. Communicators that are like cell phones, sure, except that they only do voice transmission. My real-life cell phone is more powerful than my first couple of computers and has the apps to boot... and I have a piece of crap generic cheap cell phone, not even an iPhone. Talking computers that get asked very simple questions and are "working" for several loud seconds. No computer graphical enhancement of anything on the viewscreen (until the movies). Mainframes that generally need to be walked up to and used. The feel of the tech is very different.
Please understand I'm not complaining. This is one place where Star Trek has a legitimate claim to being ahead of the curve (although they pretty much jammed in that one spot and are now way behind) and I tend to be down on Star Trek at this point as my parenthetical shows; my point is that even so, the computers aren't as well integrated into people's lives as they are even today. Obviously, in the 1960s the special effects technology wouldn't have been there even if a time traveler from the real-life 21st century came back and tried to do it right with local tech and on a budget.
Usually saying "that list was missing X" type stuff is pretty silly, but with a title like that, that list seriously needs some Verner Vinge.
Well, since others are doing it: William Gibson.
in particular, a deepness in the sky and a fire in the deep are excellent.
Yes they were. And since we're dealing with post-singularity stories, I'll add Simon Funk's novella, "After Life".
http://sifter.org/~simon/AfterLife/index.html
http://sifter.org/~simon/AfterLife/index.html
I agree and I held out as long as possible, but I am weak...
Cory Doctorow's "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom" was very influential with me.
http://craphound.com/down/download.php
http://craphound.com/down/download.php
Does anyone else hate Stranger in a Strange Land, and Robert Heinlein in general?
I find that whole era/style of sci-fi silly, dated, and Heinlein in particular to be a chauvinist pig. These writers, many of them (wannabe)scientists, believed in and wrote about scientist super men. Lone men(always men) of bulky IQ and suave manners. Who save the world/universe/multiverse/timeline/whatever and get a girl as reward in the end.
Basically whatever would appeal(read sell books) to pubescent teenage nerds and adults who never grew out of that phase.
I find that whole era/style of sci-fi silly, dated, and Heinlein in particular to be a chauvinist pig. These writers, many of them (wannabe)scientists, believed in and wrote about scientist super men. Lone men(always men) of bulky IQ and suave manners. Who save the world/universe/multiverse/timeline/whatever and get a girl as reward in the end.
Basically whatever would appeal(read sell books) to pubescent teenage nerds and adults who never grew out of that phase.
Props to Doctorow's Down and Out In the Magic Kingdom.
The other freely available (this one under copyright) great post-singularity work of sci-fi is The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect. http://www.kuro5hin.org/prime-intellect/mopiidx.html
The other freely available (this one under copyright) great post-singularity work of sci-fi is The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect. http://www.kuro5hin.org/prime-intellect/mopiidx.html
I'd like to recommend "Startide Rising" and "The Uplift War", by David Brin. Aside from being very enjoyable books, they're a big source of new ideas -- these books singlehandedly made me appreciate the goals of the Internet Archive.
Also, I've never understood the popularity of "Stranger in a Strange Land". I've always been a big Heinlein fan, but Stranger in a Strange Land always struck me as a book that was important and shocking and ground-breaking once upon a time.
Also, I've never understood the popularity of "Stranger in a Strange Land". I've always been a big Heinlein fan, but Stranger in a Strange Land always struck me as a book that was important and shocking and ground-breaking once upon a time.
I am especially fond of near-future scifi. Reading Stross, Stephenson, and Vinge always leaves me with a feeling of wonder - their novels are brimming with technological & sociological insight.
Often a novel is a thought experiment. If you read Vernor Vinge's _Rainbows End_, you will find a plausible and well thought out speculation on wearable computing. This is the kind of thinking we have to do in a startup - we take the current state of things and extrapolate.
Often a novel is a thought experiment. If you read Vernor Vinge's _Rainbows End_, you will find a plausible and well thought out speculation on wearable computing. This is the kind of thinking we have to do in a startup - we take the current state of things and extrapolate.
The only problem is that after you read enough of them, you're spoiled on ideas. Oh, a culture where money is irrelevant and people can have backups of their brain and do completely stupid things without risk? How trite.
I am, literally, at the point where I don't even get a rise out of any book unless it's humorous. And Douglas Adams is dead.
I am, literally, at the point where I don't even get a rise out of any book unless it's humorous. And Douglas Adams is dead.
Peter F. Hamilton. Marc Stiegler. Vernor Vinge obviously, who is he even kidding?
I would have to add "The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula K. Le Guin.
The Dispossessed (same author/universe) always gets my juices flowing when I start considering developing software for managing vastly complex systems (i.e. society). I especially enjoy how she confronts the issues, blatant and subtle, which would arise from such systems.
Recently I've been playing some games on PlayStation and Wii to help myself brainstorming ideas for my ui. It's a source for inspiration especially for visualization.
Finally an acceptable excuse for some extensive procrastination! Thank you ;)
Unfortunately I can't say the same about my nicotine addiction! ;)
here is a reasonable list for someone who actually reads a lot of books.
this is a list weighted by voting, critical reception, and awards
http://home.austarnet.com.au/petersykes/topscifi/lists_books...
Philip K. Dick has some great SciFi works as well. Any of his short story compilations are great reads.
I would like to register my strongest possible endorsement of the article's mention of Iain M. Bank's Culture series. Since discovering them a few years ago, I have basically been obsessed with them, to the point of sort-of beginning to believe that the greatest possible mission in life is to work towards bringing about the soonest possible advent of a Culture-type society, any enabling technology, any small step.
Anime (as an art) is a delicious food for imagination.
And in general, an art of faraway countries, even movies and translated books is a very big deal.
And in general, an art of faraway countries, even movies and translated books is a very big deal.
Good sci-fi is speculative fiction, but bad sci-fi is just "a story told in a sci-fi setting".
This is a good way of distinguishing between Dune by Frank Herbert (which speculates about many things, including the kind of universe that exists after a computer AI suppresses the human race and is then overthrown) and Hunters of Dune by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, which is a crap book that speculates about very little in a sci-fi setting.
If you think about it, starting a company that makes a new product is basically speculating about a world that is unlike our current world because of your product! Also, you should be speculating about how other technologies and products will affect our world, so you can adapt your company before it becomes extinct...