SciFi history?

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

A favorite comic series of mine, Planetary, once described magic in technological terms as "the cheat codes of the universe."

Shouldn't that be "teleological" above?

But yes, I like it.

Another Marvel comic character, the Scarlet Witch, used her mutant "hex power" to locally alter physics in unpredictable ways, usually in such a way as to hamper the bad guys in some unanticipated but predictably useful way.

It's been too long since I've read any Marvel comics. I recall the Scarlet Witch, but not what degree of control she had. Could she specify exactly how local physics would be altered, or was it luck of the draw? (And did her alterations sometimes cause unexpected problems for the good guys, too?)

Mutants. Now there's an SF element ripe for discussion...

Starting with "Describe a non-fatal mutation that causes a significant change in the mutant that can be used to advantage by the mutant to do things others can't."

Some of our favorite super heroes are at the least unlikely, like Cyclops ("He shoots energy beams from his eyes that can destroy physical object. Where does the energy come from?") or Ant-man ("He can shrink down to the size of an insect. What happens to the mass?")

Mutations that are at least a bit more likely and plausible operate on a finer scale, like telepathy, which has a long history in SF.
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Dennis

[WillAdams]

It's rather interesting to compare the _Wild Cards_ novels w/ other more traditional super-hero stories, since the former attempts to stay w/in the realm of physics as expressed in science fiction.

William

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

I recall the Scarlet Witch, but not what degree of control she had. Could she specify exactly how local physics would be altered, or was it luck of the draw? (And did her alterations sometimes cause unexpected problems for the good guys, too?)

She seemed to have no control at all... but maybe just because she had good intentions, the result was almost always positive. "That's great, Wanda... what'd you do?" "Somehow, I must have altered its molecular structure, causing it to become unstable, and dissipate before it could hit us!" Yada, yada...

Originally Posted by WillAdams

It's rather interesting to compare the _Wild Cards_ novels w/ other more traditional super-hero stories, since the former attempts to stay w/in the realm of physics as expressed in science fiction.

That's one of the reasons I've loved that series from the beginning: They provided scientific reasons behind the characters' powers, laws of conservation of energy, realistic consequences of powers (such as an invisible man who can no longer see unless he makes his eyeballs visible), etc --although quite a number of their "powers" were chalked up to sophisticated and not-understood psi powers that allowed, say, a character to fly with wings too small to lift them.

[kindlekitten]

personally I always use the elf test. if there are elves, you stand a 90% possibility it is fantasy. magic doesn't always have such a hard and fast rule as in "only in a fantasy world"

[Penforhire]

But only 90% chance, lol. John Ringo's Council Wars series is an example of SF elves. Of course his whole premise there is technology-based magic.

[mike_bike_kite]

I'm just finishing "Cemetry World" by C. Simak, it started with a good premise and I was quite looking forward to how it unfolded but then the author began to introduce all sorts of fantasy elements (ghosts etc) and now I'm only continuing because I'm past halfway through.

[emellaich]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

But I'd love to know what definitions of SF and fantasy the folks you know use if they can call the Honor Harrington series fantasy. Would they also toss James H. Schmitz's "Federation of the Hub" stories into the fantasy pot, since many of them feature a heroine who is a powerful telepath, and psi powers are an accepted part of her society?
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Dennis

In case you were wondering, this wasn't code for "I think that ...". It's just that I've read/participated in a similar thread a year ago, or was that five years ago, anyway it was sometime in the past. I can't remember who and where the conversation was. However, a few of the folks in the thread were 'purists' and anything like mind reading, magic, psi etcetera automatically pushed the book out of the SF category.

My point was not to support their categorization, but to use an example to explain that I believe the only categorization possible is a personal one. Your definitions and mine will never be the same. More specifically, however we define the categories, I suspect that we would never agree on how a specific list of books fits into the categories.

BTW, how would you categorize Dune [grin].

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by emellaich

In case you were wondering, this wasn't code for "I think that ...".

