The Old Solar System

Extollager said:

Oh, yes, yes. For me, the book was Roy Gallant's Exploring the Planets from the early 1960s (a copy of which I acquired, many years later, as a library discard). There's a picture of Saturn as seen from Titan that's probably borrowed from Chesley Bonestell -- fascinating imagery for a young boy. This book plus the book(s) with illustrations taken from the Zallinger dinosaur mural at the Peabody Museum would do much to turn the susceptible youngster into a proto-sf fan.

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Extollager said:

Oh, yes, yes. For me, the book was Roy Gallant's Exploring the Planets from the early 1960s (a copy of which I acquired, many years later, as a library discard). There's a picture of Saturn as seen from Titan that's probably borrowed from Chesley Bonestell -- fascinating imagery for a young boy. This book plus the book(s) with illustrations taken from the Zallinger dinosaur mural at the Peabody Museum would do much to turn the susceptible youngster into a proto-sf fan.

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00, member: 27126"]
Oh, yes, yes. For me, the book was Roy Gallant's Exploring the Planets from the early 1960s (a copy of which I acquired, many years later, as a library discard). There's a picture of Saturn as seen from Titan that's probably borrowed from Chesley Bonestell -- fascinating imagery for a young boy. This book plus the book(s) with illustrations taken from the Zallinger dinosaur mural at the Peabody Museum would do much to turn the susceptible youngster into a proto-sf fan.
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Zendexor said:

00, member: 27126"]
Oh, yes, yes. For me, the book was Roy Gallant's Exploring the Planets from the early 1960s (a copy of which I acquired, many years later, as a library discard). There's a picture of Saturn as seen from Titan that's probably borrowed from Chesley Bonestell -- fascinating imagery for a young boy. This book plus the book(s) with illustrations taken from the Zallinger dinosaur mural at the Peabody Museum would do much to turn the susceptible youngster into a proto-sf fan.

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Sorry, Extollager, I was trying to upload some pictures in reply to yours and unintentionally duplicated yours instead. I haven't got the hang of this yet.

I look forward to seeing those pictures!

Here's a place, in case anyone wants to discuss the norms of description when some of the OSS works were written:

URL="http://www.sffchronicles.com/threads/548300/"]Descriptive Writing, Especially Settings[/URL]

Zendexor said:

Hadn't thought of it that way but I suppose you're right: SF in this context means Science Fantasy - an interesting quasi-oxymoron. Another point: the rights and wrongs of deliberate anachronism in literature can be compared to similar debates in architecture. I'm on the same side in both.

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What is an anachronism in architecture? Are buildings any less functional for having an old style? Architecture cannot defy physics. Style is totally subjective and arbitrary, science is not.

But any writing that contradicts the known science at the time of its writing is questionable science fiction. Does the story have any intellectual intent or is it just entertainment?

I call it techno-fantasy to avoid the oxymoron.

psik

psikeyhackr said:

What is an anachronism in architecture? Are buildings any less functional for having an old style? Architecture cannot defy physics. Style is totally subjective and arbitrary, science is not.

But any writing that contradicts the known science at the time of its writing is questionable science fiction. Does the story have any intellectual intent or is it just entertainment?

I call it techno-fantasy to avoid the oxymoron.

psik

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Are you still persisting with the misguided notion that anything not hard science fiction isn't science fiction at all?

Fishbowl Helmet said:

Are you still persisting with the misguided notion that anything not hard science fiction isn't science fiction at all?

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It is curious how people who disagree with someone distort what they say and accuse them of saying things they never did.

Is The Time Machine hard science fiction? Did I ever say it was not science fiction?

psik

psikeyhackr said:

What is an anachronism in architecture? Are buildings any less functional for having an old style? Architecture cannot defy physics. Style is totally subjective and arbitrary, science is not.

But any writing that contradicts the known science at the time of its writing is questionable science fiction. Does the story have any intellectual intent or is it just entertainment?

