Futurians Meeting 18 May 01 Next Meeting : The First Person in SF News : Ian Woolf : Series 7 playing at Dendy cinemas. This is a "Reality TV" program where the contestants kill each other, reminiscent of "Running Man", but where almost the whole movie has the look and feel of an actual broadcast episode. Ian said something about a Space Tourist, but I'm not sure on the details. Notes report of a helmet that lets you see God. This activates part of the brain and 4/5 people feel a presence in the room. David Brin thinks people will eventually learn how to zone themselves out on endorphins, and it will be difficult to stop them. "Show me your Zen liscence" was one suggestion. David Bofinger : 35 today. Saw Andromeda at the Canberra Science Fiction Convention, where it was not as bad as he would have expected. Ted Scribner : one of three organisers behind www.larryniven.org Zara Baxter is chair of a Sydney Natcon bid, with suspicions that Chuck Mc Kenzie and Edwina Harvey also involved. Aurealis is for sale, at about $50 K. Atlantis games is closing, seems there's been difficulties between the partners, not bankruptcy as a result of lack of sales. Topic : Archaeology (referred to as "AE") Eldritch Ruins, HP Lovecraft. Noted that lots of Lovecraft stuff had archaeology in it. In this case, it was frequently a horror awakened, for example "word of plains". Other examples include "The Mummy", Space Vampires/Life Force by Colin Wilson, "Fire upon the deep" by Vernor Vinge. This contrasts with an artefact awakened, is in Raiders of the Lost Ark, Relic Hunter, Stargate, 2001, Gateway & related Heechee stories by Pohl, Eon by Greg Bear (though this story is about an artefact from the future). Von Daniken's writings involved AE, not considered fiction as there was no admission it was not true or no apparent attempt to deceive (its truth value is a different matter, of course). Gentle Giants of Ganymede one such work. A sought after variant was "The Procedural", where an archaeological dig was performed methodically, similar to how a methodical police investigation is detailed in a "Police Procedural". Examples were H. Beam Piper's _Omnilingual_ and Jack McDevitt's _Ancient Shores_. Earth/Moon is one setting for AE sf, where things from our local past are uncovered. This contrasts with alien things being uncovered by people from Earth, as in - Babylon 5/Thirdspace. - Larry Niven, Rotating Cylinders & Global Causality Violations. - Niven & Pournelle, The Mote in God's Eye. - Arthur C. Clark, The Star, a notable story where a Jesuit priest investigates the testament left to others by a society which knew it was about to be obliterated by a supernova. Aliens could also be looking for human artefacts. Randall Garrett, No Connections in the Takeoff collection. Fritz Leiber, Later than you think. Robert Silverberg, Across a million years. Time Travel and AE : In a story by Arthur C. Clark (?) excavations were made of dinosaur footprints, eventually yielding the tyre tracks of a jeep it was chasing. Forerunners : in this sub-genre, a galactic race is presumed to have been seeded by others, and the originators are sought out. David Brin wrote Startide Rising, Piers Anthony the Cluster series, Andre Norton "World that suits you". There's one called "Big Ancestor" or something similar. Lastly, one that I do not know how to categorise : Jack L. Chalker - Well world. -----------------------------2645834936302 Content-Disposition: form-data; name="userfile"; filename=""