Let's say you need a perfectly obedient servant who never gets tired, never needs to be paid, and is virtually indestructible. If you're in a galaxy a long time ago and far, far away, you'll just fly off to the local droid auction and pick up one of those shiny gold models with lovely manners.

Kage Baker

Categorized in : You Fly Time Tired

One should always avoid unnecessary unhappiness. Especially if one is an immortal. They taught us that in school.

unnecessary taught-us school

If you want to see what stage comedians did to get laffs a century ago, watch the 1910 'Wizard of Oz.' I hope you have a high tolerance for pratfalls.

tolerance comedian watches

I detest flying anywhere. Left to my own devices, I'd never leave... by Kage Baker

I detest flying anywhere. Left to my own devices, I'd never leave my keyboard.

devices keyboards flying

People who like to fume about the manner in which Disney changed beloved classics are often ignorant of history, not to mention the realities of show business.

ignorant reality people

In 1921, Harry Houdini started his own film company called - wait for it - the Houdini Picture Corporation.

corporations film waiting

The 1910 Edison film of Frankenstein was itself a dead thing revi... by Kage Baker

The 1910 Edison film of Frankenstein was itself a dead thing revived by technology.

film technology

Romantic Orientalism was fascinated by the color and excitement of a powerful culture, and nearly always approached its subject with love.

color powerful culture

Besides, we weren't made to battle villains, because there weren't any. No nation, creed, or race was any better or worse than another; all were flawed, all were equally doomed to suffering, mostly because they couldn't see that they were all alike. Mortals might have been contemptible, true, but not evil entirely. They did enjoy killing one another and frequently came up with ingenious excuses for doing so on a grand scale-religions, economic theories, ethnic pride-but we couldn't condemn them for it, as it was in their mortal natures and they were too stupid to know any better.

pride race stupid

I may cut my coat to follow fashion, sir, but not my conscience. by Kage Baker

I may cut my coat to follow fashion, sir, but not my conscience.

coats fashion cutting

The leaf that spreads in the light is the only holiness there is. I haven't found holiness in the faiths of mortals, or in their music, not in their dreams: it's out in the open field, with the green rows looking at the sky. I don't know what it is, this holiness: but it's there, and it looks at the sky.

light dream sky

I don't think humanity just replays history, but we are the same people our ancestors were, and our descendants are going to face a lot of the same situations we do. It's instructive to imagine how they would react, with different technologies on different worlds. That's why I write science fiction -- even though the term 'science fiction' excites disdain in certain persons.

technology writing thinking

Funny thing about those Middle Ages, said Joseph. "They just keep coming back. Mortals keep thinking they're in Modern Times, you know, they get all this neat technology and pass all these humanitarian laws, and then something happens: there's an economic crisis, or science makes some discovery people can't deal with. And boom, people go right back to burning Jews and selling pieces of the true Cross. Don't you ever make the mistake of thinking that mortals want to live in a golden age. They hate thinking.

technology hate mistake

England was a cold, backward, rebellious little kingdom. It's king: Henry the Eighth, remembered principally for his six wives and the chicken legs clutched in his fat fists.

england wife kings

1925's 'The Lost World' is... really, everything a dinosaur movie should be. Like a dinosaur, this classic was once extinct too, existing as mere fragmentary footage and stills, but cinemaphile fossil-hunters have painstakingly excavated bits and pieces from obscure archives and assembled them into a nearly-complete animal.

classic lost animal world

In 1913, the noted German actor and director Paul Wegener was making a film in Prague when he heard the legend of Rabbi Loew, who created a golem to protect the inhabitants of the Prague ghetto from persecution.

legend actor director ghetto

I'm still learning my craft, and I've been writing since I was ni... by Kage Baker

I'm still learning my craft, and I've been writing since I was nine.

craft still learning writing

Despite what you hear about the publishing industry being a fixed game that you can only get in if you know somebody, I'm here in person to tell you it ain't so. If your stuff is really any good, sooner or later some editor will take a chance on you.

game good you chance

Written and directed by French showman Georges Melies, 'Le Voyage' features one of the most indelible images in cinema history: the wounded Man in the Moon bleeding like a particularly runny Brie, grimacing in pain with a space capsule protruding from his right eye.

man pain moon history

We who grew up with 'drop and cover' drills know all too well what wonders science can bring us, and we like to see the guy in the white lab coat suffer a little. Or a lot.

see know white science

In 1916, Universal Studios released the first filmed adaptation of Jules Verne's novel '20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.' Georges Melies made a film by that name in 1907, but, unlike his earlier adaptations of Verne, Melies' version bears no resemblance to the book.

name first sea book