Science Fiction Rut Season?

There was plenty of naivety in the rocket era, to be sure. But it was also the golden age of space-age sci fi. I'd say it died out after the sixties, to be replaced more with space station type and less focus on planet landings.


People just aren't interesting in universe exploration as much anymore, or rather, this is a time when new readers aren't, so therefore, publishers and new authors aren't, either. They only want what's happening on Earth.
 
No, perhaps not, but it's still what they desire. Why do you think everything is zombies? :p


It's a scenario in the sci fi world I am not too terribly thrilled to see. I'm surprised people have the presence of mind to be able to imagine what the dead rising from their graves would be like.


Even in movies, though, modern alien sci fi just doesn't seem to have any thought put into it. (Okay, so I'm going off of Prometheus here as well as AvP, but hey. They were terrible.)


I hope Interstellar will be a good sci fi movie. I think it will be.
 
psikeyhackr said:
in general I expect 'science' in my sci-fi
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How much science do you actually need?

An interesting idea that stands out by itself, with no explanation?

Or an interesting idea, that requires a novel to explain why the idea is interesting?

For example, when people talk about Asimov, I see discussion about his ideas, but very little interest in his characters. If you already know the three laws of robotics, then is it really worth bothering to read the Robot series of stories?

Am simply curious to know your opinion, as I appreciate you come from a more hard-sf interest.
 
Brian Turner said:
For example, when people talk about Asimov, I see discussion about his ideas, but very little interest in his characters. If you already know the three laws of robotics, then is it really worth bothering to read the Robot series of stories?

Am simply curious to know your opinion, as I appreciate you come from a more hard-sf interest.
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I thought I explained that as well as it can be explained in the post. I gave examples with Komarr and Mountians of Mourning. I do not know if you have read those.

On the subject of Isaac Asimov there is lots more to him than the Laws of Robotics. His Foundation series greatly altered my perspective of history. If you read his biography you will see he considered becoming a historian as a teen. The story Nightfall isn't just about astronomy it is about mass psychology. The story Profession is about education and neuro-physiology even though it is from before cheap computers and MRI scans. He could envision what would be coming with greater knowledge of the workings of the brain.

Science is not just rockets and electronics.

http://visual-memory.co.uk/daniel/funtheyhad.html

He wrote 200 years ahead of his time. I think you are putting me into to narrow a box.

But on the subject of characterization in his works I do not think Asimov was all that good. But I do not think it is because he could not have been better if he wanted to. I do not think he regarded that as the point of his stories. I have had someone tell me that Asimov could not write. The trouble is that too many "literary people" expect to tell everyone what to read. It does not take much observation to see that it is science and not literature that has changed the world in the last 100 years and it will not stop.

If I was discussing a work of Asimov's I do not think I would discuss his characters either. I wonder if he would.

If you care about the characters far more than about the science and ideas, that is fine and that is YOUR business. Bujold is one of the few authors that has gotten me to be interested in the characters very much.

psik
 
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psikeyhackr said:
I think you are putting me into to narrow a box.
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Apologies, it wasn't intended to sound like a criticism - what I meant is that my reading has narrowed into epic fantasy, so I'm not all that well read on science fiction - especially the more hard-sf where science is a direct feature.

Hence I asked my questions specifically to you because I was genuinely interested in your personal opinion - not least in wondering how it might apply to my own fledgling writing. :)

I personally go for mentioning ideas, rather than trying to explain them. I enjoyed Foundation where Hari Seldon was involved as a character - but was never really gripped by the rest of the series.
 
Am I the only one that finds the combination of the word "rut" with "season" provocative?

(If it is the rutting season, shouldn't there be a time in the next year when whole litters of new baby ideas are born.)
 
psikeyhackr said:
I think sci-fi readers need to be REALISTIC in that reality is not science fiction.

Almost all of the rocket stories of the 40s, 50s and 60s implied that getting into space would be a lot cheaper than it turned out to be. Even so I think NASA should have had robots prospecting the Moon for nearly 10 years by now. I think any Mars mission is a dumb idea even though I consider Robinson's Mars trilogy to be really great. If there is any life on Mars it has been there for millions of years and will be there for the next 1,000.

Science fiction is not an excuse to be stupid. It can be a mind expanding thought experiment.

Lois Bujold is quite popular in Russia as far as I can tell. LOL

http://lavka.lib.ru/bujold/index.htm

I do not know how big the SF market there is compared to the US.

psik
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Getting into space will get cheaper... Skylon will make it so within ten years.... the Japanese will build a space elevator within 50 years... there may be other interesting technology around the corner that we are as yet unaware of...

The problem with Mars in reality is the lack of protection from radiation. If they can solve that problem, then living on Mars becomes a distinct possibility. When NASA did a study on where to set up a colony, they came up with Callisto - on of the big 4 moons of Jupiter because it was protected by the Jovian magnetosphere whilst not being irradiated badly by Jupiter.

As for live still existing of Mars - it's a possibility (- wrote a story about how that could be done). But it need not have been there for millions if years if it was brought in by comet or meteorite.

But certainly agree with you on the science fiction side of things :)
 
Brian Turner said:
Apologies, it wasn't intended to sound like a criticism - what I meant is that my reading has narrowed into epic fantasy, so I'm not all that well read on science fiction - especially the more hard-sf where science is a direct feature.

Hence I asked my questions specifically to you because I was genuinely interested in your personal opinion - not least in wondering how it might apply to my own fledgling writing. :)
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I presume LOTR is epic fantasy but I am not always sure what is and isn't epic. I read it but after I finished I asked myself, "Why did I do that?" For me the story was barely good enough to justify the aggravation of reading. I don't really like reading in and of itself. So reading is like a -2 experience so a book has to be a +3 at a minimum.

