A Science Fiction Father/Daughter podcast. We called it "History in Reverse", because history is about the past and science fiction is about the future, so it's like history but going in reverse direction. Get it? Caroline, the daughter, got hooked on science fiction by Richie, the father, when we…
In this episode of "History in Reverse" we compare the 1956 movie "Forbidden Planet" to the play "The Tempest". "Forbidden Planet" was one of the early big budget science fiction movies. In fact it was nominated for its special effects. "Forbidden Planet" was loosely based on "The Tempest", so that's why we decided to compare the two. We want to mention that Prospero did not kill Sycorax (the mother of Caliban). She was already dead when Prospero and Miranda arrived on the island. As always you can write us at history.in.reverse.podcast@gmail.com and let us know what you think.
WARNING: this podcast contains SPOILERS!!! So we spent last 9 weeks watching the HBO series "The Last Of Us". Caroline wanted to see it because she had played game that inspired the show. Richie wanted to see if because there was so much hype about the series. In this episode we discuss the details of the plot and our impressions. If you have not seen the series you should watch first, as this podcast contains tons of SPOILERS (you have been warned). As mentioned in our discussion, Caroline has published detailed reviews of each episode and she also appears on other podcasts discussing this show. Links to articles are here: https://www.thefandomentals.com/author/caroline/ As always you can write us at history.in.reverse.podcast@gmail.com and let us know what you think.
Over the holidays we went to see "Avatar: The Way of Water" and decided to discuss our impressions. We both avoided reading most of the reviews, so that we would not be influenced by other opinions. Basically we liked the movie, but Caroline had a lot criticism of the plot. If you haven't seen the movie, don't worry about any spoilers as the story is very, very predictable. As with first Avatar movie the visuals were very pretty. But, as we noted, the deepest part of the movie was the ocean! As always you can write us at history.in.reverse.podcast@gmail.com and let us know what you think.
In our 20th episode of "History in Reverse" we are discussing a book by Becky Chambers titled "Psalm for the Wild Built". The book is a story of a monk and robot on a trip in the woods :) We both enjoyed the book a lot and highly recommend it to everyone. It's different from other stuff we discussed, as this book is was only published in 2021, so it is rather new. The main character of the story is Sibling Dex, whose pronoun is "they/them". While Caroline was pretty good sticking to the correct pronoun, Richie kept forgetting and referring to Dex as "he". Clearly Richie needs more practice! As always you can write us at history.in.reverse.podcast@gmail.com and let us know what you think.
Continuing our time-traveling theme, we discuss two time-travel stories: "The Merchant and the Alchemist Gate" by Ted Chiang, and "The Seventh Voyage" from Star Diaries by Stanislaw Lem. Our discussions include many spoilers, so you should read the stories first. They are not that long. Turns out that someone made a short play/movie from Lem's story and published it on YouTube. Check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6IImZRh19M As always you can write us at history.in.reverse.podcast@gmail.com and let us know what you think.
We are back with the discussion of the Robert Heinlein story "All You Zombies" and the movie "Predestination". We also briefly talked about Futurama episode "Rosewell that ends well". Now if you haven't read the story or seen the movie, go read and watch it first, since our discussion is full of spoilers. After you read the story, check out the time diagram on the "All you Zombies" Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_You_Zombies#/media/File:All_you_zombies_timeline.png As always you can write us at history.in.reverse.podcast@gmail.com and let us know what you think.
Once again we are combining book and a movie. This time we picked H.G. Well's classic "The Time Machine". Then we watched the 1960 movie, "The Time Machine" and finally, just for fun, we watched a Futurama episode "The Late Philip J. Fry", which also had a time machine in it. It was kind of interesting to see how the book and the movie considered different social problems, and how they led to the future which the Time Traveler visited. As always you can write us at history.in.reverse.podcast@gmail.com and let us know what you think.
Since we liked discussing books and movies at the same time, we decided to do it again. This time we picked "Minority Report" the Philip K. Dick story and the 2002 movie. We consider the differences between the movie and the story - in this case there are many. Maybe the funniest is that it takes less time to read the story than to watch the movie. This is first time we considered a Philip K. Dick story in our podcast, but we'll do more in the future as we both like Philip K. Dick's stories and books. As always you can write us at history.in.reverse.podcast@gmail.com and let us know what you think.
After a long wait we went to see the new "Dune" movie. In this podcast we discuss the new movie. We liked the movie a lot, but Caroline always has some interesting criticism. Since we both read the book "Dune" before, we tried not to talk about what will be in Part 2 of the movie, when it comes out in the future. We tried to stop talking once we passed one hour mark, but it took a while to finish up. As always you can write us at history.in.reverse.podcast@gmail.com and let us know what you think.
After a long hiatus "History in Reverse" is back with another episode. Once again we are discussing Lem. This time we read several whimsical stories from the "Cyberiad". Even though some of the stories are pretty silly (eg. stupid machine that insists that 2 + 2 = 7), Lem manages to weave in some deep philosophical ideas - like does the appearance of suffering differ from actual suffering? As always you can write us at history.in.reverse.podcast@gmail.com and let us know what you think.