I call it techno-fantasy to avoid the oxymoron.

psik

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You make a powerful point - too powerful for me to meet it head-on. But I feel it does need to be met because to me there is something genuine about the science fiction which can not-give-a-damn about certain scientific laws. So I meet your argument in a roundabout way by pointing (for example) to Eric Frank Russell's Next of Kin. No question about it: it's good science fiction, to my way of thinking. And yet Russell must have known that you can't travel between the stars by means of rockets. You might say, he was just being lazy. Could have improved the book by more attention to detail. And it would merely be detail, since the main theme of the book is psychological not physical. But against all that, I say: yes but the happy-go-lucky physical science errors seem to enhance the book rather than detract from it. I would not change a word if I could. Maybe a good enough author creates, by his writing, a sort of Acceptance Field which envelops the reader...

Zendexor said:

But against all that, I say: yes but the happy-go-lucky physical science errors seem to enhance the book rather than detract from it. I would not change a word if I could. Maybe a good enough author creates, by his writing, a sort of Acceptance Field which envelops the reader...

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Here is a point from a famous sci-fi writer. He wrote the "Amok Time" episode of Star Trek and consequently inspired many later incidents in other episodes and movies.

The Greatest Advice For Science Fiction Writers: "Ask The Next Question"

http://io9.com/the-greatest-advice-...tm_source=plus.google.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Once upon a time the question was, "What is the surface of Venus like and what could we do once we got there?"

But now we have sent probes. It is no longer a NEXT QUESTION. If some people want to be nostalgic for the past that is fine. That is their business. It can be great literature. But it AIN'T SCIENCE FICTION. Call it retro-science fiction if you want. I have not read Next of Kin but is it Old Solar System stuff?

This says it is a COMIC novel:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_of_Kin_(novel)

I read this one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasp_(novel)

psik

psikeyhackr said:

Here is a point from a famous sci-fi writer. He wrote the "Amok Time" episode of Star Trek and consequently inspired many later incidents in other episodes and movies.

The Greatest Advice For Science Fiction Writers: "Ask The Next Question"

http://io9.com/the-greatest-advice-...tm_source=plus.google.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Once upon a time the question was, "What is the surface of Venus like and what could we do once we got there?"

But now we have sent probes. It is no longer a NEXT QUESTION. If some people want to be nostalgic for the past that is fine. That is their business. It can be great literature. But it AIN'T SCIENCE FICTION. Call it retro-science fiction if you want. I have not read Next of Kin but is it Old Solar System stuff?

This says it is a COMIC novel:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_of_Kin_(novel)

I read this one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasp_(novel)

psik

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Re retro science fiction: sounds like a good designation, a subcategory if you like. The reason I would count it as science fiction is because of the following argument:
A book ought to be categorised by its text, not by the date of publication. Proof: Conduct the following thought experiment regarding HGWells' War of the Worlds - assuming we all agree to class that as science fiction. Imagine that the book had not been written by Wells or anyone else; imagine it never appeared in 1898. Now imagine that it suddenly appears now - written by somebody living now - publication date 2015 instead of 1898, but text exactly the same. Of course this is very unlikely, but it is physically possible. Now then - can the book plausibly be excluded from the category of science fiction just because of the one figure "1898" being replaced by "2015"? Surely that would be nonsensical. The text is the determinant, not the publication date. I admit this is a somewhat suprising conclusion but the logic seems watertight. So - conclusion: the science in science fiction need not be present science. It may be past, present or future science, as long as it is science and not magic.

Interesting discussion. In practice, the effort to classify works that use science that is outdated when a work was written, as not being science fiction, would not be feasible. Who makes the call as to what is "outdated," for one thing? It is easy to classify the "science" of Wells as outdated, but what about situations in which the outdated science has been outdated for much less time? Let's suppose Jane this week writes a science fiction story in which absolute zero is postulated as indeed absolute. Little did Jane know:

http://www.newscientist.com/article...s-goes-beyond-absolute-zero.html#.VPIgP-7naP8

So Jane wasn't writing science fiction, since her science was obsolete?

