Well look, I'm not gonna be a fanboy defender of the thing:p but all I'm saying is that the rules (regardless of when they are made up) mostly hang together into a coherent whole (hence the claim of consistency). I can't think of a single book that lists all the rules of the universe at the beginning of the book - they all make things up as and when required. Some are simply more clever than others about disguising that fact. HP at least has a good cover story for slowly revealing things - there's a school and the kids are learning things as they go along - our POV as readers is that of a student at the school (so we get little to no access to the grown-up POVs for instance). As counterpoint, look at BSG - now there's a deus ex machina for you. Of course, saying that something is more consistent and fair than BSG doesn't mean much:p but it's the best I could come up with without putting way too much thought into it.
In other words, SF is simply the Fantasy story re-written from the point of view of a technologically savvy spectator. Fantasy is the same story written from the point of view of a medieval villager.
I read somewhere that it's protected by a grandfather clause =) mostly because it would be a giant PITA to change genres every few years. Dunno if the person who wrote this was just being facetious to shut me up:p
As I explained in response to the same post, it is extremely easy to take SF (/fantasy) and write it as fantasy (/SF). That's all GP was going for - you took him too literally (unless I totally misinterpreted either of you:)).
Seems to me the major difference between the two points of view is the spectator's assumed level of knowledge. By spectator, I mean the imaginary person through whose eyes you're viewing the book's world. For instance, I would love to see LOTR re-written from the point of view of a savvy spectator who actually understood the details of the science behind all the magic:).
If the ring was a sentient super computer that used nano technology to manipulate it's user would it be ok to be their?
Again, a matter of opinion (so I actually agree with you in principle). Those who prefer more rigorous explanations go for SF, those who prefer less go for Fantasy. Here on/. you're bound to find more of the former (I for one don't assign any value judgments to this particular preference since we're talking about ENTERTAINMENT - where the whims of the ah... entertainee [sic] ought to be the only damn thing that matters). Of course, I would hope that this preference wouldn't carry over into the real world but as far as the type of fiction you read, it's a purely arbitrary preference.
I would have agreed with you two days ago, but then I stumbled across this piece of work by Orson Scott Card. Please check it out - you might think differently (just the "boundary 5" section from pages 20-25). Mind you, regardless of my change of heart over the principle, I fully agree with you about the practical matter of having to wade through the Fantasy stuff to get to my beloved SF;-)
There was a sequel to Childhood's end???? o.O GIMME!!! Though I fully agree with the City and the Stars thing (or as I read it - "Against the fall of night"). Beautiful story, wistful flowing into freewheeling, enthusiastic. "Beyond the fall of night" was a farking joke (with its very own Ewok mascot:p). 2010 on the other hand, was more interesting for me than 2001 (and exactly the other way for the movies - the guy from Jaws is annoying).
I think the defining characteristic of fantasy is a reactionary ideology. That is, "fantasy" has some status quo, which is good, peaceful, etc. Some evil emerges that wants to disrupt this harmony, and the entire struggle is basically to return to the status quo. I use the term "evil" because there's no better way to characterize the baddies. Every minion is complete evil and deserves to be washed from the earth/planet. My favorite part is that the good guys technically more closely resemble antagonists (they don't "change" and in fact oppose it); whereas, the bad guys are usually trying to overthrow some thousand year-old harmony, making them protagonists.
Sounds like a synopsis of a particular book rather than a characterization of an entire genre:p.
Why not? Reversing your labels would imply that you're not comfortable with classifying Rambo as Fantasy, but there seems to be nothing wrong with that a priori.
if it's a cool special effect, it's probably bad science.
I agree with your put-down of SyFy, but the above statement is baffling. Why the hell does it have to be one or the other? I want a good plot, several "wtf?" moments (a la Asimov, or even the Matrix to name a diverse few:p) AND (AND!AND!AND!) good special effects. The combination does exist and is less rare that people make it out to be. Also, as I progressed through more and more physics classes, I found greater numbers of "hard-SF" icons fall towards the "soft-SF" side, so the "bad science" criterion is really just a matter of relative knowledge levels. All I can reasonably ask for anymore is that the most obvious scientific principles not be violated and I can get on board with it.
Fantasy is a genre where anything goes. You could say that SF and, as a matter of fact, all fiction is a sub-genre of fantasy. Star Trek and Star Wars are fantasy but not true SF, they have too many impossible things to qualify as true Science Fiction.
