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Will you survive the upcoming Robopocalypse?

Well, looks like Co-Host's warnings of the upcoming Robot-Rebellion has finally made it's way to Hollywood after all.

DreamWorks Studios and Doubleday have acquired,the rights to Daniel H. Wilson's "Robopocalypse" and have plans to put the book out in 2011.

Mark Sourian (one of the Co-Presidents of Production for Dreamworks) said, "Daniel H. Wilson's cautionary tale of man versus machine grabbed us from the very beginning. Wilson's background in robotics and artificial intelligence grounds his story with a frightening level of realism and he has created an exhilarating story that we think audiences will really respond to."

For those of you who don't know who Daniel Wilson is, he's the guy that put together the 2005 book "How to Survive a Robot Uprising: Tips on Defending Yourself Against the Coming Rebellion," which you can find on Amazon.com , as well as "Where's My Jetpack?: A Guide to the Amazing Science Fiction Future That Never Arrived," "How To Build a Robot Army: Tips on Defending Planet Earth Against Aliens, Ninjas, and Zombies," and "The Mad Scientist Hall of Fame: Muwahahaha!" Most of these are available on Amazon.com as well.

Now, in case you are asking yourself who Daniel Wilson is, he's the guy that hosted the History Channel "The Works" show awhile back, and is slowly starting to become possibly one of the better "Robotic writers" around. I'm not saying that his writing style is going to be for everyone, but his concepts and level of expertize is impressive. A B.S. (Bachelor of Science) in Computer Science at the University of Tulsa, an M.S. (Master of Science) in Robotics, another M.S.(Master of Science) in Machine Learning, and his Ph.D. in Robotics at the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. (Read more about him here).

But here's the thing. It's been a long time since Science-Fiction writers actually held a degree in the subject they wrote about. The only ones that really comes to mind (For me anyway) is the "Holy Trilogy" in the Sci-Fi genre writers.

Robert Heinlein, who took graduate classes in mathematics and physics in the University of California at Los Angeles , worked on aeronautical engineering for the U.S. Navy, and he developed the concept of the waterbed, and his detailed descriptions of it in three of his books constituted sufficient prior art to prevent a U.S. patent on water beds when they became common in the 1960s. Anyone that has read his works will know what I mean when I say that the level of mathematics and physics can be overwhelming. While it's true that one of his most famous books (Stranger in a Strange Land) didn't rely on either mathematics or physics as the selling point, his other books did. "The Number of the Beast" for example is almost nothing but physics and mathematics, yet told in such a way that draws you into the story without hesitation.

Then there is Isaac Asimov, who was a professor of biochemistry at Boston University, when he was writing, and would become so vital to the Sci-Fi field of robotics and Artificial Intelligence, that he would create the "Rules" all Robots should follow, known as the "Asimov Law of Robotics". Ironically, as much as I do love Asimov's stories, I completely hate his writing style. This is possibly the only author (Of any genre) that I love to read the books, although I hate to read them at the same time.

And finally Arthur C. Clarke, who held a first-class degree in mathematics and physics at King's College London, and chairman of the British Interplanetary Society. His contributions to the Telecommunications and Satilite fields that the orbit geostationary object at 36,000 kilometres (22,000 mi) above the equator is officially recognized by the International Astronomical Union as a Clarke Orbit. The only drawback that I have with Clarke's books, is that they tend to sometimes feel like they've gone off on a tangent before returning to the main storyline. While this isn't true in all his books, the best example of this was in the novel "2001: A Space Odyssey". Yes, that's the same one that Stanly Kubrick would later direct as a movie.

While it's possible that some day Daniel Wilson's books will be as well known as these three writers, it's something that will have to be seen later on down the road. For now, this is one of the few projects that have been announced lately that actually has my interest in what will happen with it. Of course, that's mostly because I'm a sucker for damn Sci-Fi movies of almost all quality. But with the big-budgets put into the recent movies (Transforms 2, Terminator 4), as well as the mind-blowing small-budget films (Moon, District 9), it's a good time for Science-Fiction movies again.

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Comment by Deadbeat on November 8, 2009 at 9:16pm: You might want to add Charles Sheffield to your list of amazing sci-fi authors that actually had the academic pedigree to back up their work. Sheffield was a mathematician and physicist, President of the American Astronautical Society, and was a consultant for NASA. He didn't begin writing until later in life, but what he produced until his death in 2002 was excellent hard science fiction. I recommend reading Cold as Ice and The Mindpool for starters. He also wrote a great non-fiction book, The Borderlands of Science, which is basically a real world science primer for sci-fi readers and writers. No one has made any films based on Sheffield's work to this date....which is a shame.

Comment by ghostwriter on November 7, 2009 at 11:49am: So glad to see you're still honoring us with your insights. Good stuff indeed.

Comment by Gift of the Magi on November 5, 2009 at 11:39pm: Good blog as always...but damn, those books take me back. Good times.

Comment by dodgerblu86 on November 5, 2009 at 10:14am: Robots are strong.

Comment by Cranky Old Dude on November 5, 2009 at 1:22am: Good depth to this blog and great list of premeir writers in this field. Seems like Speilberg (aka Dreamworks) has yet to have his fill of Robots and Arifical Intelligence. We will see. But my bigger question.
When will some one do "Stranger in a Strange land"

Comment by Lab Rat on November 4, 2009 at 8:53pm: These books sound great! I can't believe I have never heard of this guy before. Thanks for posting this, MDS.

Comment by Dominika on November 4, 2009 at 8:25pm: I need to read all of these books, but Daniel Wilson will be the first author on my list for raiding half-price books.

Comment by Travis Pickle on November 4, 2009 at 11:46am: Pimpocalypse

Comment by Hero on November 4, 2009 at 8:02am: Never heard of the guy, but I might check out some of his books, they sound interesting and I didn't know Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke ACTUALLY had a degree in some of the stuff they were writing about, you know... you'd think actual scientists with degrees in Mathematics and Physics would kind'a scoff at Sci-Fi.

I really do hope it's a good time for Sci-Fi again MDS, I really do.

Comment by MisterKeitel on November 4, 2009 at 6:31am: Thanks for taking the time to write this. I remember running across "Where's My Jetpack" in my local library and really liking it. When I was a kid, I read -get this- Boy's Life Magazine and it had some sci-fi stories in it. In those stories the main character, who was alway a boy, would have a robot dog, a flying car and, strangly enough, paper clothes. When I was young back in the late 60's I thought for sure that the year 2000 would be this great dividing point where we would finally emerge into The Future. It would be a world of robots, AI computes, interplanetary flight..etc. Needless to say I'm a bit dissapointed. While the Internet it cool. We're still stuck with fossile fuel burning land-bound cars.

In short, I was kind of hoping that by now mankind would have achieved some of the technological and sociological advancements that the sci-fi writers had envisioned. Of course I remember reading the books of a guy named Mack Reynolds who did predict cell phones, electronic money, ordering stuff with a computer and massive economic collapse of financial systems and it getting bailed out by a goverment buy-in (Towers of Utopia).