SF/Fantasy Poll

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by NatCh

I've felt for a long time that SF and Fantasy aren't really very good genre distinctions (I know: all the genres are arbitrary at some level). I read SF that's mystery, adventure, occasionally even romance. I think Fantasy tends mostly to the Quest sub-genre, but it branches a bit as well.

Yes, I think the Quest is the dominant form. Fortunately, it's not the only one.

But at the same time, if they put all the mysteries that had SF elements in with the mysteries, I'd have a harder time finding them -- for instance, Michael Creighton's books are in Fiction & Literature half the time, and I would mostly consider them to be SF, but they've gotten popular, so they must be F&L, right?

Welcome to Publishing. A fair bit of stuff is arguably SF, but marketed without that label, as the publisher thinks it has a wider audience, and calling it SF would get it shelved where the broader audience wouldn't see it.

Man I'm in a cynical mood today: I just realized I've used the eyeroller smilie in almost every post!

You aren't a cynic. You're a realist.

(A cynic is sometimes defined as an optimist who has run into contact with reality.)
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Dennis

[NatCh]

Nah, I'm a literalist ... when it suits me, of course.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by =X=

@ DMcCunney: I did a search on some of the books you mentioned. It seems they are only sold in pBook form. It's too bad, I guess I'll swing by the Bookstore to get the copies

I've seen a darknet ebook copy of Lord of Light, but have no idea what the quality is.

Start with it. It's a fine tale, and won the Hugo that year. _Creatures of Light and Darkness_ is quirkier. Roger wrote it largely as a joke, tossing in every radical writing technique he knew, and was a bit startled when folks took it seriously.

I'll make other recommendations of SF with mythic underpinnings as they occur to me.
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Dennis

[Liviu_5]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Yes, I think the Quest is the dominant form. Fortunately, it's not the only one.

I think that these days paranormal is the dominant mode in fantasy as measured in sales, new titles, bestseller lists

Fortunately as above there are other types of fantasy and fantastical literature

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

<chuckle>

The late L. Sprague de Camp decided part way through his career that FTL travel was impossible, and stopped using it in his stories, because he felt what was portrayed in SF should be possible, even if we didn't know how to do it now.

I personally agree: If it isn't credible, it shouldn't be part of an SF story. Of course, that just means that if you use it anyway (as I did in Berserker and Sol, for instance) that you just consider it "soft" SF, which is generally defined as SF with additional non-credible elements tied in... like Star Wars, Star Trek, etc.

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

In the old days, SF writers felt they had to provide explanations of how such things worked (even if it was essentially handwavium) when they used such elements in a story.

That's why I was always tickled by Star Trek's incredibly transparent way of creating new, miraculously-advanced elements: duotronium... tritanium... quatrotriticale...

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Liviu_5

I think that these days paranormal is the dominant mode in fantasy as measured in sales, new titles, bestseller lists

Technically, that stuff is considered "Paranormal Romance", so you're safe.

Fortunately as above there are other types of fantasy and fantastical literature

Lots, thankfully.
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Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

I personally agree: If it isn't credible, it shouldn't be part of an SF story. Of course, that just means that if you use it anyway (as I did in Berserker and Sol, for instance) that you just consider it "soft" SF, which is generally defined as SF with additional non-credible elements tied in... like Star Wars, Star Trek, etc.

Sure, but what's credible varies by author and reader.

One of the basic rules that arose in the SF community was that you could postulate whatever you liked for future developments like FTL travel, but you had to get what we currently knew right. Not getting the existing science right was an automatic fail for a book calling itself SF.

Some folks liked fantasy because it lacked that particular requirement. But fantasy places its own demands. Your fantasy world may use magic, but the magic has rules governing it, and you better think them through and have things internally consistent if you hope to write a successful book.

That's why I was always tickled by Star Trek's incredibly transparent way of creating new, miraculously-advanced elements: duotronium... tritanium... quatrotriticale...

A friend used to be a moderator on one of the "official" ST web boards. She described time spent trying to explain to posters that much of Star Trek came about because a writer needed a way to get from point A to point B in a script, and blithely ignored the effects on continuity and the implications of the device they used. She talked about "Handwavium" and "McGyverite" as the most important scientific elements normally used.

See Scott (Dilbert) Adams' essay on the matter.
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Dennis

[UKHaiku]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

I personally agree: If it isn't credible, it shouldn't be part of an SF story.

Ahhh... But who decides what's credible...?

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

If it isn't credible, it shouldn't be part of an SF story.

Um... erm... isn't that the "fiction" part of science fiction?

BOb

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

I was tickled by the approach David Brin took in the Uplift series: if there was a way to go faster than light at all, there was more than one way, and different galactic species used different methods. The Tandu, for example, had a "Client" species called Episiarchs. The Episiarchs had been bred for psi abilities. Tandu ships used Episiarchs to travel between the stars. The Episiarch denied the current state so intensely that reality warped, and the ship disappeared from here and reappeared there. It wasn't perfect, and sometimes a ship disappeared from here and didn't reappear, but the Tandu were willing to accept the trade-off.

