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.
― s1ocki, Tuesday, 27 January 2009 17:24 (fifteen years ago) link
That's why most of best sci-fi tend to exagerrate the real world rather than recreate a new world.
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 27 January 2009 17:30 (fifteen years ago) link
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
― Bondzilla vs Mechaholmes (blueski), Tuesday, 27 January 2009 17:31 (fifteen years ago) link
do you mean when people try to come up with how aliens and other planets might look?
― Bondzilla vs Mechaholmes (blueski), Tuesday, 27 January 2009 17:33 (fifteen years ago) link
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, 27 January 2009 17:41 (fifteen years ago) link
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)
― Tracy Michael Jordan Catalano (Jordan), Tuesday, 27 January 2009 17:44 (fifteen years ago) link
― 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
― s1ocki, Tuesday, 27 January 2009 17:46 (fifteen years ago) link
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
― s1ocki, Tuesday, 27 January 2009 17:47 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― Theo Wankcott (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 27 January 2009 17:48 (fifteen years ago) link
this reminds me of previous discussion where someone (n/a?) said CGI errors would never become charming and quaint in that way. xp
― Bondzilla vs Mechaholmes (blueski), Tuesday, 27 January 2009 17:49 (fifteen years ago) link
"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.
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 27 January 2009 17:51 (fifteen years ago) link
ya i know dude but you get what i mean. replace "unbelievable" with "distractingly contrived" then
― s1ocki, Tuesday, 27 January 2009 17:53 (fifteen years ago) link
"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.
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 27 January 2009 17:54 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― s1ocki, Tuesday, 27 January 2009 17:54 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― Theo Wankcott (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 27 January 2009 17:56 (fifteen years ago) link
you guys dont have to defend scifi from this, im just saying that's WHY a lot of ppl dont like it
― s1ocki, Tuesday, 27 January 2009 17:57 (fifteen years ago) link
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?
― Theo Wankcott (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 27 January 2009 17:58 (fifteen years ago) link
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?"
― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 27 January 2009 17:58 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― Bondzilla vs Mechaholmes (blueski), Tuesday, 27 January 2009 17:58 (fifteen years ago) link
Also this ^ is true for every genre besides sci fi as well.
― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 27 January 2009 17:59 (fifteen years ago) link
that doesnt mean it's not true of scifi
― s1ocki, Tuesday, 27 January 2009 18:01 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 27 January 2009 18:02 (fifteen years ago) link
Ray Bradbury used to write for Collier's!
― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 27 January 2009 18:03 (fifteen years ago) link
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
― Bondzilla vs Mechaholmes (blueski), Tuesday, 27 January 2009 18:03 (fifteen years ago) link
"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, 27 January 2009 18:03 (fifteen years ago) link
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
― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 27 January 2009 18:04 (fifteen years ago) link
"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.
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 27 January 2009 18:05 (fifteen years ago) link
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'.
― Bondzilla vs Mechaholmes (blueski), Tuesday, 27 January 2009 18:05 (fifteen years ago) link
There are plenty of woman sci-fi writers (and fans) from the earliest days.
plenty as in enough?
― Bondzilla vs Mechaholmes (blueski), Tuesday, 27 January 2009 18:08 (fifteen years ago) link
and are you suggesting sci-fi is no more male character-orientated than other genres? was it ever?
― Bondzilla vs Mechaholmes (blueski), Tuesday, 27 January 2009 18:09 (fifteen years ago) link
(gotta go now tho, back in the morning)
has anyone done a scifi abuse memoir yet?
― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 27 January 2009 18:11 (fifteen years ago) link
Plenty enough to undermine the argument that it's exclusively the province of a bunch of dudes.
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 27 January 2009 18:12 (fifteen years ago) link
"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?
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 27 January 2009 18:15 (fifteen years ago) link
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, January 27, 2009 6:03 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
that's what im saying.
― s1ocki, Tuesday, 27 January 2009 18:19 (fifteen years ago) link
B-b-ut Alex, what is the sci-fi equivalent of the cozy?
― lemmy tristano (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 27 January 2009 18:19 (fifteen years ago) link
hmm, Joe Haldeman to thread.
― WmC, Tuesday, 27 January 2009 18:21 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― talk me down off the (ledge), Tuesday, 27 January 2009 18:23 (fifteen years ago) link
maybe Time Traveler's Wife or And She Crawled Across the Table?
― Tracy Michael Jordan Catalano (Jordan), Tuesday, 27 January 2009 18:25 (fifteen years ago) link
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
― Courtney Love's Jew Loan Officer (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 27 January 2009 18:27 (fifteen years ago) link
both are pretty obvious attempts at genre-splicing though
xp
― Tracy Michael Jordan Catalano (Jordan), Tuesday, 27 January 2009 18:27 (fifteen years ago) link
not sure who would really fit under this, maybe Ballard
not really
― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 27 January 2009 18:28 (fifteen years ago) link
leguin comes to mind
― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 27 January 2009 18:29 (fifteen years ago) link
btw there is a whole convention here dedicated to feminist sci-fi
― Tracy Michael Jordan Catalano (Jordan), Tuesday, 27 January 2009 18:29 (fifteen years ago) link
sheckley
"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?)"
I'd actually say that a lot of Dick is like this.
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 27 January 2009 18:30 (fifteen years ago) link
Leguin's more like a sociologist but to say that the worlds/backdrops in the Dispossessed or Left Hand of Darkness are not the REAL characters/focus of the novels is sorta uhhhh. Ballard clearly big on how environment shapes people as well, that's kind of his whole schtick.
― Courtney Love's Jew Loan Officer (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 27 January 2009 18:30 (fifteen years ago) link
Oh some of Ballard's short stories are definitely about the ideas, but The Vermillion Sands stuff is all about the characters imo. Delany as well, e.g. "Driftglass", puffed on the back of my collection as "one of the three finest science fiction stories ever written", could pretty much have been written about a coal mining community 200 years ago.
― talk me down off the (ledge), Tuesday, 27 January 2009 18:31 (fifteen years ago) link