At my PhD defense (astronomy), my first question was: "Since this is a Doctorate of Philosophy, tell me what you think of Immanual Kant and MAN AND SUPERMAN."
Sure, supposed to be a joke to lighten the mood. I was way too serious and stressed, and stammered something about having not read MAN AND SUPERMAN.
I agree with much of what you say, and like the movie for much the same reasons. It walks a fine line, too subtle of a line for many, but manages. And it's funny to me too, because all that stuff was from the Heinlein novel, but Heinlein seemed to view that world as a utopia rather than a dystopia. It would have played even worse as a utopia to modern American audiences...I think!
Some large sf publishers, notably Avon EOS, switched to abstract covers a few years ago in an attempt to save money on cover art. I don't actually know what the affect on sales was, or if they've switched back. I do know a few Avon authors during that period were not happy.
You can't actually copyright titles. It would be legal for me to write a science fiction novel and call it Foundation. Legal, but stupid. And if I did do that, I'd better make sure the actual book resembled the original Foundation in no way, or then I'd be legally in a world of hurt.
Yeah, that was from Gaiman's speech from the Hugo Awards. Dave Langford came into it somewhere, of course, as an editor or co-author of this non-fiction book, circa 1980. I'd check Gaiman's website and see if he has his speech posted.
There are exceptions. My editor, and my wife's editor, actually EDIT our books. As writers, we do indeed find that painful, but the end product is indeed better.
My favorite quote on the subject from my editor at Tor: "EVERY book needs to be edited."
Science fiction always seems to "lose focus" just before the next big thing hits. The next big things appear to be hitting now, too.
First, there's a whole wave of modern space opera, for want of a better term, led by British authors primarily. Alastair Reynolds, for instance. I'm happy for my own work to get mentioned with theirs.
Then there's a movement being called "The New Weird." China Meieville's name comes up often there. In a few years of course, the new weird will be the old weird and people will say that the field is dead.
If it was one of the big anthologies edited by Gardner Dozois, yeah, that's possible. His bias is toward good writing and characters -- he'll pick a great story with slight science over a good story with extensive science every time. Other editors would weight those things differently.
In general though, I agree that the fraction of science-intensive science fiction is down from where it used to be.
Or perhaps you could try reading some new science fiction writers? If you're reading the same authors (e.g., your 5th Banks novel) maybe it isn't surprising that you think the field is stagnant.
In response to your question about non-Western literature, I'll plug my wife's novel PAPER MAGE by Leah Cutter. It takes place in T'ang Dynasty China and features a heroine whose problems and outlook are Chinese, not American. She lived in Taiwan for a year and did extensive research on the place and time, as well as the society. That's caused her both good and bad feedback here in the US. Many modern readers have trouble seeing things through her perspective because to them it is rather alien.
A good scifi writer's world-building efforts don't consume much word-count though -- the outlines are set up in a page or two, then the characters simply exist in it.
I disagree strongly with this statement. I do a lot of world-building for my science fiction novels, and my wife does a lot for her fantasy novels. You cannot just set it up and have them exist in it. With good, realistic world-building (and this really extends to everything, clothing, social courtesies, transportation, economics, etc.), the "existing" part reinforces the world through every single page of the book. I'm not talking about diversions to explain tangential technology (although this can be well done or badly done, depending on the story and how tangential the tech really is).
There's some great writing in the science fiction field, but there's also some less than stellar writing. I would submit that there are so few writers who can pull off the world-building effectively that publishers forgive them their other weaknesses, at least to some extent.
I listend to Fahrenheit 451 recently, and there was an interview on the performance with Bradbury. He apparently did indeed CALL a fire department to ask them about the ignition temperature for paper. They told him 451 Fahrenheit, he turned it around, and there was the famous title.
Last week at Worldcon in Boston they gave out "retro-Hugo" awards for 1953, since no Hugos had been given that year. Fahrenheit 451 won best novel.
And there are plenty of sf writers who are skeptical of the entire singularity concept, at least in terms of this sort of characterization.
I mean, my grandfather hasn't kept up with computers. Is the singularity now?
There are plenty of great ideas and great stories to be told, and as a writer I find it crazy for anyone to think that an abstraction like the singularity makes it impossible to tell stories taking place in the future.
The insightful thing about this parent post is that indeed, few people watch or read science fiction to learn about the future. I agree completely. That, however, does NOT mean that people cannot or do not learn things about science and technology through science fiction. Sure, you've got to have a good story, but a good story with crappy or incorrect science can be just as ruined as a bad story in the first place.
