SF Writers on SF Films

Adopting the format of Mark Morris's Cinema Macabre, the British Science Fiction Association's Martin Lewis asked a bunch of British SF authors to write about their favourite SF film. The resulting booklet has just been distributed to members of the BSFA. Non-members can read Adam Robert's essay here. As for my selection:

For anyone like me, born just after the hinge of the last century, there’s only one candidate for best science-fiction film. Some may make quirky or contrarian choices -- Dark Star, say, or Alien3 -- and there are certainly cogent arguments to be made for films like Blade Runner or Children of Men (which I reckon to be the best sf film of this century, so far), but my personal favourite is 2001: A Space Odyssey.

I'll put up my essay on the web site in due course. Meanwhile, here's Terry Gilliam's brilliant condensation of Kubrick and Clarke's masterpiece. To paraphrase Brian Aldiss, one of sf's (especially British sf's) best and most enduring themes is hubris clobbered by nemesis.