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Animals in Sci-Fi

C

Cosmos_Cat

New Member
Hi, it´s me again. Moving on from Fantasy and dragons, now I´m researching how earthly animals are represented in Sci-Fi. I´m looking for novels that somehow discuss what place, and which rights animals have in the world, future or present-as long it´s sci-fi. These are some suggestions I´ve already recieved at other forums:

The Island of Dr Moreau / H.G. Wells
Monkey Planet / Pierre Boulle
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep / Philip K Dick
Dreamsnake / Vonda McIntyre
City / Clifford Simak
Johnny Mnemonic / William Gibson
Oryx and Crake / Margaret Atwood
Sirius / Olaf Stapledon
Midsummer Century / James Blish

Please feel free to comment on the selection above if you have the time and inclination.
 
sci fi and fantasy rules #1 - i think were not allowed to eat the ones that talk. we can ride them, side with them, war with them, couple with them.......... cant eat them. although

i posed this question to a friend of mine; if the earth was being to invaded by 6ft tall crab like humaniods and they tasted like scallops or lobster, would you eat them? i think i could, so did he.



sci fi and fantasy rules rights and general guide lines - #1 animals do have the right not to be eaten,as long as they dont taste like crab.
 
marxlaws said:
sci fi and fantasy rules rights and general guide lines - #1 animals do have the right not to be eaten,as long as they dont taste like crab.
Click to expand...

???? :confused:

Cosmos_Cat said:
I´m looking for novels that somehow discuss what place, and which rights animals have in the world, future or present-as long it´s sci-fi.
Click to expand...

I'm thinking Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. You've got whales, white mice, and do mattresses count?

Flollop...
 
I'm thinking Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. You've got whales, white mice, and do mattresses count?

Flollop...
Click to expand...

Yes, I have concidered the Guide. The mice and the dolphins, they were of extraterrestial origin, no? This complicates things. I try to restrict my subject area to animals of earthly origin, other than humans. (I concider the homo sapien sapien to be just another animal species, though weird.) :p
 
marxlaws said:
sci fi and fantasy rules #1 - i think were not allowed to eat the ones that talk. we can ride them, side with them, war with them, couple with them.......... cant eat them. although

[/SIZE]
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Interesting point. In reality (outside the literary world) we now have animals, mostly apes, that can speak sign language. Those individuals are not eaten, but other from their species are used for animal testing, horrible things like for developing medication for AIDS. And in other places in the world apes are indeeed still on the menu...
 
Cosmos_Cat said:
Yes, I have concidered the Guide. The mice and the dolphins, they were of extraterrestial origin, no? This complicates things. I try to restrict my subject area to animals of earthly origin, other than humans. (I concider the homo sapien sapien to be just another animal species, though weird.) :p
Click to expand...

It's been a few years since I read it, but I'm pretty sure they were of earthly origin. Although the Earth was also one big computer designed to work out the Answer to the Life, the Universe and Everything. Evolution occured just as we recollect it, so humans, dolphins/whales and white mice all evolved. It was just that the latter two happened to be smarter than humans.

Is that right?
 
Kookamoor said:
It's been a few years since I read it, but I'm pretty sure they were of earthly origin. Although the Earth was also one big computer designed to work out the Answer to the Life, the Universe and Everything. Evolution occured just as we recollect it, so humans, dolphins/whales and white mice all evolved. It was just that the latter two happened to be smarter than humans.

Is that right?
Click to expand...

As I recollect, the mice predated Earth, they were actually the ones who comissioned Earth to solve the question of what the meaning of the answer of the meaning of life is (the answer of course beeing "42") They also made experiments on scientists by running in different ways in labyriths and then studying how the scientists would react...
And the dolphins were sort of, tourists, just interested in eating the fish.
Maybe someone can prove us both wrong? I havn´t read the big thick thing in years, eighter...
 
This is also a topic that interests me very much. But not only animal rights in sci-fi literature actually!!
From your list i have only read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and, if you are going to add it to your list, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series.
If you have already read some of the others or have some other additional suggestions, please, maybe you can give them to me or tell me about the books you already read!!

Would be great, thanks!
 
Hi Harry!

Inspired by your signature, I recommend you to read Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood and to watch the film Twelve Monkeys.
And why not the utopian classic Ecotopia by Ernst Callenbach.
I am about to read the book behind the movie Planet of the Apes, that is Monkey Planet by Pierre Boulle.

I just read Flowes for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. It isn´t much about animals, it has just one intelligent little rat in it, Algernon. It runs in maces. it might have inspired Adams to his rats in "Hichhikers". It´s mostly about a retarded man who they make intelligent for some months and how this only makes him more miserable.

And another new title on my list is the (unintentionally?) funny The Dolphins of Altair by Margaret St.Clair. Dolphins conspire to take over the Earth. Very therocentric (as opposed to antropocentric) book.

Animal life on Earth has been affected as a result of enviromental cathastrophy that rendered humanity nearly wholly sterile in Brian Aldiss Greybeard. People are taming foxes and keeping reindeers, but are afraid of weasels who hunt people in packs. The few children who are born live alone in the forest and rather identify themselves with animals than with old people.

But the book I most enjoyed so far, is City by Clifford Simak. The dog scientist who retells the stories about the mythic creatures human beeings that might once have lived on Earth is simply charming.

A book I really can´t recommend is Kirsten Bakis The lives of the Monsterdogs . It´s silly in a non-funny way.

Well, I have to return to my work. It has to amount to about fifty pages of to be at Univerity D-level... And so far, I haven´t written one page. Phew!
 
You may want to look into Orson Scott Card's science fiction book "Lovelock". It's rather too long since I read it for me to recall much, but the main protagonist is a monkey.
There's supposed to be a sequel coming up soon, apparently.
 
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