Is SF becoming ashamed of itself?

[Dave]

I take your point about teminology, what's in a name?

- SF, Sci Fi, Sci/Fi, Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Space Opera, Swords and Sorcery, Fantasy -

Sometimes people try to hard to pigeon-hole things and it doesn't matter what it is called, as long as it is good. Often, cross-genre strories are better, simply because they do break down these glass barriers and break new ground. Something like 'Reign of Fire' where dragons take over the world in the future is a case in point. Dragons are Fantasy, but 'Reign of Fire' is Scifi.

But the difference between SF and Scifi is a hotly disputed one among an older generation (even older than us Ray). I read about it once.

However, the terminology is not my main point in this thread, that's just a symptom of the malaise:

1) Take the SCIFI tv CHANNEL - it even has SciFi in it's title - but what does it show - for years now (I don't get it now, but even when I did) it has shown more and more horror - and the kind of "Zombie Flesh-eater horror" and "Full-Moon Horror" and "Halloween Teenage Slasher Horror" that is clearly not SciFi.

On any given night the programming is full of items that are not SciFi but just wacky conspiracy theory bumf. When they axed 'Farscape' because it no longer fitted in with their line-up fans were obviously confused. What exactly was the kind of programming one should expect on a channel called SciFi?

I guess that rescuing 'Sliders' and 'Stargate SG-1' from the axe should be a plus on their side, and they do have 'Stargate Atlantis' but just look what they did to them. I rest my case.

2) Take some of the books and films that are now to be found classified as SciFi - things that are really historical novels. 'Eaters of the Dead' by Michael Crichton, filmed as the 'The 13th Warrior'.

I can almost accept that one, but 'Braveheart'!! - well they wear strange make-up and use swords and stuff, it must be that wacky scifi genre! Or, is it set in an alternative universe where scottish crofters have perfect teeth and health!

And there is more - 'Name of the Rose', 'Da Vinci Code'. We at ASciFi.com are as guilty as anyone else. Our Film and Book forums are full of non-scifi films and books, though we don't profess that they are.

3) Astrology is now classified as Science Fiction!

Please tell me where the science is in Astrology? Most of the predictions are made up by junior reporters who have advanced from making the tea!

I accept the influence of the Moon on us. You only have to see the tide come in on a beach, and realise that the land is also being pulled up and down twice a day too. There are plenty of lunar cycles in the natural world, and anyone who lives with a woman can attest to it's effects. But the moon is much nearer to us.

What possible effect can Uranus have on my financial prospects?

End of Rant...

Maybe there is nothing new in this though. Many authors who start out writing for magazines and go on to become great literary geniuses would wish to hide or cloud their more meagre origins.

This is probably relevant too: The Geek Hierarchy

Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.
-- Robert Heinlein

 

[ray gower]

Have to admit I never considered my position on the Geek-o-meter before, or where what I read lays on it either!

But that could be part of my problem?
What I look for in a book means I rarely have to consider which pigeon hole the book I am reading sits- So a book with a science theme is Science Fiction, one with swords and wizards is fantasy, Caedfael is a historic novel etc. and I guess the same holds true for that ancient generation that argues about the difference between Science Fiction and Scifi- They have read all types and cannot see a real difference to make a division?

But there are a lot of people for whom the 'classification' is important and we have had a goodly number of those pass through Ascifi too. Those who will not read anything but Fantasy, or 'Steampunk' or whatever is in their 'limited' interest.

The Geek-o-meter is also of importance to writers and science fiction is only saved from the bottom rung by erotic fiction.

So while the likes of Micheal Crichton or Alexander Kent may have have spent years studying the background of science or history to write their novels, very few science fiction writers find need to do so. Instead they rely upon the force of their story to carry their view of the world and when all else fails they turn out and say "Well it works in my Universe!" which is a poor excuse for not explaining properly in the first place.

As to what gets dumped on with the title of SciFi, I don't honestly know what the excuses are.