I didn't think it was. Most folks on MR aren't shy about stating what they think, as opposed to what others think.

It's just that I've read/participated in a similar thread a year ago, or was that five years ago, anyway it was sometime in the past. I can't remember who and where the conversation was. However, a few of the folks in the thread were 'purists' and anything like mind reading, magic, psi etcetera automatically pushed the book out of the SF category.

Noted. I just wonder what books they all agreed did fit the category.

My point was not to support their categorization, but to use an example to explain that I believe the only categorization possible is a personal one. Your definitions and mine will never be the same. More specifically, however we define the categories, I suspect that we would never agree on how a specific list of books fits into the categories.

Oh, I agree. It can't help but be a personal category. But the exercise of trying to provide a definition is useful in two ways: first, it lets us see where our definitions overlap and what traits we see in common. Second, and perhaps more important, it forces us to think through our premises, to be able to state just what our definitions are.

BTW, how would you categorize Dune [grin].

SF, where the science was ecology. It was certainly a product of it's time, and a strong piece of world building. But while I didn't agree, I could understand why SF writer and critic Joanna Russ once called Dune "carefully worked up third-rate". Among other things, Herbert was imaginative, but not a strong prose stylist. Think about how Dune might have come out had the same book been written by, say, Roger Zelazny.

Herbert did do some things unusual for galactic empire SF (which Dune in part was). For instance, he never bothered to explain exactly how those mile-long Guild Heighliners traveled between the stars. He just presented it as a given that they did. We only got told later on that the Guild Navigators used the Spice to let them see possible futures, and plot safe courses for the ships to travel.

And he gave us a galactic bias against advanced technology, with Mentats performing chores we might expect a computer to do. But somebody built those Heighliners, and an interstellar starship is hardly low-tech.

He also postulated a galactic empire based on Arabian feudalism. That stuck in my craw after the fact. I had a hard time swallowing the notion that such a thing could arise, let alone last as long as it had when Dune took place.

I first read it serialized in the old large format Analog magazine, when Conde Nast made a go at an ad supported book, in the standard 8.5x11 format for better newsstand display and because that's what the ads they wanted were designed for. Unfortunately, Conde Nast couldn't get advertisers to believe their demographics - mostly salaried scientifc, engineering, and technical types - and reverted back to digest format after about 18 months when the paper contract came up for renewal. But meanwhile, we got cover paintings and interior illustrations by the late John Schoenherr that were stunning, and defined the way a generation "saw" Dune.

The combination of Herbert's story and Schoenherr's illustrations created a whole that was greater than the sum of its parts, and I wonder in retrospect if I'd have liked it as much had someone else done the illustrations.
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Dennis

[kindlekitten]

Originally Posted by Penforhire

But only 90% chance, lol. John Ringo's Council Wars series is an example of SF elves. Of course his whole premise there is technology-based magic.

that (and a few others) was why I had to keep it at 90%

[Solitaire1]

Steven Lyle Jordan wrote as part of a post referring to the Scarlet Witch:

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

She seemed to have no control at all... but maybe just because she had good intentions, the result was almost always positive. "That's great, Wanda... what'd you do?" "Somehow, I must have altered its molecular structure, causing it to become unstable, and dissipate before it could hit us!" Yada, yada...

The Marvel Comics crossover series "House Of M" showed just how powerful she is. With one use of her powers, she altered reality and made mutants the dominant species on Earth and put normal humans on the path to extinction. With another use of her powers she restored the world back to the way it was with the following difference: the total number of mutants in the world was reduced to a very small number (IIRC it was less than 300). She also made it so there would be no more mutants.

A character from DC Comics with a related power is Major Disaster. He's able to see all probabilities based on any action and, by taking a specific action, can alter events to achieve the results he wants. As an example from one story: He shoots out one traffic light in Gotham City with a BB gun. Due to a chain reaction of events caused by that one small action it resulted in nuclear missiles being transported through the middle of Gotham City to the exact position where his associates are waiting to steal them.

