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What Makes Great Science Fiction?
cheesethegreat writes "Have you ever noticed how everyone breaks down into a near-religious frenzy when the topic of the "best" science fiction universe comes up? Everyone has a favorite universe, be it the Foundation Series by Asimov, or the classic Star Wars trilogy. So tell Slashdot what your favorite is, and what the most important part of a science fiction universe is to you."
As much as I like nearly all science fiction universes, my favorite is that of Dune. Herbert's universe is filled with politics, planets, populations and dozens of complicated plots that could affect whole galaxies. He manages to convey a vast and complicated universe through his works. I am always amazed.
Sci-Fi needs to tell a story, period. Many times you read a sci fi novel and the author is obviously in love with how clever he can be. Sci-Fi is about expanding ideas, not how clever an author can be. An author needs to suspend disbeleif, this can almost be as easy as Orson Scott Card (enders game) when he assumes technology exists, because then we can see how it affects the characters and devise how we beleive it works. Or an author can take the road of Peter F. Hamilton (reality dysfunction) and completely describe every minute detail about how things interact and function. Both authors achieve a suspension of disbeleif about things that are scientifically fictional, and they mix it with the good elements of a story, that are not sci fi at all. The blending of sci-fi concepts and ideas and a good solid story seemlessly make a good science fiction novel.
If you don't vote, you don't matter, so don't waste your time telling me your opinion
As good literature: nontrivial (but feasible)technical ideas, good non-cartoonish characters (read: NOT Luke Skywalker or Captain Kirk), interesting plot (read: not necessary ends with happy end). In general, one may actually have more questions after finishing the book than he had in the beginning. BTW, Lem is one of such authors. Philip Dick is another.
Iain M. Banks' Culture.
I'd love to live in the middle of trippy post-humanist apace opera universe... wouldn't evryone?
deus does not exist but if he does
I think what makes great science fiction isn't the universe, it's the concept behind it. Of course, you can argue that this is what distinguishes short stories (which tend to be much more concept-oriented) from novels (which need to develop deeper characters, unless you can figure out a device like Asimov used in Foundation to get away with shallow character development). Still, I can think back on the great science fiction I've read, and most of it is really about the ideas, not about the universe.
After all, most sci-fi universes are just our own universe with something changed - a more complicated version of a Sliders episode. If everything were actually different, we'd have no reference point and it wouldn't mean anything. It's the fact that almost everything is the same except for some crucial difference (more advanced technology, or the Nazis winning WW2, etc.) that makes the stories compelling. That's why so many of these stories include some kind of foil character that the reader can identify with (Arthur Dent is a good example of this, but literally almost every single sci-fi book ever written contains at least one main character that is strikingly similar to people contemporary to the author's own culture). The story can often be created simply by allowing the contemporary typical person to clash with the changes introduced in the universe.
There is no greater science fiction writer than the late Douglas Adams and there is no greater work of science fiction than the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy and its five part trilogy.
Science fiction doesn't have to be dramatic to be good, but being nuts does help a little...
OFTC: By the community, for the community
The essence of great science fiction, to me anyways, is taking ordinary people as we know them in real life, then placing them in extraordinary (but still believable) situations. Of course, science and technology should be present, but it shouldn't dominate the story. If you let it upstage the rest of the story, you get garbage like Independence Day (which wasn't even very science-fictional, if you ask me).
Great science fiction sheds light on the inner workings of what people are like, by showing them in a different light. It serves as a warning about possible futures, examining implications of technologies both good and bad. And perhaps most of all, great science fiction has ideas and themes in it that can survive the test of time.
Cecil
Seriously, if you haven't read this guy, do yourself a favor. American book stores don't care much of his stuff, although I have seen Excession and Look to Windward in there lately. His books are hands down the best science fiction I have ever read. His fiction books are widely acclaimed also.
The technology in his books allows him to place his well-developed characted in unusual situations. He doesn't let the technology run the story. The questions his books pose stay with me for many days afterward. His endings are not simple, usually they're very bloody and unhappy, sometimes even unsatisfying. And that's why I think they're so great. So check him out. Start with Consider Phlebas, or Against a Dark Background. You won't regret it.
---- El diablo esta en mis pantalones! Mire, mire!
