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What SF influenced YTU?

Agemegos

SOC-12
G'day!

I have been very interested in several discussions of what SF influenced the OTU. I think it must have been very important that I never read any EC Tubb.

After the last such discussion I began to think about some of the things that I have read that have made my SF RPG setting different from the OTU. Not all of it has been fiction at all: C. Northcote Parkinson's The History of Political Thought and James Frazer's The Golden Bough were major sources, for instance, as were various bits of ancient and mediaeval history. And I also borrowed some things from non-SF fiction, such as the TV show Edge of Darkness. The major SF influences on my GMing were as follows:

Isaac Asimov: Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun
Lloyd Biggle, Jnr: Monument
Arthur C. Clark: Imperial Earth, Rendezvous with Rama
Phillip K. Dick: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Gordon Dickson: Dorsai, ‘Soldier, Ask Not…’
Tom Godwin: The Cold Equations
Joe Haldeman: All My Sins Remembered, Forever War, Worlds, Worlds Apart
Robert Heinlein: Beyond This Horizon, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Starship Troopers, Space Patrol
Aldous Huxley: Brave New World
Ursula K. Le Guin: The Dispossessed, Rocannon’s World, The Word for World is Forest
Larry Niven: The Long Arm of Gil Hamilton
Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle: Footfall, The Mote in God’s Eye, Oath of Fealty
H. Beam Piper: Space Viking, Minister of Disturbance
Jerry Pournelle: The Mercenary, Prince David’s Spaceship, West of Honour
Robert Silverberg: The Tower of Glass
Cordwainer Smith: Norstrilia
Jack Vance: The Anome, Araminta Station, The Augmented Agent, Blue Planet, The Book of Dreams, The City of the Chasch, The Château d’If, The Dirdir, The Dragon Masters, Ecce and Old Earth, Emphyrio, The Face, The Gray Prince, The Killing Machine, The Languages of Pao, Lurulu, The Last Castle, To Live Forever, Marune, The Moon-moth, The Palace of Love, The Pnume, Ports of Call, The Servants of the Wankh, The Star King, Throy, Trullion, Whyst.
John Wyndham (John Beynon): Trouble with Lichen, Survival
 
Sci-Fi Literature
Larry Niven: Known Space novels, Footfall, The Mote in God's Eye
Kim Stanley Robinson: Mars Trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars)
Dan Simmons: Hyperion Cantos

Non-Sci-Fi Literature:
Umberto Eco: The Name of the Rose
Michael Scott Rohan: The Winter of the World
Marion Zimmer Bradley: Mists of Avalon

Sci-Fi Movies
Alien(s)
Soylent Green
Ghost in the Shell
Akira
Serenity
Abyss

Non-Sci-Fi Movies
Apocalypse Now

Sci-Fi TV Shows
Babylon 5
Red Dwarf
Dark Skies
Star Hunter
Firefly

Non-Sci-Fi TV Shows
24
Lost

Computer Games
System Shock 1&2
Starflight 1&2
Frontier: First Encounters
Starcraft
X-Com 1&2
Star Control 2
Alien vs. Predator 2
Thief 1&2 (I know, I know, steampunk fantasy but still useful :))
 
The main influences and flavours for MTU are:
The Stainless Steel Rat
Shadowrun
The Maltese Falcon
Star Wars
Blake's Seven

It's a bit of a 'SF Noir'.
 
Andre Norton (especially the Solar Queen series)
Poul Anderson's future history stories
H. Beam Piper's future history stories
Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat stories
Isaac Asimov's Foundation and Robot stories
Larry Niven's Known Space stories
C. J. Cherryh Downbelow Station and Merchanter's Luck
David Weber's Honor Harrington series
Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers

Alien, Aliens
Outland
Firefly/Serenity
Babylon 5
 
Yes to all the above plus

Magazines

Heavy Metal
Epic (out of print)

Graphic Theme books on aliens, spacecraft, space, high fantasy

Analog
and several others

Dave Chase
 
Non SF:

Frederick Forsyth, The Dogs of War.

Actually ran this on Ruie. Unfortunately the PC's decided to attack the dictator's compound by hovering over it with the free trader that was used to transport the strike force and hose the compound down with the ship's lasers.
 
Books
Han Solo trilogy - Brian Daley.
Splinter of the Mind's Eye - Alan Dean Foster.
Dune - Frank Herbert.

Movies
Aliens.
Star Wars.
Star Trek.

Game
Star Frontiers.
 
Books
Asimov canon
Clarke canon
Herbert canon
Weber in parts
Sten series
parts of Harrison's lesser known novels
A. Reynolds
some Womack
Elizabeth Moon
some Halderman
some Bova

Films
Outland
Saturn 3
Star Wars
Alien(s)
Dune

SF Art
Fantastic art but tinged with realism (hence more paintings than computer rendering but with a good artist hard to tell some times)

Games
Fading Suns
Star Frontiers
Star*Drive
Cthulhu Rising
 
Wow. Big question. I have to say that anything I have read both fiction and non-fiction has had an effect on MyTU.

This includes everything from Aurthurian tales and the Illiad to Heinlein and Gordon Dickson.
 
Oh, man, I can't believe I didn't list Outland. What a great film and it sure does fit in my universe.
I think this is the hard part of a question like this. We quickly think of the titles but in point of fact other stuff has had an influence even though we do not think of it right away.

Some of the non-SciFi has had as much influence as the sciFi stuff for me. I can not imagine how much of my stuff has been drawn from Police and Spy genre films and books. Even westerns have had an impact as well.

Daniel
 
Yeah, you can always add to your list. I was thinking:
Blade Runner
1984
A Clockwork Orange
Brazil
The X Files
...and what was the name of that movie where everyone had their IQ/Soc grade tattoed on their forehead? (Alpha, Beta, Gamma, etc.)
 
...and what was the name of that movie where everyone had their IQ/Soc grade tattoed on their forehead? (Alpha, Beta, Gamma, etc.)
Doesn't remind me of any movie I can recall, but the novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley had this kind of social (and genetic - the entire population was gengineered) ranks.
 
Doesn't remind me of any movie I can recall, but the novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley had this kind of social (and genetic - the entire population was gengineered) ranks.

Actually, they weren't genetically engineered. They were bred from selected stock, and they were engineered by manipulating their environments. But Brave New World was 1930s hard SF, and DNA hadn't even been discovered then.
 
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