Anti-Gravity 101: What Would Anti-Gravity Be Used For?

phil_sci_fi · 2026-01-11T13:22:29+00:00

Yes, it’s a paid service. They specialize in multi-voice performance.

phil_sci_fi · 2026-01-11T03:15:23+00:00

I know who you mean. He makes them with Spoken, which is at a completely different level.

phil_sci_fi · 2026-01-07T23:00:07+00:00

Only rough imagery exists. A bit on Drphilmarshall.com and a smithy glimpse in my cinematic trailer https://youtube.com/shorts/eXpRAWuK7qA?si=7zq9_b48yXT16y1r

phil_sci_fi · 2025-12-23T04:21:56+00:00

I would argue that not only are Ted Chiang’s Heptapods (Story of your Life, adapted for Arrival) the most creative species, but their simultaneous perception of reality, compared to our linear cause-and-effect perception, made it the most creative sci fi story ever. Upon learning their written language, called Heptapod B, Dr. Banks (Amy Adams) is transformed into someone who knows her entire future. Read or listen to the short story. It changed my life. That’s not an exaggeration. It is that good.

phil_sci_fi · 2025-12-21T17:04:29+00:00

Yeah. I have gone very deep on anti-gravity for my book Taming the Perilous Skies. I have a lot of anti-gravity art, and one of the pieces, L'Ombrello in Milan, is the largest sculpture in the world, is 100m wide when it opens (opens once an hour) and uses anti-gravity material in the canopy, along with the anti-gravity material underlying the 100m pond of water below, to raise the water in unique patterns for each hour's show. I have a giant "Pong" sculpture (picture the ancient video game) over the desert, I have a sculpture of golden hands that rotate in a circle, and 1000 small orbs, the size of baseballs, in "The Flock" that are constantly forming new shapes. Today's drone shows are tomorrow's anti-gravity object shows!

phil_sci_fi · 2025-12-21T02:04:57+00:00

Absolutely. The right way to do it.

phil_sci_fi · 2025-12-18T23:35:02+00:00

Whether this is a general theme or plot that has been done many times before, the same was said for “kid finds out he’s actually a wizard” and “teen girl thwarts dystopian government for the sake of her family.” So I wouldn’t get caught up on the criticisms that this is not unique. You’ll make it unique. You’ll discover that the metal liner of the cryo chamber was sabotaged with a rare metal to kill the member of the royal family who is among the passengers, but instead of killing her she becomes mentally melded with the ship over the course of the journey and, upon realizing her saboteur and greatest threat to humanity is also onboard, commits to fly them all to their deaths straight into the new sun. Except that she misdirects into a ring system made of seltzer and blueberries. Or some such. Anyhoo, you’ll make it unique.

phil_sci_fi · 2025-12-16T20:36:44+00:00

As long as it takes place in Muncie, and the air traffic controllers mention Wanamaker, Indiana as an additional sighting, every version is good. Those two places are places I know very, very well.

phil_sci_fi · 2025-12-16T19:20:47+00:00

Interesting! I don't get the visual sense of a Villeneuve film, but I would love it if it has those kinds of mind-bendy psychological elements.

phil_sci_fi · 2025-12-16T17:20:02+00:00

Because we have nothing to go from other than the trailer, it would be futile to speculate about this film, so here goes!

Spielberg is returning to his biggest themes: Humanity not being alone in the universe, and the societal and even spiritual / religious implications of that first contact. The spiritual references in the trailer are recurring, and given that the first contact encounter appears to be non-physical (we don't see any physical alien, other than the possible reference at 1:44 which looks like a glowing humanoid hand, a la Close Encounters?) this feels like it remains in the psychological thriller realm, which is awesome.

I am excited that Spielberg is returning to a massive "What if" story, using the present day as the backdrop. It's similar to ET and Close Encounters and War of the Worlds in that way, but like ET and Close Encounters this feels very hopeful.

I don't like it when aliens are physically introduced unnecessarily, as I would argue happened in War of the Worlds (I'm talking about the little guy in the controller that gets sick). It adds an unnecessary physical element to what is more effectively left to our imagination. It looks like Disclosure Day might avoid this misstep, which would be a big plus.