Whoever describes Braveheart as SciFi needs his bumps felt, but there are others where confusion might be understandable. Jurrasic Park is one which I have never been able to comfortably rank as Science Fiction, though I have no problems with Day of the Triffids, which ostensibly is a very similar story or Jules Verne where science has largely caught up with and sometimes exceeded.

SCIFI TV perhaps has the excuse that fantasy and horror has always found a sympathetic home under the Science Fiction banner and it can wave a hand in the direction of defunct story magazines like Science and Fantasy for justification.

As for Astrology, I can think of no means where it could become the subject of a book, let alone be classed Science Fiction!

 

[Dave]

Without beginning to bore anyone on this subject, or having a rating on the 'Geek-o-meter', this is just a corollary on the SF vs Scifi subject:

This entry from The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (2nd edn, 1993), ed. Clute and Nicholls explains it:

SCI FI Pronounced 'sky fi' or 'si fi', an abbreviation for 'science fiction', said to have been introduced by Forrest J. Ackerman, a prominent fan fond of wordplay, in the 1950s, when the term 'hi-fi' was becoming popular. Never much used within the sf community, the term became very popular with journalists and media people generally, until by the 1970s it was the most common abbreviation used by non-readers of sf to refer to the genre, often with an implied sneer. Some critics within the genre, Terry Carr and Damon Knight among them, decided that, since the term was derogatory, it might be critically useful in distinguishing sf hackwork - particularly ill written, lurid adventure stories - from sf of a more intellectually demanding kind. Around 1978 the critic Susan Wood and others began pronouncing the term 'skiffy'. In 1980s-90s usage 'skiffy', which sounds friendlier than 'sci fi', has perhaps for that reason come to be less condemnatory. Skiffy is colourful, sometimes entertaining, junk. Star Wars is skiffy.

And this is from the Ackermuseum website: The Origin of Sci-Fi

by the late Forrest J Ackerman

Some of you younger generation may not realize that "sci-fi" hasn't ALWAYS been a part of the American language. That we haven't always been on the Moon, that we haven't always had television and tape recorders. You probably remember the advent of faxes, VCRs and computers but-- I'm amazed when, during one of my open houses chez Ackermansion, some fan casually mentions "sci-fi" and I ask them, "Do you know who coined that term?" Neither they nor any other fans present do. "In 1954, that word was first heard in this world,†and I go on to explain:

I was riding around in my car with the radio on and some mention was made of "hi-fi." Since "science fiction" had been on the tip of my tongue since Hugo Gernsback introduced it in 1929 (in his sf mag "Science Wonder Stories"), I looked in the rear-view mirror, stuck out my tongue and there, tattooed on the end of it was . . . SCI-FI! I thought fans who had embraced the portmanteau word "scientifiction" and its abbreviation "stf" (pronounced "stef") would be the first to latch onto sci-fi.

Indeed many automatically did. But a loud voice (which shall remain nameless, (to protect the guilty), was heard throughout the land, denouncing my innocent little term. A close friend of his then took up the cry, ranting and raving that to call science fiction "sci-fi" was tantamount to using racial slurs!

Nevertheless, some fans throughout the ImagiNation (Dave Kyle, Bjo Trimble, Rick Sneary, and authors such as Isaac Asimov, Marion Zimmer Bradley and Ben Bova) announced their displeasure in the use of the term.

This, mind you, was over four decades ago. In the meantime Kyle has for years sported a Sci-Fi license plate and Bjo publishes a news sheet known as "Byo Trimble's Sci-Fi Spotlight." If you get Ray Bradbury's ansaphone you're likely to hear a greeting, "This is the sci-fi guy." Playboy has announced sci-fi stories, by world-famous sf authors, on its cover three times. And, of course, there's the Sci-Fi Channel on TV.

Some years ago, a certain author (who claims he doesn't even write science fiction) had the attention of a captive audience eager to learn all about science fiction (in the Ackerman auditorium at UCLA). Practically the first words out of his mouth were, "You must never ... ever ... under any circumstances, use the abominable! The nauseous! The ugly! Sci-fooey fi-fooey term! What is it? It's UGLY! It's the sound of two crickets ********!!!" Shortly thereafter I ran into a fan at the World Science Fiction Convention, down under in Australia, who was proudly wearing a home-made button:

I LOVE ********** CRICKETS! I've often wondered who that perceptive person was. If, by any chance, he reads this please contact me for a hefty handshake. I hereby authorize you to be the Guest of Honor during Be Kind to Crickets Week. And Mr. Weatherman, I authorize you to rain on the Anti-Sci-Fi-ite's Parade. Sci-fooey on you diehard insurgents!

