Is Science Fiction the Opiate of the Geek Masses?

jimharris writes "After reading Geoff Ryman's Mundane SF website, where he promotes a new form of science fiction based on real science, I got to wondering if traditional science fiction is just the opiate of the geek masses? Most science fiction is based on speculative fantasy rather than hard science - the common example being stories built around faster-than-light travel. Einstein rules, and FTL space travel has about zero chance of ever existing. SF writer Ian McDonald replied in his blog, Heads down, there's going to be incoming... and a rather wide-ranging discussion and elaboration of the idea is held over at mundane-sf.blogspot.com. Proponents of the Mundane Manifesto readily admit that traditional science fiction is just harmless fun, but I have to ask, how many people out there have a positive view on life because they believe in Star Trek in the same way that other faithful do."

Comments

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[DanthemaninVA1]

If we "believe in Star Trek..."? Are you kidding me? Science fiction is ENTERTAINMENT, not religion. It's a genre of books, film, and television, not a protestant denomination or somesuch. If you "believe in Star Trek," I feel sorry for you.

He is just a pessimist

[tftp]

Einstein rules, and FTL space travel has about zero chance of ever existing.

Yes, and Isaac Newton would just laugh if someone told him about weird quantum effects which we accept as obvious today.

In fact, we know that we know almost nothing about the fundamental nature of this Universe, and it's just pointless to discuss what one can and can not do with it.

Re:He is just a pessimist

[Draconix]

I'm moderately sure he does understand the problems. I do, yet I don't think FTL is impossible. The only thing I know to likely be impossible is to accellerate a mass to beyond the speed of light in normal spacetime. Any decent SF writer knows this, and will often note this in their work; any 'FTL' travel requires either the translation of mass to something without mass, or leaving normal spacetime in order to get from point A to point B faster than light. I've yet to have even read an SF novel in which a ship travels faster than light by accellerating a normal mass beyond the speed of light while keeping that mass within normal spacetime, and I've read hundreds of science fiction novels.

As for science fiction being fantasy... well, duh. There really isn't much difference between the two, except that science fiction is _usually_ speculative, and has more of a basis in our own reality, while other fantasy is free to explore the more farfetched. A careful writer can actually make it very difficult to tell the difference between SF and fantasy. (Frank Herbert, China Mieville, and others.)

As was kind of stated before in this topic, you can only make science fiction so 'realistic' before it's no longer science fiction, but simply realistic fiction.