Brian Aldiss would fume at your use of 'SciFi'. It used to send him completely mad- I've seen and heard a few interviews with him, talking about either his own work, or the Sprees where he gets quite emotional about the use of the phrase.
I think this attitude came about initially because it was used as a term of belittlement, by 'outsiders',back in the days of the pulps to around the 70s or so, when more of the general population started catching on that there were more ideas involved in a lot of works than your standard 'cowboys in space' type shit. But I think that now this pedantry in a bit superfluous- SF (or whatever) is taken much more seriously as literature, whether you're talking about individual writers, or as a whole genre.
Because now moral crusaders have loads more things to wave a finger at if they want to blame the state of the world on evil/immoral 'Others', who are easily influenced by Communist/libertine/Muslim/anti-capitalist plotters, than just books.
Incidentally, 'Billion Year Spree', or 'Trillion Year Spree' (by Aldiss) are both pretty good intros to classic science fiction. And 'Interzone' (short sf stories mag)was named after a William Burroughs story, who definitely should not be forgotten in this context. (...Ramble)
Eurgh, no. Still way too self righteous, the Culture lot are, interfering bastards. Woolly liberals trying to make the universe better (and who gets to say whats better? thats right, only them) while still either maintaining massive resource use or playing with scaled down lifestyles until they get bored. A lot of the time I think Banks is deliberately trying to make Culture folk as offensive as possible in an attempt to get people off their arses in embarrassment when they recognise smug self-satisfied traits in themselves, from the Culture characters. Which would no be a bad thing, right enough. Maybe he's just trying to warn us about how fascism/brutality springs from decadence sometimes (Excession, maybe).
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my son worked at burger king and managed to burn bits of his anatomy several times.
Yeah, I loved Left hand of darkness too.
Brian Aldiss would fume at your use of 'SciFi'. It used to send him completely mad- I've seen and heard a few interviews with him, talking about either his own work, or the Sprees where he gets quite emotional about the use of the phrase. I think this attitude came about initially because it was used as a term of belittlement, by 'outsiders',back in the days of the pulps to around the 70s or so, when more of the general population started catching on that there were more ideas involved in a lot of works than your standard 'cowboys in space' type shit. But I think that now this pedantry in a bit superfluous- SF (or whatever) is taken much more seriously as literature, whether you're talking about individual writers, or as a whole genre. Because now moral crusaders have loads more things to wave a finger at if they want to blame the state of the world on evil/immoral 'Others', who are easily influenced by Communist/libertine/Muslim/anti-capitalist plotters, than just books. Incidentally, 'Billion Year Spree', or 'Trillion Year Spree' (by Aldiss) are both pretty good intros to classic science fiction. And 'Interzone' (short sf stories mag)was named after a William Burroughs story, who definitely should not be forgotten in this context. (...Ramble)
What about Thomas Pynchon? Gravity's Rainbow might not have been futuristic, but there was science in it and it is damn fine fiction.
Eurgh, no. Still way too self righteous, the Culture lot are, interfering bastards. Woolly liberals trying to make the universe better (and who gets to say whats better? thats right, only them) while still either maintaining massive resource use or playing with scaled down lifestyles until they get bored. A lot of the time I think Banks is deliberately trying to make Culture folk as offensive as possible in an attempt to get people off their arses in embarrassment when they recognise smug self-satisfied traits in themselves, from the Culture characters. Which would no be a bad thing, right enough. Maybe he's just trying to warn us about how fascism/brutality springs from decadence sometimes (Excession, maybe).