Russell Blackford—a few of my favourite things

Miscellaneous favourites 1. Cats. Cats in general—both the house variety and the big cats… the lions, tigers, leopards, jaguars, cheetahs, etc., etc. I relate to them all. 2. Water in all its forms: lakes, the ocean, waterfalls, the fjords, etc, etc. 3. This miracle, the Internet, which enables me to keep in touch with friends and colleagues all over the world. 4. Travel generally. It's wonderful seeing different places and cultures. 5. Finishing the final draft of anything I'm writing—for whatever purpose and in whatever form—whether it's a story, an article, a piece of legal advice, or anything at all—and knowing it's good.  6. Sunshine. It's amazing how the sunshine cheers me up and the clouds make me gloomy (hey, I don't mind a good rainstorm, though, or driving on the road in the pitch-dark night). 7. That reminds me… a good fight in a tolerably decent cause, as Bertrand Russell once said. 8. I'm not very sporty, alas, but my sporting favourites over the years should get a mention—from Muhammad Ali to Amelie Mauresmo and Marat Safin (the coolest tennis players currently on tour).

Felix (born August 2005): The new cat in my life.

9. McDonalds—especially the fries. This is my secret vice. My less secret vices include Indian, Japanese and Thai food.

10. Books, of course… I've saved this to last, but not because it's least. It should be a whole new set of lists by itself. It probably will be before I'm through with this site. Hmmm, I need separate lists for science fiction, poetry, classical literature, philosophy, and on and on… I'm just a little bookworm. (Then again, don't even start me on movies!)

Some favourite books (poetry, fiction, and criticism)

1. W.B. Yeats. Collected Poems.

2. Robert A. Heinlein. Stranger in a Strange Land. A little dated, perhaps, but still a refreshing satire with some of the most engaging characters in science fiction. Practically my bible when I was younger, and some of my best friendships are associated with this book. My all-time sentimental favourite novel.

3. Dostoyevsky. The Brothers Karamazov. Maybe the best novel ever written, despite its underlying religious conservativism. Earns its vision like no other novel.

4. Donna Tart. The Secret History. Clever update of Dostoyevskian themes.

5. E.M. Forster. Passage to India. Simply one of the sanest, yet most gripping, novels you'll find.

6. Tolkien. The Lord of the Rings. What can I say?

7. E.R. Eddison. The Worm Ouroboros. The great predecessor to LOTR.

8. Jean Paul Sartre. Nausea. The ultimate existentialist novel...well, along with The Outsider by Albert Camus. Must reads. See also "The Myth of Sisyphus", a superb essay by Camus. These guys understood the world they were living in.

9. William Gibson. Neuromancer. Still the ultimate cyberpunk novel. See also the work of Bruce Sterling and Neal Stephenson, particularly Sterling's early anthology of cyberpunk stories, Mirrorshades.

10. Ursula Le Guin. The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed. Serious science fiction, the sort you can offer to your friends who don't read science fiction.

11. Thomas Pynchon. Gravity's Rainbow. Full of wonderful material. Worth persevering with despite its apparent formlessness.

12. Samuel R. Delany. Driftglass/Starshards. Anything by Delany is worth getting your hands on, but this huge collection of his shorter fiction is superb. Its introduction has some of the best material I've read about writing fiction.

13. John Barth. The Sot-Weed Factor. Actually, any of Barth's earlier books are well worth reading: exuberant, intellectual romps. I'd add in The End of the Road and Giles Goat-Boy.

14. Kurt Vonnegut. Almost anything by this wise, funny man could be listed here. But especially The Sirens of Titan, Cat's Cradle, Slaughterhouse 5, Breakfast of Champions, Galapagos.

15. Kim Stanley Robinson. The Mars Trilogy.

16. Nancy Kress. Beggars in Spain. This book and its sequels have some of the most sophisticated portrayals I know of the problems that confront us in dealing with the technologies of the future.

17. George R.R. Martin and others. Wild Cards. Superb, not-too-serious, sf/superhero series. See my entry in the Clute/Nicholls Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.

18. Greg Egan. Distress. Perhaps Egan's best novel. See also his short fiction collected in Axiomatic and Luminous.

19. H.G. Wells. The Science Fiction. Available in a giant two-volume edition. Indispensable.

20. Northrop Frye. Anatomy of Criticism. Though outdated in some ways, open to challenge on some points, and inaccessible at times, this is still the best overview of how literature works. A formidable work of literary criitcism and theory.

Some honorable mentions...

David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer (eds.). The Ascent of Wonder and The Hard SF Renaissance. These people are friends, but that's not why these books are here. They have to go on the shelf as essential reference, collecting much of the most important hard science fiction, from the beginning to the age of Egan, Kress, and Gregory Benford.

