BOOK
Jurassic Park
THE GIST
The gist
A billionaire uses recovered dinosaur DNA to build an island theme park full of living dinosaurs, and a small group of scientists is invited to see it before it opens. Adapted into Steven Spielberg's 1993 film (1990).
ON THE SHOW
On the show.
- Ep 1 — Why Does SciFi Matter? (18:20–19:50): One of Rob's introductions to sci-fi, and Caitlin's example of a blockbuster people love without realizing it's sci-fi. It's so close to real science (DNA) that it doesn't register as science fiction.
- Ep 3 — Science Fiction isn’t about the future (17:23–18:44): Rob's answer to "the first story where you saw our world": DNA science had made bringing back extinct species seem possible, and the "could vs. should" question is one we're asking right now about AI. Caitlin loves that the lesson comes wrapped in a dinosaur theme park instead of an essay.
TERMS
Terms it runs on.
- Near-Future Science Fiction — Science fiction set only a few years or decades from now, in a world that's recognizably ours with one or two things pushed further.