Sorry for making another lameass topic with a lameass title. >_>
Reason I created this is because I was assigned to deal with the topic of science fiction in an American cultural studies class (on borders and conflicts/other problems that are going on in those areas). And I've found lots of literature on science fiction and its relevance to real world matters, but I still feel like I lack somewhat of an overview.
As I have no idea whom else to ask for a basic overview (the first works on science fiction that would come to anybody's mind and their relevance to that specific topic), I decided I should probably create a topic here. I'm sorry! :/ I've chosen that title so people could discuss about other matters too in here. And I'll probably delete this post once I feel like I know enough. Again, I'm very sorry. I have a very bad feeling about doing this, but this is the only forum where I feel there's a chance I could get serious and smart replies, so yea. ^^
Mainstream science fiction, in my opinion, seems to touch the more serious topics only very lightly. Though I think Avatar, for example, has a more serious message hidden in it as well. With most of the stuff like Star Trek, I feel it's very black and whitish for the most part though. :/ I could maybe still use it to go into more subtle stuff though, such as how the alien is presented, or how the crew is made up of people from different human races, which was a kind of revolutionary idea at that time.
I don't know any of the works of Stanislaw Lem, but I guess it would be a good idea to have a look at them, right?
Sorry, I'm really a bit clueless on this. :(
Joined: 1/16/2008
Posts: 358
Location: The Netherlands
I'm not sure what exactly you're trying to achieve... i think you're trying to get an overview of science fiction in relation to reality?
some website i quickly googled has 'where science meets fiction' as a subtitle (that's as far as I've looked into it though): http://www.technovelgy.com/
ps. fun SciFi story: http://www.multivax.com/last_question.htmlRandil wrote:
You should take a look at the movie Moon. Very good, very deep, and very fascinating.
ah yeah, good one :) same as for 'Disctrict 9' (using SciFi to convey a real message)
I don't know if it's what you're looking for, but most Philip K. Dick books bring up larger philosophical issues like the meaning of identity and reality. He's kind of a nutjob which is why I like him. Also try Sirens of Titan or Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut. Not quite traditional sci fi but good reads.
Thanks a lot Randil, that's exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for. :)
DaTeL237 wrote:
I'm not sure what exactly you're trying to achieve... i think you're trying to get an overview of science fiction in relation to reality?
Well, yes. But I was also hoping to find some very personal opinions on which pieces would be best suited to have a look at. I'm not very much into science fiction myself and Google can only spit out facts and links, but I'm also interested in personal/emotional aspects of it, if that makes any sense. x_x
Still thanks, for googling it for me! ^^
(I'll have a look at District 9 :X)
alden wrote:
I don't know if it's what you're looking for, but most Philip K. Dick books bring up larger philosophical issues like the meaning of identity and reality. He's kind of a nutjob which is why I like him. Also try Sirens of Titan or Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut. Not quite traditional sci fi but good reads.
Haha, I like those kind of nutjob people too, maybe because I'm one of them myself. ^^ Sirens of Titan, I'll definitely have a look at as well. I already know Slaughterhouse 5, I don't regard it as sci-fi enough though. Thanks! :D
Sorry that so far, the answers are only directed at me and my problem. I really have a bad feeling bothering you guys with this. :( I create way too many topics that are only about myself. It's a very bad habbit of mine..
Ehh, don't worry about it. You're giving everyone a chance to tell you what to do, and if you don't think people like bossing each other around, you don't know much about humanity. :)
As for the topic at hand, Star Trek ends up seeming very black and white in part because the original setting was heavily idealized. Gene Roddenberry had a very optimistic view of the future, which is why e.g. the crew is racially integrated. Every once in awhile you'll hear someone talk about how there's no money in the Federation, no poor people, no hunger, etc. Given that, the Federation is clearly on the "good" side, ergo anyone arrayed against them is on the "bad" side. After thinking about it for a bit, I found the entire concept a bit disturbing, though, since one obvious interpretation is that the Enterprise is out there carrying the White Man's Burden and trying to uplift all those primitive lesser cultures.