Not true. I loathe most "serious" fantasy but the "anything goes" argument is absolutely fallacious. I would empathize with you about it being boring, but not this. I was once like you in holding to this sort of genre chauvinism, even the part about hard vs soft SF (I mean that kindly and I'm dead serious about that). Please (for the sake of your reading enjoyment), give this a read - just a few short pages (20-25) from "How to write science fiction & fantasy" By Orson Scott Card.
The following criticism is not so kindly. My apologies:)
SF is a genre written with a "what if" question. Suppose *one* and only one thing that's impossible today were possible, what then?
"One and only one thing"? Are you just making this up as you go along?:p Sheesh...
At the risk of sounding frivolous, Harry Potter is the closest I've seen anyone get to this particular ideal. Consistency is all I ask for from either SF or Fantasy. It's sadly rare in both genres.
Just because it's SF doesn't mean it's good SF. SyFy has failed (in an artistic sense - not an economic one) because it encourages the crappiest SF ever made. But, to be fair, it really does show SF on it's channel. Watching SyFy is like watching Plan 9 from outer space in a non-ironic way =(
I don't know anyone that would seriously side with Star Wars being science fiction. I don't know anyone that would seriously side with Star Wars being science fiction. It has more in common with the Lord of the Rings than it does any sci-fi I've seen. Have some good films come out of the Star Wars universe? Sure, but that doesn't mean it's anymore than a fairy tale set in space. Couple that with the kiddy image of marketing and merchandise and it's hard to take Star Wars seriously as science fiction.
To the first, of course it's science fiction. That's a matter of fact. Of course, you can argue that it's crappy SF, that's a matter of opinion (as is the second bolded statement - which I agree with). Hell, I find it hard to take anything from the 80's too seriously:p.
Sure, but that doesn't mean it's anymore than a fairy tale set in space.
Yes. And "space opera" is a sub-genre of science fiction. I find it amusing that people try to re-classify things of which they don't approve out of the genres they like. Geez, just call it a bad example of SF and call it a day:p.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls that thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
For instance, Dune is another series that's a little ambiguous in this respect. By the time I get to "God-emperor of Dune", I see it morphing from SF to Fantasy (and boring Fantasy at that), but I'll still give it the benefit of the doubt and classify it SF (despite the fact that it IS a wonderful example of space opera, while still being entertaining and insightful as all hell). Hell, look at the whole Qwisatz Haderach nonsense and tell me how that's any less woo-woo than the Force crap. Both fairy-tale like if you ask me (but spanking good stories what?).
I liked ST:TNG the one (and only) time I watched it. I also liked SW (but that I watched several times). However, I still agree with you and Harlan about the greatness of Doctor Who (while disagreeing about the lack of it in ST and SW =)).
In fact (minus the religious woo-woo in SW), the pace of action in the original trilogy reminds me very much of the Doctor's Travels* (not in all respects obviously - just the whole "fly around having awesome adventures"). Every time I watch Doctor Who now, I feel like my love of SF has been rekindled and lose the weight of years of gritty SF that did nothing but kill my sense of wonder.
One thing that SW taught me as a child - religious leaders are like the jedi if the Jedi/Sith had no access to the Force**. Would the galactic populace have bought their new-age crap without the "miracles" (read: Force powers) to go with it? Religious leaders therefore are really no different from "real-life Jedi knights" at comicon. As you might conclude - this was a life-changing insight and I owe it all to SW =)
_____
*yes, uppercase "T" =D
** irrespective of the question of the actual existence of the Force. To clarify, religion is all well and good (though it baffles me why people still need it). The deification of people is what makes me puke (and what, thanks to SW, I was cured of at an early age).
Pretty callous group of that group of out of touch old men, demanding that any fertile woman gets saddled with as many babies as possible and any couple having trouble conceiving be cursed with no babies, but they are at least somewhat consistent.
Indeed. What's even more shocking is how many women go along with this and even actively and passionately campaign for such policies. As a guy, I've never really understood the mindset of these women (and they are NOT just a tiny subset) in this day and age. Is this part of the reason why BDSM thrives today? - the desire to be ruled?
Thanks for the articles though, they are good reads. And your points are also well-taken. I can now honestly amend my original statement to
"better than nearly all the countries in the world (except for some of the ones in the list given in the first article)".
