Is SF dying?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

There are MANY male authors who can and do write excellent female characters. I'm not picky about my characters or my authors. But if I notice something amiss, that's probably just bad writing.

I've (not long ago) read the first book in the Bern Saga (Molly Fyde and the Parsona Rescue) written by Hugh Howey and I thought it was very good. The main character is Molly Fyde who is female (if you didn't get that by the name ). Hugh did a very good job writing her.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Oh, and I absolutely loathe dystopian books.

Yes, we get that. We also get your dislike for The Hunger Games.

Now there is disliking a book you've read but noticing that it's not poorly written, it's just something that doesn't interest you and then there is noticing it's poorly written. Where does The Hunger Games fall for you?

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Now there is disliking a book you've read but noticing that it's not poorly written, it's just something that doesn't interest you and then there is noticing it's poorly written. Where does The Hunger Games fall for you?

Coming from someone who read the Hunger Games trilogy, I think the weakest point is using first person voice. It's hard to worry too much for the character who is telling the story when she gets in life-threatening scrapes. The writing wasn't that strong, in my opinion, but the story was strong enough to keep me reading. The author tended to ramble at times (like she needed to fill space) -- especially noticeable at the end of the first book. And, by the time I got done reading the third book, I was wishing it was much shorter. Overall I think the movies are better than the books (so far). At least the movie didn't make "were-creatures" out of the contestants. (That was really hokey.)

I tend to like dystopian stories and tend to be more patient with them than with other books.

[DrNefario]

The Hunger Games would have been eligible in 2009 when there were two YA books on the ballot and one of them won (The Graveyard Book won, Little Brother was on the shortlist.) I feel that the Hugo is the one award where a gripping story of mixed literary merit could do well, since it is a popular vote. I don't know if the award was too soon for the book to have made an impact or if people just didn't really rate it. It doesn't look an especially strong shortlist that year, to my biases, but I did like the winner.

[pegasi&prefects]

I actually think the first person voice was one of the strong points. Katniss is a brilliant unreliable narrator. The question wasn't whether she'd survive, but on what terms. Mind you, I have a strong preference for first person. I read Jane Eyre as an impressionable child.

I grant you that the were creatures were embarrassingly bad.

[DrNefario]

Because I was interested, I investigated the Best Novel nominations for the years the Hunger Games books were eligible. It actually makes a worse showing than I expected.

The Hunger Games itself turns up right at the bottom of the ballot in 2009, with 5 nominations (I'm pretty sure they're only listing books with at least 5 nominations. The results weren't numbered, but I reckon that was about joint 50th). The last of the five shortlisted books got 54.

The extended reports for 2010 and 2011 don't go as deep, and the two sequels don't appear at all. I guess the whole trilogy would have been eligible in 2011, but that didn't trouble the ballots either.

My own feeling is that the first book is the best one, and I wasn't really aware of the series until it was complete. I might not have known about it in time to nominate it even if I had been involved then, and I doubt I'd have wanted to nominate books 2 and 3.

The first book does seem to have missed its opportunity. The second and third were both nominated for the Locus YA award, but the first wasn't. Maybe it was a slow grower?

Edit: Sorry, that's bad information. The Locus awards don't have a classic shortlist like that. The Hunger Games was 9th in the YA poll in 2009. The top three were Graveyard Book, Little Brother and Zoe's Tale, which also made the Hugo shortlist.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

In your (and some like-minded others) non-authoritative opinion only.

What you're describing is what you consider to be your kind of SF.
.

Actually, I'm quoting.

The likes of Asimov, Heinlein, Anderson, Silverberg, Ellison, VanVogt...
Card, Farland, others...
The folks who made SF what it is.

So yeah, it's just my opinion--it's the open internet out there--but I'm not making that opinion out of whole cloth. It's not even just observation.

I don't just read SF, I study it.

Been doing it for... well, years...
How it works and why, where the (elastic) borders can be found and how far the stretch, the difference between what the book is *about* and how it's dressed up. (This last helps distinguish advicacy from cautionary tales, which *can* be tricky in determining whether the author is a racist or misogynist or just commenting on society.) I've also read (and study) just enough of other genres (romance, mystery, fantasy, technothrillers, YA) to see what defines them, which is actually easier than SF.