I'm not attempting a discussion-stopper! I'm just suggesting that setting up Psik's criterion isn't feasible, because writers and editors can't be expected to be up-to-date sufficiently.

Very well -- someone may say, "Use the criterion of informed common knowledge." Thus, for example, it is informed common knowledge that there are many exoplanets. (I can remember a time even into the 1990s when, so far as anyone knew, there were no planets except in our own system.) If I write a story now in which the non-existence of non-solar planets is assumed, agreed: that is dubious as non-special case sf, although a subgenre of retro sf could permit it. But that one (non-solar planets) is an easy one. Where and when does something fall out of "informed common knowledge" into the category of non-common knowledge?

Jules Verne 20,000 leagues under the Seas. SF or F?

Very nearly "steampunk" in the Victorian era.

Ray McCarthy said:

Jules Verne 20,000 leagues under the Seas. SF or F?

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Neither. My memory of it: it was like getting a long guided tour through the world's biggest aquarium. I get it - there's lots of different fish in the sea!

I have to say its not one my favourite Vernes.

psikeyhackr said:

It is curious how people who disagree with someone distort what they say and accuse them of saying things they never did.

Is The Time Machine hard science fiction? Did I ever say it was not science fiction?

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It is curious how you're refusing to own what you're saying in the above, only to repeat the selfsame assertion I called you out on in your very next post...

psikeyhackr said:

But now we have sent probes. It is no longer a NEXT QUESTION. If some people want to be nostalgic for the past that is fine. That is their business. It can be great literature. But it AIN'T SCIENCE FICTION.

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I get that to you it has to be hard SF for it to earn the label SF. But the simple fact is that's your very minority opinion, not how the genre actually works.

I agree with what I think F. Helmet is implying (and I trust I will be corrected if I've misconstrued), that we do well to keep the term "science fiction" quite broad so as to include "hard science fiction," "steampunk," "space opera," etc. Under that umbrella term I'd include what G. Ryman calls "mundane science fiction." I think he means by that largely what Psik contends for (please correct me if wrong), namely sf that is written by authors who strive to stay within bounds of known science of their time PLUS reasonable extrapolations and possibilities within it. Thus "mundane sf" writers will abstain from scenarios featuring empires founded on FTL space travel, etc.

I like very much the idea of allowing for reasonably well-defined subgenres, because sometimes I'm in the mood for a particular kind of sf. If I hanker for "mundane sf," then something like Weir's The Martian may be enormously pleasing; but the same book (which I thought was excellent of its type) would not do if I were in the mood for, say, a weird wonder-tale that, however, wasn't what we generally think of as fantasy: say something like Hodgson's House on the Borderland or Lindsay's Voayeg to Arcturus, things I have also enjoyed. Does this work for everybody?

Extollager said:

I agree with what I think F. Helmet is implying (and I trust I will be corrected if I've misconstrued), that we do well to keep the term "science fiction" quite broad so as to include "hard science fiction," "steampunk," "space opera," etc. Under that umbrella term I'd include what G. Ryman calls "mundane science fiction." I think he means by that largely what Psik contends for (please correct me if wrong), namely sf that is written by authors who strive to stay within bounds of known science of their time PLUS reasonable extrapolations and possibilities within it. Thus "mundane sf" writers will abstain from scenarios featuring empires founded on FTL space travel, etc.

I like very much the idea of allowing for reasonably well-defined subgenres, because sometimes I'm in the mood for a particular kind of sf. If I hanker for "mundane sf," then something like Weir's The Martian may be enormously pleasing; but the same book (which I thought was excellent of its type) would not do if I were in the mood for, say, a weird wonder-tale that, however, wasn't what we generally think of as fantasy: say something like Hodgson's House on the Borderland or Lindsay's Voayeg to Arcturus, things I have also enjoyed. Does this work for everybody?

