Does Not Equal is a webcomic by Sarah Ennals – check out the pre-Futurismic archives, and the strips that have been published here previously.
[ Be sure to check out the Does Not Equal Cafepress store for webcomic merchandise featuring Canadians with geometrically-shaped heads! ]
Flash forward 20 years. Everyone has access to an open-source personal rapid prototyper (notwithstanding a fabber equivalent of Bill Gates…) and can rustle up one of these homebrew UAVs: at the drop of a futuristic ambient computer thing:
Combined with a RC plane, this makes it easy to build a complete UAV for less than $500, which is really kind of amazing. As exciting as that it is, it’s also sobering to know that a technology that was just a few years ago the sole domain of the military is now within the reach of amateurs…
As Charles Stross points out, ready-to print Saturday night specials could be only a decade away, and along with the UAVs and the fabbers it makes the next few years an interesting time to be alive.
Last year, as the self-appointed resident Futurismic SF theatre blogger, I posted about a revival of Karel Capek’s 1921 play R.U.R., which gave us the word “robot.” Now comes word that Manhattan Theatre Source is staging the world premiere of a new adaptation of R.U.R. called Universal Robots, set in an alternate 2009 in which humans have all been dead since 1971 and “Each year we gather together to tell the story that we never ever forget.” (Via SF Scope.)
Here’s the synopsis:
The Great War has just ended. The fledgling Republic of Czechoslovakia, under its first elected President, boasts a thriving artistic and intellectual community. At the center of that community is Karel Capek, a celebrated playwright and a passionate advocate for all his newborn nation can achieve. But the brave new world arrives faster than Karel could have ever expected when a young woman walks into his life with a strange mannequin in a wheelchair… a mannequin that gets up and moves all by itself.
Universal Robots offers a compelling, alternate history of the Twentieth Century, imagining the invention of the robot in 1921 and chronicling the shocking consequences of that invention right up to the present day.
Part science fiction thriller, part love story, part political allegory, part redemptive tragedy and a fast-paced entertainment throughout, Universal Robots departs significantly from Capek’s script, offering a meaty and riveting story of war, love, faith, art, and technology that culminates, in the words of NYTheatre’s Martin Denton, in an “edge-of-your-seat finish equal to the best story-telling of stage or screen.”
Universal Robots runs at Manhattan Theatre Source, 177 MacDougal Street (between Waverly Place and West 8th Street), New York, New York from February 12 to March 7, with performances Wednesday through Saturday at 7:30PM. Tickets are $18, and are available from theatermania.com or by calling 212-352-3101. You can see a gallery of images from the play here, and there’s even a Universal Robots blog with a Robot of the Day feature.
On Saturday, February 21, from 3 to 4 p.m. there will also be a Robots Panel Discussion during the afternoon, featuring Tammy Oler, Dr. Yann LeCun, Dr. Michael L. Littman, and Dan Paluska:
From Karel Capek’s 1921 play R.U.R. to the Terminator films and Battlestar Galactica, fears of a robot apocalypse have been pervasive in science fiction. Yet, we increasingly look to robotics and artificial intelligence to enrich our lives. Some scientists even suggest that we will have intimate relationships with robots in the near future. Will robots usher in a revolution or a cultural renaissance? Join us for a lively panel discussion on our evolving relationship to robots as well as our fears and desires in today’s wired world.
If anyone in the Futurismic community attends, post a comment to let us know what you think!
(Image: Universal Robots website.)
[tags]theatre,plays,robots,science fiction[/tags]
[ This is a guest broadcast from the Alternate Reality News Service. ]
1) What is the Alternate Reality News Service?
It’s, uhh, a service that provides news from alternate realities.
2) Like Rush Limbaugh’s brain?
No. Some alternate realities are too dangerous for us to allow our reporters to enter.
3) How does it work?
We use an ion capacitance coil in a particle accelerator to collapse the quantum probabilities of atoms into a different reality than the one that we experience every day. Then, we use a wormhole borrowed from a black hole to transport our journalists between the two realities. The great thing about particles accelerated to near light speeds is that –
4) Whoa! Whoa! Could you explain that in layman’s terms?
Sure. We push the red button, a light goes on in the doorway and we push somebody through it.
5) How do you get the journalists back from the alternate reality?
They’re on a timer.
6) That may be, but how do you get them back?
It’s a really fancy timer. Digital.
7) I’m sure it’s great, but how do you get your journalists back?
We offer them a free meal when they return.
8) That’s it?
You’d be surprised what journalists will do for a free meal.
9) What happens to ARNS reporters who materialize in alternate realities hostile to life?
They make employee of the month.
10) With, like, a plaque on the wall?
Don’t be so cynical. It’s a lovely plaque.
11) Do your correspondents ever bring back pieces of where they’ve been with them?
Oh, sure. It’s hard to get alternate reality out of leather.
12) Isn’t that a problem?
