John Scalzi's Redshirts Wins Hugo Award for Best Novel

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John Scalzi's Redshirts Wins Hugo Award for Best Novel

Posted by Soulskill on Monday September 2, 2013 @03:04AM from the go-forth-and-read dept.

The Hugo awards were presented last night, providing recognition to the best science fiction of the past year. The award for Best Novel was presented to John Scalzi for Redshirts, a comedic work playing on the trope of low-ranking officers frequently getting themselves killed in sci-fi works. Best Novella went to Brandon Sanderson for The Emperor's Soul, and Best Novelette went to The Girl-Thing Who Went Out for Sushi by Pat Cadigan. Best Graphic Story was awarded to the creators of Saga. Best Dramatic Presentation (long form) was given for Joss Whedon's The Avengers movie, and (short form) was presented for the "Blackwater" episode of the Game of Thrones TV show. The Best New Writer was Mur Lafferty. Here's a full list of the nominees and winners.

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Re:Happy Labor Day from The Golden Girls! by hawkinspeter · 2013-09-02 03:17 · Score: 1

So, it's come to this.

Wait a minute - this isn't a first post.

--
You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
A comedic work? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-02 03:18 · Score: 1

Good, that no Disneyland this time. I know, it's a matter of taste. A lot of people value Scalzi or Adams. But... where is Asimov-like Sci fi? Deep, intelectual, but not "geek".
1. Re:A comedic work? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-02 03:25 · Score: 0
  
  The market for that stuff is too small, and authors want to make a buck. Comedic sci-fi sells outside the genre, so it's a bigger payday. No authors that are actually any good write heavy sci-fi any more.
2. Re: A comedic work? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-02 03:55 · Score: 0
  
  Try charlie's (uid 1328) scifi works.
3. Re:A comedic work? by mcgrew · 2013-09-02 06:09 · Score: 1
  
  But... where is Asimov-like Sci fi? Deep, intelectual, but not "geek".
  Not geek, nerd. Asimov held a PhD in biochemistry and did cancer research at Boston University. It shows in his works.
  
  --
  Free Martian Whores!
4. Re:A comedic work? by jythie · 2013-09-02 06:14 · Score: 1
  
  To make matters worse, since 'deep and intellectual' is so subjective, you end up with a niche inside a niche. One person's intellectual work is another's 'pseudo intellectual garbage', so there tends to be rather poor consensus on what counts which makes it difficult to get enough readership to make the writing worthwhile.
5. Re: A comedic work? by bored_engineer · 2013-09-02 07:53 · Score: 1
  
  http://www.antipope.org/charlie/
6. Re:A comedic work? by Hardhead_7 · 2013-09-02 09:59 · Score: 2
  
  Scalzi actually does fairly hard sci-fi mostly. Check his Old Man's War novels. They're good.
7. Re:A comedic work? by Badge+17 · 2013-09-02 12:57 · Score: 1
  
  Quick, name me another prominent comedic science fiction author. Are there really enough that this is an issue? (I actually couldn't think of another one off-hand, if you don't count Vonnegut.)
  There is a lot of great science fiction out there. Questions of identity, memory, and continuity? Try Brin's Kiln People. Reaction of societies to profound changes? Robert Charles Wilson's Spin. The Fermi Paradox? Try Revelation Space or Brin's Existence. Also, for "can't find a category for it," try Mieville's The City and the City. If you aren't reading anything past Asimov, you are missing out for no good reason.
8. Re:A comedic work? by Macgrrl · 2013-09-03 10:42 · Score: 1
  
  Depending on your definition of prominent and your definition of sci-fi and your definition of comedy: Douglas Adams (Hitchhikers Guide series), Phil Janes (Galaxy Game series), Ben Elton (Stark, etc), Eric Idle (Road to Mars). I could probably find more if I looked, that's just what I could think of off the top of my head.
  
  --
  Sara
  Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
Why so few enlisted men in Star Trek? by Nutria · 2013-09-02 03:26 · Score: 1

Chief O'Brien and Yeoman Rand are the only two I can think of.

--
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
1. Re:Why so few enlisted men in Star Trek? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-02 03:36 · Score: 0
  
  Free college
2. Re:Why so few enlisted men in Star Trek? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-02 04:21 · Score: 0
  
  Although in TNG, they make it look like it is extremely difficult to get into the academy, with there being only one person from each testing facility and so much difficult material to study, to the point it makes you wonder how many of the others on the ship got in when they were younger. There seems to be some gap in understanding the scale of operations, that either there were very few ships actually populated by officers, or the academy was much larger than portrayed.
3. Re:Why so few enlisted men in Star Trek? by c0d3g33k · 2013-09-02 04:26 · Score: 2
  
  Chief O'Brien and Yeoman Rand are the only two I can think of.
  Yeoman (Janice) Rand wasn't a man.
4. Re:Why so few enlisted men in Star Trek? by roc97007 · 2013-09-02 04:46 · Score: 1
  
  Probably because of the high attrition rate. After seeing a few of your co-workers blasted to atoms, you might think about opening a coffee shop instead.
  
  --
  Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
5. Re:Why so few enlisted men in Star Trek? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-02 05:34 · Score: 0
  
  No it's only the Americans who cant afford college
6. Re:Why so few enlisted men in Star Trek? by Nutria · 2013-09-02 05:47 · Score: 1
  
  Don't be an idiot.
  