One thing that makes great sci fi is when the story and setting can not only withstand the implications of the science, but grow naturally from it. Examples of science fiction stories that really reflect an understanding of their science are: everything by Vernor Vinge (particularly A Fire Upon the Deep, anything by Greg Egan (I particularly love Permutation City), and even the classic '50s film Forbidden Planet, whose plot is almost inevitable given its compelling techno-sociological premise.
Examples of Science Fiction that cannot withstand the implications of the science presented include Star Trek (particularly the later series) and the Star Wars franchise. Neither of them really know what they're getting themselves into with their technological advancements. Replicator technology in particular would be so transformative in reality that we would not recognize the society that resulted from its existence.
It's just like things such as "what makes a great sandwich." Some swears by tomatoes while others can't stand them; the select few will go with anchovys and say that any sandwich without them is no food at all, etc.
/., eh?
/. to get them answered, anyhow... It's all about Karma-whoring right?
Furthermore, you can't really answer this without delving into a question like "what makes a good book." And if all of us had better ideas than you, we'd be making millions selling books instead of posting of
Of course, I can give you what I personally like in SciFi - imaginative worlds are always welcome (well described, mind you), and intellectually stimulating is also another plus (social / psychological / whatever problems that arise from these new and imaginative circumstances); beyond that, here and there some action / romance / whatever to help push the story along so I actually look forward to continue reading.
Of course, I have read books that may lack some of these qualities but were still very fun to read. So in the end, your question is still unanswered; but anyways... who posts questions on
My life in the land of the rising sun.
I really love the classics:
Asimov, especially the original "Foundation" trilogy.
Clarke's "2001"
Heinlein's "Stranger In a Strange Land"
Niven's "Ringworld"
Among more modern works, I'm a big fan of Neil Gaiman("Neverwhere", "Sandman", "American Gods"), William Gibson("Neuromancer", "All Tomorrow's Parties") and Neil Stephenson("Snow Crash", "Cryptonomicon")
What I like about them differs. Asimov does large stories and themes well. There aren't any big characters in "Foundation", but the story is so beautifully put together, spanning hundreds of years. "Stranger In a Strange Land" is barely science fiction, dealing almost exclusively with people's perceptions and beliefs. Gaiman has an excellent knowledge of classical myth and legend and how to weave it into more modern stories. Gibson deals with themes and problems that are just starting to become an issue today. Stephenson's books vary in type and character, but most are pretty good. "Snow Crash" is a pretty out-there half cyberpunk/half action-flick novel, it's a great quick read. "Cryptonomicon" has two separate but related storylines fifty years apart, and he plays them off each other very well.
There's nothing specific to any one of these authors or their novels that I can single out, aside from good writing skills. Their novels are enjoyable and intelligent, which is all I require from any genre.
To me, good science fiction starts with what makes good fiction. You need good, believable characters, an interesting plotline, etc. The difference between science fiction and other genres is the fact that there's science involved in it. There should be some correlation to real physical laws in the universe that may or may not have been discovered yet.
Science fiction is similar in some regards to horror and fantasy genres. They both are fiction that hold themselves within limitations that are commonly known. (Horror titles probably have a good amount of leeway. Fantasy titles enjoy more leeway than science fiction, also.) In my opinion, it is these limitations that make good science fiction.
Great science fiction asks, "What if?" questions that provoke our mind, but it'll do so within a hypothetical context. Take a look at LeGuin's Left Hand of Darkness for instance.
My personal favorite episode of Star Trek (Original) is City on the Edge of Forever. It asks the question of how important can a single person be? How important is a single moment in time? It also provides some great scenes with the interplay between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. (There's also that memorable line at the end, with McCoy saying, "I could have saved her! Do you know what you just did?" And Spock replying, "He knows, Doctor. He knows." Love it!)
I also personally enjoy Larry Niven's Known Space stuff. Hard science fiction is great. As a reader, you exercise your mind and get entertained. "Science fiction without a net" is the perfect way to describe it.
Finally, I really enjoy Gibson's stuff. I must have read Neuromancer about twenty times, and there's always something new to find in there. Great books are like that.
Where the wind blows, the tumbleweed goes.
