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Big Companies and the Military Are Paying Novelists to Write Sci-Fi for Them

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91–100 of 173 posts

Re: Big Companies and the Military Are Paying Novelists to Write Sci-Fi for Them

#91
post #28

This is the worst story I've read all week. Capitalism is destroying our culture.

What's bad about this?

It's a submarine promo for the company mentioned. Seems pretty appropriate though for a company paid to create stories to use stories for its own promotion.

Re: Big Companies and the Military Are Paying Novelists to Write Sci-Fi for Them

#93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CCP (the EVE Online people) have a whole team of economists also. My favorite story, though, is still epidemiologists studying the Corrupted Blood plague in WoW for real world lessons on bioterrorism.

Hopefully they don't come to the conclusion that "rebooting" is the best way to solve the problem.

It's ok just because C-173 got Cronenberged there are still plenty of dimensions left. Sometimes rebooting is the only option.

Re: Big Companies and the Military Are Paying Novelists to Write Sci-Fi for Them

#94
post #86
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

anecdata != data. You haven't presented any alternative views on what a presumably more competent economist could have executed on. Just because life was bad doesn't mean that it could have been better.

What his predecessor tried to do. Fix the economy. Greece's problem isn't the debt per se, it's the fact that our economy isn't competitive. There's a lot of red tape, many professions are regulated (pharmacies are a prime example), we import way more things than we export, entrepreneurism is very low, public sector is corrupted, the insurance system is bankrupt, and a lot of things don't work as they should in a mod…

So you're advocating for your country to undergo the same sort of economic shock therapy that other states before have undergone?

Re: Big Companies and the Military Are Paying Novelists to Write Sci-Fi for Them

#95

Interesting they mention and get quotes from the author of the Three Body Problem series. I just finished reading that series, and the whole time I had the feeling that it was written more to convince people of something than to actually entertain the reader. The ideas in the books were pretty amazing, unique, and imaginative; but the story and writing itself was quite sub-par. edit: I listened (audio books) to the E…

Did you read it in the original Chinese, or the English translation? I haven't read either, but it's possible that the English version misses a lot of nuance from the original version. (It's also quite possible the original is crap, and the translation is doing a very adequate job.)

I actually thought the translator did a pretty good job (not to say that I can read Chinese or do a direct comparison). My only complaint was that I wish they'd westernized the names--they all sound too similar to my American ears.

Re: Big Companies and the Military Are Paying Novelists to Write Sci-Fi for Them

#96
Last days the defcon issue, and this week for some particular reason we have a few similar articles here and there talking about how fabulous and great would be for a 'good nerd' to work for the military, government, etc...

Can we spot a pattern here? PR damage control?

Re: Big Companies and the Military Are Paying Novelists to Write Sci-Fi for Them

#97
post #42

I honestly don't care if there is a "sinister" purpose behind the good scifi I've read. Fund the next Iain banks please. In fact - throw me $50k to live for a year and you've got yourself a book - or I can at least guarantee some words on pages mentioning spaceships / robots, etc.

pfff, for 50k/year i'd write five books. or ten. these kinds of gigs are too rare for writers to pass up tbh

Re: Big Companies and the Military Are Paying Novelists to Write Sci-Fi for Them

#98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully they don't come to the conclusion that "rebooting" is the best way to solve the problem.

It's ok just because C-173 got Cronenberged there are still plenty of dimensions left. Sometimes rebooting is the only option.

Look, Rick, you can't just eliminate options just because they seem like too much work for you, specifically. What you meant to say is that sometimes rebooting is the easiest and least boring option.

Re: Big Companies and the Military Are Paying Novelists to Write Sci-Fi for Them

#99
post #96

Last days the defcon issue, and this week for some particular reason we have a few similar articles here and there talking about how fabulous and great would be for a 'good nerd' to work for the military, government, etc... Can we spot a pattern here? PR damage control?

I used to take some employees to Defcon. Though, technically, I had no good reason to go, personally. I just thought it was neat.

Anyhow, two games we used to play:

Spot the Fed.

Name That Influence.

The first was to see who looked like, and acted like, a federal agent. We'd sometimes do some work to confirm it, but we usually discussed it at the bar.

The second was trickier, and often just conjecture - again, over drinks. Who paid for the research, what did they say, what did they not say, and what does it imply?

We weren't the only ones to play these games. I'm going to guess they're still playing them.

Re: Big Companies and the Military Are Paying Novelists to Write Sci-Fi for Them

#100

I do something similar. I pay writers to write me sci-fi and fantasy stories based on my prompts! It allows me to read what I want to read!

Seems like it would put you in a position to publish a, say, quarterly collection of the results. Combine that with a Patreon or something similar if other people enjoy the stories that come from the prompts, and you might break even while still getting the stories you like :) Seems like most short story publishers run in a deficit so if you're accepting that from the start you're in a better position than most.
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