  --
  "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
7. Re:Why so few enlisted men in Star Trek? by c0d3g33k · 2013-09-03 01:55 · Score: 0
  
  Don't be an idiot.
  Come again?
  Your question seemed poorly formulated and your supporting comment only confused matters.
  You ask "Why so few enlisted men in Star Trek?", then proceed to offer 2 of the worst examples possible as "the only two I can think of". Yeoman Rand, as I already pointed out, was a woman. Chief O'Brien, though technically an enlisted man, has a confusing rank history, including times where he was referred to as Lieutenant and wore Lieutenant's insignia as well as episodes where he was clearly in charge of and giving orders to junior officers.
  If you meant to question the lack of non-officers on the ships, "enlisted personnel" would have been more clear, given your choice of Rand as an example. If your question deliberately referred to gender, combining an example and counter example in the same clause was sloppy. Why not mention O'Brien as the sole example and finish with "and Rand was a woman"?
  Beyond that, your question just seems silly, given that it refers to a series of TV shows that just happen to focus on the command crews as their subjects. The TOS Enterprise had a crew complement of around 430 and the TNG Enterprise a complement of over 1000. That's a hell of a lot of enlisted personnel, even if they didn't get very many speaking parts in the shows. Who do you think all those people are rushing through the corridors during red alert? Why didn't the writers focus more on them? Possibly because the show wasn't about them.
  But what do I know? I am, as you point out, being an idiot.
8. Re:Why so few enlisted men in Star Trek? by Nutria · 2013-09-03 02:23 · Score: 1
  
  Yeoman (Janice) Rand wasn't a man.
  
  Don't be an idiot.
  
  Come again?
  Pointing out that Yeoman Rand is not actually a man is an idiotic thing to say, since Yeoman is a naval rating, not an indication of gender.
  (The beehive hairdo, well-rounded figure, really short minidress and go-go boots are also giveaways that Yeoman Rand isn't a guy.)
  
  --
  "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
9. Re:Why so few enlisted men in Star Trek? by c0d3g33k · 2013-09-03 05:36 · Score: 1
  
  Thanks. Sitting here about 3 miles from a Navy sub base and a little further from the Coast Guard Academy, I don't need lecturing on naval ratings.
  I'll try one more time and point out that your question was about "enlisted men". You used the term Enlisted *men*. In 2013. Then you gave a woman as an example.
  If your question was meant to be gender neutral, your choice of words was poor. If your question was meant to address the almost non-existent representation of lower ranks on the Star Trek shows, that could be a fun discussion, but you weren't clear.
  You could argue that your terminology is common usage when referring to non-commissioned military personnel, but it was coined in a time when the military was predominantly made up of men and is woefully outdated. For heaven's sake, your question was posed in the context of a fictional space-faring organization apparently evolved from the Navy that takes place in the Far Future and includes not only men and women, but a multitude of non-human races of varying gender, not to mention artificial beings with no gender to speak of. When you refer to "men", that either means you're being sloppy (this gets my vote) or you are being deliberately specific.
  I knew what you probably were trying to ask, because I'm old enough to recognize the phrase you used as meaning "non-officers". And it's obvious you just dashed off some quick post without really thinking about it much. That's cool - we're all busy. However, it is not my job to guess what you meant and respond to your vague utterance in the precise way you intended it. It *is* your job when communicating to be clear about what you mean so the discussion can be about the subject you want to discuss, not about figuring out what it was that you meant exactly.
  It's good form when you realize you've been misinterpreted (or called out for sloppy use of language) to at least explain "that's not what I meant" and clarify so people can have a fun conversation about an old TV show they like before jumping straight to lashing out and calling someone an idiot.
  Is it lost on you that most of the thread following your post has nothing whatever to do with your original post, but served as a convenient forum for thread hijackers to randomly talk about whatever Star Trek related subject happened to pique their interest? Maybe you weren't quite as clear as you thought.
10. Re:Why so few enlisted men in Star Trek? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-03 08:18 · Score: 0
  
  The rest of us could figure out what was meant, especially since (and not in spite of) Rand was listed, and didn't need to rant for half a dozen some paragraphs about a lack of clarity that was insignificant considering the context. The advice "don't be an idiot" only seems more apt now thanks to your response.
11. Re:Why so few enlisted men in Star Trek? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-03 15:26 · Score: 0
  
  Bullshit. 2 posts in the entire thread even mentioned the original topic. Everything else was about other stuff, like an economy without scarcity, holodecks are fun, Firefly was better. Looks to me more like "the rest of you" saw "Star Trek", ignored the rest, and started typing.
12. Re:Why so few enlisted men in Star Trek? by c0d3g33k · 2013-09-04 05:23 · Score: 1
  
  Fair enough. I couldn't decide whether there was any substance behind the OP's enlightened commentary or whether it was just adolescent poo-flinging. I thought if I prodded a bit I might evoke a response that could lead to an entertaining discussion. I have my answer now and I'm ashamed to say I wasted my time. Mea culpa.
Re:Happy Labor Day from The Golden Girls! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-02 03:26 · Score: 1

cosmonaut?
COSMONAUT?!?!?
You fucking asshole. You can't even get your troll right.
It's Coruscant!!!11!
Fuck you.
I have the book but haven't read it yet. by taxman_10m · 2013-09-02 03:34 · Score: 4, Interesting

The reviews on Amazon made it seem mediocre at best. Really, there was no better science fiction this year?
1. Re:I have the book but haven't read it yet. by washort · 2013-09-02 03:43 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Probably there was. The Hugos seem to be given to a particular set of people as a matter of course.
2. Re:I have the book but haven't read it yet. by OzPeter · 2013-09-02 03:50 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  The reviews on Amazon made it seem mediocre at best. Really, there was no better science fiction this year?
  I read the book and really liked it. I suspect that the reviews are not the best because the book changes course in the middle and morphs from purely comedic to something that makes you have to think in order to enjoy it.
  But really?!!?!?! You base your opinion of a book that you actually own, but have not yet read, on Amazon reviews??????
  