Which means that a newly born person is still much more likely to be born in a place with a justice system that's a fucking joke. Of course, that's not to say that it's perfect or even tolerable in some cases. But it does put things in perspective about every idiot in every tinpot nation (not referring to you - I'm sure you've seen people like these all the time) who feels entitled to put down the US and then use that to bolster his own sorry excuse of a country. So, yes - not everything is relative, but it's a sad fact that there are VERY few countries in the world (some of them are on that list) that actually have the moral right to look down upon the US in regards to the fair rule of law. That is not to say that things are just hunky-dory over here (I realize that), but if there's ever a fix, it's also going to be self-generated.
By the way, Britain, France, Germany, Canada and Japan do appear to be better than the US in this regard - I fully admit that. What's laughable is that the Economist had the audacity to quote numbers about closed regimes like China and Iran (I don't know enough details of the current political situation in Russia so I'll take their word for it in that instance, subject to later review). For all I know, the reason those two have such low numbers is because of too many secret executions.
Consider something else, just for fun. I'll say explicitly that the following is not meant to support my earlier arguments but should be taken on its own (just as something to think about). In a country with disproportionally harsh punishments for crimes, would you expect a lot of incarceration? Refugees from North Korea tell an extraordinary tale of a populace so dominated by the state that crime is actually quite low. Fear is enough. Raw numbers on incarceration are necessary but not sufficient indicators of the fairness and "justness" of a justice system.
Agreed. That wasn't such a bright (or sensitive) thing to say in retrospect. In fact, check out a (similar) parallel conversation I had with someone else who called me on it:)
Actually, they (includes me as of last year) are not. This is the most welcoming country I've ever been in with a general level of intelligence that is hard to find elsewhere. It's just that living here is just so damn... nice:) that I find myself ignoring the wider world more and more. When you're sitting at a warm fire in your living room, looking out into the cold, dark wilderness, wouldn't you find it difficult to care very much about what was going on outside? I'm not saying that's always the correct attitude to take, just putting things in perspective. The rest of the world knows so much about America because they... kinda have to:). The reverse was not true for a long time - that's changing now and the people here are adapting accordingly.
Slashdot Mirror
Well look, I'm not gonna be a fanboy defender of the thing :p but all I'm saying is that the rules (regardless of when they are made up) mostly hang together into a coherent whole (hence the claim of consistency). I can't think of a single book that lists all the rules of the universe at the beginning of the book - they all make things up as and when required. Some are simply more clever than others about disguising that fact. HP at least has a good cover story for slowly revealing things - there's a school and the kids are learning things as they go along - our POV as readers is that of a student at the school (so we get little to no access to the grown-up POVs for instance). As counterpoint, look at BSG - now there's a deus ex machina for you. Of course, saying that something is more consistent and fair than BSG doesn't mean much :p but it's the best I could come up with without putting way too much thought into it.
In other words, SF is simply the Fantasy story re-written from the point of view of a technologically savvy spectator. Fantasy is the same story written from the point of view of a medieval villager.
... "Main Mohs Scale Of Science Fiction Hardness" ...
Fap fap fap ...
Excellent. Wish I hadn't spent all my mod points. I just wasted my entire evening explaining this at 6 different places on this page =)
I read somewhere that it's protected by a grandfather clause =) mostly because it would be a giant PITA to change genres every few years. Dunno if the person who wrote this was just being facetious to shut me up :p
As I explained in response to the same post, it is extremely easy to take SF (/fantasy) and write it as fantasy (/SF). That's all GP was going for - you took him too literally (unless I totally misinterpreted either of you :)).
If the ring was a sentient super computer that used nano technology to manipulate it's user would it be ok to be their?
Again, a matter of opinion (so I actually agree with you in principle). Those who prefer more rigorous explanations go for SF, those who prefer less go for Fantasy. Here on /. you're bound to find more of the former (I for one don't assign any value judgments to this particular preference since we're talking about ENTERTAINMENT - where the whims of the ah... entertainee [sic] ought to be the only damn thing that matters). Of course, I would hope that this preference wouldn't carry over into the real world but as far as the type of fiction you read, it's a purely arbitrary preference.
I would have agreed with you two days ago, but then I stumbled across this piece of work by Orson Scott Card. Please check it out - you might think differently (just the "boundary 5" section from pages 20-25). Mind you, regardless of my change of heart over the principle, I fully agree with you about the practical matter of having to wade through the Fantasy stuff to get to my beloved SF ;-)
There was a sequel to Childhood's end???? o.O GIMME!!! Though I fully agree with the City and the Stars thing (or as I read it - "Against the fall of night"). Beautiful story, wistful flowing into freewheeling, enthusiastic. "Beyond the fall of night" was a farking joke (with its very own Ewok mascot :p). 2010 on the other hand, was more interesting for me than 2001 (and exactly the other way for the movies - the guy from Jaws is annoying).
