Monday 18 March 2019

A Cultural Question

Popular sf permeates consciousness and becomes a cultural reference point in other fiction, e.g., Star Trek:

in a British TV drama, an unemployed worker expressed his alienation by looking at the sky and saying, "Beam me up!";

in Alan Moore's Watchmen, a superhero who has passed far beyond the dull concerns of mere mortals is referred to as "Goddamn Mr. Spock over there";

in Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, a character from our timeline or one like it says that the reality storm "...sounds like something out of Star Trek";

Lisbeth Salander's friend tells her:

"'You never joke about anything, Mr Spock.'"
-Stieg Larsson, The Girl Who Played With Fire (London, 2010), CHAPTER 6, p. 103.

We have found parallels to Star Trek in Poul Anderson's works but does Anderson ever explicitly refer to the TV series?

(Last night's late night reading again produced a posting point.)

5 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

No, I don't recall Poul Anderson ever referring to STAR TREK (which I sometimes call STAR DRECK) in even those of his works set in "contemporary" times, such as THE DEVIL'S GAME or the "contemporary" portions of THE BOAT OF A MILLION YEARS (or HARVEST OF STARS). Maybe Anderson would have agreed with my poor opinion of STAR TREK as thin, shallow, superficial.

Sean

Nicholas D. Rosen said...

Kaor, Sean!

I can’t call your criticism unwarranted, but when I was a child, STAR TREK (the original series) did provide me with entertainment and some expansion of my horizons.

Best Regards,
Nicholas

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Nicholas!

In that case, I'm glad STAR TREK both amused you and helped to expand your horizons. But, for me, that "expansion" was done by reading Anderson, Asimov, Bradbury, Clark, Heinlein, and Norton as a boy. Compared to the masters of written science fiction, STAR TREK seemed so shallow, trite, thin, and superficial.

Apologetically! Sean

Nicholas D. Rosen said...

Kaor, Sean!

No apologies necessary! I was a reader too, but I believe I saw at least some STAR TREK before I started reading Anderson, and probably before I was reading Asimov or Bova or Heinlein, although at this remove, I’m not sure of dates.

Best Regards,
Nicholas

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Nicholas!

I understand. And truth to say, the The Three Stooges movies left a far deeper on me than did STAR TREK. It shows what low brow tastes I had in humor, but I thought the Stooges uproariously funny!

Sean