To me the most interesting science fiction was about how people behave, and how they might potentially behave differently under different circumstances to the ones we are comfortable with. Which is also the most interesting fantasy and historical fiction!
I've already read works which feel like science fiction despite using current technology (like Gibson's Pattern Recognition). I think you're absolutely right that science fiction is in an identity crisis.
I think, though, that the best writers have actually seen this collision coming, and have been working around and through some of the complexities for some time already. As one would expect from SF writers!
The dying breed are perhaps those who have a far more old-fashioned view of what science fiction is.
(Raeli heard us talking about living in the future recently and got really cross. 'who's living in the future? what?")
She's so cute! Would she rather we lived in the past?! She's 5, what would she know!
The dying breed are perhaps those who have a far more old-fashioned view of what science fiction is.
yeah, which I see hand in hand with the reluctance for even discussion of gender diversity for example. Because to look at how we might behave in other circumstances we have to look at power dynamics that are different from our own. I think this might in part be my issue with Analog the magazine. Maybe, I was thinking a lot about what Jonathan said on our podcast about it being a magazine about engineering technology and I wondered why I don't like it despite being an engineer.
Alex said the same thing! That this should totally be a magazine she likes, because she likes super hard, tech-based SF... but they're not appealing to her as a reader.
You see though why there might be a bit of defensive wall building, though. Change is threatening & scary to the status quo.
Raeli is totally under the impression that she's living in the present. Such a CHILD. A child who has her own computer desktop, a password, mouse skills, can drive an iPod better than mummy... and can pause the TV any time she wants.
Yeah, I actually find the quality of the writing in Analog sub par and quite amateurish. I think with better writing, the technologically driven plots would be more readable - like say Chiang's Exhalation.
I do understand the defense and even I guess the attacks or so on. But as someone else said somewhere else here, that (to me and I guess to others) only reinforces the point but not to them. It must be very scary for the status quo and default to suddenly not necessarily be so. Exciting and exhiliarating and challenging for me, say, where worlds of opportunity suddenly have opened up.
There's this one story that made me so sad, in the last couple of months of Analog - it was about analysing 'love' and this scientist made a machine to look at people's brains, and there was some cool stuff going on with a female test subject bringing in a gay friend to make out with... and then, the (female) scientist just ended up wanting to get it on with one of the (male) subjects! End of story! so boring - no investigation of ANY repercussions, ideas, etc etc.
I read one recently that I loved about postgrad astronomers who discovered earth like planets etc and it had this really interesting look at what its like to be a postgrad that I thought was great, and then you could kind of see where the "twist" was going to happen and then it did but the time travel aspect of it totally didn't make sense in the last page. The logic of it was just wrong.
I always think that any writing based purely around ideas is doomed to failure - it's the characters that make fiction work, that make it worth reading, and that make one interpretation of an idea utterly unique.
Hard SF is one of my passions - I grew up reading Clarke and Asimov. But the more of it I read, the more I get the sense that it's difficult to get it to engage with readers - kind of like the Analog thing (and yes, Analog also leaves me a little cold - it has too many stories that seem to be constructed by-the-numbers). I've recently concluded that, try as I might, I don't enjoy Stephen Baxter's writing, for pretty much what sounds like the reasons given in the thread. Dizzying concepts: check. Extrapolation from sound scientific principles: check. Stunning worldbuilding: check. Characterisation with depth and believability: um...
I think it may once have been possible for hard SF to work purely on the idea-as-hero principle. But not any more. Readerships evolve.
Which, to continue the analogy, would make them 'living fossils'.
(*glances awkwardly at userpic*)
That's maybe a little harsh. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with some people wanting to read the same kind of stuff they were reading fifty years ago. But the genre should surely be built on tolerance and inclusivity. A broad ecosystem, if you will.
I'd hate to see the cycads disappear completely. But they have no grounds to expect to lay claim to every sunlit patch of dirt on the planet, not anymore. There are newer forms, which are better suited to so many of the available niches.
I've already read works which feel like science fiction despite using current technology (like Gibson's Pattern Recognition). I think you're absolutely right that science fiction is in an identity crisis.
I think, though, that the best writers have actually seen this collision coming, and have been working around and through some of the complexities for some time already. As one would expect from SF writers!
The dying breed are perhaps those who have a far more old-fashioned view of what science fiction is.
(Raeli heard us talking about living in the future recently and got really cross. 'who's living in the future? what?")
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The dying breed are perhaps those who have a far more old-fashioned view of what science fiction is.
yeah, which I see hand in hand with the reluctance for even discussion of gender diversity for example. Because to look at how we might behave in other circumstances we have to look at power dynamics that are different from our own. I think this might in part be my issue with Analog the magazine. Maybe, I was thinking a lot about what Jonathan said on our podcast about it being a magazine about engineering technology and I wondered why I don't like it despite being an engineer.
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You see though why there might be a bit of defensive wall building, though. Change is threatening & scary to the status quo.
Raeli is totally under the impression that she's living in the present. Such a CHILD. A child who has her own computer desktop, a password, mouse skills, can drive an iPod better than mummy... and can pause the TV any time she wants.
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Yeah, I actually find the quality of the writing in Analog sub par and quite amateurish. I think with better writing, the technologically driven plots would be more readable - like say Chiang's Exhalation.
I do understand the defense and even I guess the attacks or so on. But as someone else said somewhere else here, that (to me and I guess to others) only reinforces the point but not to them. It must be very scary for the status quo and default to suddenly not necessarily be so. Exciting and exhiliarating and challenging for me, say, where worlds of opportunity suddenly have opened up.
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/rant
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I read one recently that I loved about postgrad astronomers who discovered earth like planets etc and it had this really interesting look at what its like to be a postgrad that I thought was great, and then you could kind of see where the "twist" was going to happen and then it did but the time travel aspect of it totally didn't make sense in the last page. The logic of it was just wrong.
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I think it may once have been possible for hard SF to work purely on the idea-as-hero principle. But not any more. Readerships evolve.
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(*glances awkwardly at userpic*)
That's maybe a little harsh. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with some people wanting to read the same kind of stuff they were reading fifty years ago. But the genre should surely be built on tolerance and inclusivity. A broad ecosystem, if you will.
I'd hate to see the cycads disappear completely. But they have no grounds to expect to lay claim to every sunlit patch of dirt on the planet, not anymore. There are newer forms, which are better suited to so many of the available niches.
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