  --
  I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
3. Re:I have the book but haven't read it yet. by taxman_10m · 2013-09-02 04:12 · Score: 2
  
  I bought it because I like Scalzi's writing, it was new at the time, and I was going on vacation. I've read all the Old Man War books except for Zoe's Tale and liked them very much. I also read some of his earlier books like Agent to the Stars which I thought was excellent and Android's Dream which was meh.
4. Re:I have the book but haven't read it yet. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-02 04:28 · Score: 0
  
  I read it as well. It was OK, but Hugo quality? Nope. Re-readable? Nope.
5. Re:I have the book but haven't read it yet. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-02 04:30 · Score: 1
  
  Thanks for sharing. Now go read the book and comment again when you actually have something relevant to say.
6. Re:I have the book but haven't read it yet. by Brucelet · 2013-09-02 04:31 · Score: 1
  
  I thought it was a fun read, but I wouldn't have guessed at it winning the Hugo. That said, I'm not well-read enough to put forth an alternative.
7. Re:I have the book but haven't read it yet. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-02 04:32 · Score: 1
  
  I haven't read a worse book since "The Omen Machine" By Terry Goodkind. Redshirts was terrible. Unfunny, horrible writing, boring bland identical characters. A perfect study piece for what makes an awful book. Just a terrible, terrible, forgettable novel.
  It's an insult to win the Hugo.
  Sincerely Comic Book Guy
8. Re:I have the book but haven't read it yet. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-02 04:52 · Score: 0
  
  The idea of the book was awesome, the book, eh.. Not so good when the cover synoposis is the best part. I enjoyed reading it but it was pretty forgetable. Kind of like Harry Potter, fun at the time, but I go blank on it after it is done.
9. Re:I have the book but haven't read it yet. by dasunt · 2013-09-02 05:02 · Score: 1
  
  It's a really fun read, IMO, at least in the beginning. Middle and ending, especially with the codas, are a tad weak.
  Overall, I thought it was a good book, but not Hugo-class. It's more of a book that starts out as a parody of Star Trek/etc, and ends up trying to pull a working plot out of that parody.
10. Re:I have the book but haven't read it yet. by 91degrees · 2013-09-02 05:09 · Score: 1
  
  If you like Scalzi, you'll probably enjoy it. But I agree with the consensus on Amazon. The codas at the end are an interesting idea and work quite well, but there's not really enough mileage in the basic concept.
11. Re:I have the book but haven't read it yet. by Chelloveck · 2013-09-02 05:32 · Score: 1
  
  It was mediocre. Certainly not Scalzi's best, but I haven't read any of the other nominees so I can't say how it compares. Assuming none of the others was better I'd have voted "no award". It's enjoyable, but not Hugo-level (IMHO).
  It didn't help that I read it just after watching Red Dwarf: Back to Earth, which has a very similar plot! I'm not accusing Scalzi of stealing; characters coming to life is an old idea and he had a good take on it. But between Red Dwarf and Galaxy Quest I couldn't help thinking, "I just watched this..." as I read the book.
  
  --
  Chelloveck
  I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
12. Re:I have the book but haven't read it yet. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-02 05:39 · Score: 0
  
  That post lost all credibility when I reached "squarely in my sites".
13. Re:I have the book but haven't read it yet. by stoolpigeon · 2013-09-02 05:52 · Score: 2
  
  I love Scalzi. I'm a self confessed fanboy, read whatever regularly, etc. I did not enjoy Redshirts. It's well executed, I just don't like that kind of story.
  Fortunately The Human Division got things back on track.
  
  --
  It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
14. Re:I have the book but haven't read it yet. by ColdWetDog · 2013-09-02 06:05 · Score: 2
  
  I like Scalzi - Redshirts was, ah, interesting. Actually reading it a second time helped. Hugo level? Well, it's all opinion and we all know how valuable those are.
  
  --
  Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
15. Re: I have the book but haven't read it yet. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-02 06:50 · Score: 0
  
  I read the short preview version and it was mediocre. Too much dialogue.
16. Re:I have the book but haven't read it yet. by St.Creed · 2013-09-02 07:41 · Score: 1
  
  I have the same feeling. I just reread Agent to the Stars and I found that quite funny. But redshirts didn't do much for me.
  
  --
  Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
17. Re:I have the book but haven't read it yet. by Badge+17 · 2013-09-02 12:44 · Score: 2
  
  I have either read or given up on all of the nominees. I am not convinced that Redshirts was the best novel, but it was probably the intersection of "mainstream / well-known" and "not so bad." Remember, Hugos are determined by a vote of science fiction fans at the convention (or who bought "supporting memberships"), and there's no requirement that they read all of the books.
  The nominees were (in order of placement)
  5. Blackout - the third in Mira Grant's Newsflesh zombie series. These books are entertaining, and the setting is fairly clever - where zombies are just a fact of life, and an ongoing danger - but this wasn't the best of the trilogy, and the previous two were nominated but didn't win.
  4. Throne of the Crescent Moon - an entertaining fantasy novel with a lot of Arabic mythology as an influence. I enjoyed it thoroughly, but it was the author's first novel, and it's not as well-known as the others on the list.
  3. 2312 - Another Kim Stanley Robinson book - a little heavy on geology, and a little meandering for my taste, but interesting in bits. KSR has won Hugos before, and is pretty well-known.
  2. Captain Vorpatil's Alliance - part of the whole Vorkosigan / Miles Saga from Lois McMaster Bujold. I usually like her books, but something about the voice this one was in just bothered the crap out of me, so I didn't finish it. Once again, Bujold has a lot of past Hugos, and this is like book 15 in the series, so it definitely has a constituency.
  1. Redshirts - has Scalzi's usual flaws with fairly bland characters and a little bit of generic plotting. But it was funny, and ended up being at least a little touching and thought-provoking.
  Essentially, the fan vote gives a strong advantage to well-known authors. Of the books that apparently had a chance (the top 3), Redshirts might have been the best. (Full stats at http://www.lonestarcon3.org/)
18. Re:I have the book but haven't read it yet. by stoolpigeon · 2013-09-03 00:53 · Score: 1
  
  I really, really loved Agent to the Stars. I think Androids Dream is even better. Those two are my favorites so far. I hope he gets to publish a lot more stories.
  
