Carl Sagan's Contact read by Jodie Foster

[pokerfan]

Fantastic! Just discovered this. Yeah, it's abridged but it's still four and a half hours long. Of course, everyone knows she played the protagonist in the movie.

[kentauros]

1. Cool!

I'll have to listen to this over the weekend

I never read the book, though I tried. I found Sagan's fiction-writing style lacking (it came across as too clinical.) So, I'm thankful for the movie, one of my favorites for Hollywood-created science fiction.

[pokerfan]

2. Wasn't Contact his only foray into fiction?

I could be wrong. I read the book before it was a movie and Foster does a fantastic job with her reading using different voices, accents, etc. Nice production values too, with unobtrusive music and sound effects used to good effect. Truly a labor of love and a wonderful tribute to Carl. If you enjoyed the film, you will love this.

[kentauros]

3. Yes, I think it was his only work of fiction.

A self-help author I like also wrote a work of fiction, once. The story still came across as one of the "teaching" books, and not so much as a nice bit of escapism.

However, it sounds like Foster has managed to get it beyond any story-telling problems. Most audiobooks and the like are better at presenting the story than people would think

So, are you going to see the next Jodie Foster movie, Elysium, when it comes out soon? It looks good, and I didn't recognize her at first.

[pokerfan]

4. I was hoping that there was a book I might have missed

Elysium might be good but I will wait for reviews.

In the year 2154, the very wealthy live on Elysium stanford torus[6], a massive high-tech utopian metropolis located in orbit around earth that is free of crime, war, poverty, hunger, and diseases, while everyone else lives on an overpopulated, ruined Earth below.

Sounds like Star Trek's (TOS) The Cloud Minders.

[kentauros]

5. I know the masses won't notice in that little blurb,

but the last thing you want happening on a space station is a war

And yes, it does sound like The Cloud Minders.

For massive space-station type stories, I'd love to see The Two Faces of Tomorrow.

[pokerfan]

6. I would like to see Ringworld

That's about as massive a "space station" as humanly or alieny possible.

In 2004, the SyFy Channel reported that it was developing a Ringworld miniseries.[8] The series never came to fruition.

In 2013, it was again announced by the SyFy Channel that a miniseries of the novel was in development. This proposed 4-hour miniseries is being written by Michael R. Perry and will be a co-production between MGM Television and Universal Cable Productions.[9]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringworld#Film

[kentauros]

7. I know "siphie" has produced some good miniseries in the past,

but I haven't watched them since their re-branding. I have to wonder if this one will be any good or not. May just wait until it's on Netflix.

And I'd love to see a good theatrical version of Ringworld. The kind of science fiction we like isn't the standard fare for Hollywood, and why we don't see as many, either. Exploration, scientific curiosity, low-action puzzles don't go over too well with Hollywood.

Now, for falling within that kind of criteria, why not a great rendition of Stainless Steel Rat? Seems like audiences would love that future of Planet Dirt

[pokerfan]

8. SSR

would make a great SF comedy series (I could even see it as a half hour sit-com) but perhaps not accessible enough to the average viewer to gain the interest of a studio. Still, the popularity of the Big Band Theory tells me that there's a market for geeky programming.

[kentauros]

11. I've never watched Big Bang Theory,

so I don't know how audiences would take something like SSR. I'd say we should propose it to the British, instead, seeing as how they've had some great success with sci-fi comedies

[getting old in mke]

9. +(whatever Slippery Jim thinks he can get away with)

[kentauros]

10. Considering he could pick our average locked door without breaking step,

I'd say he'd think he could get away with a Brazilian