To a well-educated person, some of the science fiction movies have howlers so bad that it would be the equivalent of Anthony Hopkins from Bizarro World staring in a movie: "Me am wanting to eat you with beans, now."
You're my hero!
Seriously, at some level. I've just pitched a large grant proposal to the NSF for my astronomical research (on quasars). The NSF demands significant public outreach/education efforts as well. I strive for accurate science in my own novels, and do want to teach science while I entertain. I learned about relativity first from THE FOREVER WAR by Joe Haldeman, and tidal forces from NEUTRON STAR by Larry Niven. I want to learn things when I read.
The main focus of the educational component of the NSF proposal was to establish a hard science fiction workshop to try to increase the quality and quantity of accurate science in science fiction. Science fiction inspired me, and many others, to become scientists. I want to keep that tradition alive.
Conventions like Worldcon (which I also attended last week) are unique among writing genres, or have been historically (some other fields have been starting to do similar things). Writers and fans get together and have serious, moderated discussions about IDEAS. New ideas. Sure, some panels I've attended weren't rocket science (e.g., in 1988 there was one on the "Wesley Problem" in Star Trek that was pretty mean-spirited, but it was still imaginative!), but some are. I was on the "What's new in Astronomy" panel this year, and my particular field is full of new discoveries, ideas like dark energy, that we've barely even figured out exist.
OK, I'll bite along with everyone else. If you think we have "all the technology we can imagine," you should get a job flipping burgers. Please, find something mindless and repetitive requiring no imagination that thinking people would hate to do. And then don't talk to those of us with more imagination than a gumball because you have little of interest to say.
Sorry if this is harsh, but, come on! This is the appropriate response assuming you're not a troll.
I don't find the parent post insightful at all. What has the anonymous coward been reading? I'm certainly not going to defend some things called science fiction, but there has really been some great, idea-rich stories published. I'll go ahead and take in personally, too -- my novels are founded to a great extent upon original ideas.
"Overall" I guess people who like science fiction are not "people," only fantasy readers? Eh? And books are only for escapism? Eh eh? And science fiction is only about "tech that will be popular for a while?" Eh eh eh?
Again, not insightful. Mod for broad, simple-minded generalization.
I'm a professional science fiction writer, and I have the same publisher and agent as Robert Sawyer. He's correct, to a great degree. Good science fiction -- like the literature it is -- informs us about the human condition and conveys basic truths that inform the lives of those who read it.
There does exist, surely, science fiction with the intent of predicting the future and not much else, at least not overtly. But there is certainly a subtext present, if only to inform the minds who must enter this future world.
My first novel, Star Dragon, got great reviews, particularly at scifi.com. One of the points that the reviewer made there was that my future was NOT bleak, and that this was a refreshing change from most recent books. Certainly there is a long tradition of cautionary tales (Soylent Green based on Make Room Make Room!) comes to mind, but there is also an optimistic tradition of mankind using its intelligence and technology to flourish across the stars.
Somehow in recent years, and cyberpunk is probably to blame, at least in part, the dark futures of the cautionary tales have become standard even in stories not explicitly made out to be cautionary tales. Cyberpunk is style as much as content. Dark and gritty settings have emerged across the entire culture, not just in science fiction. Dragnet and NYPD Blue are both cop shows, but no one would confuse the two.
As long as the field of science fiction is diverse enough that the interested readership can find what they like, things will be okay there. You get stories like this when there is the perception that the diversity has vanished, which would be a crime. One of the joys about reading science fiction is that you always have a chance of getting something new and wonderous.
I have this poster up in my lab. Undergrads love the despair.com posters. My department chair, honestly as far as I can tell, has never noticed the subversiveness of the posters.
While I appreciate your point, it doesn't affect enough people to give a point to the terrorists, and must rate pretty low on their own scoring table. They want us out of the Middle East first, want us to stop helping Israel next. After that, hurting us economically in a major way is probably next. Total extermination is probably on the list, but not too high given the low probability of that in the near future. Inconveniencing a tiny part of the population barely rates.
Of course, we should squawk about the loss of our freedom. Our government seems to want to take away freedoms to make their job of protecting us easier, whether or not we want them to do it the way they are doing it, and also whether or not the removal of freedsoms actually makes us safer.
Slashdot Mirror
I haven't read it...and it cost me...sort of.
At my PhD defense (astronomy), my first question was: "Since this is a Doctorate of Philosophy, tell me what you think of Immanual Kant and MAN AND SUPERMAN."
Sure, supposed to be a joke to lighten the mood. I was way too serious and stressed, and stammered something about having not read MAN AND SUPERMAN.