I think the defining characteristic of fantasy is a reactionary ideology. That is, "fantasy" has some status quo, which is good, peaceful, etc. Some evil emerges that wants to disrupt this harmony, and the entire struggle is basically to return to the status quo. I use the term "evil" because there's no better way to characterize the baddies. Every minion is complete evil and deserves to be washed from the earth/planet. My favorite part is that the good guys technically more closely resemble antagonists (they don't "change" and in fact oppose it); whereas, the bad guys are usually trying to overthrow some thousand year-old harmony, making them protagonists.
Sounds like a synopsis of a particular book rather than a characterization of an entire genre :p.
Why not? Reversing your labels would imply that you're not comfortable with classifying Rambo as Fantasy, but there seems to be nothing wrong with that a priori.
if it's a cool special effect, it's probably bad science.
I agree with your put-down of SyFy, but the above statement is baffling. Why the hell does it have to be one or the other? I want a good plot, several "wtf?" moments (a la Asimov, or even the Matrix to name a diverse few :p) AND (AND!AND!AND!) good special effects. The combination does exist and is less rare that people make it out to be. Also, as I progressed through more and more physics classes, I found greater numbers of "hard-SF" icons fall towards the "soft-SF" side, so the "bad science" criterion is really just a matter of relative knowledge levels. All I can reasonably ask for anymore is that the most obvious scientific principles not be violated and I can get on board with it.
Fantasy is a genre where anything goes. You could say that SF and, as a matter of fact, all fiction is a sub-genre of fantasy. Star Trek and Star Wars are fantasy but not true SF, they have too many impossible things to qualify as true Science Fiction.
Not true. I loathe most "serious" fantasy but the "anything goes" argument is absolutely fallacious. I would empathize with you about it being boring, but not this. I was once like you in holding to this sort of genre chauvinism, even the part about hard vs soft SF (I mean that kindly and I'm dead serious about that). Please (for the sake of your reading enjoyment), give this a read - just a few short pages (20-25) from "How to write science fiction & fantasy" By Orson Scott Card.
The following criticism is not so kindly. My apologies :)
SF is a genre written with a "what if" question. Suppose *one* and only one thing that's impossible today were possible, what then?
"One and only one thing"? Are you just making this up as you go along? :p Sheesh ...
At the risk of sounding frivolous, Harry Potter is the closest I've seen anyone get to this particular ideal. Consistency is all I ask for from either SF or Fantasy. It's sadly rare in both genres.
Just because it's SF doesn't mean it's good SF. SyFy has failed (in an artistic sense - not an economic one) because it encourages the crappiest SF ever made. But, to be fair, it really does show SF on it's channel. Watching SyFy is like watching Plan 9 from outer space in a non-ironic way =(
No no! That's just a picture window =). Sometimes I think ST apologists are even lamer than religious ones :p
Yup. Western-style SF. Like Firefly. And I say that with the utmost love for both series =). It's called "interdisciplinary entertainment" =).
I don't know anyone that would seriously side with Star Wars being science fiction. I don't know anyone that would seriously side with Star Wars being science fiction. It has more in common with the Lord of the Rings than it does any sci-fi I've seen. Have some good films come out of the Star Wars universe? Sure, but that doesn't mean it's anymore than a fairy tale set in space. Couple that with the kiddy image of marketing and merchandise and it's hard to take Star Wars seriously as science fiction.
To the first, of course it's science fiction. That's a matter of fact. Of course, you can argue that it's crappy SF, that's a matter of opinion (as is the second bolded statement - which I agree with). Hell, I find it hard to take anything from the 80's too seriously :p.
Sure, but that doesn't mean it's anymore than a fairy tale set in space.
Yes. And "space opera" is a sub-genre of science fiction. I find it amusing that people try to re-classify things of which they don't approve out of the genres they like. Geez, just call it a bad example of SF and call it a day :p.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls that thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
For instance, Dune is another series that's a little ambiguous in this respect. By the time I get to "God-emperor of Dune", I see it morphing from SF to Fantasy (and boring Fantasy at that), but I'll still give it the benefit of the doubt and classify it SF (despite the fact that it IS a wonderful example of space opera, while still being entertaining and insightful as all hell). Hell, look at the whole Qwisatz Haderach nonsense and tell me how that's any less woo-woo than the Force crap. Both fairy-tale like if you ask me (but spanking good stories what?).
