Humans and non humans

Authors, SF

1. General
2. Topics
3. Books by authors

Specially recommended : ENGELIBERT (see below) which offers a rich collection of major historical SF texts.

1. General

Good : we are evolving off beyong fantasy. Games keep an important place.
Bad : no digital art.
General : not very interesting AI. Or they are "robots", or they are "humans" (rather caricatural, the classical good and bad people)
General : Immortality, life htroug an avatar : 1Q84 ? Cline/ Daemon/ Ecken/Lester del Rey

2. Topics

2.1. Robots and transhumanism

The idea of some humanoid machines are around from the Antiquity.

A lot of tull texts, and some quotations of others, are given in French in Engélibert.

At the end of XXth century, SF has been quite mute about robots. The grand mythologies which form the frame of people born after 1970 (roughly) has not been fed like the precedent generations with Biblical and Antiquity themes, but by a little number of greats sagas : []Starwars, The Lord of the Rings [Tolkien], Harry Potter [Rowling ]. Here robots are absent, or limited to second roles (in Starwars, for example).

But, before that, on a second level during this end of century, and more frequently today, a lot of SF has developped stories about robots.

The typical scenario shows a revolt of humanoid robots, and a return to normality due to a young hero. The robots or aliens are destroyed or leave us quiet [Banks],[Hoyle].

In some cases, the robots save Mankind from itself : [Wall.E]

In very few cases, a peaceful cooperation, if not love and procreation is shown. [del Rey], [Bacigulpi]

For [Asimov], the robots wins, but accept Mankind. Similar with [Hoyle], and with [Moravec] essay.

In a rare case, the transhmn is not physically humanoid, but a cloud [Hoyle]

Sometimes, not properly robots, but a system elaborated by a man and operating after his death : [Cline],[Ecken], [Suarez], somehow [Murakami]

- men transformed
- robots humanized
- undetermined but hostile
- cloud Hoyle
- un dertmined, but fatherly Asimov, Moravec
the bad ones
- humanoid, to the of not recognizing them. adverse. Blade Runner, Asmiov
- human near. HG Wells
- Putting men into slaves.

Typology of the human attitudes regarding NH
- fascination/lack of interest
- love/hate
- dominant/submissive
- peacepul/combative

On this topic : Bacigulpi
Wilson Robopocalypse

Very frequently, human behaviours if not feelings, good [Starwars], [Wall-E], or bad, are lent to robots, without much explanations.
Robots may be clones of men [Tron], degraded humans [Capek], [Huxley]
Robots look like humans, and it is a task to detect them [Dick]
Micro-robots Crichton Micro
Writer robots : Leiber The Silver Eggheads.
Robots have won : Welles Dan Partials
Zola : La bête humaine.

2.2. Other Topics

AI and VR : Haley Omega Point
Avatars : the film.
Avatars after death : Ecken, Suarez Daemon and Freedom
Biotechnologies : Crichton Next, Huxley Brave new world, Shelley Frankenstein
Cell phones : King Cell.
Drones. Gibson Zero History
Extraterrestrials. [Wells] Not robots
Game writers : Powers Plowing the Dark
Games and social media: Stephenson Reamde
Nanotechnologies : Stephenson Diamond Age, Crichton Micro
Post singularity. Cline Ready Player One.
Surveillance : Gibson Zero History, MacLeod Intrusion . Works of Lozano-Hemmer
Teaching. Stephenson, Diamond Age
VR and games. Cline. Readyplayer one. Coupland jPod. Scott Card The "Ender" Strategy. , Stephenson Snowcrash

3.Books, films, etc. by Authors

Abeille Cimitière, sorte de temple (not properly SF)

Aiken Cyberpsychology. Not political.

Asimov Isaac. . Wikipedia
< Robots and Empire. Nightfall Inc. 1985
< The rest of the Robots. Dobson books Ltd, 1967. Complements, sometimes more complex.
< I, Robot. Doubleday and Cy, 1956.
The plot : A basic series of novels, from simple robots to a world controlled by "them", and the three famed Asimov's laws.

Bacigulpi Paolo. Science fiction writer.
< The Windup Girl. 2009 A sort of fusion/fight... between automata and humans. Wikipedia
The plot : Emiko is a sexual robot. A complex action in a degraded Bangkok, with biotechnologies at the heart. At end, Emiko will may be able to procreate, or at least to have children heirs or her genome.
Topics : biotechnologies, political decomposition, robots.

Banks Iain
< The Business Ends up with marriage with a prince. A trip in the world of international trusts.
< Excession. Bantam Books 1996. Wikipedia. About AI.