Books, essays, interviews, columns like this:

http://www.davidfarland.com/writing_tips/?a=470
(Good ongoing course on writing there.)

Now, if we *must* bring in back up for our opinions, well, this is (part of) my backup team:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...cience_Fiction

http://www.amazon.com/Science-Fictio.../dp/0451466764

http://www.amazon.com/How-Write-Scie.../dp/158297103X

Everyone is entitled to their opinion but I try to go a big beyond when I make my chain rattling pronouncements.

[DiapDealer]

I'm not bringing the fallacy of anything to the discussion. Merely pointing out where opinion is being presented as fact. You only get to decide what is or isn't science-fiction for you. Not for anyone else. Same goes for Azimov, Heinlein, and all the other big names you dropped. They don't (didn't) get to decide what people think SF is any more than you do. They just get/got to write it and present their version of it.

Study all you want ... there is no authority on what is or isn't "real" SF. Or what SF has "always been," or what SF need "always be." The label simply does not define, exclude, or encapsulate its content with any concrete, agreed-upon strictures. No matter how many people's personal definitions of it that you trot out as "proof."

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I'm not bringing the fallacy of anything to the discussion. Merely pointing out where opinion is being presented as fact. You only get to decide what is or isn't science-fiction for you. Not for anyone else. Same goes for Azimov, Heinlein, and all the other big names you dropped. They don't (didn't) get to decide what people think SF is any more than you do. They just get/got to write it and present their version of it.

To a degree. There are going to be some stories that are science fiction and some that are not, and the vast majority of people are going to agree on those stories. (I'm sure that some won't, but there will always be outliers.) Yet it is also undeniable that most of the stories out there will be in a fuzzy area where people will disagree on it's science-fictionness. Perhaps it will be because the story uses the trappings of science fiction but ignores the science, so it is little more than a fantasy story or the more generic speculative fiction. Perhaps it is because the story would have been considered science fiction in the past, but the changes in society and technology means that it would be categorized as something else today. That's particularly true of "science fiction" that is about technology rather than science.

I'm claiming that most stories are hard to categories specifically because of that technological angle, and because a lot of SF stories are focussed upon the technology. Technology used to examine society through a critical lens, technology to form the basis of war stories, technology as a tool for adventure, and so forth. Yet there are stories that are about science proper. Science as a tool, such as we see in some Asimov mysteries. Science as a means to understand human behaviour, perhaps we see in books where scientific research serves as a foundation for the story. Science as a motivator for adventure. I find it hard to see why those wouldn't be classified as science fiction. They are, after all, about science. On the other hand, they don't reflect the majority of stories that fall under the banner of science fiction.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by BWinmill

I'm claiming that most stories are hard to categories specifically because of that technological angle, and because a lot of SF stories are focussed upon the technology. Technology used to examine society through a critical lens, technology to form the basis of war stories, technology as a tool for adventure, and so forth. Yet there are stories that are about science proper. Science as a tool, such as we see in some Asimov mysteries. Science as a means to understand human behaviour, perhaps we see in books where scientific research serves as a foundation for the story. Science as a motivator for adventure. I find it hard to see why those wouldn't be classified as science fiction. They are, after all, about science. On the other hand, they don't reflect the majority of stories that fall under the banner of science fiction.

There's also the stories where a SF concept or an advanced *technology* triggers the story. SF is also about technology or exotic phenomena.

Examples abound:
Larry Niven's NEUTRON STAR is about tidal effects. Asimov joked that he saw the physics and wrote an essay, Niven saw the physics and wrote a story and got a Hugo. Rim shot for Asimov.

Lois MacMaster Bujold's CIVIL CAMPAIGN looks like a regency romance in SF drag from the outside but it is really about social change driven by biomedical advances, like many others of her Vorkosigan books.