Jack Dann and Janeen Webb (eds.). Dreaming Down-Under. Okay, these people are also friends, but this is a minor classic already, a big anthology of Australian sf and fantasy with many of the significant players included. Disclaimer: contains my own cyberpunk story "The Soldier in the Machine", also available in the Hartwell.Broderick anthology, Centaurus.

Just some of my all-time favourite science fiction movies (not necessarily in order).

1. Blade Runner (1982).

2. The Terminator (1984) and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). The third movie is not too bad, either. My view of it is elsewhere on this site.

3. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).

4. Forbidden Planet (1956).

5. King Kong (1933).

6. Metropolis (1926).

7. The Time Machine (1960 - I love the George Pal version; the less said about the 2002 remake the better).

8. The Empire Strikes Back (1980 - for my money far the best of the Star Wars movies).

9. The Matrix (1999).

10. X-Men 2 (2003 - perhaps the best superhero movie ever made).

Favourite sf/fantasy movie heroes/heroines and villains.

1. Magneto (Sir Ian McKellen) and the his stunningly competent and sexy offsider Mystique (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) in X-Men and X-Men 2. You've gotta love these two villains.

2. Darth Vader (the body of Davis Prowse and the voice of James Earl Jones) in the Star Wars movies (the villains capture our imaginations don't they? ... I seem to be putting them first).

3. Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) and Pris (Daryl Hannah) in Blade Runner.

Roy Batty and Pris

4. Trinity (Carrie Ann Moss) in the Matrix movies. Now that's my idea of a cyberpunk heroine.

5. Morpheus (Lawrence Fishburn), likewise in the Matrix movies. And that's how a cyberpunk hero should be. Sorry, Neo.

5. Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. What more can I say?

6. Altaira (call her Alta for short) (Anne Francis) in Forbidden Planet. She gets in simply for being so damn cute. On the cuteness scale, the otherwise-useless Weena (Yvette Mimieux) in the 1960 George Pal version of The Time Machine.

Altaira with Robby the Robot

7. The Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) in all three Terminator movies, but especially the first one. Again, what can I say?

8. The False Maria (played in her human appearance by Brigette Helm) in Metropolis. I also have to give a mention to Rotwang, the movie's over-the-top mad scientist villain.

9. King Kong (the creation of the great Willis O'Brien) in, um, King Kong (I'm thinking of the 1933 version, not the 1976 remake, which is fairly slow-moving and weak imitation of the original).

10. Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings movies. I take off my hat once more to the great Sir Ian McKellen. Actually, Christopher Lee's Saruman is also impressive, making something of a character whom I found relatively uninteresting in Tolkien's original trilogy.

Some favourite philosophers and other thinkers (serious stuff...under construction)

This list will include some of my favourite philosophers, philosophically-ambitious scientists, bioethicists, cultural critics, etc, with references to some of their works.

1. David Hume. His major works, notably A Treatise of Human Nature, are breathtaking. For many purposes, the history of philosophy starts here.

2. Galileo Galilei. The main founder of scientific investigation as we know it today.

3. Bertrand Russell. The discipline of philosophy, as conceived in the twentieth century and today, very largely reflects his synthesis.

4. Friedrich Nietzsche. We are still absorbing his significance, at least I am. Often unfairly denigrated for supposed connections with the Nazis. But often over-sanitised by those who don't want to admit how nutty he could be.

5. John Stuart Mill. The founder of modern liberal thought.

6. Jean Paul Sartre. Great French existentialist.

7. Robert Nozick. My most favourite libertarian philosopher, though I disagree with much that he says (I am in favour, in a broad way, of getting the government out of both the bedroom and the boardroom, but the role of governments in helping the poor never gets its due from thinkers like Nozick).

8. Daniel Dennett.

9. Richard Dawkins. Dennett and Dawkins write superbly and rigorously about science and its implications.

10. Peter Singer. The most important philosopher to come out of Australia. His views on bioethical issues are refreshing, and his writing is a model of clarity and organisation, though I do not accept his utilitarian assumptions. For my critique, go here.

And some honorable mentions...

Martha Nussbaum. Extraordinarily impressive philosophical polymath.

Bernard Williams. Always full of good sense, though sometimes hard to follow.

Derek Parfit. His Reasons and Persons must be the single most important philosophical work published in the last few decades of the twentieth century.

Jean Curthoys. A dear friend, committed feminist, and author of an excellent critique of modern feminism: Feminist Amnesia.

Gregory Pence. One of my favourite thinkers in the area of bioethics. His book Who's Afraid of Human Cloning? is a must-read, since it debunks many of the more-or-less irrationalist arguments against cloning.

John A. Robertson. An American legal scholar who is one of the most useful thinkers in the field of bioethics.

Julian Savulescu. Important and sensible Australian bioethicist.

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