Science fiction

I get the feeling this thread isn't being treated with the gravitas it merits.

http://img104.imageshack.us/img104/2476/imageuploadimagekg3.jpg

Eight months passed and Melody stayed and made herself at home in MacGyver’s house. They had decided to wait until after the baby was born for her to find a job and a place. MacGyver made sure she gained weight and regularly went to the doctor’s. Melody felt cared for, for the first time in years. They continued to share a bed because no one would let the other one sleep on the couch. They acted more and more like a married couple everyday. Pete even teased them, asking when they were getting hitched. That always embarrassed them because they both had feelings for the other that went unsaid. Then one night after Pete had left, MacGyver and Melody started cleaning up.

“I’ll get it.” MacGyver said to her.

He took the dishcloth out of her hands.

“You need to rest.” He put his hand on her belly. “It’s almost time for him or her to come out and you both need your rest.”

“Alright.” Melody smiled.

She sat at the counter and watched Mac wash the dishes. She had been love with him for about four months now, but she wouldn’t tell him. She didn’t want to mess up the friendship they had. She could always have her dreams though. She smiled at him. MacGyver looked at her and noticed her smile. He wondered what she was thinking. He turned back to the dishes. As he washed them, he thought about Melody and the baby. He wondered if he would have the nerve to ask her an important question tonight. He’d been planning on it for a month but always had reservations. Well, if he didn’t ask her tonight, he would at least start the ball rolling. He put down the dish cloth and took a deep breath. He turned to Melody and looked at her across the counter. He smiled.

“What?” Melody asked smiling back.

MacGyver put his hand on her cheek.

“What are you doing?” Melody asked softly.

“Something I should have done a long time ago.”

He leaned over and kissed her gently on the lips. He paused and kissed her again. He pulled away, waiting for a response. Melody smiled at him.

“I’ve been waiting for that for months.” Melody laughed sweetly.

MacGyver smiled and touched her lips. He was doing good so far, he decided to continue.

“I’ve been in love with you for a few months now, but I’ve been afraid to say anything.” MacGyver said sweetly.

“You have?” Melody got tears in her eyes. “I’ve been afraid to tell you, I love you, too.”

MacGyver smiled bigger and kissed her again. He kissed her deeper. They both felt like electricity was coursing through them. Melody never felt happier. MacGyver decided not to press his luck and backed off.

“It’s getting late. We should get some sleep.” MacGyver suggested.

“I don’t know if I can now.” Melody said nearly bubbling with happiness.

“I know, but let’s try.” he smiled.

They went up to bed and neither could sleep for over an hour. Finally MacGyver put his arm around Melody and she laid her head on his chest. They fell asleep in that position.

The next morning, MacGyver put his plan into action. He made Melody breakfast in bed and put a small box under her napkin. He took the tray upstairs to her.

“Wake up beautiful. It’s time for breakfast.”

Melody opened her eyes and sat up.

“Aww...thank you! This is so sweet.”

MacGyver sat the tray on her lap and sat down facing her.

“Don’t you have to go to work?” Melody asked.

“Yes, but this comes first.” MacGyver said. “Go ahead. Dig in.”

“It smells so good.”

Melody took a sip of orange juice and smiled. She thought of how wonderful he was. She picked up the napkin and something dropped onto the tray. She saw a little black box and gasped. MacGyver held his breath in anticipation. Melody opened the box and inside was a ring with a diamond in the middle. With tears in her eyes she looked up at MacGyver. MacGyver took a deep breath.

“I’ve been planning this for awhile, but could never get the nerve. But after last night I decided to try. As Pete said, we’re practically married anyway, so let’s make it official. Will you marry me?” MacGyver took the ring out of the box and held it out.

Melody was shocked but had known what to say for months.

“I feel like I’ve been blessed ever since I met you. Of course I’ll marry you.” Melody held out her hand.

MacGyver slipped the ring on her finger and grabbed her for a kiss. They both forgot about the breakfast and it turned over. They both jumped then laughed.

“It was a nice thought.” Melody said. “Don’t worry, I’ll clean it up. You go to work. You don’t want to be late.”

MacGyver smiled and kissed her goodbye as he headed out the door. As he pulled away in his jeep, he didn’t notice the man in the van staring at him from across the road.

Is anyone else now terrified by the thought of latebloomer's bookmarks?

dead white guy canon

Doris Lessing. Margaret Atwood. Octavia Butler. Angela Carter.

gravitas =! surliness

Is anyone else now terrified by the thought of latebloomer's bookmarks?

-- HI DERE, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 14:24 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

Yes! hahaha

Good point Anna, add Ursula K LeGuin.

