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[Teneb]

Considering for how long the scifi derail in Ameripol went, I'm making this thread.

Basic rules apply: Don't be a jerk, keep it civil, obey the forum guidelines, etc.

Further, considering that there is already a dedicated Star Wars thread, let's keep discussion of that there (since it tends to generate rampant saltyness from what I've seen).

Otherwise, anything goes.

Expanded this to really most types of fiction including some sort of fantastical or speculative element.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Anyone else feel that, many times, sci-fi is a genre that does not get the respect it deserves? It feels like many people are quick to dismiss it.

[deathpunch578]

Anyone else feel that, many times, sci-fi is a genre that does not get the respect it deserves? It feels like many people are quick to dismiss it.

I'm very interested in showing someone like that Deus Ex (not the new ones, the first one)

[Starver]

Well, of the eleven "fake news" awards, we can safely say that most of them were errors, speculations or misunderstandings at worst and one was just an assertion without proof that an assertion still gathering proof had no proof...

(jk)

I remember when it was a big argument that "sci-fi" was a pejorative term for "SF", used to demean it as vapid and childish.


Given the rise in reinterpreted pasts and alternate-presents in mainstream fiction, proper 'speculative future' stuff should really no longer be treated as "you're just playing with your toybox, now".  But there's probably more to be said about that later.

[Silverthrone]

Anyone else feel that, many times, sci-fi is a genre that does not get the respect it deserves? It feels like many people are quick to dismiss it.

Yes. It happens to most genre fiction, I fear. Anything that is not set in this world, preferably around the present day, and remains perfectly plauseible (from a current technological perspective, at least) throughout, has a tendency to be somewhat disregarded. Particularly anything containing something so outrageous as dragons or starships.

Of course, as Starver has noted, the influence of genre fiction is beginning to seep into the respectable world of fiction. And there are, of course, critical mass events such as Star Wars and Lord of the Rings where millions of otherwise respectable citizens recieves a gateway dosage and become interested. Science fiction, in particular, have the benefit that parts of it becomes reality, as technology marches on.
I see no end to this peculiar treatmen of genre fiction, I fear. That particular type of snobbery is far too entrenched, and it is an integral part to the percieved current hierarchy in fiction, as according to the chaps at the top of that tree. Of course, it does not truly matter. The stories and that extra-ordinary feeling they give does not lessen because of it. They, too, get their place in the sun, now and then.

On a more individual note on that, it was quite diminishing to read the last years Big Guide to Publishers & Printers, and see that most of them will not accept genre litterature for submission, and the rest gives the impression that they are apprehensive towards it. And yet, of course, works featuring space stations or wizards keep finding their way to the printers, so hope always lives.

[Egan_BW]

who wants to read a story that doesn't include wizards and/or space magic anyway
not anyone with a BRAIN
(PTW)

[nenjin]

"space magic" indeed.

Because I feel like that's what most mass-marketed sci-fi comes across as a lot of the time.

Good sci-fi inspires you to think about the possibilities of technology, exploration and culture. I feel like modern, average sci-fi either takes these things for granted and treats them like magic, rather than posing interesting questions about what cloning would mean as us for a society....or it does so deeply in to these questions it becomes too much for people.

For example.....Aliens vs. Black Mirror.

Aliens is a fun sci-fi movie with action, hostile lifeforms and the struggle to survive against a superior predator. It doesn't ask deep questions about how megacorps with interstellar reach have changed society, or how the ability to travel light years in one life time has informed the human race. It obliquely references these concepts to set the scene but it doesn't really explore them. (Not that that's bad, and not that Aliens is average sci-fi to me. It doesn't go deep but it's got all the right components for a sci-fi thriller.)

Black Mirror, on the other end of the scale, goes deep with its questions of what technology might do to the human race and our interactions with each other, down to the level of "how could technology ruin a marriage?" Fascinating to think of the implications but not always "fun" or "thrilling." Or even believable.

In the middle of those two things I'd put a lot of written sci-fi, both classic and modern. Ray Bradbury, William Gibson. Stories whose premise and execution makes you think about how the world might be different if X, Y or Z were true. One of my favorite sci-fi stories is about some colonists who crash land on a planet with special radiation, that causes people's life cycles to accelerate by 1000%. So people are born, grow up, grow old and die within a week. And it kind of explores how they adapt to that reality and eventually seek to escape it.

(Star Trek aside, but I felt like DS:9 really underplayed their alien cultures compared to previous ST series, even the original. Bajorans, Kardassians and parts of the Dominion didn't have the strong cultural and alien identity of the Klingons, the Vulcans, even the Borg. Interesting non-human cultures where you can explore different ways of thinking to me is the entire reason to have aliens in your sci-fi.....other than to have something to shoot at, that is.)

So yeah, I think people dismiss sci-fi sometimes because a lot of modern sci-fi is a little lazy and has started to treat sci-fi like fantasy. I feel like modern sci-fi often doesn't explore the ideas that make it sci-fi to begin with, so much as use it for the backdrop of your garden variety fiction themes. Love, revenge, redemption, discovery. (Take the Minority Report for example. A pretty good action movie with a sci-fi backdrop but that only really pays lip service to the ideas it brings up rather than exploring them. Sci-fi there is just a setting for Tom Cruise to win and police to fly around with jet packs and ridiculous lights on their helmets.)

I'm sure a lot of it is a fear that going to deep on an idea will scare audiences away, or bore them with the details. But to me the details are what make sci-fi, sci-fi. If you don't talk about the details that make your world different from mine, all I really end up seeing are actors in funny clothes with a lot of make up and a shit load of CGI going woosh.

It's like if I want someone to lean that hard on established tropes they feel don't need to explain, I'll go do fantasy.

[Egan_BW]

On the flipside, you can sometimes get interesting things by starting with your fantasy tropes and applying a speculative fiction mindset to them, like how society would actually be impacted by having a thousand level four wizards running around, breaking physics.

[Culise]

Hee.  I was going to just PTW, but I see we just received a subject change from the Harlan Ellison school of thought.

Nah, I kid. It's a good change. This lets us discuss all sorts of stuff, including fantasy, speculative history, and so forth, without talking about stuff like fornicating crickets.

[Teneb]

Hee.  I was going to just PTW, but I see we just received a subject change from the Harlan Ellison school of thought.

Nah, I kid. It's a good change. This lets us discuss all sorts of stuff, including fantasy, speculative history, and so forth, without talking about stuff like fornicating crickets.

Once I saw that people were talking about regular old fantasy, I decided to add a line to the OP making clear that this is ok.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Historical fiction is some of my favorite work. IMO, the best reflection of life is distilled through unfamiliar experiences.

Anyone a fan of Bernard Cornwell or Patrick O'Brien?

[feelotraveller]

[snip] all I really end up seeing are actors in funny clothes with a lot of make up and a shit load of CGI going woosh.

Ah, movies.  I much prefer books.