Bøger af Scott Robinson

When it comes to moving around in time, a great deal of the fun and delight is that there are so many different variations on the theme. Sometimes a machine - be it a glorified sleigh or a souped-up DeLorean - delivers us to some point in the past or the future. Sometimes it's a weird, hazy phenomenon that descends up on us and scoops us up; sometimes we just get hit on the head and wake up somewhen else. And I've always been thrilled by that wonderful range. I've done some time travel tales myself at this point, enough to fill a book. I hope I've managed to make each one different, each deploying some new take on time travel and what it does and what it means: - a team of time-traveling researchers crash-lands 77,000 years in the past, and become gods to the natives they encounter;- the apartment atop the Eiffel Tower become a way station for travelers from future centuries;- an archaeological team unearths a Cro-Magnon skeleton, 30,000 years old, with a cybernetic brain implant and a bionic arm;- a Manhattan antiques dealer's centuries-old shop was once a tavern, and after midnight he can hear voices emanating from the 1770s;- a pizza delivery boy discovers that he can return to a point in recent past, allowing him to get rich quick;- a quirky middle-aged retiree finds a hole to the past in Mammoth Cave, and finds he prefers cavorting with dinosaurs to being around his wife;- a time-hopping wraith is condemned to roam an eternal stream of nights, jumping from one to the next, forced to take a life of his choosing in each... ...and more. Three of these - "Skeleton 17", "Delivery Boy", and "Sisters" - are new, written for this collection.The others appeared in previous collections, including Shadows of Shadows, Quantum Chroniclesand The Madman's Almanac. I hope the Gentle Reader enjoys them all!

When I was young, around 12 or 13 years old, I went to a school that was very old and made of brick and oak, with high ceilings and thick bannisters on the stairs and hardwood floors, like something out of Hoosiers. I loved that old school - especially the third-floor library, which was also where we had study hall. Every day, I would zip through my homework and raise my hand so the study hall teacher would let me vanish into the library stacks to choose a book to read for the remainder of the period. Sometimes it was Ray Bradbury. Sometimes, Robert Heinlein. Sometimes Isaac Asimov. But I always picked tales of wonder - from The Martian Chronicles or I, Robot or The Illustrated Man. I loved those stories! They fired up my imagination and took me to amazing places. They filled me with awe. I've written many stories of my own in the decades since, and a handful are like those wonderous tales I read in that long-ago third-story school library - tales of hope and light, stories that stir the imagination and provide inspiration. Positive, upbeat, with happy endings. There are ten of them within, and they are all over the place: there are some time travel stories, some stories that take place in space, a couple of magical tales. A few are very light-hearted, a few are very serious - but all of them have happy endings, and all of them (I hope!) offer that hope and light that once illuminated my own future.

It's hilarious these days to watch misguided, insecure fanboys and transparent political panderers break out in rants and whines that Nu Trek - Discovery, Picard, Strange New Worlds - is 'woke'. Anyone who knows Trek, old or nu, can only laugh; Trek has, of course, been utterly woke since 1966. Woke. Shining a light on racism. War. Sexual discrimination. Authoritarianism. Confronting torture; imperialism; addiction; the treatment of veterans. Commenting on environmentalism; medical ethics; capitalism; homelessness; moral relativism. Put another way, if it makes an anti-woke fanboy angry, it's something Trek had much to say about from the very beginning.

The Apocalypse. Sometimes we lay waste to the world and it's about humanity's remnant struggling to survive. Sometimes humanity doesn't make it at all. Sometimes we prevail, but we become something horrible. And, always, it's fascinating and sobering to contemplate. Many are the ways the world might end, and it will always be worth our time and effort to continue contemplating that truth. We'd much rather it didn't, of course, but the lesson of Charleton Heston and Arthur C. Clarke and Harlan Ellison - and, I hope, these stories - is that it could well happen to us when we're not looking, if we don't pay close attention.

