T.D Ramakrishnan’s Alpha

T.D Ramakrishnan’s Alpha

Alpha is a Malayalam utopian novel by the author T.D Ramakrishnan. The story is set in an imaginative island called Alpha. The leading character in this novel is Professor Upalendu Chattergee, a reputed Anthropology professor.

The novel talks about an unusual experiment of twelve persons, who belongs to different stratas of society, led by the professor. They have decided to live in the island for 25 years, cutting all the relations with the outer world. They have burned their boat, dresses and all equipment and decided not to use the language that they have used up to that moment.

Professor Chattergee believed that they could achieve all the progresses within 25 years that the humanity achieved through centuries.

No one in the real world, except Professor Sathish Chandra Banergee, knew about this experiment. He was supposed to visit the island after the 25 years and evaluate the progress of the experiment. He entrusted this duty to his disciple, Avinash, at his death bed.

Avinash reached after the prescribed time, wherer he witnessed a barbarian community. They have found that only three are alive among the first 12. They took the three out of the island. The novel progresses through the recollection of the survived persons, Malini, Santhosh and Urmila.

The novel is short, but surprising and memorable. T.D Ramakrishnan has done justice to the author in himself. Though utopian novels are very rare in Malayalam language, Alpha by its quality, can fill that gap.

Jayant Vishnu Narlikar

Jayant Vishnu Narlikar

          

      He is known popularly as an astrophysicist, but he is also famous as the author of some science fiction works. Born in Maharashtra, he was honoured by the prestigious awards like Padma Vibhushan Padma Bhushan etc. He was educated from Banaras Hindu University. He later went to Cambridge for higher studies.

           

Narlikar returned to India to join the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (1972-1989) where under his charge the Theoretical Astrophysics Group acquired international standing. In 1988 he was invited by the University Grants Commission as Founder Director to set up the proposed Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA). Under his direction IUCAA has acquired a world-wide reputation as a centre for excellence in teaching and research in astronomy and astrophysics. He retired from this position in 2003. He is now Emeritus Professor at IUCAA.

During 1994–1997, he was the President of the Cosmology Commission of the International Astronomical Union. He was popular for his works in cosmology. Besides scientific papers and books and popular science literature, Narlikar has written science fiction, novels, and short stories in English, Hindi, and Marathi.

Science fiction works

YAKSHANCHI DENAGI (The Gift of the Yakshas) 1979

PRESHIT (The One Who Was Sent), 1983

ANTARALATALA BHASMASUR (Bhasmasur in Space) 1985

DHOOMKETU (The Comet) 1986

VAMAN PARAT NA ALA (Vaman did not return) 1986

THE RETURN OF VAMAN 1988

TROYNO GHODO (The Trojan Horse) 1987

AGANTUK (The guest) 1988

ANTARALATIL SPHOT (The Cosmic Explosion) 1992

TIME MACHINECHI KIMAYA (Miracle of the Time Machine) 1994

ABHAYARANYA (Sanctuary) 2002

Vandana Singh

Vandana Singh

 

Vandana Singh is an Indian writer of speculative fiction, which includes science fiction and fantasy. She is very much attached to the science fiction genre. The following sentences will prove her love for this genre. She says:

I love this genre (science fiction) for its imaginative richness, its vast canvas, and the sophistication with which its best practitioners wield their pens. Science fiction and fantasy have come a long way from the lurid caricatures of ray-guns and little green men (which, by the way, I still insist on enjoying, for the most part); in fact no other genre asks deeper questions about the human condition or sets up literary thought experiments about our interaction with the physical world, including other worlds and new technologies.

She was born in New Delhi and settled in the United States. Her higher education was in the field of Physics. The following are some of her works.

The Wife

Three Tales from Sky River: Myths for a Starfaring Age

Delhi

Life-pod

Oblivion: A Journey

Young uncle comes to town

The Woman Who Thought She Was a Planet

Manjula Padmanabhan

Manjula Padmanabhan

     Manjula Padmanabhan is a playwright, novelist, artist, illustrator and cartoonist. She is the author of the award winning play Harvest, which was awarded the Greek Onassis Award. She has written one more powerful play, Lights Out! (1984). Hidden Fires is a series of monologues. The Artist's Model (1995) and Sextet are her other works. She has authored a collection of short stories, called Kleptomania.

HARVEST

      Manjula Padmanabhan in Harvest presents   a war between machine and man. The play shows the futuristic picture of the modern times where the machines will be replacing and distancing human beings gradually. The play warns through the character of Jaya how one has to govern the machines instead of being governed. It is a futuristic play about the sale of body parts and exploitative relations between developed and developing countries. 

Samit Basu

Samit Basu

Samit Basu is an Indian novelist and screenwriter. The Simoqin Prophecies, published in 2003, was the first book in the bestselling Gameworld Trilogy and marked the beginning of Indian English fantasy writing. The other books in the trilogy are The Manticore’s Secret and The Unwaba Revelations.

Samit was born in Calcutta and he obtained a degree in Economics. The Simoqin Prophecies, Basu's first novel, was written when he was 22 and published when he was 23. The GameWorld trilogy has been widely well reviewed and all three books have reached Indian best-seller lists. In 2010, Basu wrote a YA novel called Terror on the Titanic. His next famous work Turbulence introduced him to the West. It also won a Wired Geekdad Goldenbot Award and appeared at no.2 on the list of hot new Amazon Science Fiction titles on the week of its release. Basu is also known as a columnist, screenwriter, documentary filmmaker and freelance journalist writing on travel, film, books and pop culture.