[WillAdams]

Orson Scott Card once noted, ``Magic has trees, science has rivets.'' --- but that's a bit simplistic.

I really like the series where there's an effort to codify magic and make it understandable / consistent (arguably it should _not_ be rational), but an interesting subset of such is books where what seems to be magic has a technological base --- Jack Chalker's _Spirits of Flux and Anchor_ for example, or Steven Brust's Dragaera books (where Sorcery uses the energy of a sea of chaos and psionics as a capability was bred into test subjects half a million years ago).

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

In recent years I've been getting a lot of enjoyment out of media that presents past SF as actually having happened... TV programs like Warehouse 13 and graphic novels like Planetary suggest teams of people acting as caretakers to our "secret past," etc. Often they present themselves as the one thing that's kept our world from being changed irrevocably (and usually badly) if these secrets get out.

They have often included elements of magic as well as science, suggesting both can coexist... but usually don't coexist well.

[Joebill]

Originally Posted by WillAdams

Orson Scott Card once noted, ``Magic has trees, science has rivets.'' --- but that's a bit simplistic.

I really like the series where there's an effort to codify magic and make it understandable / consistent (arguably it should _not_ be rational), but an interesting subset of such is books where what seems to be magic has a technological base --- Jack Chalker's _Spirits of Flux and Anchor_ for example, or Steven Brust's Dragaera books (where Sorcery uses the energy of a sea of chaos and psionics as a capability was bred into test subjects half a million years ago).

I remember reading a strange story... "The Word for World is... Forest" by Ursula K. Le Guin

some of the better sf I have ever read.

[nyrath]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

In recent years I've been getting a lot of enjoyment out of media that presents past SF as actually having happened... TV programs like Warehouse 13 and graphic novels like Planetary suggest teams of people acting as caretakers to our "secret past," etc. Often they present themselves as the one thing that's kept our world from being changed irrevocably (and usually badly) if these secrets get out.

And not just recent. There was the 1988 TV show based on "War of the Worlds."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_...28TV_series%29

"According to the series, rather than being killed outright by germs at the end of the 1953 film, the aliens had all slipped into a state of suspended animation. Their bodies were stored away in toxic waste drums and shipped to various disposal sites within the United States (ten such sites are known to exist in the country), and a widespread government cover-up combined with a condition dubbed 'selective amnesia' has convinced most people that the invasion had never happened."

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Joebill

I remember reading a strange story... "The Word for World is... Forest" by Ursula K. Le Guin

some of the better sf I have ever read.

I wish I could agree. I adore LeGuin, but that one may be my least favorite.

The problem is that Ursula's weakness may be an inability to understand villains. The bad guy in Forest was a two-dimensional cardboard cut-out, assembled from cliches. I couldn't believe in him, and hence couldn't appreciate the story.

I had similar reactions to _The Dispossessed_. When Shevek's Urras servant finally drops his carefully subservient mask and begs Shevek to "free them from the masters", I wanted to throw the book against the wall in disgust. The masters of Urras were cliches, who might have been drawn from cartoons in the 1930's Socialist journal "The Masses", with top-hatted cigar smoking robber barons grinding the poor under their heels in the service of profit. If you are inclined to see that as the way things work, it won't bother you. If you think the real world is a bit more complex than that, it falls on its face.

I was also annoyed at the authorial strings and stacking of the deck. Shevek came from Annares, a companion planet of the same star Urras orbited. It was much more marginal, and the inhabitants existed in a sort of anarcho-communist society that was made possible only by the fact that it was a marginal environment, with just barely enough to go around, and it simply wasn't possible to become significantly better off materially than anyone else. It would have vanished like a moth in a flame if set down on Urras.

But _The Dispossessed_ was a larger and richer work, with enough other things to mitigate my distaste and make it worth reading.

My favorite of LeGuin's ouvre is _The Left Hand of Darkness_.
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Dennis