Maxx became my brother on January 14, 1973. He departed on September 18, 2023. That's 50 years of fraternity we shared, then, and it was brotherhood that swiftly took root in his early years and proceeded to flourish over the decades. I hope this little journey is both enjoyable and insightful, and that it conveys some sense of the joys that Maxx and I shared over the years. STROctober 12, 2023

For seven glorious years, Aaron Sorkin's masterpiece The West Wing served up a vision of American democracy and governance that informed us, challenged us and inspired us. In this collection of more than 20 essays, all prompted by memorable moments in the series, Scott Robinson surveys the issues, crises, and core principles of greatest impact, where the preservation and full realization of the American Experiment are concerned. Sorkin's vision was idealistic, to be sure, and the years since have been in many ways discouraging; but the perpetual light of The West Wing can continue to illuminate our path, all the same.

These essays, culled from the author's lengthier volume, The Children of Babel, explore some of the inherent aspects of consciousness that might one day be embodied in artificial intelligence."Douglas, Daniel, John: An Infernal Chinese Room" revisits John Searle's famous thought experiment, as well as the reply of Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett (among others), 40 years on and in light of technology that has since emerged; "What Is It Like to Be Batman?" presents a new spin on Thomas Nagel's famous essay concerning the mind-body problem; and "Analogica: This and That and Strange Loops, Too" considers Hofstadter's more recent contributions to the nature of consciousness.Together, these pieces (and several others) form a profile of the study of consciousness today, against the backdrop of recent progress in AI and machine learning - with some provocative implications about whether truly conscious machines might be waiting in the near future.

The Outlander novels and TV series have awakened tens of millions to the romance, magic, and darkness of Scotland, a land of mystery and adventure. This wondrous, sometimes ominous, and often eerie corner of the world is the source of endless legends and tales - stories of ghosts and hauntings, fairies and giants, dreadful creatures; magic light and dark, witches, and monsters of the human variety. A Dark and Stormy Night in Scotland! presents a rich and varied assortment of these stories, culled from history, the writings of Scottish scholars, and the legends themselves. From The Headless Horseman to the cannibal Sawney Bean, from the Flannan Isles lighthouse mystery to True Thomas the Seer, from the warlock Major Weir to the hauntings of Edinburgh Castle, A Dark and Stormy Night indulges the True Believer with a thrilling collection of the best tales Scotland has to offer.

The Seventies were a distinct and provocative chapter in the history of rock, and of the bands that emerged in that era, none was more distinct and provocative than Boston. Tom Scholz's unlikely basement brainchild blasted out of radios across the US with unprecedented energy and melodic integrity and staggering harmonic power, oozing musical hooks and lyrical themes that take up permanent resonance in the memories of the band's fans with the persistance of Beatles tunes. What made Boston's music so special? How did it come to be? More Than a Feeling explores the band's classic years, 1976-1988, examining in detail the elements and structure of Boston's best songs, from the first track of their debut album to "Peace of Mind" and "Smokin'", from Don't Look Back's "Feelin' Satisfied" and "A Man I'll Never Be" through Third Stage's "Amanda" and "Cool the Engines". It's the first-ever in-depth analysis of the best work of rock's most interstellar band.

This compendium of utterly random facts, stories and miscellany is superficially intended to amuse the reader, in moments of repose, idleness, or extreme boredom. Hopefully, however, the mix is sufficiently diverse and the individual items sufficiently compelling so as to engage the mind as well as the eyes and hands, and sufficiently contrary as to inspire an occasional touch of pique. The ideal union of book and reader is one in which the latter becomes the bane of the ignorant, the envy of the less erudite, and the life of every party...