Lovecraft's genius was to tap into the human anxiety about what might exist beyond the limits of reason and the safe, predictable, knowable world ,and the nagging thought that perhaps the universe itself might harbor malevolent intent toward our fragile planet and the humans who dwell on it (Lovecraft's characters would often go insane when faced with these alien horrors). .
These fears have manifested themselves throughout history in everything from witch trials to UFO scares. Lovecraft was so good at playing off this ancient unease, in the process creating his own universe of alien gods and beings, that his legacy lives on decades after his stories (never out of print) were first published, in the form of countless "Cthulhu Mythos" stories, games, and of course tribute websites.
IMHO, the biggest rift in Sci Fi is between devotees of "hard" Sci Fi (focuses more on the *science* than the tale - think Greg Egan) and "soft" Sci Fi (space opera - swords & sandals epics in space - think Peter Hamilton).
I like both, and have always found the zealotry on either side to be kinda childish. Think emacs v vi... (sorry kids).
The bummer with Hard Sci Fi is that a lot of the really _interesting_ stuff will go straight over the reader's head: I've got a reasonable grasp of, say, the basics of quantum physics, but I get completely lost when someone a lot smarter than me starts using more esoteric aspects of the theory as a _starting_ place for an exploration of the logical consequences of said theory in a literary context. _I_ like it though, because even if I don't completely understand, I can still muddle through and figure out the gist of what's going on. The other downside of hard sci fi is that the writing tends to be _terrible_. You effectively have scientists attempting to write engaging stories. It's not, as a rule, their forte. Too much science, not enough fiction.
Conversely, the bummer with "soft" sci fi for me has always been that it's just some-old-story-set-in-space. Star Wars is like that. In fact, it's a modern classic of the genre. Peter Hamilton is another good example. This kind of sci fi is more like fantasy than _science_ fiction. Even worse, the fiction is usually terrible too. I used to love space opera when I was young - laser beams, aliens, space ships, funky babes. But I think you kind of grow out of it unless there's something _more_ to it than big-arse space battles & galactic empires.
Which is why I'm a _huge_ fan of Iain M Banks. This is a guy who can _really_ write. His sci fi (he writes more standard fiction under the name Iain Banks) is space opera, but some of the best space opera I've ever read. Read the Culture novels - start with "Consider Phlebas" or "Player of Games". Seriously - they're worth reading just for the ship names.
So I guess what makes great sci-fi for me is great writing. There's plenty of "ideas" writers, and don't get me wrong - interesting ideas are part of what sci-fi's all about. But that's a neccessary condition, it's not a sufficient condition.
Long post - must sleep.
Jeff Noon too. I seriously recommend "Vurt" - Automated Alice says curious yellow.
As a kid, I read just about anything sci-fi...but even then, I think I recognized the gems of the genre. The books I kept, versus the books I gave away or sold, includes a list of the authors I still read and enjoy today. Back then, if there were robots or sex or spaceships, it was probably good enough for me to read it once...but what I kept has some qualities that the majority of the pulp stuff just doesn't have.
I think sci-fi without a real science underpinning is generally crap. The science doesn't have to involve mechanical technology in the form of spaceships or robotics, it can just as easily be the science of sociology or the science of medicine. But where "sci-fi" pulp fiction often fails is in being too dedicated to mysterious magical developments...I'm afraid the Star Trek and Star Wars universes often fail because of this reliance on trappings of mystery. The explanation of The Force as a virus just seems forced, if you'll forgive the pun. Star Trek has too many dramatic dying scenes and too many dramatic miraculous healing scenes for either to be believable.
Good sci-fi asks tough questions about how the human race will realize some dream, and what the cost will be. Great sci-fi shows us the fallacy of common truisms, and makes a case for the other side. As has been said many times before, science fiction is about asking "What if?" and making an honest attempt to figure it out.
Asimov, of course, deserves the title of great science fiction writer. The Foundation novels are compelling for their sweeping vision of a human future (not The human future, as no one knows what The human future will be, and there wouldn't be so much point to sci-fi if we did). History and social sciences are merged and theorized into a strikingly convincing future. One comes away from them with a little more understanding of human history, and human behavior on a grand scale. Of course, it wouldn't be very much fun if the story wasn't worthwhile as fiction. In that regard too, Asimov is a lonely figure (though not entirely alone) in the sci-fi landscape. Humor permeates his every novel and story, along with a profound sense of joy and surprise at the diversity of the human race. Every character is real, complete and knowable. Without the human element, science fiction is just more useless techno-babble.