I learned today that there is Schindler's List fan fiction

And Samuel R Delany.

xpost to self

I skipped on Ursula, even though I like the Earthsea books, because of her somewhat dodgy politics - kind of plays into Dom's 'reject the alien' fantasies.

I don't know I thought the politics of "The Left Hand of Darkness" and "The Dispossessed" were actually quite interestingly nuanced. Then again it's years since I read them and that was against a background of wacko Heinleinian politics.

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s236/mezxspectrum/kpouterspacers.jpg

I don't remember any stuff like that in LeGuin either, they seemed very considered to me, but it's been years since I've read them also.

i always liked how ged had nice chestnut skin and the baddies were all ghostly white

strickly speakin that's fantasy though, not science fiction

"speculative fiction"

strickly speakin that's fantasy though, not science fiction

-- Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 15:47 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

Do you see major differences beyond the cosmetic?

She has written a lot of actual no-denying-it Science Fiction as well though.

xpost - yes.

Although the lines between the two do blur on occasion.

Was just thinking of Left Hand of Darkness as a kind of reject-yr-gut-impulse-to-reject-the-alien book, a theme I'd say is considerably more prevalent more in written SF than the basic reject-the-alien one. I guess I'm vaguely snobbish towards TV sci-fi in that I might tell someone I liked science fiction and not count really that stuff, even though that's probably the default meaning for most people with it in their livejournal interests etc, and I would suspect it of having a considerably worse ratio of blast-the-aliens cowboys-in-space stuff.

(I do see differences between fantasy and SF, though obviously I can't say that in a post starting w. Ursula Le Guin without noting that the lines would be very blurred even in what I consider the good stuff, especially 60s-70s before fantasy and maybe sci-fi too completely hived off into its/their own genre(s) that nobody else wanted to touch. Maybe it's just snobbery again but SF = about possibilities, about "if our universe changed in these crazy but not completely impossible ways, or turned out to have worked in them all along, what does that mean about us? and since human psychology stays basically the same -- PS if not, why not -- where would it take us?", vs fantasy's retreat into cosy if gory imagined world of impossibilities, romantic heroism, etc. And to join that up with my first-paragraph elitism, in some ways TV SF seems kind of more fantasy than SF, future/space just an excuse to declare technology functionally indistinguishable from magic, have epic multi-century feudal wars and cloud palaces and beautiful princesses...)

God knows why I've bothered typing or even thinking this. I await a one-line shred-ripping of my misplaced and overlong earnestness and then some c+p slash, or maybe just a prompt thread death.

"I guess we all feel alone sometimes." Jesse ran a slender hand through his long, dark hair, cut in the fashionable mullet style. "I guess we all feel alone sometimes." Jesse ran a slender hand through his long, dark hair, cut in the fashionable mullet style. "I guess we all feel alone sometimes." Jesse ran a slender hand through his long, dark hair, cut in the fashionable mullet style. "I guess we all feel alone sometimes." Jesse ran a slender hand through his long, dark hair, cut in the fashionable mullet style. "I guess we all feel alone sometimes." Jesse ran a slender hand through his long, dark hair, cut in the fashionable mullet style. "I guess we all feel alone sometimes." Jesse ran a slender hand through his long, dark hair, cut in the fashionable mullet style. "I guess we all feel alone sometimes." Jesse ran a slender hand through his long, dark hair, cut in the fashionable mullet style. "I guess we all feel alone sometimes." Jesse ran a slender hand through his long, dark hair, cut in the fashionable mullet style. "I guess we all feel alone sometimes." Jesse ran a slender hand through his long, dark hair, cut in the fashionable mullet style. "I guess we all feel alone sometimes." Jesse ran a slender hand through his long, dark hair, cut in the fashionable mullet style. "I guess we all feel alone sometimes." Jesse ran a slender hand through his long, dark hair, cut in the fashionable mullet style. "I guess we all feel alone sometimes." Jesse ran a slender hand through his long, dark hair, cut in the fashionable mullet style. "I guess we all feel alone sometimes." Jesse ran a slender hand through his long, dark hair, cut in the fashionable mullet style. "I guess we all feel alone sometimes." Jesse ran a slender hand through his long, dark hair, cut in the fashionable mullet style. "I guess we all feel alone sometimes." Jesse ran a slender hand through his long, dark hair, cut in the fashionable mullet style. "I guess we all feel alone sometimes." Jesse ran a slender hand through his long, dark hair, cut in the fashionable mullet style.