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Science fiction is a broad umbrella term which encompasses many smaller subgenres. Hard SF, mundane SF, steampunk, cyberpunk, whatever, are all smaller subsets of science fiction. Hard SF or mundane SF are certainly subgenres within the broader category of science fiction. And it's perfectly fine to prefer one subgenre to the exclusion of all others. I couldn't do it, personally, my tastes are too varied. But to then turn around and claim that nope, there is one true and only real definition of science fiction that just happens to only include the particular subgenre that I prefer to the exclusion of all others is simply ridiculous.

Yes, Time Machine is science fiction. A Scanner Darkly is science fiction. Frankenstein is science fiction. The works of Asimov and Bradbury are mostly science fiction (mostly only in that I haven't read them all and cannot honestly say 'all' here). Scalzi writes science fiction. As does Clarke and Ellison. On and on and on. They all write science fiction. Some people prefer the term speculative fiction, and that's fine too. But that broadens the umbrella even further to include fantasy. So be it.

I get that some editor back in the day defined science fiction as some tiny, exacting, and thoroughly particular slice of stuff, but that one editor's opinion of what he personally enjoyed doesn't define the boundaries of the genre as a whole for all time. The genre is so much bigger, so much grander, and so much madder than that petty definition.

Asimov's Black Widower stories are not SF, they are sort of puzzles, kind of detective stories. Ray Bradbury wrote a very wide range, some might even be called Literary Fiction and many SF that are not typical SF.

Trying to pigeon hole stuff is for Publishers and Marketing people. There are many variations and some hard to categorise fiction.

Zendexor said:

A book ought to be categorised by its text, not by the date of publication. Proof: Conduct the following thought experiment regarding HGWells' War of the Worlds - assuming we all agree to class that as science fiction. Imagine that the book had not been written by Wells or anyone else; imagine it never appeared in 1898. Now imagine that it suddenly appears now - written by somebody living now - publication date 2015 instead of 1898, but text exactly the same. Of course this is very unlikely, but it is physically possible. Now then - can the book plausibly be excluded from the category of science fiction just because of the one figure "1898" being replaced by "2015"? Surely that would be nonsensical. The text is the determinant, not the publication date. I admit this is a somewhat suprising conclusion but the logic seems watertight. So - conclusion: the science in science fiction need not be present science. It may be past, present or future science, as long as it is science and not magic.

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We disagree about the importance of the literary aspect of SF. Science fiction is literature since it is written, but is it about being "Literary" or appealing to "Literary People"? How much did Heinlein, Clarke and Asimov care about it? I don't know how many people I have heard say that Asimov could not write. ROFL

My point is what did the author know at the time he wrote the work, and what could he possibly have known? Are you saying that does not influence what authors write?

To use H. G. Wells again, what about the "atomic bomb" in The World Set Free (1914). Now that is truly amazing! Wells was a real science enthusiast. He hung out with scientists. "Experts" he talked to at the time didn't think much of the atom bomb concept. The bomb that Wells' describes is hardly like the real thing. But a real atomic bomb requires knowledge of the neutron and that was not discovered until 1931. And Leo Szilard admits having read Wells' book.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leó_Szilárd

It is the entanglement of science with science fiction that makes it important and not merely literature. Though I admit that not all works deserving of the name science fiction are significantly scientific. But usually even those imply that science and technology are important.

There is also:

http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/students/envs_5110/snow_1959.pdf

psik

Ray McCarthy said:

Asimov's Black Widower stories are not SF, they are sort of puzzles, kind of detective stories. Ray Bradbury wrote a very wide range, some might even be called Literary Fiction and many SF that are not typical SF.

Trying to pigeon hole stuff is for Publishers and Marketing people. There are many variations and some hard to categorise fiction.

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Bradbury said that Fahrenheit 451 was his only SF novel. But many people regard Martian Chronicles as SF but he said it was not.

psik

Fishbowl Helmet said:

It is curious how you're refusing to own what you're saying in the above, only to repeat the selfsame assertion I called you out on in your very next post...

I get that to you it has to be hard SF for it to earn the label SF. But the simple fact is that's your very minority opinion, not how the genre actually works.

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So obviously all we can do is talk passed each other. I won't bother any more.

psik