Interstellar travel by psionic means is a common plot in SF, of course. Consider "Dune", in which the planet Arrakis is the sole source of the drug used by the psi-talented "guild navigators" for interstellar travel, or Anne McCaffrey's "Tower and Hive" series, in which interstellar transport is provided by telepaths using telekenesis to transport ships and cargo between star systems.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by UKHaiku

Ahhh... But who decides what's credible...?

As your question suggests, it's not up to one person. Ultimately, it's up to the authors and their readers to decide what is credible, what is not, and whether or not to suspend your personal disbelief long enough to enjoy reading (or writing) the story anyway.

Personally, I'm not above writing "incredible" things. But I try to keep it to a minimum when writing something that is supposed to be "hard" SF.

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Um... erm... isn't that the "fiction" part of science fiction?

Not at all... credibility indicates whether or not it can happen. Fiction defines whether or not it did happen (and therefore becomes fact). You can combine the two in four combinations: Could have happened, and did; could have happened, but didn't; couldn't have happened, and didn't; and sometimes the most interesting, couldn't have happened, but did anyway.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Interstellar travel by psionic means is a common plot in SF, of course. Consider "Dune", in which the planet Arrakis is the sole source of the drug used by the psi-talented "guild navigators" for interstellar travel,

Well, the Guild Navigators didn't use psi to power the ships. They used melange to let them see possible futures, to plot a safe course. Herbert never did say anything about exactly how the Guild Heighliners got from here to there. (And that was a gripe of mine about the series. There is a posited anti-technology bias, but somebody builds the mile-long starships the Spacing Guild operates. Who? Where?)

Anne McCaffrey's "Tower and Hive" series, in which interstellar transport is provided by telepaths using telekenesis to transport ships and cargo between star systems.

Or E. E. Smith's _The Galaxy Primes_, where Operators and Prime Operators can use psionic energy from the "Operator Field" to do all manner of things.
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Dennis

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Not at all... credibility indicates whether or not it can happen. Fiction defines whether or not it did happen (and therefore becomes fact).

I disagree. Fiction is the telling of stories which are not real. A "made up" story. To me science fiction is a made up story about future worlds or events with a techno basis. I don't think a book is "science fiction" just because it is based in the future... it's gotta be about the science as much as it is about the fiction... even if the science is totally made up and defies the law of physics, I'm ok with that. If you want to categorize that as "soft" SF... I'm fine with that too.

BOb

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

I disagree. Fiction is the telling of stories which are not real. A "made up" story. To me science fiction is a made up story about future worlds or events with a techno basis. I don't think a book is "science fiction" just because it is based in the future... it's gotta be about the science as much as it is about the fiction... even if the science is totally made up and defies the law of physics, I'm ok with that. If you want to categorize that as "soft" SF... I'm fine with that too.

The concern is "suspension of disbelief". You can postulate whatever you want, including spaceships powered by beer*, but it needs to be plausible enough that the reader will accept the possibility.

What's plausible has changed over the years. As mentioned upthread, a fair bit of stuff is now an accepted part of the furniture, not requiring an explanation to make it plausible. Credit things like Star Trek and Star Wars for that. Once upon a time, SF writers felt compelled to provide an explanation for how their characters went superluminal, even if it was handwavium.

These days, there's less perceived need, unless the explanation ties into other things as well. An example of the latter is the "impeller wedge" used by David Weber as the technology for FTL travel in the Honor Harrington books. Weber is retelling the Napoleonic Wars in space, and his starships are the equivalent of the old three masted ships of the line. He uses his FTL method to let him do things like having ships of the line drawn up stationary relative to each other in a "wall of battle", whaling away with lasers, grasers, and missiles in best Napoleonic War fashion.

One requirement for SF is that the science be possible, and that you get what we currently know right, even if you postulate new stuff based on things we don't currently know. L. Sprague de Camp decided FTL wasn't possible, and he therefore couldn't use it in SF stories. Sprague was in a minority, there, and I can't think of any other SF writer who felt that way.

* "A Bicycle Built for Brew", by Poul Anderson
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Dennis

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

These days, there's less perceived need, unless the explanation ties into other things as well. An example of the latter is the "impeller wedge" used by David Weber as the technology for FTL travel in the Honor Harrington books. Weber is retelling the Napoleonic Wars in space, and his starships are the equivalent of the old three masted ships of the line. He uses his FTL method to let him do things like having ships of the line drawn up stationary relative to each other in a "wall of battle", whaling away with lasers, grasers, and missiles in best Napoleonic War fashion.

Absolutely. Mr. Weber openly admits that it's no coincidence that "Honor Harrington" and "Horatio Hornblower" share the same initials.