Follow Friday - There Were 256 Men in a Syntagma in Alexander's Macedonian Army

It's Friday again, and this means it's time for Follow Friday. There has been a slight change to the format, as now there are two Follow Friday hosts blogs and a single Follow Friday Featured Blogger each week. To join the fun and make now book blogger friends, just follow these simple rules:

1. Follow both of the Follow My Book Blog Friday Hosts (Parajunkee and Alison Can Read) and any one else you want to follow on the list.
2. Follow the Featured Blogger of the week - Naga Sanctuary.
3. Put your Blog name and URL in the Linky thing.
4. Grab the button up there and place it in a post, this post is for people to find a place to say hi in your comments.
5. Follow, follow, follow as many as you can, as many as you want, or just follow a few. The whole point is to make new friends and find new blogs. Also, don't just follow, comment and say hi. Another blogger might not know you are a new follower if you don't say "Hi".
6. If someone comments and says they are following you, be a dear and follow back. Spread the love . . . and the followers.
7. If you want to show the link list, just follow the link below the entries and copy and paste it within your post!
8. If you're new to the Follow Friday Hop, comment and let me know, so I can stop by and check out your blog!

And now for the Follow Friday Question: Ten Reasons You Love Your Fave Genre.

My favorite genre is, and probably always will be, science fiction. Here are ten reasons I love the genre:

1. It is about the Future. Science fiction contemplates possible futures, imagining what the world might be like if everyone could teleport, or how people might respond to a much warmer planet, or any number of other different scenarios.
2. It is about the past. Science fiction considers what the world might have been like if Babbage had actually built his difference engine, or if the steam-style technology imagined by Jules Verne had actually worked.
3. In the end, it is really about the present. Science fiction allows an author to examine contemporary society and politics from a fresh perspective, unsaddled by much of the baggage that would come from trying to tackle such issues without the use of a metaphor. For example, the original Star Trek was able to take on issues like racism, imperialism, and the Vietnam War on a nationally broadcast show in an era when network executives shied away from shows that dealt with such issues.
4. It is about alternatives. Much science fiction asks the question "what if", and then examines the implications of those ideas. What if people could change sex? What if there wasn't actually a world to stand on, but instead everyone lived in a gravity free zone of oxygen orbiting a star? What if history was so long that measuring years became meaningless and technology became like magic? Science fiction examines these sorts of questions all the time.
5. It is about dystopian societies. From The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins to A World Out of Time by Larry Niven to We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, to Revolt in 2100 by Robert Heinlein, science fiction is full of stories about what happens when society becomes something that we would regard as a nightmare. Science fiction examines what it would be like to live in such a society, how one would come about, and how one might fall.
6. It is about utopian societies. Though not as common as dystopias, utopias show up in science fiction often enough to be interesting. Most, like the society at the end of Isaac Asimov's Foundation series or the society in Orson Scott Card's Worthing Saga, depict utpoias with hidden flaws, and that often makes them careen into being dytopias, but the constructed worlds that are seen as utopian are often fascinating for their flawed beauty.
7. It is about the disasters. Science fiction is often about the end of the world, and what comes after as people pick of the pieces. A tradition that includes Earth Abides by George Stuart, Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, and A Boy and His Dog by Harlan Ellison, science fiction is rich with stories about people living in the aftermath of the collapse of civilization, and highlighting what might survive and what might not.
8. It is about aliens. Science fiction imagines what other life might be like, and imagines how they might interact with humanity. What if there were microscopic aliens living on the surface of an neutron star? What if there were aliens who lives in gas giants and breathed hydrogen? What would they be like? How would we communicate with them?
9. It is about humanity. Science fiction looks at humanity's future, examines humanity's past, and criticizes humanity's present. It also looks at what humans are like, and could be like. What if humans could reshape themselves on a regular basis? What if humans were replaced by our own creations who lived in ways that imitate us? How will we face the challenges of space? The challenges of our own impending extinction?
10. Science fiction has spaceships. Need I say more?

Previous Follow Friday: 255 Is the Maximum Value Representable by an 8-Digit Binary Number

Subsequent Follow Friday: The Battle of Tyndarus Between Rome and Carthage Was Fought in 257 B.C.

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