Thursday, April 11, 2024

PBS Voices explores 'The Evolution of Science Fiction' for Throwback Thursday

Happy Throwback Thursday! I'm celebrating by featuring an older video that I should have used years ago, but which happens to fit one of the top posts from the back catalog that doesn't fit any of the established themes I plan on using, It's Lit! on PBS Voices exploring The Evolution of Science Fiction (Feat. Lindsay Ellis).

Stories, tales, and myths from all around the world posing speculative questions around technologies have existed long before Ray Bradbury and Frank Herbert, from the time-traveling Japanese fairy tale "Urashima Taro” to some of the speculative elements of 1001 Arabian Nights. But there are a few eras that begin to shape what we’ve come to know as science fiction today.
That Frankenstein is considered to be the first work of science fiction means that horror is its sister genre, not fantasy, as the movie and television versions of Frankenstein are portrayed as horror. This reminds me of what I wrote most recently about M3GAN and Prey at the Saturn Awards; "if the terror is technological, not supernatural, the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Films considers it science fiction, not horror." Now I wonder how the Saturn Awards would classify a new movie or TV show about Frankenstein. Hmm.

Just the same, this video is very much about how science fiction reflects the anxieties of its time, which happens to be the featured post from the back catalog in today's retrospective. Follow over the jump.


Science fiction speaks to our current anxieties from August 3, 2014 earned 629 default and 820 raw page views, presumably by web search and no-follow links, between March 21, 2023 and March 20, 2024, placing eighth by the former measure and tenth overall by the latter. It began its recent rise in November 2023, when it received 101 default and 10 raw page views to rank 18th and 22nd for the month, respectively. It continued in December 2023, when it received 263 default and 356 raw page views to place ninth and sixth according to the two metrics. It's continued to attract readers, as it was the most read entry overall during March 2024.


I link to Nablopomo for July: Connect from July 1, 2013 every time I mention Commoner's Laws, particularly "Everything is connected to everything else," and it paid off, helping earn the entry 540 raw page views to tie for the 19th most read entry by that measure during the 13th year of this blog.

That's it for today's retrospective. Stay tuned for another tomorrow on Flashback Friday.

Previous posts in this series Previous retrospectives about the back catalog.
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1 comment:

  1. Pinku-SenseiApril 13, 2024 at 10:27 AM

    Thanks to driftglass for linking to this post in Mike's Blog Roundup at Crooks and Liars and welcome to all who came here from that link! Also, welcome to all my international readers from Hong Kong, China, Canada, Germany, Russia (yes, even you), and the rest of the planet, especially those from Hong Kong, who contributed about 11,700 page views this week, nearly ten times as many as my American readers. Thanks, I appreciate all of you!

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