Trek fans the world over know the following names: Nomad... M-5... Landru... V'Ger... Finnegan... and, of course, Data. Star Trek has given the science fiction universe some of its most interesting and provocative AIs and androids, and with them an insightful flow of concepts to consider as AI makes its way into the real world. Now that we've begun talking to machines and are beginning to turn decisions over to them, it's a great time to look at the imagined technology of the far future and consider what might actually be possible in the near future, in light of the AI revolution that's now underway. Will machines think for themselves, as V'Ger did? Will they become self-aware, as Data was? Will they make war on us, in the footsteps of Landru and Vaal? Will we consult with them, as Voyager's crew did the EMH, or follow Tasha Yar's lead and take them to bed? These and many other questions are answered in this snackable volume, which blends Trek fan service with the nuts and bolts of real AI, the study of consciousness, and the philosophy of mind. The AIs and androids considered cover the full range of the Trek canon, including the AI Control from Star Trek: Discovery and Data's daughter, the android Soji from Star Trek: Picard.

In the 30th century, human life expectancy has been extended hundreds of years - but it only works for the body. The mind must be rebooted, to make room for another lifetime of memories. When the moment is right, it's time to Jump - to let the old life go and start a new one in a new place, with a new identity. Talyn Jain's body is more than 700 years old, but he is just over 60 in his current life. He is about to marry Oerilae, a woman under 40 and still in her first life, when he unexpectedly Jumps, without any word or warning. His friends and colleagues believe he did so out of reconsideration of the marriage - but Oerilae doesn't believe it. She begins investigating, trying to learn what happened to her husband-to-be. Suddenly she finds herself cut off from her life, pursued by dark forces intent on ending her investigation - and, if necessary, ending her...

Star Trek's Cmdr. Data... Alien's Ash and Bishop... Skynet and the Terminator... the androids of Westworld... Ex Machina's Eva, the Stepford Wives - and the granddaddy of them all, HAL 9000... These and other famous artificial minds are at the heart of this exploration of AI and the possibility of machine consciousness, suggesting the directions that the evolution of the technology might take. How great is the gap between the AI of film and television and what's emerging in the world today? Will that gap be closed at some point? Will we ever see androids who think and feel and experience the world as we do? Scott Robinson, a social scientist who implements AI and augmented intelligence systems in the corporate world, takes on these questions and others in these surveys of AI in fiction and the real world: What would it take to create a true artificial mind, if it's even possible? What are the building blocks of consciousness, and how could they be recreated in a machine? What can human society learn from the AI of fiction? And if we can actually build conscious machines - should we? With fan service to spare, AI in Sci-Fi tours the science fiction universe for its fascinating artificial life, reaching into the imagination for inspirations that will guide our path tomorrow, as human and machine enter into permanent partnership...

He's flamboyant. He's outrageous. He's as over-the-top as any pop/rock star has ever been. But Elton John is also a consummate musician, a creative force that redefined what music could be. With Bernie Taupin, he is second only to Lennon and McCartney in the pantheon of great songwriters. Rock Candy presents Elton in easily-digested bits and pieces, covering the songs and albums of his classic years, his child prodigy upbringing, his closest relationships, his crash-and-burn addictions, and his triumphant Lion King revival. As Elton celebrates 50 years of artistry, the Rock Candy series celebrates with him.

What's it like, growing up in a Fundamentalist church, a Fundamentalist home, with a Fundamentalist preacher for a dad? It's a worldview like no other, especially for a Seventies kid reaching for the stars. This warm and humorous memoir explains what it's like to love the Beatles from afar; to experience Rapture Terror and a sex talk about Debby Boone; to long to play rock and roll in an ecclesiastical home, to be drawn to science while in a Young Earth Creationist church, and to live and breathe Star Trek for all the wrong reasons. The Smell of the Lord is a journey through a very different time, when a very different sentiment about the church and its role in society prevailed, and even the politics of guilt and fear seemed, well, more innocent. It's a coming-of-age tale, the story of a boy with his eyes on the stars who can't walk straight on the ground, wandering around in a wondrous past where the music on the horizon is a piper's call - and the road ahead leads anywhere but home...