Can be. Funny story: one of our reporters, Alicia Grubskotowskaya, came back from a planet called Ambulster with a fluvianatole. She didn’t know – hee hee – that the fluvianatole was pregnant. Well! Before you could say “If the three yellow suns are aligned, the day will be malign,” the carnivorous race had taken over the Earth, enslaved everybody and started breeding humans for our meat. (They started the human meat farms in countries that already had high levels of obesity – the best argument for dieting we’ve ever heard.) Oops. Our bad.
13) Why don’t I remember any of that?
You don’t? Oh, ahh, we must be getting this mixed up with another reality. Sorry. Still, lesson learned: don’t travel with a fluvianatole unless you know it’s been neutered!
14) Whose idea was the Alternate Reality News Service?
Bill Gates.
15) Really?
No. But after he bought the ARNS, he had the official history of the organization rewritten so that it would seem as though he had created it.
16) And you accept this?
In most realities, Bill Gates is a small sea slug, so it kind of all works out.
17) How can I become an Alternate Reality News Service journalist?
Not everybody can be an ARNS correspondent. It takes a special mix of nerves of steel, the intelligence to be able to negotiate with living beings that are substantially different than you and the wisdom to know when negotiations are pointless.
18) What if I have my own notepad?
You’re in!
19) Why are all of your correspondents’ names so long?
They’re Scandinavian.
20) Is the Alternate Reality News Service based in Scandinavia?
No, we just recruit heavily there.
21) Do you have any correspondents from, you know, any alternate realities?
We’ve considered using superthin 17 dimensional beings in universes with conditions that are hostile to human life. We call this our “Stringer Theory.” It’s still a theory because we haven’t found any superthin 17 dimensional beings to test it out on.
22) What’s the strangest alternate reality you’ve got reporters in?
The one where George W. Bush wins the Nobel Prize for Peace, Love and Understanding.
23) What’s so strange about that?
Alfred Nobel made his fortune in dynamite. Where’s the peace, love and understanding in that?
24) All this talk of alien invasions – the truth is that most alternate realities are just as boring as this one, isn’t it?
Look, when you come home from work, do you tell your wife about the three hours you spent filling out requisition forms for photocopier toner cartridges? Of course not. You tell her about the weasel that got into the coffee pot. Yes, okay, most alternate realities are duller than Jimmy Carter. You happy, now? Man, we’ve had enough of this. We’re going to see if any weasels got into the coffee pot.
Excerpted from Alternate Reality Ain’t What It Used To Be. Copyright 2008 by Ira Nayman.
Print versions of Alternate Reality Ain’t What It Used To Be can be purchased through Amazon.com and major bookstores. A complete digital version of the book (except for the amazing cover – sigh) can be found on the Web site Les Pages aux Folles, which also features three new Alternate Reality News Service stories every third week.
The Alternate Reality News Service: “If you don’t like this reality, try another one!”
Greetings, boys and girls – it’s Friday Free Fiction time here at Futurismic! I’m (technically) on holiday right now, so I hope you’ll forgive me skipping the preamble and getting to the nitty-gritty…
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Just the one at Manybooks:
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And one at Feedbooks:
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Guess who’s back? It’s the WTF Network, with a brief teaser for season 2 of Shadow Unit.
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Issue #4 of the Concept Sci-fi ezine is now available as a free download in both PDF and MobiPocket formats.
This issue includes short fiction from Jaine Fenn, author of Principles of Angels, and also from Sean Williams, author of the Astropolis series. You can also find fiction from Rod Slatter, Lee Giminez and Justin Ryan Schwan, and an interview with Michael Cobley, writer of Seeds of Earth, and the prologue and first two chapters of his book.
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New month, new issue of Clarkesworld Magazine:
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Here’s a vignette entitled “Vignette” about a character named Vignette. No prizes for guessing it’s by Jeff VanderMeer, then. 😉
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Chris Roberson‘s getting back into the giveaways: this week’s offering is “Secret Histories: Jake Carmody, 1961”
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Here’s the latest batch from Apex Online:
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Jake Freivald writes to tell us that the new issue of Flash Fiction Online features a new piece by friend-of-Futurismic Jay Lake, amongst other bite-sized fiction morsels.
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Strange Horizons presents “This Must Be the Place” by Elliott Bangs
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Jayme Lynn Blaschke delivers the thirty-third slice of his Memory
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Here’s the tidbits that were sifted out by the internet baleen of the SF Signal pod::
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As always, we’ll wrap things up with some Friday Flash Fiction:
And here’s another of Gareth D Jones‘ translations series; “Fear an Ghondola” is “The Gondolier” in Gaelic Irish.
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That’s all you’re getting this time out. If there’s anything I’ve missed, you can blame it on me spending two whole days away from an RSS reader (yeah, I know; won’t happen again, I promise). But then if you’d sent in a message about it, I’d have known to include it… just a little hint for you there. 😉
Have a great weekend, folks.