  --
  It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
The other Hugo categories by 91degrees · 2013-09-02 04:01 · Score: 1

I think the really remarkable fact here is that the Dramatic Presentation award (Short Form) went to something other than Doctor Who.
1. Re:The other Hugo categories by tirerim · 2013-09-02 04:05 · Score: 1
  
  Game of Thrones won the Dramatic Presentation, Long Form award last year (for the entire season), so I don't think it's that surprising.
2. Re:The other Hugo categories by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-02 04:09 · Score: 0
  
  Doctor who did have 3/5's of the nominations, though, so it's possible that the combined totals for those three were the majority.
3. Re:The other Hugo categories by 91degrees · 2013-09-02 04:33 · Score: 1
  
  The Hugos use preference voting so this sort of split doesn't happen.
There's no money. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-02 04:02 · Score: 0

In Star Trek IV - the "Save the Whales" movie, when answering the biologist who asked something like 'so, there's no money in the 23rd century?"
Which Kirk replied, 'No.'
Which makes me wonder how they're economy works. That's something Sci-Fi writers never address - what an economy would look like in the future.
How are resources allocated?
Are people so productive that building starships to roam the galaxy are cheap?
Or is there an underclass of robots who do all the work? And if so, are the resources allocated equally among everyone - meaning everyone gets the equivalent of an iPad, car, big screen TV, all the medical care they need, the same for food, etc ....
1. Re: There's no money. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-02 04:11 · Score: 1
  
  It's funny how the scarcity thinking that's been beaten into you blinds you to the hundreds of thousands of years that mankind lived without money.
2. Re: There's no money. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-02 04:36 · Score: 1
  
  Without paper money, but there has been an economy equivalent for as long as abstract thinking has existed among humans. Sea shells and beads were a form of money for all intents and purposes in many cultures for thousands of years.
  But what I think the OP is missing is if you have essentially free energy, and the ability to turn energy into almost any form of matter (Star Trek did note some limits to this, but very few), then what does economy mean? The only meaningful resources would be those few things you can't replicate with energy to matter conversion and skills not possible through expert systems (computers). You'd probably want some way to allocate those, but it would take an interesting form of economy to do so. Sadly, it might come down to slavery. Individuals would be important for their skills, but since you can't offer them anything tangible to convince them to work for you (they could just work for themselves on whatever they find interesting), some people would convince them through torture, I think.
  Suddenly, that utopian future looks a lot more distopian to me.
3. Re:There's no money. by Artifakt · 2013-09-02 04:44 · Score: 1
  
  Trek fabricators can make all the simple stuff, like food and standard medicines, displays and data storage. People probably don't drive individual cars as much, but then the transporter works at least for earth-moon distances. Per Roddenberry himself, the basics for the average person are dirt cheap. The real question is, how much does it cost if you get a disease that Dr. McCoy can't cure with the wave of a salt shaker and has to actually work on - and those diseases are probably limited to exotic ones the show has to go into deep space to find. Back on Earth, or Vulcan, or any high population core world of the Federation, the chance of getting, say, bitten by a Mugatu, is one in trillions.
  On the other hand, building starships takes lots of manual labor from well trained people, and they don't come cheap. Whether those resources are tracked with money or just allocated by computer analysis, they must be pretty expensive. This fits what we've seen in the original series with engineering being a matter of individually tuning the warp drive, power plants, and such, and using exotic materials like 'dilythium'. That's why, in the original series, there are only 12 ships of the Enterprise's class. The cost for building one is a lot more proportionately to feeding and clothing and even entertaining and educating people, or the Federation would have cruisers in the same numbers, relative to all the worlds they need to defend, as the US navy has cruisers relative to the real world,
  By the way, it just occured to me that a Cruiser capable of very long range operations (5 year mission), working unsupported by ships of the main line (not attached to a fleet with battleships or some sort of Carrier arrangement at the center), is frequently called a Fleet Intruder. In war, the original Enterprise's job is probably to strike high-value targets such as munitions shipping, well behind enemy lines and get away quickly to harrass the enemy somewhere else. If the Federation is not used to fighting that way, the Enterprise could be expected to join a fleet under Dreadnaught command in time of war. That's what we see in Next Gen., but the original series seldom shows the Enterprise teaming up with any other vessels. Probably every time the Enterprise approaches a new star on that five year mission, her bridge crew is running training exercises to practice finding in-system shipping, ammo depots, intercepting millitary communications, and so on. It's a good thing "Starfleet is not a military organization", so the crew isn't doing what their big, expensive tool is so perfectly designed for.
  
  --
  Who is John Cabal?
4. Re: There's no money. by ConfusedVorlon · 2013-09-02 04:45 · Score: 1
  
  The holodeck looks like fun. I'd like to spend most of my evenings playing there with my friends.
  Also, I'd like a big cabin with a large forward facing window.
  Both of those are scarce. How are they allocated?
  What if I'm willing to take a smaller cabin in return for more holodeck time?
  