They passed me anyway.
I agree with much of what you say, and like the movie for much the same reasons. It walks a fine line, too subtle of a line for many, but manages. And it's funny to me too, because all that stuff was from the Heinlein novel, but Heinlein seemed to view that world as a utopia rather than a dystopia. It would have played even worse as a utopia to modern American audiences...I think!
Some large sf publishers, notably Avon EOS, switched to abstract covers a few years ago in an attempt to save money on cover art. I don't actually know what the affect on sales was, or if they've switched back. I do know a few Avon authors during that period were not happy.
You can't actually copyright titles. It would be legal for me to write a science fiction novel and call it Foundation. Legal, but stupid. And if I did do that, I'd better make sure the actual book resembled the original Foundation in no way, or then I'd be legally in a world of hurt.
Yeah, that was from Gaiman's speech from the Hugo Awards. Dave Langford came into it somewhere, of course, as an editor or co-author of this non-fiction book, circa 1980. I'd check Gaiman's website and see if he has his speech posted.
Um, not quite.
I agree that Star Wars is fantasy, or science fantasy if you like that term, but there is a relation to Earth.
The action in Star Wars takes place long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away, relative to Earth.
Don't hit me.
Ditto.
There are exceptions. My editor, and my wife's editor, actually EDIT our books. As writers, we do indeed find that painful, but the end product is indeed better.
My favorite quote on the subject from my editor at Tor: "EVERY book needs to be edited."
I enjoyed reading that post.
Also, wanted to recommend THE HARD SF RENAISSANCE, an anthology edited by Hartwell and Cramer, featuring hard sf stories from the past decade.
Science fiction always seems to "lose focus" just before the next big thing hits. The next big things appear to be hitting now, too.
First, there's a whole wave of modern space opera, for want of a better term, led by British authors primarily. Alastair Reynolds, for instance. I'm happy for my own work to get mentioned with theirs.
Then there's a movement being called "The New Weird." China Meieville's name comes up often there. In a few years of course, the new weird will be the old weird and people will say that the field is dead.
If it was one of the big anthologies edited by Gardner Dozois, yeah, that's possible. His bias is toward good writing and characters -- he'll pick a great story with slight science over a good story with extensive science every time. Other editors would weight those things differently.
In general though, I agree that the fraction of science-intensive science fiction is down from where it used to be.
Or perhaps you could try reading some new science fiction writers? If you're reading the same authors (e.g., your 5th Banks novel) maybe it isn't surprising that you think the field is stagnant.
In response to your question about non-Western literature, I'll plug my wife's novel PAPER MAGE by Leah Cutter. It takes place in T'ang Dynasty China and features a heroine whose problems and outlook are Chinese, not American. She lived in Taiwan for a year and did extensive research on the place and time, as well as the society. That's caused her both good and bad feedback here in the US. Many modern readers have trouble seeing things through her perspective because to them it is rather alien.
Yeah. Isn't it ironic, don't you think?
Too bad I'm posting and not modding.
A good scifi writer's world-building efforts don't consume much word-count though -- the outlines are set up in a page or two, then the characters simply exist in it.
I disagree strongly with this statement. I do a lot of world-building for my science fiction novels, and my wife does a lot for her fantasy novels. You cannot just set it up and have them exist in it. With good, realistic world-building (and this really extends to everything, clothing, social courtesies, transportation, economics, etc.), the "existing" part reinforces the world through every single page of the book. I'm not talking about diversions to explain tangential technology (although this can be well done or badly done, depending on the story and how tangential the tech really is).
There's some great writing in the science fiction field, but there's also some less than stellar writing. I would submit that there are so few writers who can pull off the world-building effectively that publishers forgive them their other weaknesses, at least to some extent.
I listend to Fahrenheit 451 recently, and there was an interview on the performance with Bradbury. He apparently did indeed CALL a fire department to ask them about the ignition temperature for paper. They told him 451 Fahrenheit, he turned it around, and there was the famous title.
Last week at Worldcon in Boston they gave out "retro-Hugo" awards for 1953, since no Hugos had been given that year. Fahrenheit 451 won best novel.
And there are plenty of sf writers who are skeptical of the entire singularity concept, at least in terms of this sort of characterization.
I mean, my grandfather hasn't kept up with computers. Is the singularity now?
There are plenty of great ideas and great stories to be told, and as a writer I find it crazy for anyone to think that an abstraction like the singularity makes it impossible to tell stories taking place in the future.