In his previous book, The Progressive Beatles, Scott Robinson asserted that without the Beatles, there would have been no Yes, no ELP, no Genesis, no King Crimson - no progressive rock genre. In this new work, Robinson argues that without Bach, Beethoven, Chopin and other classical influences, there would have been no Beatles - or at least not the Beatles as we know them. Those and other classical influences deeply pervade the canon of the Fab Four, and they went out of their way to leverage those influences to the fullest. Aided by their well-schooled producer George Martin, they infused their music with the passions, complexities, nuance and brilliance of the greatest composers of the past few centuries. This volume explores the classical features of the Beatles' music in depth, demonstrating in a new way that they stand above all their peers as the greatest musical innovators of the 20th century.

Elton John's place in rock history is secure. He is one of the most consequential musicians of the past half-century - and, alongside songwriting partner Bernie Taupin, a part of the only duo to approach Lennon & McCartney in talent and range. Harmony examines the music of Elton John in deep detail, analyzing its themes, its structure, its innovations. From Madman Across the Water to Goodbye Yellow Brick Road to Captain Fantastic, from "Your Song" to "Bennie and the Jets" to "Rocket Man" - the creativity and nuance and boldness of Elton's best music from his earlier "classical" years is thoughtfully explored, along with the history of each song and album. It's a journey back down the Yellow Brick Road that now stretches across five decades, back to Caribou and the Honky Chateau and other venues where the music first happened - but, more significantly, it's a path into the mind of one of pop cultures true 20th century genuises.

The Outlander books of Diana Gabaldon (and the TV series by Ron B. Moore) awakened tens of millions of readers and viewers to the alluring romantic and sexual mores of historical Scotland, both fascinating and titillating in their awkward truce between traditional social order and the lusty spirit of the Highlands. But the real stories are just as fascinating, just as titillating, and packed with as much romance, humor and tragedy as Gabaldon's saga. This collection of 40 tales from Scotland's past journeys through the full range of Scottish intrigues of the heart and flesh, from the sex magic of the Druids to the royal courtships of Scotland's kings and queens, from the raucous adventures of Robert Burns to the sexual repressions of the Reformation. Steeped in history but seasoned with art and folklore, it's a trip through time worthy of Claire and Jamie.

If the Beatles hadn't written and recorded "A Day in the Life", "I Am the Walrus", "Strawberry Fields Forever", "Blue Jay Way", "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and other proto-progressive songs - if they'd never cobbled together "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite", applied Western tuning to a sitar on "Norwegian Wood", flipped George's guitar on "I'm Only Sleeping", or pieced together the Side Two medley on Abbey Road - then the trails of Yes, Genesis, Jethro Tull, Pink Floyd, Kansas, ELP and so many others might never have been blazed - or, at least, would have taken far longer to discover. Progressive rock owes everything to the Beatles - everything that defines it began with the Fab Four. There is no Fragile, no Thick as a Brick, no Dark Side of the Moon in the Beatles canon, no "Tarkus", no "Heart of the Sunrise", no "Firth of Fifth" - but without the works described in this book, we'd never have had all those wonderful albums and songs...

When they were together, the Beatles put out 27 #1 hit singles - a record that remains unbroken, 50 years later. Astonishingly, they proceeded to accumulate 20 more as solo artists, a feat likewise never duplicated. All 47 songs are documented in this accessible, trivia-filled compendium, a must-have for lovers of the band's timeless music.

Can machines be intelligent? Yes, that seems settled; but can machines be conscious? That's not nearly as clear. The dream of machines that not only think, but feel and experience consciousness as humans do has been a canvas of fantasists, a goal of technologists and a conundrum to philosophers for decades. Here in this brief collection are discussions covering a number of culturally prominent examples (such as HAL 9000), well-known intellectual arguments (the Chinese Room and Nagel's Bat), and famous expositions of the problem (the Tortoise and Achilles, from Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach). The discussions are nested within the mathematical wonder of pi, and framed in Borges' fantastic Library of Babel - ensuring a reading experience that is as entertaining as it is thought-provoking.

Scott Robinson's The Dark Hills is a brilliant exploration of depression and spirituality. Written in lucidly poetic language, this masterpiece of creative nonfiction is encyclopedic in its knowledge of the world's religions. Robinson neither shies away from his personal bouts with depression, nor from his warm and intimate love for his family. His intelligent treatment of the subject of depression, and his sense of humor are unforgettable.

