"God, I love science fiction!"

So they say stealing is the best method of teaching, and I'm starting to think what I can, er, "borrow" for my classes next year. "Aha!" I think. "I took an entire course on science fiction at Kenyon! Granted, it was in the biology department, but still. What can I steal from that?"

Ladies and gentlemen, I think Norgol will be making an appearance in my classroom next spring. Mwhahahaha.

(I was searching for other courses on SF, and I found this course, which teaches literary theory through sci-fi TV and movies. HOLY CRAP, YOU GUYS. I WOULD TOTALLY TAKE A THEORY COURSE IF IT MEANT WE WERE GOING TO WATCH EPISODES OF STAR TREK AND THE X-FILES.)

Speaking of that course, here are things I've been thinking about putting on the syllabus. The concentration will likely be on space travel and alien worlds/cultures, just because otherwise I'd go crazy with the amount out there.

- Bradbury's Martian Chronicles
- Dune
- Excerpts from Margaret Cavendish's The Description of a New World, Called the Blazing-World
- War of the Worlds?
- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
- Movie version of Contact (the book is arguably better, but if I taught the book it's all we'd get through in a semester)
- Various TV episodes: B5--"Believers" in particular, perhaps--Farscape, Futurama, the "Darmok" episode of TNG, Stargate?, BSG?, X-Files? (TV will feature heavily, I think. Hey, if B is doing an entire class on TV this semester...)
- Serenity?
- Short stories: maybe Willis's "The Soul Selects Her Own Society" for giggles (or Yolen's "Sister Emily's Lightship"? What is it about sci-fi writers and Emily Dickinson, anyway?), uh...my short story-fu is weak. I tend to prefer my reading material in novel-length chunks. There does appear to be a Norton anthology of them, though, so I must check that out over the summer.

I'd sort of like to do Frankenstein, but that doesn't fit my self-imposed theme, and I know most kids read it in high school. (There's some steampunk I'd like to do as well, so I may chuck the subtheme of space opera and alien interaction and just do a mishmash.)

Suggest things to me! If you were a freshman taking this course, what would you like to read? Anything science fiction-related will be considered; don't feel the need to stick to space opera.

*

Speaking of science fiction, I watched more B5 lately. Thoughts:

Oh, IVANOVA. You make me laugh so hard it HURTS.

I watched "By Any Means Necessary" last night, and "Signs & Portents" at dinner today. "Any Means" had the hilarious bit where Sinclair tells her to escort to the brig if they aren't out of C&C in ten seconds, and she starts shouting a countdown and marching on Londo and G'Kar all menancing-like. [I think this is also the episode with, "You will resist, I hope."] And S&P has the following exchange:

Ivanova: "I've always had a hard time getting up when it's dark outside."
Sinclair: "But in space, it's always dark outside."
Ivanova: "I know. I know." *sigh of defeat*

I had to pause the player, I was laughing so hard. (Much of the humor's in the delivery. Claudia Christian is awesome.)

I'm also enjoying the fact that technology in the Bab5 universe obeys the laws of physics much of the time! That's rather exciting. The artificial gravity generators or gravity plating or whatever mojo the Star Trek folks used to keep the budget down always bugged me a bit, and even the first time I watched this show, I recall admiring the use of actual centrifugal force to simulate gravity. (Although I was looking it up last night, and I came across an artist's conception of the interior of a real rotating space station, and whoa. That would mess with my mind like nothing else, seeing plants and buildings and people walking on the ceiling.) They even make an effort at showing how the areas of the station closer to the center of rotation are low gravity! (It does seem to break down on some of the ships, though. I noticed no rotating parts on the raider ship in S&P, but everyone's feet were still firmly on the ground. But E+ for effort on the station!)

The starfuries, weird-looking as they are, are also much more suited to maneuvering in zero gravity than the more airplane-based designs out there. I also think the jumpgates are, you know, more believeable than warp drive--I guess that's why they caught on for every other space opera out there since--and the gates themselves are very nifty when they light up in preparation for making a wormhole. (The wormholes themselves are not as cool-looking, but I've been spoiled by the pretty that are wormholes on Farscape.) Plus, dramatic tension abounds when there are long travel-times between jumpgate locations!