The insightful thing about this parent post is that indeed, few people watch or read science fiction to learn about the future. I agree completely. That, however, does NOT mean that people cannot or do not learn things about science and technology through science fiction. Sure, you've got to have a good story, but a good story with crappy or incorrect science can be just as ruined as a bad story in the first place.
To a well-educated person, some of the science fiction movies have howlers so bad that it would be the equivalent of Anthony Hopkins from Bizarro World staring in a movie: "Me am wanting to eat you with beans, now."
I mean, Bizarro Lecter would be funny, but bad.
You're my hero!
Seriously, at some level. I've just pitched a large grant proposal to the NSF for my astronomical research (on quasars). The NSF demands significant public outreach/education efforts as well. I strive for accurate science in my own novels, and do want to teach science while I entertain. I learned about relativity first from THE FOREVER WAR by Joe Haldeman, and tidal forces from NEUTRON STAR by Larry Niven. I want to learn things when I read.
The main focus of the educational component of the NSF proposal was to establish a hard science fiction workshop to try to increase the quality and quantity of accurate science in science fiction. Science fiction inspired me, and many others, to become scientists. I want to keep that tradition alive.
Kudos! Bravo!
Conventions like Worldcon (which I also attended last week) are unique among writing genres, or have been historically (some other fields have been starting to do similar things). Writers and fans get together and have serious, moderated discussions about IDEAS. New ideas. Sure, some panels I've attended weren't rocket science (e.g., in 1988 there was one on the "Wesley Problem" in Star Trek that was pretty mean-spirited, but it was still imaginative!), but some are. I was on the "What's new in Astronomy" panel this year, and my particular field is full of new discoveries, ideas like dark energy, that we've barely even figured out exist.
OK, I'll bite along with everyone else. If you think we have "all the technology we can imagine," you should get a job flipping burgers. Please, find something mindless and repetitive requiring no imagination that thinking people would hate to do. And then don't talk to those of us with more imagination than a gumball because you have little of interest to say.
Sorry if this is harsh, but, come on! This is the appropriate response assuming you're not a troll.
I don't find the parent post insightful at all. What has the anonymous coward been reading? I'm certainly not going to defend some things called science fiction, but there has really been some great, idea-rich stories published. I'll go ahead and take in personally, too -- my novels are founded to a great extent upon original ideas.
"Overall" I guess people who like science fiction are not "people," only fantasy readers? Eh? And books are only for escapism? Eh eh? And science fiction is only about "tech that will be popular for a while?" Eh eh eh?
Again, not insightful. Mod for broad, simple-minded generalization.
I'm a professional science fiction writer, and I have the same publisher and agent as Robert Sawyer. He's correct, to a great degree. Good science fiction -- like the literature it is -- informs us about the human condition and conveys basic truths that inform the lives of those who read it.
There does exist, surely, science fiction with the intent of predicting the future and not much else, at least not overtly. But there is certainly a subtext present, if only to inform the minds who must enter this future world.
My first novel, Star Dragon, got great reviews, particularly at scifi.com. One of the points that the reviewer made there was that my future was NOT bleak, and that this was a refreshing change from most recent books. Certainly there is a long tradition of cautionary tales (Soylent Green based on Make Room Make Room!) comes to mind, but there is also an optimistic tradition of mankind using its intelligence and technology to flourish across the stars.
Somehow in recent years, and cyberpunk is probably to blame, at least in part, the dark futures of the cautionary tales have become standard even in stories not explicitly made out to be cautionary tales. Cyberpunk is style as much as content. Dark and gritty settings have emerged across the entire culture, not just in science fiction. Dragnet and NYPD Blue are both cop shows, but no one would confuse the two.
As long as the field of science fiction is diverse enough that the interested readership can find what they like, things will be okay there. You get stories like this when there is the perception that the diversity has vanished, which would be a crime. One of the joys about reading science fiction is that you always have a chance of getting something new and wonderous.
I have this poster up in my lab. Undergrads love the despair.com posters. My department chair, honestly as far as I can tell, has never noticed the subversiveness of the posters.
You mean caught in a transporter loop, right?
While I appreciate your point, it doesn't affect enough people to give a point to the terrorists, and must rate pretty low on their own scoring table. They want us out of the Middle East first, want us to stop helping Israel next. After that, hurting us economically in a major way is probably next. Total extermination is probably on the list, but not too high given the low probability of that in the near future. Inconveniencing a tiny part of the population barely rates. Of course, we should squawk about the loss of our freedom. Our government seems to want to take away freedoms to make their job of protecting us easier, whether or not we want them to do it the way they are doing it, and also whether or not the removal of freedsoms actually makes us safer.