  --
  VLC Remote for iPhone and Android
5. Re:There's no money. by CrimsonAvenger · 2013-09-02 05:08 · Score: 1
  
  or the Federation would have cruisers in the same numbers, relative to all the worlds they need to defend, as the US navy has cruisers relative to the real world,
  The label "cruiser" as used by the Federation is a lot more like the original use of the word (ship capable of going a long way without replensihment), unlike the modern USN usage (big anti-air destroyer).
  In other words, the two things you're comparing aren't really comparable in ways other than spelling....
  
  --
  
  "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
6. Re: There's no money. by zippthorne · 2013-09-02 05:09 · Score: 1
  
  Why would holodecks be scarce if everything else can be magicked into existence?
  And if holodecks offer perfect replication of the view, why not just live in one and have a grand mansion of a cabin programmed into it?
  
  --
  Can you be Even More Awesome?!
7. Re:There's no money. by santosh.k83 · 2013-09-02 06:11 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Money is necessary when there's competition in society. When society transitions to cooperation (and not what passes under that name today), only organisation would be necessary, not money.
8. Re: There's no money. by jythie · 2013-09-02 06:16 · Score: 1
  
  Well, money has existed for as long as there has been writing, and before that personal property was a pretty big deal.... so I hate to break it to you but 'scarcity' is how humans have been living for a very long time.
9. Re: There's no money. by jythie · 2013-09-02 06:19 · Score: 1
  
  Well, in the mythology I gather people just worked because they wanted to (since automation pretty much eliminates menial work I guess), though I have never seen a good explanation about how things like land ownership and transfer happens.
10. Re: There's no money. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-02 06:38 · Score: 0
  
  Without paper money, but there has been an economy equivalent for as long as abstract thinking has existed among humans.
  [Citation Needed]. Seriously. Stop spreading this crap, it isn't true. It makes discussion about modern economy simple to imagine a simple version of money, but that's not how most ancient societies worked.
11. Re: There's no money. by fredprado · 2013-09-02 08:15 · Score: 1
  
  Sure it was. Ancienty civilizations worked just like this. Currency has been anything from food, to tobacco, to sea shells. Some with intrinsic value some without it. Even in tribal society, there were goods useful enough to be universally accept and used as currency to facilitate trade.
12. Re: There's no money. by fredprado · 2013-09-02 08:20 · Score: 1
  
  Scarcity will always exist. Even if you can supply all the basic needs of humankind you will always have new scarce things to desire. And that is a good thing, because this desire is the only thing that moves humankind forward, fairy tales aside.
  
  And although humankind did lived without formal money in the tribal past, there were always exchanges and some people always had more than others. Money came as a tool to facilitate those exchanges and nothing else.
13. Re: There's no money. by fredprado · 2013-09-02 08:21 · Score: 1
  
  Because it takes energy, and raw materials to "magick" anything into existence, and those are finite resources, and will always be.
14. Re:There's no money. by fredprado · 2013-09-02 08:29 · Score: 1
  
  And that is one of the great flaws of the concept in Star Trek. Star Ships for example are scarce resources, as is Teleportation, Holodecks, and several others. All things that would have high demand by any sane assessment. All controlled by the government and used by its members and the military, and as money does not exist, the common people need government authorization to have access to any of these "privileges". This seems an awfully dystopic and unfree society to me not the utopia as which they try to paint it
15. Re: There's no money. by Deadstick · 2013-09-02 08:56 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, until they invented slavery.
16. Re: There's no money. by rsborg · 2013-09-02 09:13 · Score: 1
  
  Why would holodecks be scarce if everything else can be magicked into existence?
  And if holodecks offer perfect replication of the view, why not just live in one and have a grand mansion of a cabin programmed into it?
  Engineering constraints force limited ship space. Also, although dilithium crystals and matter/anti-matter reactors could theoretically provide near-infinite power, the availability of given power over a an amount of time is scarce - if you're running 10x holodecks, maybe the sheilds or weapons (ie, phaser banks) can't run at full power (clearly outlined in every combat situation - not enough power to run both at full) Thus, holodeck time is scarce.
  And adding to that, time is scarce - Humans do get older in the show, so we can derive the fact that they eventually die (though like most other sci-fi, lifespan may be greatly extended compared to our present "neo-feudalist" backwards age). Given that, for most individuals time is scarce.
  If you have ship duties, this scarce time could be greatly curtailed so as to make it impossible to, for example, experience the holodeck every night.
  So yes, an economy of sorts is required to determine who gets that scarce time... it would be interesting to see how that economy is portrayed. Many sci-fi books have good ideas of how this may play out (e.g.: Culture series, Void trilogy, etc), so it's not new.
  
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17. Re: There's no money. by CrimsonAvenger · 2013-09-02 09:29 · Score: 1
  
  If you have ship duties, this scarce time could be greatly curtailed so as to make it impossible to, for example, experience the holodeck every night.
  If they're spending time the way the USN does, there's generally going to be 4-6 hours per day free to do whatever you'd like (depending on maintenance schedules, paperwork, things like that).
  Somehow I can't see the Utopian society of ST having LESS leisure time than we have now.
  And almost all of us can manage enough time daily to see a movie, if we want (which was one of those popular things we did on the boats when we weren't doing something that required us to be quiet)
  
  --
  
  "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
18. Re: There's no money. by godel_56 · 2013-09-02 10:04 · Score: 1
  