The Rock Candy series combines pop music scholarship with a sense of fun and entertainment. This entry surveys the best of what is not-so-commonly known about the Beatles, with broad commentary on their creativity, innovation, cultural experimentation, and the scope of their impact on modern music and culture.

The Beatles left an indelible mark not only on music, but on the culture in which they created it. In a time of great and sudden change, they led a generation into new territory, redefining the social landscape as a place where men and women could try on new roles. They led this change through their music, their public personae, and - under scrutiny - their example. The Beatles Guide to Love & Sex examines all three - the songs, the parts they played in public, and the way they led their lives, for better or worse. John, Paul, George and Ringo began their journey as typical working-class teenagers - not particularly sophisticated in the ways of the heart - and walked a long and winding road toward their eventual destinations as husbands and fathers. They stumbled quite a bit along the way; but they left the world a roadmap, a precarious but emphatic path from innocence to maturity - and adorned it with a timeless musical legacy.

Adults with ADD must daily face a world not designed for them - a world where their unique gifts and traits often don't quite fit in. This can make things difficult at work, among friends, and especially in relationships. One big step the ADD adult can take to help their close relationships succeed is to set expectations with new partners and friends up front, by sharing their experience and explaining how the world looks through their eyes. By making clear the different ways they express themselves, and being candid about their struggles, they can help the new person in their lives know what to expect and react with greater understanding in the moment.This easy-to-read communications guidebook frames 40 aspects of the ADD adult's life in easy-to-understand terms, as well as providing a collection of effective metaphors ("Having ADD feels like my brain is a browser with way too many open tabs!") to help explain to someone new what to look forward to in the new relationship.

The ideas contained in this book - some frivolous, some serious, some downright existential - cover an agreeable range, from politics to the Paleolithic; from authoritarianism to empathy; from body language to breasts. Some great minds are referenced - Hofstadter, Bradbury, Kierkegaard - and a coalescence around the core of human nature will be faintly detectable to the alert reader.

This highly random collection of short essays covers a broad spectrum of subject matter, from politics to anthropology, from pop culture to artificial intelligence. The idea is to stimulate new thinking in each domain, with some incidental trivia and nonsense thrown in to make the contemplation more palatable.

Since beginning his executive coaching career, Scott Robinson has found a recurring theme in some of his work. Even with executives who have reached some of the highest levels in their companies, there still seems to be a lack of engagement and job satisfaction. What many of these executives say can be summed up in some version of the statement: "I'm 55 and I hate my job." Do any of these situations sound familiar? - Your career path has been decided by the company. You want to determine your own future. - You would quit in a minute, but your income provides a great lifestyle. You can't afford to quit. - You're tired of the rat race and would like to spend the next 10 years giving back in a meaningful way. - You have been promoted to a C-suite position, but your former position has not been filled. Now you have two jobs. - Your father "gave" you the business. It was his dream but it is not yours. - You were happy and successful in your job, so you were "promoted" to management. You never wanted to be a manager. This book looks at challenges faced by more than two dozen executives frustrated by jobs they no longer enjoy. The solutions for their problems were not "one size fits all." Their solutions offer facts, insight, and inspiration that can help you learn to love your job or to move on to a more meaningful career.

"Star Trek was explicitly crafted by its creator, Gene Roddenberry, into a humanist manifesto; the stories Trek told were humanist parables, putting forth the core philosophies to which he was devoted: equality, reason, integrity, fairness, opportunity, community. I was soaking them up before I even really understood what they were. I didn't know it way back in 1972, but Star Trek had already made a humanist of me. It just took me a while to discover that there was a word for it. "This book is a celebration of both the stories and the values they inculcated in me. It is a humanism primer, for those not well-grounded in that domain, and it is a showcase of humanist moments from across the Star Trek landscape. It is my hope that you, the Gentle Reader, will likewise find much to celebrate in both..." (from the Introduction)