In this episode we discuss and compare the dystopias we read and try to answer question such as "Was Katniss a martyr?", "How was Hal Bregg like John Savage?" and other such questions. We also talk about which dystopias we liked, and why dystopias are so popular. Also, don't forget to listen to the out-takes at the very end of the podcast. As always you can write us at history.in.reverse.podcast@gmail.com and let us know what you think.
In this episode we discuss two short stories: "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" by Ursula LeGuin and "Truth of Fact, Truth of Feeling" by Ted Chiang. These two stories are not your classic dystopias, but stories with some dystopian features. We discuss how they differ from some of the other dystopias we read, in what ways they are dystopias and we consider the metaphors these stories represent. As always you can write us at history.in.reverse.podcast@gmail.com and let us know what you think.
Welcome back to the 11th episode of "History In Reverse". Continuing with dystopias, we discuss Margaret Atwood's "Handmaid's Tale". We both read the book, but haven't seen the movies or the recent TV series. We discuss the plot, themes (of course!!) and some deep moral question, for which we do not have answers. As always you can write us at history.in.reverse.podcast@gmail.com and let us know what you think.
Welcome back to "History in Reverse", a father/daughter science fiction podcast. In this, our 10th episode we continue with discussions of dystopias. This time we read "The Hunger Games". We discuss the details of the plot and some themes that were there and some that were missing. We expected this episode to be short. Instead it turned out to be the longest episode so far. We hope you can last until the end. As always you can write us at history.in.reverse.podcast@gmail.com and let us know what you think.
Welcome back to "History in Reverse", a father/daughter science fiction podcast. In this episode we continue our dystopia series with Stanislaw Lem's "Return From The Stars". This one turns out to be a more ambiguous dystopia/utopia. We discuss the plot and compare it to "Brave New World". We both liked the opening chapter, but were somewhat undecided on the rest of the book. As in "Solaris" Lem is not that into women characters. As always you an write us at history.in.reverse.podcast@gmail.com and let us know what you think.
Welcome back to History in Reverse, a father/daughter science fiction podcast. The next book in our dystopia series is George Orwell's "1984". It's a classic political dystopia, that has had large influence on our culture. We discuss the plot and then consider if this was the most depressing book ever written. We briefly mention another podcast, "Classical Things You Should Know", which also covered "Brave New World". As always you an write us at history.in.reverse.podcast@gmail.com
Welcome back to History in Reverse, a father/daughter science fiction podcast. Today we are starting a new theme - dystopias. We begin with the classic "Brave New World". We discuss the plot and the characters and consider some deep questions - like, what's a dystopia and what is free will? The Greek philosophers would have been proud of us! We mention the book "We" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_(novel)), which probably inspired Huxley to write "Brave New World". As always you can write to us: history.in.reverse.podcast@gmail.com
Welcome back to History in Reverse, a father/daughter science fiction podcast. Today we compare the aliens that were present in the 5 books we read in our first five podcasts. We mentioned "The Great Moon Hoax" of 1935 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Moon_Hoax) and also couple of other books: "Fire Upon the Deep" - by Vernor Vinge and "Embassytown" by China Mielville. As always you can write to us: history.in.reverse.podcast@gmail.com
Welcome back to History in Reverse, a father/daughter science fiction podcast. Today we are discussing the classic SF book, "War of the Worlds" by H.G. Wells. We believe that his was the first SF book that have aliens from another planet invade Earth. In the podcast we mention the Orson Wells radio broadcast of "War of the Worlds" in 1938, which is said to have caused panic among the listeners. We discuss the book and many themes that are now well worn SF ideas; but H.G. Wells started them. You can hear this broadcast here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs0K4ApWl4g Also in the town of Woking, where the story starts, and where H.G. Wells lived there is sculpture of the "Martian": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Martian_Tripod_Woking.JPG
Welcome back to History in Reverse, a father/daughter science fiction podcast. Today we discuss the book by Orson Scott Card "Speaker for the Dead". There are many spoilers in the podcast, so you should probably read the book first. This episode run long, because we could not stop talking about the book, even though we did leave out a lot of observations. But that's because "Speaker For the Dead" is great. In the introduction to the book, Orson Scott Card names James Blish's "A Case of Conscience" as an inspiration and a great example of anthropological science fiction. Check it out too.
Welcome back to History in Reverse, a father/daughter science fiction podcast. In this episode we discuss the novella "Story of your life" by Ted Chiang, and the movie "Arrival, which was an adaptation of Ted Chiang's story. Links to things we mentioned in the discussion: TED Talk on language and thinking: https://www.ted.com/talks/lera_boroditsky_how_language_shapes_the_way_we_think And the book "Order of Time" by Carlo Rovelli: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/551483/the-order-of-time-by-carlo-rovelli/9780735216105/ Enjoy! And let us know what you thing by email: history.in.reverse.podcast@gmail.com
Welcome back to History in Reverse, a father/daughter science fiction podcast. In this episode we discuss the novel "Solaris" by Polish writer Stanislaw Lem. Links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1tnAyARsmA - TV version of Solaris from the 60s. http://www.earnovertheweb.com/solaripedia/activity.html - some features of Solaris's ocean imagined in art
Welcome to History in Reverse, a father-daughter science fiction podcast. In this premiere episode we discuss Ursula LeGuin's "The Left Hand of Darkness". Music from B-52's song "Planet Claire". You can contact us at history.in.reverse.podcast@gmail.com
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