  Without paper money, but there has been an economy equivalent for as long as abstract thinking has existed among humans. Sea shells and beads were a form of money for all intents and purposes in many cultures for thousands of years.
  But what I think the OP is missing is if you have essentially free energy, and the ability to turn energy into almost any form of matter (Star Trek did note some limits to this, but very few), then what does economy mean? The only meaningful resources would be those few things you can't replicate with energy to matter conversion and skills not possible through expert systems (computers). You'd probably want some way to allocate those, but it would take an interesting form of economy to do so. Sadly, it might come down to slavery. Individuals would be important for their skills, but since you can't offer them anything tangible to convince them to work for you (they could just work for themselves on whatever they find interesting), some people would convince them through torture, I think.
  Suddenly, that utopian future looks a lot more distopian to me.
  The late Iain M Banks' Culture novels were set post the Age of Scarcity, and most of his human characters look like hedonistic arseholes.
19. Re: There's no money. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-02 12:20 · Score: 0
  
  ^ This is the only real difference between the universes of Star Trek and Blakes7: which side you're looking at it from. Of course it looks like a utopia to the commanding officer of the shiny flagship...
20. Re:There's no money. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-02 13:01 · Score: 0
  
  In Star Trek IV - the "Save the Whales" movie, when answering the biologist who asked something like 'so, there's no money in the 23rd century?"
  Which Kirk replied, 'No.'
  Which makes me wonder how they're economy works. That's something Sci-Fi writers never address - what an economy would look like in the future.
  Yes, you're such a brilliant special snowflake, you've thought of this aspect nobody else even thought of.
  If you're making the (traditional, but nowadays so rarely observed as to be more a hindrance than a benefit to communication) distinction between "sci-fi" and "SF", then your claim that "Sci-Fi writers never address" economics is a tautology; of course Sci-Fi writers don't write SF, because then they'd be SF writers instead!
  If you're not making that distinction, then your claim is just a blatant falsehood.
21. Re: There's no money. by cluedweasel · 2013-09-02 16:33 · Score: 1
  
  I've always had a feeling that the similarities between the Blake's 7 Federation badge and the Star Trek Starfleet logo aren't entirely co-incidental.
22. Re: There's no money. by tofarr · 2013-09-03 00:26 · Score: 1
  
  There will always be scarcity - even in a star trek like fairyland where they say there is "no money". Ask any geek whether they would like the job of being captain of the enterprise, and they will probably say "Hell Yeah!!!" (What's not to like? - Bang alien chicks, be involved in something important, and have amazing adventures!) However, it ignores the important realities, such as "Who cleans the toilets on the enterprise?". Ask who wants that job, and you will get a lot less enthusiasm. Even without monetary scarcity, there will always be haves and have nots. For one person to be a Captain Kirk, hundreds of others have to be an Ensign Ricky.
23. Re: There's no money. by pnutjam · 2013-09-03 01:42 · Score: 1
  
  Sounds like a good way to motivate people, some sort of hierarchy with ranks. No way people would ever value such things above money, or even their lives...
  
  #HistoricalPrecidentExists
  
  --
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24. Re: There's no money. by servant74a · 2013-09-03 04:49 · Score: 1
  
  That is why the Series Firefly struck a cord of 'sifireality' where the 'trek and variations never hit that. I like them all, just how it struck me.
25. Re: There's no money. by zippthorne · 2013-09-03 14:20 · Score: 1
  
  Your imagination needs some upgrades...
  Everyone who wants a holo-room isn't going to be living on a ship in the star fleet, and the typical economy-sized holohome on the 30th floor of the center-city bachelor tower doesn't need weapons OR shields....
  
  --
  Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Sci-Fi? by Chatsubo · 2013-09-02 04:13 · Score: 2

So, I may be living under a rock or something, or maybe it's because I don't really dig Game Of Thrones, or I'm horribly misinformed about the Hugo awards...
But how is Game of Thrones Sci-Fi?

--
> no, yes, maybe (tagging beta)
1. Re:Sci-Fi? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-02 04:25 · Score: 0
  
  It's got magical beings in it. Oh, wait...
2. Re:Sci-Fi? by wonkey_monkey · 2013-09-02 04:30 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  The Hugos are for science fiction and fantasy.
  
  --
  systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
3. Re:Sci-Fi? by angel'o'sphere · 2013-09-02 04:38 · Score: 1
  
  Well, since 2 decades it pisses me off that books and movies are categorized as "SF and Fantasy".
  Mainly I read/watch SF. IMHO (as I'm not a nerd being deep into Fantasy) there are onky a few Fantasy stories worth reading. (Well, tbh my oppinion is at the edge of changing as I read quite a lot free Fantasy books from apples iBook store)
  However when I'm browsing in a library or in an internet book shop (iTunes, Amazone, B&N etc.) I expect to have a section "Science Fiction" and a section "Fantasy" ... I would accept if a few titles would show up in both.
  But I hate it to browse over "Happy Dotter", "WarCraft the Book", "Orks", "Elves" etc. when I'm just looking for recent new SF.
  The worst thing now is, movies which in earlier times would be cathegorized as "Eastern" or "Martial Arts" are now "Fantasy" as well ... depressing!
  
  --
  Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
4. Re:Sci-Fi? by blackraven14250 · 2013-09-02 04:40 · Score: 2
  
  The Hugos aren't just SciFi. They're also for fantasy works.
5. Re:Sci-Fi? by roc97007 · 2013-09-02 04:51 · Score: 1, Interesting
  
  Good point. It isn't. I'd call it a softcore porn soap opera with swords. Not that there's anything wrong with that...
  Now, it *might* have been. This is not Earth, and there are indications of higher levels of technology that existed in the past (architecture, if nothing else) but all that gets lost in who's screwing who (literally and figuratively).
  