I liked ST:TNG the one (and only) time I watched it. I also liked SW (but that I watched several times). However, I still agree with you and Harlan about the greatness of Doctor Who (while disagreeing about the lack of it in ST and SW =)).
In fact (minus the religious woo-woo in SW), the pace of action in the original trilogy reminds me very much of the Doctor's Travels* (not in all respects obviously - just the whole "fly around having awesome adventures"). Every time I watch Doctor Who now, I feel like my love of SF has been rekindled and lose the weight of years of gritty SF that did nothing but kill my sense of wonder.
One thing that SW taught me as a child - religious leaders are like the jedi if the Jedi/Sith had no access to the Force**. Would the galactic populace have bought their new-age crap without the "miracles" (read: Force powers) to go with it? Religious leaders therefore are really no different from "real-life Jedi knights" at comicon. As you might conclude - this was a life-changing insight and I owe it all to SW =)
_____
*yes, uppercase "T" =D
** irrespective of the question of the actual existence of the Force. To clarify, religion is all well and good (though it baffles me why people still need it). The deification of people is what makes me puke (and what, thanks to SW, I was cured of at an early age).
Pretty callous group of that group of out of touch old men, demanding that any fertile woman gets saddled with as many babies as possible and any couple having trouble conceiving be cursed with no babies, but they are at least somewhat consistent.
Indeed. What's even more shocking is how many women go along with this and even actively and passionately campaign for such policies. As a guy, I've never really understood the mindset of these women (and they are NOT just a tiny subset) in this day and age. Is this part of the reason why BDSM thrives today? - the desire to be ruled?
//bewildered
Does this mean the Darwin awards are a misnomer? There goes my whole belief system =(
It's not like trying to listen to a cat sneaking up behind you on a carpeted floor.
Let it go, Calvin =)
Here's a Series of excellent articles by Economist that might be news to you.
Glorious failures
Rough justice
Too many laws, too many prisoners
1. July 2010
2. July 2010
3. Aug 2010
Yes, they are news to me :p
Thanks for the articles though, they are good reads. And your points are also well-taken. I can now honestly amend my original statement to
"better than nearly all the countries in the world (except for some of the ones in the list given in the first article)".
Which means that a newly born person is still much more likely to be born in a place with a justice system that's a fucking joke. Of course, that's not to say that it's perfect or even tolerable in some cases. But it does put things in perspective about every idiot in every tinpot nation (not referring to you - I'm sure you've seen people like these all the time) who feels entitled to put down the US and then use that to bolster his own sorry excuse of a country. So, yes - not everything is relative, but it's a sad fact that there are VERY few countries in the world (some of them are on that list) that actually have the moral right to look down upon the US in regards to the fair rule of law. That is not to say that things are just hunky-dory over here (I realize that), but if there's ever a fix, it's also going to be self-generated.
By the way, Britain, France, Germany, Canada and Japan do appear to be better than the US in this regard - I fully admit that. What's laughable is that the Economist had the audacity to quote numbers about closed regimes like China and Iran (I don't know enough details of the current political situation in Russia so I'll take their word for it in that instance, subject to later review). For all I know, the reason those two have such low numbers is because of too many secret executions.
Consider something else, just for fun. I'll say explicitly that the following is not meant to support my earlier arguments but should be taken on its own (just as something to think about). In a country with disproportionally harsh punishments for crimes, would you expect a lot of incarceration? Refugees from North Korea tell an extraordinary tale of a populace so dominated by the state that crime is actually quite low. Fear is enough. Raw numbers on incarceration are necessary but not sufficient indicators of the fairness and "justness" of a justice system.
Agreed. That wasn't such a bright (or sensitive) thing to say in retrospect. In fact, check out a (similar) parallel conversation I had with someone else who called me on it :)
Actually, they (includes me as of last year) are not. This is the most welcoming country I've ever been in with a general level of intelligence that is hard to find elsewhere. It's just that living here is just so damn ... nice :) that I find myself ignoring the wider world more and more. When you're sitting at a warm fire in your living room, looking out into the cold, dark wilderness, wouldn't you find it difficult to care very much about what was going on outside? I'm not saying that's always the correct attitude to take, just putting things in perspective. The rest of the world knows so much about America because they ... kinda have to :). The reverse was not true for a long time - that's changing now and the people here are adapting accordingly.