Heinlein too, has persisted in my book collection, and his best works are capable of impressing even people ordinarily bored to tears by sci-fi. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, perhaps my favorite, provides laugh-out-loud comedy, strikingly human personalities (even on Mike the computer), and a great story of "what if?". What if a computer developed "life"? What if the moon housed a colony of humans, growing tired of being dominated by Earth? What makes a revolution? The best of Heinlein is respectful of history, is lovingly impressed with and in equal part disgusted with the human race (to know us is to love us...and hate us), and perhaps most importantly, fun as hell to read.
Stanislaw Lem is a new one for me, but one that I can't help be impressed with. I recently picked up Peace on Earth because of frequent Slashdot recommendations, and was simply blown away. Lem knows science, and is convincing whenever he wanders into imagining the future of technology. Lem also knows the human mind, and presents it in all its glory and fallability. But the key to Lem is his feel for the movement of a story. The story flows from beginning to end with the majestic and impossible force of a glacier...it is unstoppable, and yet it is almost unnoticeable in its momentum. It reaches its conclusion with almost crushing force, and leaves the reader satisfied at having made good use of the time spent reading.
All of that said, I keep finding myself wanting to differentiate the above authors from run of the mill science fiction by talking down the things they are not. They are not writing fantastic tales of improbable outcomes in entirely fictitious universes. That is the realm of fantasy writers. Science fiction requires a respect for science, not a mindless fascination with explosions and shiny things. Of course, great science fiction isn't just respectful of science, it remembers what its purpose is...to entertain. Without that, any other reasons are moot, as no one will read the story to find them. So, great science fiction is also great fiction, and can stand beside other great works of fiction...if it can't, then it is merely an interesting footnote into predicting the future (if the predictions within prove correct in some respect). I wouldn't be ashamed to suggest Asimov's Nightfall or Bicentennial Man, be read alongside Huckleberry Finn in a study of great American literature. Ray Bradbury doesn't really need my endorsement, as he has already received much of the respect amongst the literati that he deserves, but is worth mentioning anyway, as he is a shining example of great science fiction. Nearly everything he has written is simply stunningly pretty to read, all the while answering all of the other requirements for great science fiction.
I would like to think that the tripe (even the tripe I enjoyed as a child) will be filtered out of our collective memory over time...There just isn't any point in wasting more peoples time or money on L. Ron Hubbard books. I attempted to reread Battlefied Earth when the movie was nearing release, and was just astonished at how bad the book really is (I loved it when I was a kid). Full of paper thin caracitures posing as human, overwhelming in its scientific and historical ignorance, and painfully obvious in its every twist and turn. A more thoroughly pulp sci-fi space opera has yet to be constructed (Ok, Star Wars comes close, but I still love the original episodes as well as the next nerd, despite its flaws).
I'll stop talking now, as I'm back to wanting to bash the stupid 'sci-fi' products of the world rather than talking up the good fiction and film. There's just so much crap to talk about...
As is the case with all fictional literature, the
:-)
"best" is that which most effectively triggers,
shapes, and gives life to the mental images which
writing can only stimulate in our minds rather
than convey directly.
Since minds are so different from individual to
individual, and sometimes utterly so, there can
never be a single "best". At most, the fact that
any given book is seen as "best" by more people
than any other simply means that there are more
people with that particular mental makeup which
allows that book to succeed. Quite often, this
translates to those people inhabiting similar
memespaces, which is very common especially in
high-bandwidth communities both online and off.
So, which SF books best trigger my mental imagery
at the present time? In several categories of
subjective assessment:
Iain M. Banks's Culture novels
-- most convincing galactic future
Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age
-- most convincing human-level future
C.J. Cherryh's The Chronicles of Morgaine
-- most forceful and single-minded heroine
Peter F. Hamilton's The Nano Flower
-- most luscious yet unobstrusive image weaving
Walter Jon Williams's Aristoi
-- most distant yet still recognizable future
E.E. 'Doc' Smith's Lensman series
-- fastest delivery of mental images
Michael Moorcock's Dancers at the End of Time
-- most endearing treatment of distant future
I'd expect a fairly good correlation with the
"bests" of other SF readers on Slashdot, as the
memespaces of the technical communities tend to
be fairly cohesive. Ultimately though, it really
doesn't matter, since "best" is a personal issue.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
There's great as in "great literary work", or great as in fun to read.