Baudelaire.
< L'automate. In Oeuvres posthumes, 1908.

Breton Thierry and Beneich Denis Softwar. La guerre douce Robert Laffont 1984. Software as a weapon.

Briggs Ctrl+S. Sadism by exchanges betwee real and virtual worlds.

Brunner John The Shockware Rider A world dominated with information technologies, and a hero who subverts it, with a description of a human world.

Callenbach Ecotopia An ecologic state has made secession in California.

Calvet E. Dans 1000 ans Delagrave 1880. Comparatively poor, but prior to Robida and Verne.

Capek Karel
< R.U.R. 1921. Invention of the work Robot. But his robots are actually degraded humans.

Chiang Ted Exhalation. Travel through time and back.

Cline Ernest
< Ready player one. Dark All Days 2011.
Plot : After the economical/ecological collapse. VR as both educational and recreational escape from reality.
Topics : Technology vintage. Virtual reality and games. Magic, but in the VR, though mixed with real world. Dead man's avatar. A youg heroe saves the world from a Mafia.
Not really interting AI.
- p. 48. Oasis explained : the Ontologically Anthropocentric Sensory Immersion Simulation.
No really interesting AI
- p 122. new type of videogame
- p. 186 "I'm in love with your mind, with the person you are. I could not care less about the packaging.
" The Oasis contained hundreds (and eventually thousands) of high-resolution 3-D worlds for people to explore, and each on was beautifully rendered in meticulous graphical detail, ritght down to bts and blades of grass, wind and weather patters". p. 57

Corera : Intercept. Spies in the digital. SF ?

Couch : Recursion .

Coupland Dougls :
< jPod. 2005. Au diable Vauvert 2010. (traduction française) Wikipedia. Plot : Tthe strange and unconventional everyday life of the main character, Ethan Jarlewski, and his team of video game programmers whose last names all begin with the letter 'J'.

Crichton Michael
< Micro. with Richard Preston Harper&Collins 2011. Wikipedia
< Next. Harper & Collins 2006. Wikipedia
Plot complex. A man genome is researched by ruthless businessmen.
Topics : biotechnologies.
< Prey. In French : La proie. Laffont 2002. Titre original : Prey
< Jurassic park. Ballantine 1991
< L'informatique, c'est la vie. Mazarine 1984.
< The terminal man. Jonathan Cape, Ldt 1972. In French : L'homme terminal . 19<2

Crouch Blake Recursion

Danrit (Commandant Driant). Around 1900.
< La guerre de demain I/La guerre de forteresse II/La guerre en rase campagne III/La guerre en ballon. IV. (avec de Pardiellan): Le journal de guerre du lieutenant Von Piefke -
< La guerre fatale (France Angleterre) I A Bizerte II En sous-marin III En angleterre. (sous-marin, télécom). Peu après 1900. -
< L'invasion noire I. Mobilisation africaine II Concentration: pélerinage ... La Mecque III A travers l'Europe IV Autour de Paris -
< L'invasion jaune I. La mobilisation sino-japonaise II A travers l'Europe - Robinsons sous-marins - Robinsons de l'air -
< L'aviateur du pacifique - Alerte -Au dessus du continent noir - Robinsons souterrains - Ordre du tzar - Evasion de l'empereur

Del Rey Lester Robots and changelings, Ballantine books 1957. Marvelous short SF stories

Dick Philip K.

< Substance rêve, Dédales sans fin, Aurore sur un jardin de palmes, La Porte obscure, (intégrale des romans) Éd. Omnibus, 1990-1994.
< Les machines à illusions. J avec Ray Nelson.J 'ai lu 1980. Original: The Ganymede Takeover, 1967.
< Do Androids dream of electronic sheep. Rapp and Whiting, 1969. (French translation Robot Blues, éditions Chute libre). Has become a film by Stephen Spielberg, Minority report.

Disney Walt
> Wall'E
> Fantasia

Ecken Claude
< L'univers en pièce. Chroniques télématiques 1. Fleuve noir 1987. A dead man has let an automaton simulating his perennity.

Engélibert Jean-Paul.
< L'homme fabriqué. Récits de la création de l'homme par l'homme. Garnier 2000. (Integral translation or copy of storeis by Hoffmann, Shelley, Poe, Barbara, Bierce, Schropp, Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, Wells, Panizza, Capek, Huxley , Glish et Carter, and a (very interesting) introduction and work presentations by J.P.Engélibert, and extracts from Ovide, Descartes, La Mettrie, Baudelaire and Truong).

