Sciencie and Science Fiction

Today I wanted to share this video, made for my class of Science Fiction. Yes! Finally!

I hope you enjoy it.

Los Altísimos

Los Altísimos

Hugo Correa

Hugo Correa's “Los Altísimos” (1951), is one of the first books of science fiction of Latinamerica, in which the author describe an alien world like if this were more advance technologically (Poland). Through the story the protagonist and the reader star to discover the reality fragment by fragment, not knowing the whole truth of all till we arrive next to the end of the book.

Like many others of the same genre, “Los Altísimos” goes developing an end that you can know in advance, in which the protagonist can't do anything to change their destiny.

We are now in a “futuristic” world where people don't interact one each other but for work issues or to satisfy their biological needs, in which the figure of possession of a person (like in husband and wife) doesn't exist, and so everyone can do whatever they want with whoever they want, and so one day you can choose a sexual partner and the next day you choose a different one. Nonetheless you are forbidden to have some kind of partner in life (girlfriend, wife, whatever).

All the adventures happen in a planet that it was designed by some “Lords”. This planet is made itself of other planets, one tinier than the other, conserving the gravity constant in all of this planets. Also, you can go from one to another, and if there exist some danger, these planets can lock up to defend themselves. People doesn't born like in our days, letting a machinery to deal with all of this. Also, the “controller” can manipulate the DNA of people, to satisfy the needs of the world and make them better in all senses (the ones they believe). Also, this world function at perfection, having all the needs satisfied for human, and so they can do what they have to do.

Even though the androids don't appear in this story, where the human kind don't play to be gods, they must pay their “sins” condemned to live in this perfect world prison.

Are we advancing the right path of doing this a better place to live, changing ourselves to people with no feelings, without the possibility to do what we more want? Till what point do we must sacrifice ourselves as individuals for the common well? Evolution, is it always positive, even though the human loose the ability of being a human being?

Of course, there's much more in this book I'm not telling you, but that's because, and making the difference to the other reviews I've made, I want you to read this one. It's different, it's our, and make you think in a different way than the others.

Super-Toys Last All Summer Long

Super-Toys Last All Summer Long, Super-Toys When Winter Comes and Super-Toys in Other Seasons are the stories in which is based the film A.I. Artificial Intelligence. The stories tell about a future world in which humanity depends on machines for everything. Even though the world is overpopulated people live their lifes lonely. Because of the overpopulation, the government has decided to control the birth rate in a lottery.
So the main story is about David and the way he lives his life and tries to find out what he is, real or not.


We are place in the future, no one cares for the rest because they are to focus in themselves. The world is overpopulated and the food's not enough for everyone, but that's not a problem to the ones who can afford it, eating much more than they need without looking fat because of the Crosswell Tape, a parasite tape-worm that process all the food the host eats in excess. The houses can be manipulated to show whatever you want in walls and windows, letting you think there's much more space than what really is, and taking you to the place you want to be.
Also you can find androids that can perform different activities, like helping with the kids, in the house, etc. Particularly, the different industries are working in create the more advance one, changing the metallic parts for organic ones and adventuring with real thinking brains instead of computers in the head. So, the objective is to produce real human beings.



The characters that give life to the story are David, his mother Monica Swinton and his father Henry. David is a little kid of three who struggles to feel love by his mother. They don't get to have a connection between, and poor David suffer because of that. He has a little friend called Teddy. Teddy is a intelligent and very mobile Teddy Bear which function is to accompany David. 
Henry is the hard working man too focus in his company to be there to his family, letting all responsibility of the child to his wife. He has build a powerful position in the industries.
Monica is... special (kind the hated character)... She lives her life the way she knows not caring about the others, concern in herself, just like society teach her to. But she don't get to David and it looks (to me) that she doesn't really care about that, well, at least when she read the letters that's when she released what he feel.

David as long as the story continue change his original question from "why my mon doesn't love me" to "am I real". So we can see David at the beginning trying to write letters to his mother expressing what he feels for her to open Teddy to discover if he (Teddy) is real or not as long as himself.
The mother doesn't change as long as we move on the story, at least not significantly.
Henry, the man who once got everything he wanted, now in the final step of the story sees himself almost ruined, with no wife, with no David, all alone. So he start looking for David and take it with himself to "transform it", letting the reader know or now showing a new face of Henry, the one of a person who loves.


So, let's think... is this world so different from the one we are making, letting aside all the technology, of course. We prefer to ignore the suffering looking in the other side, just like Monica does. We prefer to live in our comfortable houses just like her.
We are in the future, and the future doesn't look so pretty as we would want it to be. People has transform it to some dark place.
We need a David, an innocent child to make us smile, to make us feel once more.

Just as in the other stories, we ask ourselves once more the same question, what's a human being? In this case, David ask himself is he real?. Well, what is to be real? Are we real just because we are made of flesh, because we think, because we have soul? Can David have a soul even though he is not made of flesh or have a brain? If we transform to David to something more advance, or as in other stories, to an android made of organic materials. Even if we could reproduce ourselves, with bones, flesh, blood, a brain, make it think and feel, give it all the attributions or qualities we have, can it be real? Can it be a human?
Is something like that less than us just because it didn't born but was made of?
I believe David can be much more real than a lot of people. In the same story, just because of the fact that David cares, I would say is more real than Monica.
To me, David is one of us. Maybe, greater than us.