  --
  Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
6. Re:Sci-Fi? by roc97007 · 2013-09-02 04:58 · Score: 1
  
  Sci-fi = Fantasy. There is no real distinction between magic and advanced technology.
  Um, sure there is. There doesn't *have* to be -- it depends on how the "magic" is presented (Larry Niven's "the magic goes away", where "magic" is an naturally occurring energy source, Michael Moorcock's explanation in Elric that "spells" are merely making pacts with elemental creatures or reminding them of previous pacts) but "magic" as is usually depicted on the big or small screen is often of the more trivial kind -- the vain belief that ritual causes things to happen, which is pretty much the opposite of science fiction.
  
  --
  Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
7. Re:Sci-Fi? by porges · 2013-09-02 04:59 · Score: 1
  
  NO. There are people who like to say this but it's crap. Usually there's a more explicit reference to Clarke's Third Law. But from Clarke's point, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" you can't conclude that "Any writing about magic is really writing about technology". Literary genres are a matter of tropes and reader expectations.
8. Re:Sci-Fi? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-02 05:01 · Score: 0
  
  well Ive written another book to an existing complition of books about an old man who lives on a a cloud and sends winged being to watch over Americans.
  Can I have a Hugo?
9. Re:Sci-Fi? by greg1104 · 2013-09-02 05:23 · Score: 2
  
  well Ive written another book to an existing complition of books about an old man who lives on a a cloud and sends winged being to watch over Americans.
  You wrote a sequel to the Bible?
10. Re:Sci-Fi? by fahrbot-bot · 2013-09-02 05:45 · Score: 1
  
  Sci-fi = Fantasy. There is no real distinction between magic and advanced technology.
  Um, sure there is. There doesn't *have* to be -- it depends on how the "magic" is presented ...
  In case it wasn't clear... Parent was paraphrasing one of Arthur C. Clarke's three laws:
  
  3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
  
  --
  It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
11. Re:Sci-Fi? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-02 05:52 · Score: 0
  
  It is Ghost written, the original author narrated it to me in a dream.
  Well it is like Hollywood movie, its allready got 66 books so whats the harm in a sequel or possible a trilogy with another 14 books if I have to describe how Rebbeca's skirt twitches in every scene.
  Also the location had to be changed even in fiction no one would believe you could find 3 wise men and a virgin in the US.
12. Re:Sci-Fi? by fahrbot-bot · 2013-09-02 05:59 · Score: 1
  
  NO. There are people who like to say this but it's crap. Usually there's a more explicit reference to Clarke's Third Law. But from Clarke's point, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" you can't conclude that "Any writing about magic is really writing about technology". Literary genres are a matter of tropes and reader expectations.
  Generally agreed - and I referenced that third law above (in the unlikely event someone didn't know), but obviously the "tech as magic" thing could go either way depending on the context of the story, etc... Fantasy doesn't *have* to include magic (or technology) though it often seems to. Personally I'm not a fan of fantasy, especially if it includes "magic" - I see it as a lazy attempt at Science Fiction - though perhaps I haven't been exposed to good/better fantasy fiction or simply prefer story lines closer to "reality" (if that term can be applied to SF). Lately, I've been reading Alastair Reynolds and perhaps that's skewing my expectations.
  One thing I do know for sure is that I don't like things written in first-person.
  
  --
  It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
13. Re:Sci-Fi? by roc97007 · 2013-09-02 06:04 · Score: 1
  
  Sci-fi = Fantasy. There is no real distinction between magic and advanced technology.
  Um, sure there is. There doesn't *have* to be -- it depends on how the "magic" is presented ...
  In case it wasn't clear... Parent was paraphrasing one of Arthur C. Clarke's three laws:
  
  3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
  It was absolutely clear. But lest you forgot logical equivalence from high school, that a sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic does *not* mean that "magic" in arts and literature must originate from a sufficiently advanced technology. If you're in paris, that means you're in france. If you're in france, that *does not* mean you're in paris. (Unless you're a certain friend of mine, who never goes anywhere else in Europe.) Magic often is equivalent to fantasy and wishful thinking. Sorry.
  
  --
  Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
14. Re:Sci-Fi? by mcgrew · 2013-09-02 06:17 · Score: 1
  
  well Ive written... Can I have a Hugo?
  Not with writing like that. You made two mistakes in the first two words, any story you wrote would not be the least bit readable.
  
  --
  Free Martian Whores!
15. Re:Sci-Fi? by Boronx · 2013-09-02 06:24 · Score: 2
  
  It's G.R.R. Martin, so in the end they'll find a spaceship.
  
  --
  Play Command HQ online
16. Re:Sci-Fi? by Boronx · 2013-09-02 06:30 · Score: 1
  
  The difference is all in the attitude of the characters. In sci-fi, the characters either know or want to know why the world works the way it does.
  Frodo never wonders how the rings turn kings int wraiths.
  
  --
  Play Command HQ online
17. Re:Sci-Fi? by swillden · 2013-09-02 07:06 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Another interesting side to the "tech as magic" notion is the work of authors who define rigorous frameworks for their fictional magic. Then magic becomes technology, just technology that's based on different (and fictional) physical principles. Much of golden age sci-fi was about exploring the impact of logical extensions of technology on social structures. Today there's a lot of fantasy that postulates interesting magic and explores its impact on social structures.
  Of course, at the end of the day all good stories are about people. I love good stories that use really innovative and mind-twisting technology/magic as a backdrop, but while great ideas add spice great storytelling is about emotional reaction, and that means people.
  
