Response to Spider Robinson on the State of Sci-Fi

Garund writes "A day or so ago Slashdot posted a story on Spider Robinson and his lament for Science Fiction. Well, other people, including Mark Oakley, publisher of one of my favorite independant comics, posted a response to Spider on his Thieves & Kings website (scroll about a third of the way down the page). Interesting take on it, I thought."

Comments

There's still some decent science fiction...

[emtilt]

it's just hard to find. I suggest reading The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect, but you'll have to read it online.

Re:How politcally correct of you

[Flamerule]

Probably not, but they had universities when the anglo-saxons were still living in grass huts.

Funny thing about Chinese civilization. The quickly reached their peak, then stayed there ossified for the next 1500 years.

Oh please, Brandybuck.

Your single number is fucked up. "1500 years"? 1500 years ago is 500 CE. I hate to tell you this, but the dynasty of the Later Han collapsed in 220 CE. The Sui didn't reunite China until 589 CE, and China didn't really get going again until the Tang attained full control in 626 CE. Now, the universities grandparent was referring to were the imperial universities of the Han, already with 3,000 students in 8 BCE. We should consider that a peak -- and it doesn't correspond to your schedule.

So your date isn't a peak at all, but a trough in one of the many interregnums between Chinese dynasties.

You see, China's history is largely a story of the cyclic rise and fall of dynasties, one after the other. There has never been a time when Chinese civilization was allowed to ossify for such a long time as you posit -- dynasties collapsed much faster than that. And as far as "peak"s are concerned, China has had many peaks. The Han, the Tang, the Song, the Ming...

If you want objective evidence, instead of subjective cultural achievements, let me point you to Admiral Zheng He's 15th-century maritime voyages -- which the following article is referring to when it says "during the Song dynasty, China developed the world's largest and most technologically sophisticated merchant marine and navy". That article should be edifying as to why, despite its invention of gunpowder, printing, and the compass, China never conquered the world.

Well, this comment hasn't been flawless, but no, yuri benjamin, Brandybuck isn't right. Hope you enjoyed my theory, though.

Re:Spider Robinson on SF? Huh?

[srmalloy]

What makes Spider Robinson a commentator on SF, Sci-Fi or anything else other than pablum?

You mean besides winning a Locus award for Best Critic? Besides being book reviewer for Galaxy, Analog and New Destinies magazines for nearly a decade, and continuing to write occasional book reviews and a regular Op-Ed column, "Future Tense," for The Globe and Mail, Canada's national newspaper.? Nothing, I guess...

And as for the 'Speculative Fiction', well, he isn't a writer of that either.

The people who voted to award him three Hugo awards (science fiction's top honor), a Nebula award, the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, the E.E. "Doc" Smith Memorial Award (Skylark), the Pat Terry Memorial Award for Humorous Science Fiction, and a second Locus award for Best Novella would appear to disagree with you. But you can always define 'speculative fiction' to be whatever you want, and set up your definition to exclude what he writes.

Re:I like spiders stuff but

[Flamerule]

Compare what recent authors put out to the crap Heinlein wrote for most of his career (OK, I haven't read much of his older stuff, but there is a good reason for that), and see what you prefer.

As the great quote from Wolfgang Pauli goes, "I think what you said is not even wrong."

Your statement is turned around 100% from reality. You call Heinlein's output for "most of his career" "crap", and then stunningly declare "I haven't read much of his older stuff, but there is a good reason for that". No, there isn't. Ask 99% of SF fans (and by that, I mean all but 5 guys), and they will tell you that it is Heinlein's later output that is crap. His early stuff is the foundation of science fiction, and it is fantastic. For our purposes, we can call 1973's Time Enough for Love the dividing line. Before that we have The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Stranger in a Strange Land, and Starship Troopers, among many other notables.

Those 3 novels are classic, classic, CLASSIC. The opposite of crap. And what else do we have? How about Double Star, and a wealth of excellent juveniles (Space Cadet, Red Planet, Starman Jones, Tunnel in the Sky, Time for the Stars). A large library of excellent stories.

I think we can safely poll science fiction readers, and determine that no, the writing of recent authors has not magically become literary nirvana, while that of the first Grand Master is suddenly tripe.

Now, if you want to discuss writing quality, you have a point about the increasingly meritorious literature that the genre is seeing, as opposed to what was often a lack of "grace and poetry" in the old masters. However, calling it "crap" is 100% completely and totally unacceptable.

Since you do seem to have a knowledge of SF, as you mention Simak, Wells, Gibson, Sterling, Stephenson and others, you obviously are well-versed in the genre. But please don't mistake your personal preference for absolute truth.

Re:But...why? Other references

[ppanon]

Vernor Vinge also uses the basic concepts in some of his fiction. I particularlly like Across Realtime

Across Realtime was a combination of two novels, The Peace War, and Marooned in Realtime, and a novelette, The Ungoverned. Both novels were much better than his Hugo-winning "A Fire upon the Deep" (which is probably one of his weaker novels, IMO). Each lost the Hugo because they (respectively) went up against Card's "Ender's Game" and "Speaker for the Dead". I won't contest the Ender's Game award, however I think MiR was much better than Speaker for the Dead. Both of the later novels were SF/Mystery cross-overs and MiR is more effective in both genres.

I still haven't figured out if "Fire upon the Deep" won the later Hugo because voters wanted to compensate for the earlier decision, or because FUtD used Internet references just when the Internet was gaining mass market penetration. Probably a combination of both.

IMO, the best new novelist of the last decade in the Hard SF genre is Wil McCarthy. Check out The Collapsium, The Wellstone, or even his earlier Bloom. I think his stories have more of a Clarke/Asimov flavour, but with better plotting and characterization. If you like Vinge's Across Realtime, chances are you'll like Wil McCarthy's stuff too. While he's got some too-cool technology ideas, he also tackles some interesting issues (i.e. how will new generations make their place in a world with widespread immortality where the old farts refuse to relinquish power and position?)

Re:Get off his ass

[Artifex]

I think it's true with anime, too -- the growing popularity over the past few years has made a number of anime pop up which, honestly, aren't all that worthy, to reference the Miyazaki quote.

And, to make things worse, Newtype USA pushes some of the most pathetic anime series through its monthly DVD (ADV Films has some real garbage). Unfortunately, new fans pick up the magazine and think, "Cool! Translated, and all about anime!" They may read about some cool anime coming out in Japan, but what gets offered here isn't always the best, but whatever is easiest or cheapest to make. And this is killing new interest in the genre.

Most people will never hear of works like Grave of the Fireflies (reference here, here, and of course Roger Ebert); they've been turned off by countless screens of tentacle porn, giant robots, and fantasy heroes with fill-in-the-blank special powers, not to mention the ubiquitous card game of the month merchandising. And as long as we settle for paddling around in the "shallow" end of the pool, we'll never get more chances to immerse ourselves in the "deep."