Science fiction

+1, Insightful.

space is boring

― MPx4A, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 13:20 (7 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lol this thread

ilx needs some sort of ferg repository

Some thoughts:

1. Essentially I love science-fiction because it deals with and explores the need for humans to both come to terms with and improve the conditions of their existence at the highest level (obviously also how they fuck that up).

2. Am curious about those who do not take any interest in science-fiction at all. I can see trivial reasons for their dislike, but taking my brother as an example there was a point where he stopped being a kid and i think that was the point where he also stopped being remotely interested in sci-fi. i'm suggesting that, practically or typically, all boys like it (having been more encouraged than girls to do so, generally and traditionally) until a certain dividing incident (being mocked for it by an older boy? wanting to distance yourself from it due to some acquired insecurity e.g. becoming more disturbed by aspects of it, or because you start associating it too much with people you don't like (this could happen with many other things e.g. sports). could be bollocks but based on personal childhood experience it rings true. i guess there i'm saying 'why wouldn't you love it, at least as a child?' because the visual qualities of the concept are so rich and do touch on my first point

3. I do not like that many sci-fi TV shows or even films but I wouldn't blame "Americanisation" for this - at least that is a hugely problematic term and the wrong word. But most of our influences come, directly or not, from there and through that filter and this also feels problematic and limiting. I suspect when most people say they hate sci-fi they are really talking about the way it's presented as entertainment in the mainstream market and obv. it's the most difficult area to tell convincing or believable stories which many adults have issues with.

4. But I think the biggest problem with sci-fi is how often it jars with human interest on a wide scale, as if they are in unresolvable opposition. Often what you end up with is just stories that don't have any real connection to the technology, environs and conditions the characters are operating in and could be set on historical Earth, because of the idea that as many as possible must be able to relate. Perhaps the best sci-fi accommodates this but transcends it without compromising on challenging, exotic and interesting events and objects (the design of sci-fi things generally being a big factor in the love - visualising things which don't actually exist being empowering). People like Star Wars because of how relatively well it did this.

i think the main prob with a lot of scifi is that it requires such a feat of world-building and few people can do that well enough to compete with, you know, the real world.

That's why most of best sci-fi tend to exagerrate the real world rather than recreate a new world.

that says more about the viewer perhaps. you are a certain age before you start going 'nyarrrgh looks so fake' plus you can get great entertainment out of people's attempts to realise the fantastic even whey fail (as they so often do). sci-fi can still be great even if it 'fails' to look as believable as real life. xp

That's why most of best sci-fi tend to exagerrate the real world rather than recreate a new world.

do you mean when people try to come up with how aliens and other planets might look?

I mean most of the best sci-fi uses the possibilities of our world's future state as a template rather than trying to create a whole new worlds from scratch. There are exceptions though (I love plenty of space operas.)

i read a quote when i was a kid that stuck with me, something about the difference between sci-fi and fantasy being that sci-fi takes the real world, changes one thing and asks "what if?", whereas fantasy changes, um, a whole bunch of things.

(no idea who said it but i'm guessing harlan ellison, maybe)

I mean most of the best sci-fi uses the possibilities of our world's future state as a template rather than trying to create a whole new worlds from scratch. There are exceptions though (I love plenty of space operas.)

― Alex in SF, Tuesday, January 27, 2009 5:41 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ya but i find a lot of the time it becomes this narcissism of small differences thing where it's like... almost but not QUITE believable and thus just totally fails

reading that scifi hall of fame book i love the datedness of some of the future technology--like people can travel faster than light but still watch "phono-tubes" and "electro-tapes" and stuff like that

I think the reasons people actively dislike/ignore SF relate mainly to a distaste for fandom, which isn't unique to SF as a genre but is obviously a very visible aspect of it. The idea that this stuff is a genre at all is problematic I think. I definitely went thru a phase in late teens/early 20s of distaste for any kind of genre fiction - defined as whatever I decided it was. Also even now I'm over that there's still a lingering - contempt is too strong a word but small guilty inner sneer is fair - for adults who primarily enjoy films/books/TV shows/etc as escapist fantasy.

None of that is reasonable or fair, or accurate. They are bad reasons for disliking a huge mass of literature etc. I'm just saying I guess they partly answer one of blueski's questions: a lot of people feel like that at some time in their lives, maybe some people feel like that for most of their adult lives.

I still don't like a lot - maybe the bulk - of "Science Fiction". I don't really like fandom either. But it'll take a while to think about why.

this reminds me of previous discussion where someone (n/a?) said CGI errors would never become charming and quaint in that way. xp

"ya but i find a lot of the time it becomes this narcissism of small differences thing where it's like... almost but not QUITE believable and thus just totally fails"

I'm not reading sci-fi for believeability.

ya i know dude but you get what i mean. replace "unbelievable" with "distractingly contrived" then

"The idea that this stuff is a genre at all is problematic I think."