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18. Re:Sci-Fi? by fahrbot-bot · 2013-09-02 07:10 · Score: 1
  
  Sci-fi = Fantasy. ...
  It was absolutely clear. But lest you forgot logical equivalence ...
  Sorry, I thought that was an assignment, not equivalence - my genre operators don't overload and their classes don't inherit :-)
  
  --
  It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
19. Re:Sci-Fi? by roc97007 · 2013-09-02 08:53 · Score: 1
  
  Ok ok, that was funny.
  (And I think I should have written "lest you forget"...)
  
  --
  Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
20. Re:Sci-Fi? by Schmorgluck · 2013-09-02 11:23 · Score: 1
  
  Joke aside, with the success of Game of Thrones, people tend to overlook Martin's sci-fi works, which are good, too.
  
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  There's nothing like $HOME
21. Re: Sci-Fi? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-02 12:28 · Score: 0
  
  Gud fing E-un M Banks rites betr then him
22. Re:Sci-Fi? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-02 12:34 · Score: 0
  
  The Others are actually space aliens and it's a future Earth.
23. Re:Sci-Fi? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-02 15:36 · Score: 0
  
  No, that has way more to do with the individual instance of sci-fi or fantasy. In most of Brandon Sanderson's work, for instance, magic is a part of nature and the characters wonder and make clever inventions using magic, and plot points aren't generally resolved with magic that was spoon-fed to you but by new magical combinations that could reasonably be extrapolated from old ones. If you're looking at the story of, say, StarCraft, technology is a lot more mystical.
  I would resist attempts to define the former as sci-fi or the latter as fantasy. The problem is much more in your definition. I'd say in most stories, sci-fi or fantasy, the characters don't want to know why the world works any more (or any less) than the average person on the street does.
  There is sometimes fantasy without even having magic, but my working definition for now is that Sci Fi typically begins with reality plus a few non-reality things that as far as the author and target audience knows might be plausible (maybe with some slight contortions, eg. Mass Effect talks about running "negative current" through an element as if that were a thing distinguishable from a positive current, rather than parity being arbitrary, but maybe we can claim that element 0 crystallizes into something with an inherent direction and by convention we universally choose positive to be in one direction), whereas Fantasy begins by asking you to accept a few things that we know are total bullshit to begin with. Then we extrapolate. To me, this makes sci fi more limiting (which has both good and bad sides), but it also means that I find less sci fi very good, since I'm generally more scientifically literate than most sci fi authors or, especially, their audiences.
  But under my definition, they both fundamentally share that we are extrapolating from unreal premises.
24. Re:Sci-Fi? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-02 18:15 · Score: 0
  
  durrrhh, it was a parody of a mobile phone commercial I'm not really a csi can I have an upgrade
25. Re:Sci-Fi? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-02 20:03 · Score: 0
  
  Sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from science.
26. Re:Sci-Fi? by Boronx · 2013-09-03 05:03 · Score: 1
  
  Better, IMHO.
  
  --
  Play Command HQ online
I hate to sound like *that* commercial by Provocateur · 2013-09-02 07:24 · Score: 1

...but it's really science fiction or fantasy, because there is a difference.

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WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
1. Re:I hate to sound like *that* commercial by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-02 07:41 · Score: 0
  
  Genuine question here--I don't read much fiction of any genre, so I'm not trolling here. I'm just curious, what are the major (possibly even minor) differences between the two?
2. Re:I hate to sound like *that* commercial by wonkey_monkey · 2013-09-02 09:30 · Score: 1
  
  ...but it's really science fiction or fantasy
  They're for science fiction works and fantasy works.
  
  --
  systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
3. Re:I hate to sound like *that* commercial by Xtifr · 2013-09-02 12:34 · Score: 2
  
  No, there really isn't once you take Clarke's Third Law into account: "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Middle Earth could have existed in The Matrix. Just ferinstance.
  Granted, for the vast majority of works, the distinction is usually clear, but SF writers have also been deliberately blurring the borders between the two genres since at least the 1950s.
  Is Star Wars fantasy or SF? There's strong arguments on both sides. What about FTL travel? Isn't that fantasy? Psychic powers? Time Travel? (Larry Niven's only time travel stories had the hero constantly stumbling across unicorns and other fantasy creatures in the past, because Niven was convinced that time travel was pure fantasy.)
  SF writers don't like boxes. Make a couple of nice, neat boxes labeled "science fiction" and "fantasy", and they'll start writing stories that don't fit neatly into either box, but clearly belong in at least one, just for the fun of it. Look at Roger Zelazny (esp. Lord of Light and Creatures of Light and Darkness) or Gene Wolfe (The Shadow of the Torturer won the World Fantasy Award, but then the sequel revealed that the series was actually SF) or countless others.
4. Re:I hate to sound like *that* commercial by John.Banister · 2013-09-04 01:24 · Score: 1
  
  In a fantasy story, there is a mechanism of causation (or the results of such a mechanism), most commonly called magic, which is indifferent to, if not in direct violation of those rules of causation considered to be science. Theres a list of some sub-genres here. I remember reading interesting words written by Algis Budrys in F&SF about the difference between descriptive fiction and speculative fiction and the difference between science fiction and fantasy being not as great. I haven't found a link directly to those words, but I did find that you can buy them by following links from here. Be warned, however, that in these books, those particular words are collected among many others.
Pat Cadigan by Fnord666 · 2013-09-02 08:16 · Score: 2

If you are interested in Pat Cadigan's novella, the preview / kindle sample of "edge of Infinity" includes the complete story. It can be found here.

--
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
Asimov-like? by Organic+Brain+Damage · 2013-09-02 13:14 · Score: 1

Alistair Reynolds. Charles Stross. Gregory Benford. There's three.