I'm gonna catch a lot of heat for this one, but I really like E.E. "Doc" Smith. It's not high literary art but if you read the Lensman and Skylark series there's an atmosphere to those books you just don't find anywhere else. I know people complain about how every gun is the new ultimate weapon, but really if you think about it that's what we do with computers, military weapons, and lots of other technology, so it doesn't bother me much. They do deserve respect as a precurser to lots of later stuff - I'm willing to bet George Lucas had read these books before thinking up the whole Star Wars thing. And I saw one of Smith's "nonsense" words appear in a modern Star Trek book, so I can't be the only one who likes his stuff. Most people would say his work isn't "great", and in a literary sense I'll agree, but they're great fun and to me that makes them worthwhile.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
The Babylon 5 first season DVDs are now available for sale.
Babylon 5 had a problem in that many viewers expected another Star Trek, where each episode is more or less self-contained. This is a very efficient medium for "light" sci fi, but is terrible for telling a real story. Babylon 5 had a real story. Several, really, as at any one time there were generally a good 3-5 subplots going on. Some long, long term (over the course of several real years) and some as short as a single episode, and everything in-between.
What I thought made the series so great wasn't that--it was the stories themselves. The plot is one of the most skillfully crafted I have ever seen in any medium; book, television, movie, video game. Problem is, you must see the episodes in order and not miss many, if any. The plot is very tightly woven in with each episode, and many references are made that are not designed to make sense to viewers who haven't seen the episode in question.
That said, I know a professor who purchased a Super VHS VCR for the sole purpose of recording Babylon 5 in the highest possible quality he could afford. This was not a well paid professor, and he spent over $1,000 on the device, not including tapes.
My aunt, far more watchful of accurate physics than even most Slashdotters (considering she is, or was, literally a rocket scientist) watches an unhealthy amount of television and considers Babylon 5 to be the best series ever written,
I resisted watching the series for over a year, probably because several friends tried to get me to see it with so much effort. (why I resist that I do not know, I did the same thing with the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). Once I got into it, which wasn't extremely fast considering that the first season isn't very strong, I spent all of my spare money on tapes to record it.
When J. Michael Straczinski was asked to visit MIT, he found that the general consensus ther (among the film students, or whatever MIT's equivalent is) is that there were three seminal American science fiction series on television: The original Star Trek series, The Twilight Zone, and Babylon 5.
The single most important factor, at least to me, in any television series/novel/video game is the story. Let me reiterate that Babylon 5's story is truly a work of art. Far and above any mere television series or movie, it approaches, in my view, the greatest stories every told in all literature, though I admit I am a bit biased towards the science fiction genre. The second most important factor, to me, is the character development. The characters in Babylon are better developed than some characters I know in real life. (of course, with some people that isn't much of a challenge, but the characters are extremely well developed--honest)
I may sound like some sort of TV freak or science fiction gung-ho psycho, but this is not the case. I like various Star Trek series but have certainly never purchased one of the movies or been to any sort of sci fi convention, and I watch perhaps 10 hours of television per month. I have actually watched even less after B5 ended because everything on television seemed so bland in comparison, though I am sure there are many fairly good productions now (the 5% out of the rest of the crap that seems so popular).
Anyway, if any slashdotters get a chance, give it a try. Do NOT, however, start in the middle, or you will have NFI what is going on, and will probably hate it. Watching B5 like Star Trek is like reading ten random pages of a book each day. Books simply do not work like that. Babylon 5 does not either.
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
1. The way it lets authors play around with and explore philosophical ideas of how society develops. Asimov did this with the Foundation series, basing a whole story on a theory of how society develops through crises, what steps are taken in what order, who gets in power when and why. That's quite hard to make in a non-science fiction novel, unless you write a historical novel which often gets more dull and predictable.