Niven and Pournelle's OATH OF FEALTY isn't about rocket ships or ray guns or aliens from outer space, but it is about an architectural concept (arcologies) leading to an "alien" culture right here, right now. The one "advanced" technology in the story isn't essential to the narrative and it's still in the labs, 30 years after the book came out. (It does use a bit of cellphone tech. )

Alternate history is SF. Some uses time travel, other doesn't need to.
Harry Turtledove's ATLANTIS comes to mind. (What if there really was an Atlantis? Not a myth, but a real land mass in the Atlantic?)
Most of the 163x series...

It's not hard to sort out SF, really.
It's not restrictive.
Or fuzzy.

Science is in there, so is technology, cosmological phenomena, even social sciences and medicine qualify. The key issue isn't "what" is in as much as in "how" it is used, the role it serves in the story. If the "SF" is just a "blue screen" background for Romeo and Juliet or a car chase it isn't a story about anything inherently science fictional. It's just posing for effect.

It might be a great read but if the SF isn't integral, why bother to stick on the label?
It's more likely to scare off buyers.

That's why you see labels like paranormal romance, YA, dystopia, etc used for near field stories that might actually fit the bill.

I love Hunger Games, books and movies, so far.
I'd call it SF but I can see why SCHOLASTIC avoided the label: a Hugo probably would've cost them millions.

[DrNefario]

For the purpose of these statistics, I imagine what makes something SF is what the publisher prints on the back near the price and barcode.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

The Hunger Games would have been eligible in 2009 when there were two YA books on the ballot and one of them won (The Graveyard Book won, Little Brother was on the shortlist.) I feel that the Hugo is the one award where a gripping story of mixed literary merit could do well, since it is a popular vote. I don't know if the award was too soon for the book to have made an impact or if people just didn't really rate it. It doesn't look an especially strong shortlist that year, to my biases, but I did like the winner.

And both The Graveyard Book and Little Brothers are better sf/fantasy books than The Hunger Game.

I thought The Hunger Game was OK but it was not good SF because the world was not believable at all. The world was just postulated and it did not feel reasonable that this was a world that could appear from our current situation. And people voting for Hugo actually care about these kind of things.

[kyteflyer]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

For the purpose of these statistics, I imagine what makes something SF is what the publisher prints on the back near the price and barcode.

That about sums it up, I reckon. I'm constantly amazed at the quantity of stuff I would regard as fantasy or something else, being classified as SF.

I'm currently on a Stephen Baxter binge. He writes SF. I tend to read "older" writers. I like Orson Scott Card sometimes, but his stuff strays over to fantasy, somewhat. I love Isaac Asimov, Arthur C Clarke, Greg Bear, Gregory Benford, Ben Bova, John Brunner, the list goes on, and I haven't even come close to reading all the good stuff out there. I read the galaxy's edge mag online at times and have had a collection of Baen Books but so far haven't really got into them much.

Sci-fi is what you expect. I got into scifi at a time when movies like The Blob and suchlike were the go. I didn't like them much but found the concepts interesting, so imagine my delight when I found that scifi was much more than that. And thats what I expect. Fairies? Princes, wizards and warlocks? Nope. They have their place, but not in scifi.

Did I mention I love Stephen Baxter?

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by bgalbrecht

I don't know what your tastes are, but since 2000, the best novel winners included Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, The Yiddish Policeman's Union, The Graveyard Book, and Redshirts, all of which made the NYT bestsellers list.

I think a lot of the winners sold well within the genre readership because most of the winners had a fair amount of buzz in my SF circles before winning.

They HAD to have Harry Potter win. No self-respecting award could deny that book its day. The Graveyard Book didn't grab me and it should be my thing because it's generally a part of the genre I like (ghosts/adventure). I might have been being stubborn about that one because my reading buddy loved it and sometimes I am contrary. But I didn't finish it. She's a big Gaiman fan and I just can't get interested in any of the blurbs.

Haven't read the others.

I'm not knocking the Hugo winners as chaff or garbage. I haven't like the ones I've tried, although I did like the first 3 Harry Potter books.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I've (not long ago) read the first book in the Bern Saga (Molly Fyde and the Parsona Rescue) written by Hugh Howey and I thought it was very good. The main character is Molly Fyde who is female (if you didn't get that by the name ). Hugh did a very good job writing her.

I own that one. Haven't read it yet.