Basu’s work in comics ranges from historical romance to zombie comedy, and includes diverse collaborators, from X-Men/Felix Castor writer Mike Carey to Terry Gilliam and Duran Duran. His latest GN, Local Monsters, was published in 2013.

Gokulananda Mohapatra

Gokulananda Mohapatra (24 May 1922 – 10 July 2013)

    Gokulananda Mohapatra is a popular Scientist and science fiction writer of India. Mahapatra was born in Odisha. He was honored with PhD from the Utkal University. He has written more than 70 science fictions and books for children such as Krutrima Upagraha, Pritibibahare Manisha and Chandrara  Mrityu. He was honoured with Odisha Sahitya Akademi award in 1986 and Kalinga Puraskar in 2010. The following are some of his science fiction works:

       Pruthibi bahare manisa

       Krutrima Upagraha

       Candrara Mrutyu

       Nishabda Godhuli

       Sunara Odisha

       Mrutyu eka matrutwa ra

       Nishchala pruthibi

       Mrutyu rashmi

Three types of Science Fiction: Raymond Williams

Three types of Science Fiction: Raymond Williams

There are three types of SF according to Raymond Williams. They are, Putropia, Doomsday, and Space Anthropology.

By Putropia he meant the characteristic 20th-century corruption of the Utopian romances. They describe stories of a secular paradise of the future.  Zamyatin's We, Huxley's Brave New World, Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, and Orwell's 1984 are the most famous examples.

Putropia, however, stops a little short of Doomsday. Doomsday is the immensely popular genre which, with considerable ingenuity and variety, disposes of life altogether. There are catastrophes which stop just short of this, and move into putropia.  Mr John Wyndham's Day of the Triffid’s is an example. Here, the great majority of human beings are struck suddenly blind, and the Triffids-locomotive stinging plants, sources of vegetable oil, developed by Russian scientists-take over. The sighted minority has to decide whether to try to save the blind masses, who, characteristically, have taken to drink and so on, or to abandon them, to regroup the few who can see, and start making a better society.

Putropia perhaps, is to be rationalized as a warning against combined science and war while the Doomsday is the familiar nightmare of mechanism; nobody does anything wrong, but we are finished all the same.

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Top Ten Fantasy Movies

        Top Ten Fantasy Movies 

        

          1.   Life of Pi (2012)

       Life of Pi, based on the novelby Yann Martel, tells the fantastical story of Pi Patel, a sixteen-year-old South Indian boy who survives at sea with a tiger, named Richard Parker, for 227 days. While cast away, he forms an amazing and unexpected connection with the fearsome Bengal tiger. It’s the story of their relationship and survivel.

Directed By:  Ang Lee

 Cast: Suraj Sharma, Irfan Khan, Tabu

2.   The Hobbit- An Unexpected Journey (2012) & The Desolation of Smaug (2013)

The Hobbit  is an epic fantasy adventure film based on the novel by J.R.R. Tolkien. It tells the tale of Bilbo and his journey to the Lonely Mountain with Thirteen Dwarves and a wizard named Gandalf the Grey, to reclaim the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor from the fearsome dragon Smaug.

Directed by Peter Jackson.

Cast: Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage

          

           3.   The Lord of the Rings Series

       The Lord of the Rings is a film series consisting of three epic fantasy adventure films adapted and directed by Peter Jackson and based on English author J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Set in the fictional world of  middle earth, the three films follow the Frodo as he and a fellowship embark on a quest to destroy a ring, and thus ensure the destruction of its maker, the Dark Lord.

Director: Peter Jackson

 Cast: More Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen

         

          4.   Pan's Labyrinth (2006)

         At the end of the Spanish civil war, a young girl meets the god Pan, who gives her three challenges. If she fails, she will never prove herself to be the the true princess and will never see her real father, the king, again.

Director:Guillermo del Toro

 Cast: Ivana Baquero, Sergi Lopez

5.   Pirates of the Caribbean series

           Pirates of the Caribbean is a series of fantasy films stories following the adventures of Jack SparrowThe films take place in a fictional historical setting; a world ruled largely by an amalgam of alternative, evil versions of theBritish Empire and the East India Company, with the pirates representing freedom from the ruling powers

Cast: Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom

6.   Harry Potter series

      The young Wizard Harry Potter’s quest to overcome the Dark wizard whose aims are to become immortal, conquer the wizard world, subjugate non-magical people, and destroy all those who stand in his way.

Cast: Daniel Radcliffe

7.   King Kong (2005)

       The film tells the story of an overly ambitious filmmaker who coerces his cast and hired ship crew to travel to mysterious Skull Island, where they encounter, King Kong a legendary giant gorilla. Captured, he is displayed in New York City, with tragic results

Directed by Peter Jackson

Cast: Naomi Watts, Jack Black

8.   X-Men series

        The X-Men series tells the story of a team of mutant superheroes and their adventures.

Cast: Hugh Jackman, PatricK Stewart, Ian McKellen

9.   The Avengers (2012)

       Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. assembles a team of superhumans to save the planet from Loki and his army.

Director:Joss Whendon

Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans

10. Wrath of the Titans (2010)

       Perseus, a son of Zeus, lives as a fisherman after the death of his wife with his young son, Helius. He is called again, this time to rescue his father Zeus, overthrow the Titans and save mankind.

Directed: Jonathan Leibesman

Cast: Sam Worthington, Liam Neeson