Science Fiction Books That Launched Their Own Genres

[Pyar]

Hey all! So I was surfing the web and I found this really interesting article. io9 - Science Fiction Books That Launched Their Own Genres - Books What do you guys think? While I agree with the author on a few of their claims I think he is stretching a little with the "First Contact" genre.

 

[J-Sun]

I'm not sure how useful the article's narrowness is. Many of these forms were "launched" by short fiction and not by novels at all - still fewer by literal books. For instance, Leinster's 1945 story "First Contact" predates Childhood's End (1953, I think expanded from a 1950 story). Gibson's 1981 story "Johnny Mnemonic" predates his Neuromancer (1984). Not saying these are necessarily first, either, but certainly predate. And not just that bare predating is sufficient - but these stories made major impacts and contained the major ingredients.

Also, I'm not sure how strictly we need to define the "posthuman" in "posthuman space opera" but Bruce Sterling's Shaper/Mechanist stories (early 80s) and eventual Shaper/Mechanist novel Schismatrix (1985) include most everything you'd need for that, even if "posthuman" wasn't yet a buzzword.

As far as general space opera, Doc Smith's The Skylark of Space (1928) probably did launch the intergalactic space opera subgenre and it actually was novel length (though not yet, at the time, a book).

 

[Dave]

Even the author seems not to agree with his own suggestions, which just goes to show what a pointless exercise putting books into genres is. I see other earlier examples of some of his genres i.e. 'The Wild, Wild West' TV show pre-dates all his Steampunk examples.

'Frankenstein' is oft quoted as the first science fiction novel and she did begin writing it as a challenge to be a horror story, but it is much more about the human condition (and if I may say, a 'travel guide'.). I expect that someone earlier must have questioned the abuse of science and the idea of whether it is right to do something simply because it is possible. I just don't read enough classic literature to be able to say. Certainly she didn't create the first 'Monster'.

The only one I would agree with is 'The Time Machine' being the first story about a machine that could travel in time, but I'm quite prepared even for someone else to prove otherwise.

 

[dask]

John Norman and the Gor books? There's a word for this but I can't think of it right now. Male domination fantasies? Women loving to be enslaved and abused. Crap like that. Though the first book, TARNSMAN OF GOR didn't have any that I can remember and was actually quite good.

 

[Who's Wee Dug]

John Norman and the Gor books? There's a word for this but I can't think of it right now. Male domination fantasies? Women loving to be enslaved and abused. Crap like that. Though the first book, TARNSMAN OF GOR didn't have any that I can remember and was actually quite good.

As far as I know he was going though a nasty divorce when he was writing them and it shows. hence his attitude to women in his books.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Not that online biographies are entirely to be trusted, but it appears he's been happily married since the 1950's.

It would be interesting to know whether he wrote those novels because they really reflect his attitudes about women. Or ... perhaps not something one wishes to know about at all.

 

[Xelebes]

John Norman and the Gor books? There's a word for this but I can't think of it right now. Male domination fantasies? Women loving to be enslaved and abused. Crap like that. Though the first book, TARNSMAN OF GOR didn't have any that I can remember and was actually quite good.

The word you were looking for might be Sadism. Just if you were wondering. Though the books of Gor are predated by de Sade's 120 Days in Sodom whose tales are a bit science-fiction along with the obvious fantasy when he divulges in the last part of the book by telling of various mechanical ways of tormenting the wretches.

 

[Duchessprozac]

The word you were looking for might be Sadism. Just if you were wondering. Though the books of Gor are predated by de Sade's 120 Days in Sodom whose tales are a bit science-fiction along with the obvious fantasy when he divulges in the last part of the book by telling of various mechanical ways of tormenting the wretches.

I believe the term is Gorean, don't ask me how I know that, but let me say I had to go and look up its meaning when I came across it.

 

[dask]

The word you were looking for might be Sadism.

I believe the term is Gorean...

Actually the word is mysogyny. It may not be the right one but it's the one I was looking for.

 

[Duchessprozac]

I've not actually read any of the Gor books, and only became aware of them when I had to look up what the 'Gorean lifestyle' actually was when I stumbled across the term in my travels.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

To move the discussion back toward the original premise: I think it takes more than one book by more than one author to launch anything that could be called a genre.

Sometimes, it's simply the case that a series of outside factors act on several writers (frequently around the same age, so that they have other influences in common) at the same time, so that they end up writing books that share some particular something that catches people's attention. If the books are successful and the readers' collective attention span continues long enough, then more books are written in the same vein.

So maybe rather than focusing on one book as the onlie begetter of a particular genre, it might be more useful to consider clusters of books and short stories that arrive around the same time.

 

[iansales]

Funny how a few years ago Banks was allegedly almost unheard of in the US, despite being published there. Now suddenly Consider Phlebas is one of the most influential sf novels of the last 25 years.