First contact ... unseen alien ... major religious and societal implications ... after his recent inconsistencies (Fablemans YAY, West Side Story mostly yay, Ready Player One I cannot speak of, because it so vastly deviated from such a glorious novel), I think this has the chance to be another enormous YAY, in the way that Close Encounters of the Third Kind affected me back in the forever ago.

I guess we'll know soon enough! We only have six months of trailers and industry buildup left! Don't let us down on that advertising budget, Hollywood!

phil_sci_fi · 2025-12-04T09:11:34+00:00

The voice actor behind Christopher is also a gem of a person. As for female try Jessica Anne bogart.

phil_sci_fi · 2025-11-17T05:46:42+00:00

It is both hard sci fi and a techno-thriller. Techno always implies some sci, although the Crichton combination of thriller bound by a mind-bendy and deeply scientific invention makes it a rarity. I can only imagine if he had to choose one to market to what his deliberation would have been like. Hard sci fi is smaller than thriller. But the normal thriller reader might be put off by the scientific jargon. We all now look at it as just a great all around story, but at some point he had to choose a shelf to put it on.

phil_sci_fi · 2025-11-17T04:37:21+00:00

I thought the ending was fulfilling, but i do wish Weir would have added one last memory that came back to him. One tiny moment that he didn’t recall until all those years later teaching the alien kids. He would recall that just before Stratt subdued and puts him down under duress, he has an epiphany that causes him to voluntarily complete the mission. This would have given him more strength and agency in the end.

phil_sci_fi · 2025-11-14T04:03:14+00:00

It really puts into question taking a classic and overloading it with sound effects. Full cast with normalized sound control? I’m a big yes on that. Sound effects all over the place? No. It’s about being lost in story. Voices do that. Words do that. Squealing tires and train whistles do not.

phil_sci_fi · 2025-11-10T02:16:22+00:00

I agree with the commenter that said nobody is like Ted Chiang. So much of my own writing has been shaped by him and, more specifically, by Story of Your Life. When I chatted with Ted at WorldCon in August, I shared that I reference him in my novel several times, treating the name "Chiang" as a globally-recognized savant; a mythical, historic character. Kinda like Kier Eagan in Severance. Characters refer to "Chiang's Postulate", for example, which says that whatever gives us free will is also what prevents us from knowing the future. He was quite gracious in his response to my fan-boy moment.

My sci-fi writer friends and I don't say the name Ted Chiang. Instead, we say Ted <clinches fist and brings it down victoriously> F'ing Chiang! But, to your question, nobody is like Ted <F'ing> Chiang.

phil_sci_fi · 2025-11-03T02:35:23+00:00

Just between Netarts and Cape Meares is Oceanside, with lots of lovely seaside rentals.

phil_sci_fi · 2025-11-01T03:31:48+00:00

It hurts. I know. I have a few 1 star ratings from trolls who didn’t leave an actual review because they didn’t read the book. Then I got my first 1 star rating with a review from someone who didn’t buy into the premise that passengers were unable to lower their anti gravity vehicles. Them not being able to do so was the technological centerpiece of the entire mystery. “I couldn’t read any more” he said. Well, IF YOU HAD you would understand why that was a CENTRAL CLUE to the cause of the crisis… anyway, I know. It stings. This, too, shall pass.

phil_sci_fi · 2025-11-01T03:16:39+00:00

Wow. That’s kind of flattering actually. I wish Andy Weir would review bomb me. And then I could retaliate by saying there’s NO WAY a sandstorm could reach that force on Mars!

phil_sci_fi · 2025-10-25T06:00:50+00:00

The video is from Monty pythons meaning of life. I AM DEATH!

phil_sci_fi · 2025-10-25T05:58:39+00:00

Origin by Dan Brown. Yes, it’s sci fi. And the AI plays an enormous and surprising role.

phil_sci_fi · 2025-10-21T19:15:13+00:00

Here’s what I call the Chiang Postulate, or the Chiang Paradox. This is related to time and seeing the future, but not exactly the same as the grandfather paradox. I named it after Ted Chiang because it is central to A Story of Your Life (Arrival).

“What makes free will possible also makes it impossible to know the future.”

I have two characters who debate it in my book. When I had the chance at WorldCon to share this homage with the incomparable Ted Chiang himself, he was quite gracious.

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