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The Science Fiction Rant

Started by The Good Reverend Roger, January 31, 2011, 04:02:21 PM

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The Good Reverend Roger

January 31, 2011, 04:02:21 PM
Okay, let's just get a few things straight.

Science fiction is fiction about science.  It is speculative fiction, based on what we now know and/or suspect about how the universe functions.  It is NOT about the following:  Vampires, werewolves, witches, demons, elves, or those Goddamn telepathic cats.  Any of the above gains the coveted TGRR Dented Wall Award.

Also, science fiction should not include theories that have been proven false, unless you're aiming at a retro-1930's feel.  If your story relies on faster than light travel, cheat.  Call it hyperspace or some shit.  Do NOT expect me to believe that you can get a cat in a spacesuit (Dark Matter), or that a cat can survive freefall (they start trying to get their feet "down", and spin themselves to death).  Again, Dented Wall Award.

The original science fiction story was Mary Shelley's Frankenstien.  Most people assume this was gothic horror, but it isn't really.  Electricity was in its infancy, and she wrote a story about how it could possibly be used, based on the work of the scientist Galvani, who noted that electricity affected the nerves of living and dead creatures.  Mary Shellely speculated that this might be the difference between the living and the dead, and wrote her story accordingly.  First the speculative premise (electricity creates life), and second, the impact on society (Scientist goes batshit, townsfolk go batshit, monster says "fuck it" and goes batshit).  It all ends in frozen tears in the arctic, which was then unexplored, with the monster presumbaly freezing solid (thus setting the first "built in sequel", which she thankfully never wrote).

Jules Verne and H.G. Wells followed, and the rest is history.

But it seems that we've given up on the future.  The only science fiction out there today is grim, hopeless, dystopian stuff...And that's when you can find ANY science fiction in the science fiction section, which is now wall-to-wall softcore porn about vampires, etc.

I grew up on Jerry Pournelle's epic saga that begins with High Justice, and goes through 30+ books, and ends with The Gripping Hand.  He extrapolates social issues, politics, science, and military hardware, starting in the 1990s, and stretching through the 2800s and beyond.  Aliens don't come into it until the last 3 books, and then they're actually alien, not humans with funny noses, etc.

It was grim stuff, but on a realistic level, and he always showed that there WAS hope for the future, even if people ARE, in general, dumb.

And that's what Science Fiction is all about.  So take your telepathic cats and other ridiculous shit and chuck 'em out the airlock.  They aren't required, and David Weber can kiss my ass.

Or Kill Me.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

Cain

#1
January 31, 2011, 04:16:08 PM
Lately, I've been enjoying Iain M. Banks' Culture series, which seems to involve some actually sciency stuff going on in it (advanced AI, genetic engineering of the human body, space travel etc) and isn't actually all that dystopian, though some of the implications of the Culture could be seen as less than positive (namely, boredom leading to neoconservative-esque meddling in foreign societies).  I've only gotten to the second one in the series, The Player of Games, but, as you say, social, political and scientific issues are explored in the series, in some depth.  Its certainly much better than Horatio Hornblower in Space uh David Weber's stuff, or any of the non-Ciaphas Cain WH40K novels.  I may have to look at Jerry Pournelle once I'm done.

Adios

#2
January 31, 2011, 04:25:03 PM
I still enjoy things like 2001 and 2010 Space Odyssey.

The Good Reverend Roger

#3
January 31, 2011, 04:26:48 PM
I'll have to look Banks up.  I'm always interested in new "hard" SF.

Also, I was impressed by Serenity/Firefly, even if it was the Wild West in Space...Especially when you find out where the Reavers came from.  Pulling off SF without zap guns and aliens is pretty rough, and they did a good job...Which is why they were cancelled.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

LMNO

#4
January 31, 2011, 04:27:57 PM
I think most of Neal Stephenson's futuristic works would go here, especially Anathem.  It uses Quantum interpretation in a surprisingly accurate way, and is central to the arc of the novel, rather than a way to explain away magic.

The Good Reverend Roger

#5
January 31, 2011, 04:33:41 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD on January 31, 2011, 04:27:57 PM
I think most of Neal Stephenson's futuristic works would go here, especially Anathem.  It uses Quantum interpretation in a surprisingly accurate way, and is central to the arc of the novel, rather than a way to explain away magic.

Sounds good.  Was he the guy that did Cryptonomicon?
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

LMNO

#6
January 31, 2011, 04:34:41 PM
Yup.  Warning: There are long passages of philisophical dialog, and plenty of math.

Cain

#7
January 31, 2011, 04:36:12 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 31, 2011, 04:26:48 PM
I'll have to look Banks up.  I'm always interested in new "hard" SF.

Also, I was impressed by Serenity/Firefly, even if it was the Wild West in Space...Especially when you find out where the Reavers came from.  Pulling off SF without zap guns and aliens is pretty rough, and they did a good job...Which is why they were cancelled.

I would say Banks is more space opera than hard sci-fi...but I know some of his later books deal with the AI's in a more in depth way, so its one of those borderline things.

That said, I do intend to read Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon The Deep at some point in the near future, and that is meant to be very hard sci-fi, up there with Arthur C. Clarke, Asimov, Larry Niven and the rest.  If I find it favourable, I'll let you know.

Captain Utopia

#8
January 31, 2011, 04:40:41 PM
I hated Stephenson's Snow Crash.  All that stuff about getting a mind-virus from monitor static went beyond speculative and into the realm of fantasy, for me.  I haven't read anything else of his for that reason.  But then my sci-fi library, with few exceptions, ends around 1970 as everything got a bit too doom and gloom for me then.

I loved Firefly though - it's one of the few modern sci-fi visions which I feel it might actually be fun to live in.

The Good Reverend Roger

#9
January 31, 2011, 04:40:46 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD on January 31, 2011, 04:34:41 PM
Yup.  Warning: There are long passages of philisophical dialog, and plenty of math.

I can do math.  How drippy is the philosophy?
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

LMNO

#10
January 31, 2011, 04:46:01 PM
Mostly elevated Platonic Realism vs Formalism.

The Good Reverend Roger

#11
January 31, 2011, 04:47:25 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD on January 31, 2011, 04:46:01 PM
Mostly elevated Platonic Realism vs Formalism.

:crankey:
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

LMNO

#12
January 31, 2011, 04:48:35 PM
It's forgivable when the novel suddenly takes a turn into the Everett Many Worlds theory.

Igor

#13
January 31, 2011, 05:31:02 PM
Anathem is a really great book. Admittedly though, I'm a theoretical physics nerd and found the explanations of his many-worlds idea to be just as exciting as, say, the space battles. Also, Lee Smolin said it was the only thing he'd ever read that made him believe a multiverse could be possible.

Another new hard-SF book I read recently is The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi. Stupid title, but great book. It refuses to explain anything, so it's confusing at the start, but I like that in SF. And hey, anything written by a Finnish string theorist has to be good.
Be what you would seem to be - or, if you'd like it put more simply - never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.

LMNO

#14
January 31, 2011, 05:32:55 PM
As long as it's not about String Theory.
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