Fahrenheit 451

So I just finished this Ray Bradbury's book, the first I read from him.

Guy Montag is a fireman, the person in charge of burn the outlawed books. One day, he's returning to his home and met a girl, his neighbor named Clarisse McClellan. He and she develop a weird relation (for the world they live) in which they pass the time talking, smelling, watching and listening the world around them, and she encourage him to question all the things... in others words she tell him to think (apparently the first time in his life).
A day, she doesn't appear like she's used to, and he start noticing something is missing... is not only the girl, but he feel like there's a hole in his life.
A few days later, while the firemen attend to a call, they have to burn the whole house (like they usually do) but with a woman inside... she insists on let her burn with the books, but before this happen, Guy take a book with him.
Then we acknowledge that he's been taking books with him since a time ago and have his own collection in home.
Then start a search to know if the books have some value or they are just like the government say they are.
Read it yourself.

Guy Montag is the normal fireman in this society. Enjoys his work and the time with his coworkers. Then he met Clarisse, a little girl who start talking to him, but not like he's used to, but talking about the nature, the things that people do, the what if, and more... Then, he start to feel different, he now has the need for knowledge and start acting weird, till the point he read some books. At the end of the story, he is something like a rebel, been a fugitive and conserving the information obtained from books. He start living a new life, with a new purpose, wait till the moment is correct and share the knowledge.

In this world we can see helicopters transform into land vehicles, the same land vehicles also can travel at really high speed, there's mechanic dogs, some kind of TV that covers the whole wall (TV wall, whatever) and other things. But apparently, the house that are fire proof tends to be similar to what is today. There's no mention of big buildings and in the outside of the city remain the country. So the people like today, prefer to live in the cities, this small concrete jungle points.


The human kind has left aside the books and now prefer the TV, which is very similar to our days, in which we can see that everyday people is reading less while spending more time watching TV and playing games in the computer or entertainment devices.

Can human kind be saved from stupidity? Can we hope to save the knowledge, the culture, the lessons? In the book that's the question planted. Can we?

Do androids dream of electric sheep?

The book

[spoiler]We place ourselves in a catastrophic world, the year is 1992 where the Earth has result devastated product of the “World War Terminus”, a war so big that has spread the radiation all over the world, killing all the living things on it. The humans can still live there, but with the years the healthy is deteriorating. Also, the humans have emigrated to different planets all over the solar system, one of them is Mars. The only ones still on Earth are the ones too old to travel, the “specials” (dummy people) and others who don’t want to or are kind of obligated to stay and work, like Rick Deckard.

He is a bounty hunter in charge of retire the “Andys”, smart androids (physically are equal to humans because they were created with organic materials, but they have no empathy) that in the colonies help the human kind, but are forbidden on Earth, so they are fugitive and must be captured.

On Earth, just as in the colonies, and because of the radioactive war, the animals are almost extinct, and the humans wants to possess them because of the status that provide, and because of the fascination that living creatures produce (it's another way to express the empathy).

In this world, there is something called “empathy box” and when humans get connected to it, can choose to feel all the human emotions (from the other humans) and feel and see their leader, Wilbur Mercer, or can choose a feeling, like love, happiness, even sadness, and feel that way. [\spoiler] 

This future world, at least on Earth, it looks really similar to what is Earth today, because it was abandoned, with the difference that exist flying vehicles, laser beams, and the empathy box. All the rest is the normal world, but worn out (at least, that's what the author tell us).

In the other hand we can ask ourselves “what is a human?”, because the androids physically are equal to humans, because of the organic materials that were used to be created. Nonetheless, they don’t have the capacity to feel empathy for others. But, all humans feel empathy for others? Or is it only a "machine" thing? Like I said, they're not machines.

We also can ask ourselves “do we want to choose our emotional states?” or do we want to take what it comes and do the best we can, learning from the mistakes and not simply just ignoring them. That’s what the empathy box, and the social thoughts tells you, to use the box and choose how you want or how you have to.

The movie

Here, the Earth was not a devastated place, and in terms of technology it was a very prosper place. There's no Isidore, no Mercer, no Buster, no Deckard's wife, etc. You can see a prosper but dark Earth, and of course, the "World War Terminus" never happened. There's no mention of the electric animals but in the androids industry, where Pris says the owl is artificial. The androids, as it's said in the introduction of the movie, are stronger than humans, but their intellectual capacities are similar to the engineers who created them. 

I prefer not to speak more of the movie, I just didn't like it, at least not after reading the book.

Translation or Betrayal

Well, we could say that the movie adopts very much from the book, following the mission that Deckard has in the book, but in a way completely different. Also, the state of Earth is kind of advance, apparently there was not a war in here. There's no mention of the empathy box, nor Wilbur Mercer nor Buster Friendly. Deckard is the top "Blade Runner" (yes, he is not a bounty hunter but part of the police), a special police force. 

The characters don't get to develop themselves very well, and by the way, yes, there are flying vehicles but no laser beams, just guns like the ones we know. The  Voigt-Kampff test looks more like the Boneli test, and of course, this is not mentioned as very much details from the book. So, the movie is a translation very poor, and the authors do whatever they wanted on it. 

This is not betrayal, is murder, at least to me.