fantasy = magic wardrobe
sci fi = spaceship

or

fantasy = goblins
sci fi = martians

dom you're right that martians/spaceship or goblins/wardrobe can perform the same kind of functions in a story (portal to another world; what you find once you get there) and that the differences are largely differences of ambience and tone but ambience and tone are a big part of what any fiction is all about

i have just finished doing a radio series on golden age sci-fi pulp stories, despite knowing virtually nothing about them, so forgive me for going on and on here in possible the wrong direction completely but it seems to me that "classic" sci fi was all about a hero or group of heroes applying their rationality to some disturbance or alien thing (something star trek took up with gusto at the exact moment that this model of sci fi started losing its currency in the sharp blast of "new wave" story which tended towards INNER space and psychology); these classic stories were also hobbled, depending on your point of view, by having the short story as their dominant mode and thus relied heavily on short story tactics like the twist ending, which can feel cheap

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/7c/Wolfe_shadow_&_claw.jpg/202px-Wolfe_shadow_&_claw.jpg
does this count? it just arrived from amazon.

the first four of those Gene Wolfe Severian books are fucking excellent.

Actually that's a classic case of the lines between SF and fantasy being blurred, quite deliberately too.

i have just finished doing a radio series on golden age sci-fi pulp stories, despite knowing virtually nothing about them, so forgive me for going on and on here in possible the wrong direction completely but it seems to me that "classic" sci fi was all about a hero or group of heroes applying their rationality to some disturbance or alien thing (something star trek took up with gusto at the exact moment that this model of sci fi started losing its currency in the sharp blast of "new wave" story which tended towards INNER space and psychology); these classic stories were also hobbled, depending on your point of view, by having the short story as their dominant mode and thus relied heavily on short story tactics like the twist ending, which can feel cheap

-- Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 16:33 (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

In these stories, as a rule, is the foreign element eventually educated or destroyed?

If that's your angle, Dom, you're probably better looking at sub-Tolkein sword-and-sorcery trilogies, and even then you might be reaching a bit.

no

xpost

Dom I don't understand quite what you're saying, any chance you could spell it out in broader brush strokes?

So far the most batshit fantasy world on this thread is the one where The Sopranos isn't getting enough critical attention.

Haha.

So far the most batshit fantasy world on this thread is the one where The Sopranos isn't getting enough critical attention.

-- Matt DC, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 16:44 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

I'm not talking about critical attention! I'm talking about academic study.

You people are so dismissive of what you don't understand, which is why I'm arguing _against_ a culturally hegmonic approach to what is taken from popular culture into the academic field. I'm trying to help you.

Helpful people are a nuisance.

Sci-fi is pabulum for 12 year old girls.

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22the+sopranos%22&hl=en&lr=

I really can't believe there's a disproportionate amount of SF being studied in academia, unless you're talking about backwater US schools that offer majors in Klingon.

in "the tactful saboteur" by frank herbert, the foreign element is a species with five genders. this species' family unit is made up of a representative of each of these genders, and "head of the household" status passes around the circle every couple of years, effectively changing the gender of the person who has it, or gives it up. the intricacy and subtlety of this arrangement prompts the human protagonist of the story to finagle one of these family units into the head of a powerful government department on the basis that their knowledge and tact makes them a better candidate than any of the available humans. embarrassingly for this species, the only way he can do this is by revealing the secrets of their "ego transfer" in an open courtroom, which is apparently akin to describing each moment of a rimjob

Results 1 - 10 of about 2,920 for "the sopranos". (0.12 seconds)
Results 1 - 10 of about 18,300 for "star trek". (0.08 seconds)
Results 1 - 10 of about 26,800 for "star wars". (0.22 seconds)
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xxp

you'd think this story would be, uh, "eaten up" by gender studies courses but no

xpost

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=%22elephant+shitting+on+the+floor+in+blue+peter%22&btnG=Search

Real critical underappreciation.

star trek: 1966
star wars: 1977

sopranos: 1999
goodfellas: 1990

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Results 1 - 10 of about 744 for "the breakfast club". (0.18 seconds)

"Buffy" is pretty bad I must admit. Most/nearly all TV/film SF I don't like, personally.

If you're arguing that taking geekish/"cult" TV/film into "serious" academia is ridiculous, then you might have a point worth expanding on there. So it might be worth expanding on it, Dom.

nerds be goin into academia. so what?

the university of google!

"so what" is a perfectly valid response, I agree.

The ridiculous number of people emotionally-invested in making Buffy seem cleverer than it actually is always astounds me.

Results 1 - 10 of about 8,650 for "film noir". (0.09 seconds)
Results 1 - 10 of about 1,870 for "professional wrestling". (0.13 seconds)