Science Fiction in your neighborhood

[dustinzgirl]

Yes, the Country Faire is less than a month away! I WILL be there, with my horns and wings...

I will probably have to miss this year, but I plan on trying to get up there sometimes this summer for the Saturday Market at least.

 

[sanityassassin]

As another Glaswegian(although I am not really I'm a Portonian(Port Glasgow) and proud. I agree with Ace and Taggart but as for books I remember a supernatural thriller I read was set across the river Clyde from me on the Roseneath peninsular and mentions the sinking of the Sugar boat which still lies in the river and can be seen at low tide. I also read a thriller called Garrowhill set in Glasgow and part of it was set just down the road from where I lived at the time in Maryhill.

 

[UltraCulture]

Linda Buckley Archer set some of her Gideon Trilogy books in Derbyshire, I'd never heard of her till yesterday when she was interviewed on local radio.

You live and learn.

As far as i know they are a Time Travelling trilogy set in the present and the 18th century, and aimed at younger readers.

 

[Ru Pringle]

Hmm. Can't think of anything based in the Western Isles. The closest I can come to is film, The Wicker Man (which I think was one of the Inner Hebrides?)

 

[Ragnar]

- The town in The League of Gentlemen is based on the town a mile from where I live: Bacup.

Many years ago I went out with a lass from Hadfield where most of it was filmed. I only live about 20 miles away myself now & drive through it a couple of times a week. The place has never seemed the same since.

 

[Ragnar]

The town I grew up in in Massachusetts (Natick) is mentioned several times in Zodiac by Neal Stephenson. He gets just about everything wrong.

Is there a huge Twinkie factory in Natick? or did Family Guy get it wrong too?

 

[littlemissattitude]

LittleMiss- I remember the City Hall in Fresno.We used to call it the chrome Darth Vader helmet.

That makes sense. I've always called it "the crashed Klingon battle cruiser" myself. And, you know, from the back it actually looks a lot more like the backside of a plumber at work, "cleaveage" and all.

You've spent time in Fresno, K?

Oh, and you're right about location filming being an occupational hazard in L.A. and environs. Once when we went to visit my dad's grave in Chatsworth, they were filming part of an episode of Dark Skies. That was a little weird. And way back when, when we lived in Norwalk, I remember the neighbor kid coming charging up the driveway, yelling "Luke Skywalker is over at (insert name of department store, which I've forgotten now). He's there. Right now." Turned out, they were a couple of blocks away from my house, filming Corvette Summer. I wasn't excited enough to go see for myself.

But I have lots of fun pointing out places in movies and tv shows that I know from growing up down there. There's the Golf'N'Stuff in Norwalk, which was in The Karate Kid. There's Grease 2: the football field that's in that move is where my high school graduation was held. And there are so many more.

 

[Steve Jordan]

I live outside of Washington, D.C., so waaay too many movies and shows are based around my neighborhood.

The funniest thing about that, is spotting the movies and programs that say they are in Washington, but use sets or other cities to stand in for DC that don't even look close! So many times have I watched a scene set in Washington's Metro subway, only to see trains and stations that look nothing like our subway!

Makes you appreciate the movies that honestly go on location, and make it look authentic.

 

[Kostmayer]

I suppose Lancashire is famous for its witches, which feature in many books, if that counts?

Am a Lanc also Wigan to be precise. Didn't know we had witches here.

Not sure if it counts, but Sir Ian McKellen, he of Gandalf and Magneto fame, was born here.

 

[Anthony G Williams]

Just finished re-reading (for the first time in decades) Alan Garner's The Weirdstone of Brisingamen. Written for children, but written well enough to grip adults too. It's a fantasy with some vaguely Tolkienesque echoes, but the heroes are two normal children and it's set in Cheshire - it describes a lot of the physical features around Alderley Edge.

I like stories which start off with normal people in a real location and then you find there's a lot more going on than meets the eye...

 

[Dave]

i could say we londoners are famous throughout the world, but then id say the we south londoners are unknown throughout the world....i know, my book'll be set in south london!

There is a young adult/children's book called 'The Secret Shelter' by Sandi LeFaucheur that is set in a school near Kent House Station in Penge.

HG Wells once lived in Penge/Anerley (he was born in Bromley) and has descriptions of the area in his books such as 'The New Machiavelli'. 'The War of the Worlds' has good desciptions of Surrey; Maybury Hill and Horsell Common actually exist.

 

[clovis-man]

Oh, and the big funny-looking glass and metal building in The Puppet Masters? That's the city hall here in Fresno.

Sure looks funny as you view it to the west from the Amtrack station.

And not too far away, Kage Baker uses her own stomping grounds of Pismo Beach as a point of departure in her short story about granting immortality to William Randolph Hearst. Not to mention the castle itself.

Regards,

Jim

 

[quidscribis]

I lived in Vancouver, BC, Canada - Hollywood North - where many a science fiction television series was shot. XFiles, Dark Angel, Viper, Stargate, Millennium, Smallville, Supernatural, and so on and so forth. It was fun spotting locations I recognized. It also helped that one neighborhood I lived in was used - a lot - for a lot of movies & television series.

Of course, now I live where Indiana Jones was filmed. Not that I'd be able to recognize anything from that...

 

[gully_foyle]

I grew up in outer suburban Melbourne, where Nevil Shute's On the Beach was set and filmed. My parents used to drive me through a nearby suburb called Berwick and tell me it was set there. Ava Gardner was credited with saying that Melbourne was an appropriate place to make a film about the end of the world. It has improved since then.

 

[littlemissattitude]

Sure looks funny as you view it to the west from the Amtrack station.

That it does.

 

[Daenerys]

Plenty of books have been set in Amsterdam, none scifi themed though, as far as I know. And none of the fictional books, usually written by 'foreigners' have ever struck me as particularly accurate. Maybe they got the places right, but never the atmosphere. To people who don't live here Amsterdam is either the city where anything is possible (except maybe anything scifi related) or the sodom and gommora of its day. And neither of those places is where I live.

Bearing that in mind, I don't take realistic settings in books that serious. I know that the author's view on a place is just one view, often tainted with theneed for the storyline. Which is great! But to go on a touristy tour with a book in my hand, like they did for books like that one with the Da Vinci stuff, nah.

However, it always warms my heart to see bits and pieces of Amsterdam in films. And I dont think it is likely that we'll ever see a spaceship hovering over Dam Square in any film. Though that would be cool.

 

[mandy86]

Plenty of books have been set in Amsterdam, none scifi themed though, as far as I know.

The sci-fi novel Accelerando by Charles Stross takes place in Amsterdam. Or the first chapter does anyway, I have no idea about the rest of the book because I haven't read it.

 

[Ice fyre]

I think it was Ian Mcloed wrote a book set in part in a near future Edinburgh, he had a flea market where there is a posh shopping centre now. Also in another book "Moonseed" Edinburgh is destroyed by Lava........Hmmmm

 

[gully_foyle]

Had to unearth this thread. I was reading Bester's Tiger, Tiger last night and Gully Foyle attended a new years eve party at Government House in Canberra, just down the road from me. I new I picked this handle for a good reason (apart from Gully being one of the greatest SF characters of all time).

 

[tangaloomababe]

Sadly where I live is known for its apples and market gardens and nothing even remotely sci fi. Although they did film a couple of scenes for a movie here once, what was it again, oh yes Ghost Rider withe Nicholas Cage, never seen the movie myself and I don't think it did to well at the cinema. But thats it!