Not really. The fact that it was a separate genre was for a long time its greatest asset.

another thing is that characters are usually really, really, shittily written in scifi, especially women, and a lot of ppl can't get over that.

Yeah one of the things that put me off when I was in high aesthete mode was I thought a lot of the writing was terrible, but I was kinda wrong and misjudging on that score, sometimes.

you guys dont have to defend scifi from this, im just saying that's WHY a lot of ppl dont like it

I don't agree about the genre thing Alex, it lumps together really disparate works in ways that I don't find helpful, and sometimes it acts as a barrier to keep people inside it as well as outside it?

Walters fidgeted with his lapel and poured himself another bourbon. His visitor sat across the desk, waiting for an answer with almost inhuman patience. Finally Walters looked up and scowled - "What, you think you're the only one on Terra with problems?"

the female characters complaint relates to girls generally being discouraged from sci-fi i guess. but there aren't enough female characters for good and bad to be defined v well. what about all the terrible male characters etc.

Also this ^ is true for every genre besides sci fi as well.

that doesnt mean it's not true of scifi

but the argument that there's not enough female characters in scifi for us to determine whether they really are written poorly is, uh, revealing.

"I don't agree about the genre thing Alex, it lumps together really disparate works in ways that I don't find helpful, and sometimes it acts as a barrier to keep people inside it as well as outside it?"

The barriers that kept people in it allowed for a degree of creativity that wouldn't have occured if they were writing short fiction for the Atlantic or the Saturday Evening Post of whatever.

Ray Bradbury used to write for Collier's!

yeah it's MORE the case with sci-fi, just as there are more women in rock n' roll or R&B than in electronic/dance

"but the argument that there's not enough female characters in scifi for us to determine whether they really are written poorly is, uh, revealing."

Except it's basically nonsense.

I'd argue that SF writing has become wayyyyyy more nichified these days

xpost

But I won't, I'll just say it and you'll have to accept it

"yeah it's MORE the case with sci-fi, just as there are more women in rock n' roll or R&B than in electronic/dance"

There are plenty of woman sci-fi writers (and fans) from the earliest days. This idea that sci-fi is a straight boys club is flat wrong.

but the argument that there's not enough female characters in scifi for us to determine whether they really are written poorly is, uh, revealing

i'm just saying, this is not sci-fi's fault! surely no-one is thinking 'this character sucks and thus has ruined the entire genre for me'.

There are plenty of woman sci-fi writers (and fans) from the earliest days.

plenty as in enough?

and are you suggesting sci-fi is no more male character-orientated than other genres? was it ever?

(gotta go now tho, back in the morning)

has anyone done a scifi abuse memoir yet?

Plenty enough to undermine the argument that it's exclusively the province of a bunch of dudes.

"and are you suggesting sci-fi is no more male character-orientated than other genres? was it ever?"

That's a difficult characterization to make. What genres? Since when? Some of the earliest sci-fi adventure stories are definitely very very macho. But compared to mysteries? Or crime fiction? Or even conventional literature?

"but the argument that there's not enough female characters in scifi for us to determine whether they really are written poorly is, uh, revealing."

Except it's basically nonsense.

― Alex in SF, Tuesday, January 27, 2009 6:03 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

that's what im saying.

B-b-ut Alex, what is the sci-fi equivalent of the cozy?

has anyone done a scifi abuse memoir yet?

hmm, Joe Haldeman to thread.

love science-fiction because it deals with and explores the need for humans to both come to terms with and improve the conditions of their existence at the highest level

I've always seen scifi as more about the technology that about the characters. As already noted, there are countless examples of shittily drawn or cliched charactets in scifi, but that's never bothered me as long as the book is full of wicked radical tech ideas, dude. OTOH a well-drawn, character based story in which the future world is merely a backdrop, doesn't interest me nearly as much (not sure who would really fit under this, maybe Ballard?)

IOW it's about the ideas, not the characters or the writing, hence the lack of universal appeal, not everyone is interested in giant spaceships and super smart AIs n shit.

Maybe this is true to an extent for all genre fiction? Perhaps characters are more important in e.g. detective fiction, since obviously the stories have to revolve around people; but still, it won't sell if you don't have a decent central mystery.

B-b-ut Alex, what is the sci-fi equivalent of the cozy?

maybe Time Traveler's Wife or And She Crawled Across the Table?

There are plenty of woman sci-fi writers (and fans) from the earliest days. This idea that sci-fi is a straight boys club is flat wrong.

yeah Alex OTM - female characters abound in sci-fi, and writers/fans don't seem to be lacking either.

of course I say this as someone who is married to a woman who has collected everything Ann McCaffrey has ever written since she was a little girl lolz

x-posts

both are pretty obvious attempts at genre-splicing though

xp

not sure who would really fit under this, maybe Ballard

not really

leguin comes to mind

btw there is a whole convention here dedicated to feminist sci-fi