Sacred Heinlein used the term 7 years before I did, in a positive fashion in a private letter to his legendary agent.

PS. 'Jurassic Park', in the book rather than the film, plays more on the 'DNA from the blood inside the mosquito preserved in the Amber used to genetically engineer dinosaurs from frog DNA'. That is why it is Science Fiction.

 

[ray gower]

Isn't a Skiffy a brand of padded envelope?

Perhaps something to wrap the children in to protect them from the hard dull reality of life because their brains have been turned into mush on a diet of frivolous and imaginative Scifi?

Can think of far more depriving things to put into one of those bags to protect kids- Educationalists who think that imagination and competition is harmful to children, perhaps?
-----------------------------------------

Posted by Dave
PS. 'Jurassic Park', in the book rather than the film, plays more on the 'DNA from the blood inside the mosquito preserved in the Amber used to genetically engineer dinosaurs from frog DNA'. That is why it is Science Fiction.

I'm sure there was more to it than that!
I mean frogs were mentioned at least 4 times. And Chaos theory was explained (nearly two paragraphs, in passing) too!

 

[edott]

when ever i hear people say that science fiction or that most science fiction is bad i remember back to univercity and my creative writing teacher told us.

don't worry if what you write is ****, go to any book store and 90% of the books they are selling are ****. just cause you cannot write should not stop you from having a carrear

and this was a guy with quite a few published books.

oh excuse the typos and mispelled words my spell check is off and my wife is at her aunt's tonite.

 

[Stargod]

To me, Science Fiction is this....

Fiction contains everything that most of us read nowadays and consider "science fiction" or fantasy. You might even go so far as to say that science fantasy is the same as magical/medieval fantasy, except one seems or feels more modern, and another feels more medievil. Not that the two can't coexist....for instance take the Wheel of Time series, pre-breaking of the world. It's obvious there was an existing "science" at one time, and they are in the midst of rediscovering it. However, I wouldn't call this "science fiction" or "magical/medieval fiction" in the strict sense, it's more Fantasy (broader in it's content coverage). A book which deals more with science and scientific details, akin to the level of military detail one would expect from a Tom Clancy novel, is more science fiction, and the story is just a cataiyst. I do think one could even say that proper science fiction tends to bridge the gap between fiction and non-fiction.

 

[Dave]

Originally posted by Stargod
You might even go so far as to say that science fantasy is the same as magical/medieval fantasy, except one seems or feels more modern, and another feels more medievil.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Arthur C. Clarke, "Profiles of The Future", 1961.

Many novels of historical fiction with a science fiction bent use this idea where the characters think something is magic, but we the readers know that it is science fact and therefore completely possible. (So that we are a party to an inside joke.) 'Steampunk' also thrives upon it.

Another question though: Does there have to be any science in it for it to be Science Fiction?

I recently read a definition of Science Fiction that claimed that Science Fiction is simply a kind of Historical Fiction set in the Future. They then added that it could also be set in an Alternative Present day too, if there was a clear path to that point from some divergent point in the past.

Myself, I would have to add that it could be set in an Alternative Past too, otherwise how do you include 'Steampunk' as Science Fiction, which it clearly is.

Those definitions exclude the kind of Science Fiction with Fantasy elements; those set in a 'Galaxy, Far, Far Away'.

I found this from a website on Dystopian futures, but it holds true for this kind of science fiction:

Often, the most valuable thing we can get from [Science Fiction] is not a view of what’s going to happen, but of what we fear will happen, fears we don’t always express clearly or examine as much as we should. These stories can make us think about why we fear certain things in our own culture and others, and whether those fears are valid or are in themselves destructive and dangerous.