2. Separate what is undeniable facts in the world around us (i e many aspects of human nature, like love, hate, passion, greed, curiosity etc) and what is just the results of our cultural heritage (our economical system, democracy, patriarchalism, monogamy and focus on material wealth just to mention a few). A good science fiction novel can be an eye opener to what can be changed and what can not.
3. Let's us explore our possible futures. Good SF gives us a glimpse (although very simplified and exagerated) of how the future might look like. By comparing the scenarios of Star Trek with Cyberpunk and 1984, we can more easily get aware of what the future might hold and as a society make decisions on what we want and don't want of what's ahead of us. The novel 1984 has definitely helped to raise the public awareness of the threats of totalitarianism combined with technology, likewise has Cyberpunk woken up many people to how global corporations gathers more and more power and how that might affect society.
4. Epical tales. I'm personally a real sucker for this and no other category except fantasy so easily allows for grand epical tales as SF.
These are to me the promises of SF and a good SF book should take advantage of at least one of these posibilities, otherwise there is no need to put the plot/characters in another space and time. Plot and characters must still be good though, but I expect that from books of any category.
Actually, I'm a bit surprised that not more of the ./ community has more elaborate thoughts of why they've fallen in love with SF and not just books with good plots/characters...
War of the Worlds. A plot so far ahead of its time that the ending is still being copied. Ususally badly (V, Independence Day - although I believe that film to be satire for reasons I'll be happy to debate later). Or how about The Shape of Things To Come, which correctly predicated mechanised warfare. Perhaps you prefer The Time Machine, redone yet again on film in the last year or so. Or perhaps The Invisible Man, redone as Hollow Man. Maybe even The Island of Dr Moreux, which predicts human/animal hybrid experiments like Slashdot's human/mouse hybrid thread a couple of days ago. All of the HG Well's stuff was set in this universe, so it becomes that much more believable.
No? How about Jules Verne's undersea worlds. Or the book his publisher rejected as too depressing, in which he described light railways, telephones and fax machines. The name unfortunately eludes me.
No? How about Brave New World. George Orwell's excellent and entirely depressing book, though to my mind a bit ripped of from his namesake's Shape of Things To Come (George Orwell. Herbet George Wells. Hmmm).
Films. How about 1926's Metropolis, from Fritz Lang? The film without which Bladerunner simply wouldn't exist. The short story 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep' probably would, but the short story and the film bear almost no resemblence to each other.
Need to look a bit further back than just the last few years. There's probably some visionary author writing before Wells that I've overlooked. If so, please tell me. I'd be interested to hear it.
Cheers, Ian
'Known Space'. Larry Niven, et. al.
Geeky modern art T-shirts
For me, the answer is the universe of the First two books of Fredrick Pohl's 'Gateway' series. Those books provided one of the most interesting worlds I've read about. It is rare in that it required the kind of real imagination that many sci-fi writers spend lucrative careers demonstrating that they lack:
Gibson and the Cyberpunks were largely a matter of predicting technical trends and greasy sociology.
Niven and other intelligent, highly technical sci-fi writers get the physics right, but write like virgins discussing sex when it comes to human nature... including sex.
Far-future, galactic empire fictions like Dune and Star Wars, tend to impose anachronistic systems of government onto far distant futures with such regularity that the result often looks more like a cheap device than a towering work of the imagination.
By contrast, the Universe in Gateway, is close enough to our own time frame in terms of its sociology and economic perspective that the characters it gives rise to are understandable in present terms; they seem relevant in that they are driven by the same forces that drive us.
Dune offers the reader the story of the son of a fallen Duke rising to fulfill the messianic prophecy of an indigenous people, but his journey provides no characters whose motivations a normally functioning reader can really relate to (i.e., how much time have *YOU* spent with a poisoned needle to your neck?). By contrast, in addition to its many stunning visuals, 'Gateway' offers us a glimpse into human nature using a story in which the science is more than just a backdrop to feudalism and this is the best kind of science fiction; the telling of a story that would be impossible to tell without the science.
Most readers have very little experience of nobility in a time of vendetta, but it's hard to imagine anyone who has never seen the results of greed and guilt.
To mail me, remove the 'mailno' from my email addy.
"Yeah. It smells, too..."