But I can accept that different people have different values.

I would suggest Komarr as a point of reference. Science is not just what we know. Science is about figuring out what we don't know. But if we get what we think we know wrong then the results can be disastrous. That is what Komarr is about in addition to interesting side plots. But most reviews say nothing about the science of the story. I have read a couple of dozen reviews about it.

There are things about reality that we do not know. Like the discovery that the rate of expansion of the universe is increasing that was determined about 15 years ago. We don't know why. Making up names like Dark Matter and Dark Energy is cool but it doesn't explain anything. So SF can be thought experiments about the unknown but it can communicate the concept of the exploration of the intellectually unknown to people who are not scientists.

psik
 
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Serendipity said:
Sorry, but I know from experience this is not the case... a good idea and good writing is not enough... you have to write about what the choosers want to read as well.
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Perhaps this is exactly what's wrong. Are writers afraid to take chances for fear of losing 'the choosers'?
In my opinion, it's like a chef only making hamburgers because that's what will sell the most.
 
Foxbat said:
Perhaps this is exactly what's wrong. Are writers afraid to take chances for fear of losing 'the choosers'?
In my opinion, it's like a chef only making hamburgers because that's what will sell the most.
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Exactly

In a 1990s interview William Gibson called it The Golden Ghetto.
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Star Wars and the Star Trek franchise and Dr. Who have changed the psychology of the SF market in the last few decades. Much of what I read about SF seems to be marketing trying to acquire what limited prestige SF had from the Old Days but I get the impression that they really don't care, but say what they think will bring in the bucks.

It would be crass to admit that is the case of course.

psik
 
Foxbat said:
Perhaps this is exactly what's wrong. Are writers afraid to take chances for fear of losing 'the choosers'?
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Are they afraid to put hundreds or thousands of hours of work into something that risks bombing or not even being published? If they rely on writing for their living, then yes, very likely, unless they're especially driven.

To take your chef analogy, he has to believe he can sell a certain number of whatever he makes just to keep the restaurant going. And he knows burgers will sell, and he knows other chefs who have tried to be more experimental have closed down. Maybe if he sells burgers, at least he can experiment with the seasonings.

Apart from a return to something like the Renaissance system of patronage, I'm not sure how you're going to fix that.

I believe an enormous range of stuff is being written, mostly by people with day-jobs, but that very little variety is being published. Or maybe it's being self-published, but how would we know?
 
HareBrain said:
I believe an enormous range of stuff is being written, mostly by people with day-jobs, but that very little variety is being published. Or maybe it's being self-published, but how would we know?
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The technology has made it easier to write. How many wouldn't do it if they had to use a typewriter?

So how do we come up with a fast way to filter through all of the stuff? I do not know how anyone can write material that they claim is "science" fiction without using "science words". But that will not analyse plots and characterization.

psik
 
HareBrain said:
I believe an enormous range of stuff is being written, mostly by people with day-jobs, but that very little variety is being published. Or maybe it's being self-published, but how would we know?
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This is where, just maybe, a revision of the science fiction sub-genres might prove useful. After all the sub-genres are long in the tooth, which may have helped science fiction become 'fossilised'.... new writers are more likely to write to fit the sub-genres when they start out and once having found their niche continue to be write in that niche instead of moving science fiction onward.

As to what the new set of sub-genres ought to be?

Let's start with splitting Hard Science Fiction into
  • Near future
  • Solar System
  • Interstellar
  • Intergalactic
  • Beyond Galactic
Before anyone argues you can't have intergalactic science fiction, don't forget our Milky Way is due to collide with the Andromeda galaxy in 'illions of years.

As for beyond galactic... :);):)
 
If you have Jump drive and ability to cross the Galaxy, you can go inter-Galactic, maybe take a year of jumps ...

So I'd split Hard SF to
Future on Earth
== Various kinds, i.e. post apocalyptic, Machine ruled single government, near or far future, effect of say a SINGLE invention, more advanced Genetic Engineering and/or Nanotechnology

Space Travel (Distance, even intergalactic is a matter of resource and determination)
Possibly Fusion power is "portable" at least at Starship size, but you can imagine Space Travel with Fission Power. Think Nuclear sub + ion drive :)
You can have two scenarios (1) There are Aliens. (No-one better than James White? or maybe Larry Niven) (2)We are alone and Colonising Galaxy (Asimov)
  • Only Sub light travel (i.e. Generation Ships for Interstellar, even with Fission Power only we can do it now, sort of)
  • Actual Light speed (i.e. no time for travellers, but a 200 light year distant star means for a Round Trip 400 years has passed at Origin)
  • Trans light speed with variable relativity effects depending on mechanism (Jump gates, Jump drive, Hyperspace, Hyperspace bubbles, perhaps Jump mechanisms only work in Deep space etc etc. Jump mechanisms that need a gadget each end vs ones that don't etc)
Artificial Intelligence
== I think it's fantasy, but people that know less about Computers and Programming think it may be possible. These can be inside or remotely control Mechanical Avatars if you want.

CyberBiology
== Why stop with Six Million Dollar man? If someone completely disabled or very old, perhaps they control a Mechanical Avatar.

A story can of course mix and match all four of these so categorising is nearly impossible.

I'm not sure I believe you can even 100% decide what is "Hard Science Fiction" no technobabble and lots of science and Tech doesn't make hard SF.
 
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