(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.
― lemmy tristano (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 27 January 2009 18:35 (fifteen years ago) link
And I think the general perception of scifi is that it is all hard stuff. Or cheesy space operas. (xp to self)
― talk me down off the (ledge), Tuesday, 27 January 2009 18:35 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― Courtney Love's Jew Loan Officer (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 27 January 2009 18:39 (fifteen years ago) link
^^^ Shakey's got it.
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 27 January 2009 18:40 (fifteen years ago) link
Speaking of space operas, Tom Disch called this "space opera gone to heaven."
― lemmy tristano (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 27 January 2009 18:41 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― lemmy tristano (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 27 January 2009 18:46 (fifteen years ago) link
appleseed is awesome dude xpost
― Lamp, Tuesday, 27 January 2009 18:47 (fifteen years ago) link
I'm liking it so far. It's kind of rough sledding because it's so dense, but in a good way.
― lemmy tristano (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 27 January 2009 18:49 (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?"
― lemmy tristano (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 27 January 2009 19:22 (fifteen years ago) link
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?
― s1ocki, Tuesday, 27 January 2009 19:25 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― Milton Parker, Tuesday, 27 January 2009 19:27 (fifteen years ago) link
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!
― chap, Tuesday, 27 January 2009 19:28 (fifteen years ago) link
Flash GordonDoctor WhoBuck Rogers
to name a couple.
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 27 January 2009 19:28 (fifteen years ago) link
Hari Seldon, Lazarus Long, Ender Wiggin, HAL9000,
― WmC, Tuesday, 27 January 2009 19:30 (fifteen years ago) link
Jerry Cornelius.
― chap, Tuesday, 27 January 2009 19:30 (fifteen years ago) link
Gully Foyle is my name And Terra is my nation Deep space is my dwelling place The stars my destination
― Jarlrmai, Tuesday, 27 January 2009 19:31 (fifteen years ago) link
John Carter, Gully Foyle,
ha, xpost
― WmC, Tuesday, 27 January 2009 19:32 (fifteen years ago) link
Captain Nemo to go pretty far back.
― chap, Tuesday, 27 January 2009 19:33 (fifteen years ago) link
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).
― Tracy Michael Jordan Catalano (Jordan), Tuesday, 27 January 2009 19:34 (fifteen years ago) link
Even Frankenstien's Monster.
― chap, Tuesday, 27 January 2009 19:34 (fifteen years ago) link
"I bet the characters aren't the first thing that comes to mind"
Except for Stars, Demolished Man, Fury!, etc.
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 27 January 2009 19:35 (fifteen years ago) link
Or Neuromancer, Book of the New Sun.
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 27 January 2009 19:38 (fifteen years ago) link
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".
― WmC, Tuesday, 27 January 2009 19:40 (fifteen years ago) link
Even Frankenstien's Monster
― lemmy tristano (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 27 January 2009 19:41 (fifteen years ago) link
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
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 27 January 2009 19:45 (fifteen years ago) link
Really need to read the Ophiuchi Hotline, it's been in my to read stack for like a year now.
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 27 January 2009 19:46 (fifteen years ago) link
buffy the vampire is some classic science fiction, obvs
― max arrrrrgh, Tuesday, 27 January 2009 19:52 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― max arrrrrgh, Tuesday, 27 January 2009 19:54 (fifteen years ago) link
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
― Courtney Love's Jew Loan Officer (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 27 January 2009 21:23 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― Milton Parker, Tuesday, 27 January 2009 21:37 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― kingfish, Thursday, 26 March 2009 07:42 (fifteen years ago) link
As far as urban fantasy goes, how about something like Charles De Lint - Dreams Underfoot. Not particularly funny, but I like it.
― james k polk, Thursday, 26 March 2009 07:50 (fifteen years ago) link
Robert Sheckley
― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 26 March 2009 12:23 (fifteen years ago) link
A.E. Van Vogt
― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 26 March 2009 12:24 (fifteen years ago) link
Mission of Gravity
― WmC, Thursday, 26 March 2009 12:56 (fifteen years ago) link
felix gilman thunderer
― kamerad, Thursday, 26 March 2009 15:34 (fifteen years ago) link
huh I've never read any Sheckley, must investigate
― Featuring Ben Jones as Geir's Cooter (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 26 March 2009 15:50 (fifteen years ago) link
Not even the much anthologized sluglord approved "Zirn Left Unguarded, The Jenghik Palace in Flames, Jon Westerley Dead"?
― moe greene dolphin street (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 26 March 2009 15:56 (fifteen years ago) link
I don't think so...? I can count the number of anthologies I've read in the last ten years on one hand
― Featuring Ben Jones as Geir's Cooter (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 26 March 2009 15:57 (fifteen years ago) link
anyone here fuck with any alastair reynolds? new one seems cool
― shirley summistake (s1ocki), Friday, 19 November 2010 13:53 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah he's been enthused about on the ilb threads. superb combo of hard skiffy and space opera, although i get a bit bored when it's all planet based, no huge spaceships or vast distances and timescales (chasm city i'm lookin at you). also his characters are overly keen on holding very long very pointless grudges. am only two novels in to the revelation space series tho, never mind the new stuff.
― xtc ep, etc (xp) (ledge), Friday, 19 November 2010 14:23 (thirteen years ago) link
haha that's why i didnt bother to read chasm city
― shirley summistake (s1ocki), Friday, 19 November 2010 14:24 (thirteen years ago) link
anyway the new one - terminal world - has a cool premise, it's like these layered cities that have progressively higher technology as you move up the chain - "horsetown" then "steamtown" then "neontown" then "circuittown" etc
― shirley summistake (s1ocki), Friday, 19 November 2010 14:25 (thirteen years ago) link
i mean cool if you're a nerd
It's been okay to be a nerd for a long time now.
― Unfrozen Caveman Board-Lawyer (WmC), Friday, 19 November 2010 14:30 (thirteen years ago) link
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Ry6tm2J1T4Y/SYPnc04FsiI/AAAAAAAAAiE/-LcpGnHt7Hw/s400/Victory+Movie+Review.jpg
― shirley summistake (s1ocki), Friday, 19 November 2010 14:31 (thirteen years ago) link
fo' reals? someone needed to let me know.
― Roberto Spiralli, Friday, 19 November 2010 14:31 (thirteen years ago) link
I'd say the nerd was out of the bag since X-Files and Buffy, which coincided with the internet giving them/us a place to play.
― Unfrozen Caveman Board-Lawyer (WmC), Friday, 19 November 2010 15:10 (thirteen years ago) link
Reynolds is a mid ranker for me. Some cool ideas and good action, but nothing to really set him apart from the herd. He's better than Neal Asher at least.
Does anyone rate Peter F. Hamilton? The guy can't write for shit and almost certainly has some fairly dodgy politics (ethnically streamed space colonies proving to be an amazing thing for the human race? Hmmm...), but no-one does outer space bombast like him. His universe-building is kind of impeccable too. I haven't read anything he's written in the last decade or so though.
Also I see there's a new Culture novel out...
― A brownish area with points (chap), Friday, 19 November 2010 16:16 (thirteen years ago) link
I tried a +1000 page Hamilton on holiday once. Gave up when I realised there was not a shred of a consideration or understanding of solid science behind any of his flights of fancy. I mean I don't want everyone to be a phd-toting Greg Egan-alike but when it became clear that the book was about the SOULS OF THE DEAD COMING BACK AND TAKING OVER LIVING HUMAN BODIES...
― xtc ep, etc (xp) (ledge), Friday, 19 November 2010 16:23 (thirteen years ago) link