Science fiction

"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

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.

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.

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.

PKD never cared about technology, really - agree that the tropes of sci-fi were used primarily so he could explore metaphysics and his own psychological issues/fascinations

god I have to read more of these authors and get out of my LCD pulp whore rut

Admittedly this character based scifi is a huge and well respected part of the genre, I just prefer the hard stuff. Egan, Reynolds, I guess even Clarke and Asimov.

(multi x-post)
Detective fiction has some incidental benefits to fall back on that can make it tolerable to good even when it's not great. One being local color, whether it be dirty New York City subways or fancy meals in Sicily or dreary Scandinavian winters. Sci-fi, when it's not good, can be really, really bad. For every "Scanners Live In Vain" or "Roadside Picnic" there's ... a bunch of other stuff.

And I think the general perception of scifi is that it is all hard stuff. Or cheesy space operas. (xp to self)

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

This is sorta true for me with the caveat that its not just the tech ideas that appeal to me - its a more general conceptual freedom that I appreciate it. Like, not just the technical ideas, but the range of social/political/metaphysical/literary ideas that are foregrounded in sci-fi. It goes back to that "sci-fi is the 'what if...?'"-oriented genre quote - sci-fi for a long time just seemed to present a wilder range of possibilities than other forms of fiction. As long as the ideas are provocative, I am willing to slog through a fair amound of poor prose or stock characters or what-have-you.

^^^ Shakey's got it.

Speaking of space operas, Tom Disch called this "space opera gone to heaven."

As long as the ideas are provocative, I am willing to slog through a fair amound of poor prose or stock characters or what-have-you.

appleseed is awesome dude xpost

I'm liking it so far. It's kind of rough sledding because it's so dense, but in a good way.

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?"

i can think of iconic characters in other genres--sam spade, philip marlowe, allan quartemain etc—but are there any really iconic SF characters OUTSIDE of stuff like star wars?

there are too many to count

in any case:

Remembering Thomas Disch

http://bostonreview.net/BR34.1/crowley.php

The theme of the conference that year was “The Writer’s Imagination and the Imagination of the State.” Many of the attending writers denied that the state or any collective could have an imagination; Mailer, however, stated that the imagination of the American state could be shown in the project of reaching the moon, which was both imaginative and collective. I don’t know if Tom Disch heard him say that, but his opening remarks at our panel were similar and yet more far-reaching. If the state—the American state particularly—could be said to have an imagination, he said, it lay in the plans and projects of all the middle-level technocrats and engineers and scientists not only of NASA but of the RAND Corporation and DARPA and the science institutes, whose speculations would become plans that the state might enact. And what writers, he asked, shaped their imaginations? What had they read as boys (almost all of them were men)? Why, science fiction: a kind of writing that, to a degree greater than any other, posits worlds different from our own that we believe are possible and think we might bring about.

I've always seen scifi as more about the technology that about the characters.

My favourite aspect is the mechanics of imagined societies rather than the technology per se (of course, technological advances are usually a huge part of what makes these societies different to ours). But yeah, SF is not 'about' characters the way many other forms of fiction are - although it does help if they're not completely one dimensional!

Flash Gordon
Doctor Who
Buck Rogers

to name a couple.

Hari Seldon, Lazarus Long, Ender Wiggin, HAL9000,

Jerry Cornelius.

Gully Foyle is my name
And Terra is my nation
Deep space is my dwelling place
The stars my destination

John Carter, Gully Foyle,

ha, xpost

Captain Nemo to go pretty far back.

Deckard, Paul Atreides. But I think there is a good point here, if you look at any of those "best sci-fi books of all-time" lists, I bet the characters aren't the first thing that comes to mind (I just googled for a couple of said lists and couldn't remember the names of any characters in, say, The Man in the High Castle).

Even Frankenstien's Monster.

"I bet the characters aren't the first thing that comes to mind"

Except for Stars, Demolished Man, Fury!, etc.

Or Neuromancer, Book of the New Sun.

I don't know...even in Ringworld, as hard-science as it is, I think of Louis Wu as quickly as I think of "a terraformed ring around a star".

Even Frankenstien's Monster

Looking at the Pringle list I definitely think mostly about the characters on the books I've read (although in A Case of Conscience the character is some dinosaur thing.0

Really need to read the Ophiuchi Hotline, it's been in my to read stack for like a year now.

buffy the vampire is some classic science fiction, obvs

nevermind that the premise of the show has nothing to do with science or technology, and even a small child could tell you that it's horror... that's just fanboy nitpicking.

If the state—the American state particularly—could be said to have an imagination, he said, it lay in the plans and projects of all the middle-level technocrats and engineers and scientists not only of NASA but of the RAND Corporation and DARPA and the science institutes, whose speculations would become plans that the state might enact. And what writers, he asked, shaped their imaginations? What had they read as boys (almost all of them were men)? Why, science fiction: a kind of writing that, to a degree greater than any other, posits worlds different from our own that we believe are possible and think we might bring about.

lolz I have totally thought this very same thing for years and always kinda figured that if you really wanted to play a visionary/"change the world" function the best way to do that would be to work in the genre of science fiction

my friend Megan Prelinger is working on a book that chronicles the history of air & space industries' advertisements in science fiction pulp magazines, 1940-1970. the way the advertisements responded to and included references to major works of sci-fi as the canon developed. it's incredible the book hasn't been written yet.

Okay folks, as Ned once requested, I need good escapist novels. No fascistic dystopias or massive stress-inducing downer tomes. I have enough problems with anxiety right now to add to any of them. I'd read 'Glory Road'(either Heinlein's or Alan Dean Foster's) again, but I think I sold/gave away my copies years ago.

Also, after seeing Coraline last week, I could do with some more good urban fantasy.

Funny is preferred.

As far as urban fantasy goes, how about something like Charles De Lint - Dreams Underfoot. Not particularly funny, but I like it.

Robert Sheckley