Erikson Rejoice . Alien saves or wipes humanity.

Gaudin Thierry. (Prospective, not SF)
< 2100, récit du prochain siècle, ed. by Thierry Gaudin, with Jean-François Degremont, Catherine Distler, Gilbert Payan, and François Pharabod:. Payot 1990.
p. 194. Teaching machines.
p. 207 bio art

Gibson William
< Spook Country. Penguin 2007 . Not about digital topics, it seems.
< Zero History.
Plot. Fight between a businesman genius around fashion.
Topics : Surveillance, networks, drones. No robot The good as well as the bad are humans.
Design, but not on digital aspects. Games at times
p. 116. Deeper code.
< Identification des schémas. 2003

Godfrey The synapse sequence.

Goonan Kathleen Ann. Wikipedia.
< Light Music. Harper&Collins 2002. Complex topic. Digital ?

Haley Guy.
< Omega point. Angry Robot paperback original, 2012.
Plot : k52 is a vast artificial intelligence with world domination on its mind. If it succeeds in creating an artificial reality based on our own universe, it could gain enough data to allow it to alter reality itself, turning k52 into the ultimate arbiter of mankind's fate. It's down to Richards and Klein to stop k52 - enven though the alternative could be worse". (Presentation of the bok by itself).
The point of view of Shadowhawk.

Hoffmann Erbst Theodor Amadeus
< Les automates. 1814
< L'homme au sable 1817

Hoyle Fred
< The black cloud 1957

Huxley Aldous
< Brave new world, Chatto & Windus, UK, 1932. In French : Le meilleur des Mondes

Jonas (the prophet)
- Humor and a sort of SF

Kelly Kevin
< Out of Control
< Simulacra and Simulation

King Stephen
< Cell. Hodder 2006.
Plot : madmen use cell phones to enslave the whole world, returning them to a beastly state. The heroe stops that.
Topics : cell phone, communication.

Lang Fritz : Metropolis. Film, 1926.

Lasseter John . Film maker.
> Cars 2 (2011).
> Cars (2006).
> Toy Story (1995) . Pixar. Video of an interview about this film.
> Luxo Jr (1986). A short film with the table lamp. In the Moma (NY) collections.

Legendre Crackville. 1884 environ. Dans le genre délirant, mais quelques intuitions extraordinaires, notamment le bug et la voiture autonome.

Leiber Fritz
< The Silver Eggheads (1961) . In French Génies en boite. Presses de la cité 1983.

Lester Del Rey : Robots and changelings. Ballantine 1957

Lisberger Steven. Film maker
> Tron

Levin Ira
< Un bonheur insoutenable. Laffont 1971. Original 1970.

Lucas George, Lucasfilm. Wikipedia.
> Star Wars. Several notes in [Rose].
< LEGO Starwars. The visual dictionary. Huginn and Muninn, 2009

Macleod Ken
< Intrusion . 2012 . About birth control, surveillance, social life.

Marukami Haruki
< 1Q84. 3 volumes, 2009-2010. Wikipedia
Plot. Two heroes and a bad man.
Topics : Genetics/biotechnology. Surveillance. Also parallel worlds, sort of magic. , communications. No games. Reference to Orwell in the title. Not so in the text. Guru leader, survival.
Some complementary notes.

Orwell George
< 1984. First publication, 1950. By Penguin Books since 1954

Poe Edgar.
< Le joueur d'échecs de Maelzel. 1836
< L'homme qui était refait. 1839

Powers Richard
< Plowing the dark. Vintage, London, 2002.
Plot : Two interlaced plots : the prisoner of a jihadist sect, and a digital artistg in a cutting edge studio. Finally, the artist frees herself.
Topics : digital art/games, psychology, liberty

ROBIDA Albert : Le vingtième siècle. Editions Georges Decaux. Un extrait : Les merveilles du téléphonoscope

Rowling J K
> Pottermore (2013). Transmedia version.
< Harry Potter and the chamber of secrets. 1998 (one among several tomes)

Schteyngart Gary
< Super sad true love story, Random house 2010). Wikipedia

Shaw Bernard
< Pygmalion (1900 c.). French version , Aubier Montaigne, 1967.

Shelley Mary
< Frankenstein. 1818. Edition de poche Airmont 1963.

Shteingart Gary
< Super Sad True Love Story. Random House 2010.

