Fred's Blog

Category: Literary

  • I can’t believe in Panem

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    Fred Rothganger
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    I read “Hunger Games” and also watched the movie. Given the lock-step similarity between the book and the first movie, I decided movies were sufficient to get the rest of the story. I also watched “Divergent”, but haven’t read that book. I thoroughly enjoyed both stories, but there is something irritatingly out of kilter about…

  • The Imitation Game

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    Fred Rothganger
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    The movie “Imitation Game” amazed me! It was exceptionally well-written. It had war, spy intrigue, friendship, romance, computer science, and addressed Alan Turing’s homosexuality. It is an enormous achievement for a script to pull together so many diverse threads in a way that makes sense, with just the right amount of each one. So why…

  • Science versus Magic: The Secret of NIMH

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    Fred Rothganger
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    My family recently watched The Secret of NIMH, an animated movie based on the book Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. I was surprised and annoyed at how the movie turned science fiction into fantasy. In the book, everything was the result of disciplined neuroscience research. The rats achieved success via intelligence and hard…

  • “Atlas Shrugged” belongs to all of us

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    Fred Rothganger
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    The title of this post is a deliberately inflammatory reference to my previous post 1984 belongs to all of us. That post offended a few of my readers, in one case specifically because it flew in the face of Ayn Rand’s philosophy. Because of that, I was compelled to read Atlas Shrugged. At the end of…

  • Data is a well-written android

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    Fred Rothganger
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    Crystal and I recently started watching through Star Trek: The Next Generation (STNG) with our 9-year-old son Justin. This series play during the late 80s and early 90s, and ironically it is now several generations back in the Star Trek universe. One of the central characters is an android named “Data”. I continue to be…

  • Is the Turing test passé?

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    Fred Rothganger
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    My editor Suzan Troutt sent me an email this morning, pointing out the recent Turing test conducted by the University of Reading in collaboration with the EU RoboLaw project. Their results have been sufficiently debunked by various analysts and comment threads, so I will not spill more ink on it here. In the novel SuSAn…

  • Her — a disembodied relationship

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    Fred Rothganger
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    Just watched the movie “Her” last night with my wife. Had to fast-forward through the sex and foul language to make it acceptable to both of us, so saw maybe 95% of it. This is a truly amazing movie. It hits a slew of substantial philosophical points, and also challenges us about our relationships. There…

  • Orwell was wrong

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    Fred Rothganger
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    Among other things, 1984 is a mid-life crisis: Winston is a middle-aged man with declining health, estranged from his wife in a loveless marriage. He realizes that everything he built his life on is wrong, and goes on a journey to figure it out. Along the way he has an affair with a younger woman…

  • 1984 belongs to all of us

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    Fred Rothganger
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    I recently took the plunge and decided to read George Orwell’s 1984. Turns out that because I am a US citizen, I cannot have free access to 1984 until 2044! But that is only if Congress does not pass another law, extending copyright length yet again. I paid to read the book. Along with the…

  • Transcendence – Surprisingly intelligent

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    Fred Rothganger
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    The trailers for Transcendence suggest a relentless action-thriller based on the premise that cybernetics eats your soul. The reviews are mixed. Some people on Rotten Tomatoes say that the movie lacks intellectual coherence. I was obligated to watch it since I am writing a series of novels on the general topic of Strong AI and…