Well, my daughter was three and a half when I first tried her on "The Hobbit" and she loved it. It was from memory and not read straight from the book, but she prefered it to any other bedtime story for a long time. She could name all of the dwarves and the swordsOriginally posted by Gatsby:
....Wonder if my 4 yr old and 2 yr. old boys are too young for H.G Wells and Asimov? Maybe Clarke...yeah Rama for bed-time stories...I'll bide my time...
Gats'[/QB]
I believe the original story is called "The Minority Report" but I may well be wrong (haven't read it). ISTR also seeing a tie-in edition at a bookstore (i.e. new reissue with Tom Cruise's face on the cover) which may be convenient for one-stop shopping, though I'm sure you could find a used copy for far cheaper with a little searching.Originally posted by Takei:
I saw Minority Report a couple of days ago and noticed that it was based on short story by Philip K Dick. Does the short have the same title? If not, does anyone know what it is?
That tie-in edition for Minority Report is printed in the weirdest layout for some reason (vertical and oddly formatted) and is awfully pricy for a book with just one novella. You can find much more readable versions in the various collections of Dick's short works. I have the _Philip K. Dick Reader_, which has "The Minority Report" and a dozen or more shorter stories. Good reading, though not terribly Traveller-inspiring. You do get the sense that Dick's work was often not so much science fiction as first-person narrative of a lunatic filtered through an SF lens. (see especially "The Eyes Have It" and "The Hanging Man.")Originally posted by T. Foster:
I believe the original story is called "The Minority Report" but I may well be wrong (haven't read it). ISTR also seeing a tie-in edition at a bookstore (i.e. new reissue with Tom Cruise's face on the cover) which may be convenient for one-stop shopping, though I'm sure you could find a used copy for far cheaper with a little searching.[/QB]
Anyone mentioned Robert Sheckley's 1955 short story collection "Citizen In Space"? The story "Ticket to Tranai" is a tale about the misadventures of a retired bureaucrat - They even have TAS helping him out!Originally posted by Knightsky:
To get back to the original question of what primarily inspired Millar & co., if I had to narrow it down to a baker's dozen, I would guess Poul Anderson, Isaac Asimov, Gordon R. Dickson, David Drake, Harry Harrison, Robert Heinlein, Larry Niven, Andre Norton, H. Beam Piper, Jerry Pournelle, Brian Stableford, E.C. Tubb, and Jack Vance.
Start with a neutron star, one of the densest things known to man, send humans out to investigate it, discover life on it (under heavier gravity than you could ever imagine with lifes measured in seconds rather than years), and sit back and read what happens - I couldn't put this book down.
It's better than Isaac Asimov, Larry Niven and Arthur C. Clarke all rolled into one.
I hope that they re-release the sequel as well "Starquake".
Just a quick word of warning - this is not a new book - it was released originally 20 years ago and the sequel 15 years ago. The story doesn't date, but just check to make sure it's not already in your collection