Stephenson Neal
< Reamde. Atlantic Books 2011. (Wikipedia . Contemporaneous fiction, mainly about games and social media. Not very future.
< The diamond age, Bantam 1995 Wikipedia). Nanotechnologies, Computed aided teaching. .
< Cryptonomicon. I. Le code Enigma (Payot SF 1999), II Le réseau Kinakuta (Payot SF 1999), III Golgotha (Payof SF 2001). A fantasy rewriting of cryptoraphy during WW2.
< Snow crash ( 1992). Virtual worlds, viruses, informational issues. .

Stross Charles
< Singularity sky. Ace Books 2003 Wikipedia concludes : "A recurring theme of this book is that information and by extension progress are inexorable: the conflict between the neo-luddite/monarchist New Republic and the post-singularity transhuman culture that contacts them is utterly devastating for the status quo of the former, and our spy heroes are world-weary enough to realize this, exasperated by their apparent inability to understand that one can no more avoid change than one can avoid breathing. Information is, by whatever mechanism, the phlogiston of said change, providing its vital energies. "
Different societies :
- UNO
- Republic (terrans)
- Festival
- Critics 78
Eschaton
- Rachel Mansour memory, changed to... 116

Finally, not up to the expectations. Disappointing.
Ambitious topic. But most of the action takes place within a caricatural "terran" military fleet, from a world, The New Republic, that has blocked progress and stuck to an authoritarian regime. The two heroes are human, with some added powers and high technology means, but not more than open minded human beings of today. Two transhuman species take some place in the plot :
- the Festival, a sort of cloud of beings. Very powerful but without real aims other than maintaining the security of the Universe ; one could say : technically trans-human, psyhologically under-humans.
- the Critics, rather queer category of beings, some kind of clever and useful jesters, not easy to understand.

Finally, the book does not really throw light on the singularity issues.

Suarez Daniel. Wikipedia
< Kill Decision 2012
. Reality, but using Fantasy as the Cavalry. Demo-ecology against political-liberal coalition.

< Freedom 2010. TM. Fleuve noir 2011. Original anglais 2010.
Plot.
Topics. Concentration of power on two personalities. The commander (politics + corporations) and Loki (the ecologists)
Freedom p. 29 . (Dark Net is just the German translation of Freedom).

< Daemon 2006. Original 2009. French version Fleuve noir 2010.
Plot. Dead man's.
Topics. Dead man's plot. For what ? Real, but using magics. Inspired by videogames, but not game.

Suarez : compare with Crichton, the prey. Swarming.

Tolkien R
< The Lord of the Rings. Original 1954-1955

Truong Jean-Michel
< Totalement inhumaine. Les empêcheurs de danser en rond, 2001.
< Le successeur de pierre. Denoël 1999
< Reproduction interdite. Olivier Orban 1989.

Van Vogt A.E
< The World of Null-A. 1945 in Astounding SF.

Villiers de l'Isle Adam
< L'Eve future. First publication 1886. G-F Flammarion, 1992.

Wachowsky Andy
> Matrix. Matrix reloaded. Matrix revolution. 1999 and following years;

Wells Dan
> Partials. Harper&Collins 2012
Like Cline (Ready player one). Happens after a break. Here, robots have won (Partials), plus division between humains.
H-NH
- in both parts, same pb with perverse leaders. Playing them against their people. Not a mafia.
- political reflexion. + post-modern revolt (The voice).

Wells Herbert George
- On Wells, a note in 2100 p.65 . See also Geoffrey West H.G. Wells. French publication : Gallimard 1932
< La machine à explorer le temps. 1895
< L'Ile du docteur Moreau. 1896
< L'homme invisible (1897)
< La guuerre des mondes (1898)
< A modern utopia. Tauchnitz, c. 1900
< Tono-Bungay. Macmillan 1909 (Republished Everyman 1994)
< The shape of things to come. Huchinson & §Co, London 1935

Wilson Daniel H.
< Robopocalypse, Doubleday 2011. Les robots contre l'humanité. Le thème n'est certes pas neuf. Mais ce livre le renouvelle. Il s'appuie sur l'état de l'art, depuis les aspirateurs domestiques jusqu'aux drones armés de l'Afghanistan. L'auteur a d'ailleurs fait une thèse de robotique à l'université Carnegie Mellon.
Thèmes nouveaux : au fil de l'histoire, les robots deviennent de plus en plus biologiques, et en même temps des humains sont infectés par les méchants robots. En sens inverse, certains robots sont convertis à la cause de l'humanité. Wilson pourrait aller encore plus loin dans cette sorte de convergence. Spielberg will make a film of fit, to be presented by Disney in 2013.
. Robocalypse games for Nintendo, iPhone, WII.

Zola Emile
< La bête humaine. 1890.