The Star Trek universe got a lot less idealized starting with Deep Space 9, though.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Pretty much all above-average science fiction, like any noteworthy piece of art, conveys a message. Vast majority of the early sci-fi authors, before the industry commercialized it to the point where cheap thrills won the popularity contest against the subtext (about early 80s or so, I guess), had created the fiction entourage to illustrate their political, social, and pilosophical views and ideas, first and foremost, in the light of technological advancements. I never understood the obsession over movies like District 9. That flick is about as deep as Terminator 2; i. e., perfectly transparent (and full of plot holes to boot). It literally screams "XENOPHOBIA EQUALS HYPOCRISY EQUALS SCREWING YOURSELF UP" in your face inbetween the acts of gratuitious violence and Parkinson's-shaken camera work. The Matrix trilogy is deep, though, even if only for the sake of supreme deepness.
If you read some of the guys that started writing sci-fi before 60s you will find that some of them are actual philosophers — and pretty much all of them are avid moralists, questioning stuff like the future of mankind, the nature of man, reality and subjectivity, freedom of thought and will, in every novel, and providing thought experiments disguised as short stories (ever watched the Twilight Zone? That kind of stuff) in heaps. I actually came to dislike some of them (Wells comes to mind) due to overly moralistic outlook that made the actual plots — which sported nice ideas, mind you — about as thin as paper, if not outright boring. I mean, you can see the sharp contrast after reading something by Jules Verne, who wasn't that much of a philosopher (and in fact was basically paid to write more). That guy definitely knew how to write books to make them interesting, which is why, unlike Wells's, his novels aged a lot better, which is also reflected by their film adaptations. Not that it's relevant to the main topic, of course.
Anyway, if you want to analyze sci-fi as a genre and a cultural phenomenon, I suggest not starting with movies, let alone those filmed in the recent 25 years. As for recommendations, find any collection/compilation from this list. Not only you will get the exact idea of what sci-fi is about, you will also have a great time. :)
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Thanks a lot moozooh. I would proceed as you suggested if I was interested in making a serious study on that matter. But I'll be graded mainly through other criteria, for example how well suited my analysis would be for the general public who aren't so much interested in theoretical/philosophical standpoints, but in how bad and terrible this world can be (the empathic/emotional side). If I made it very intellectual and smart, I'd only get a bad mark. In my country's universities it's a lot more about selling yourself well, not so much about the quality of your work. Is it different in Russia?
I'll check out the short stories on that list though. ^^
As well as the links in the other two posts. Thanks again.
I'm really surprised by the high number of replies I've gotten so far. :X
Thanks a lot moozooh. I would proceed as you suggested if I was interested in making a serious study on that matter. But I'll be graded mainly through other criteria, for example how well suited my analysis would be for the general public who aren't so much interested in theoretical/philosophical standpoints, but in how bad and terrible this world can be (the empathic/emotional side).
Bad and terrible? Then you should probably turn to cyberpunk, invasion literature and other dystopian genres which, once again, have been thoroughly explored by early sci-fi writers (basically all the same guys: Asimov, Wells, Clarke, Simak, Heinlein, Lem, Dick, Bradbury, etc.). There are also good movies on the subject (though once again, try avoiding the more recent ones for that purpose, they just don't make sense).
Still, Sheckley's shorts are a must-read. :)
Kuwaga wrote:
If I made it very intellectual and smart, I'd only get a bad mark. In my country's universities it's a lot more about selling yourself well, not so much about the quality of your work. Is it different in Russia?
Unfortunately not. Public education system underwent rapid decline since mid-90s thanks to several subsequent economic recessions, various remarkable features of the Putin regime (corruption coming from lack of funding coming from… yes, corruption), and the advent of increasingly retarded things such as Bologna Process and Unified state examination, both of which made the whole idea of spending 15–16 years of your life on education in public institutions a bad joke. I could tell you more, but this is a very different subject that has no place here.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Thanks, this post of yours is pure gold for me. ^^
Lol yea, I'll avoid the newer movies as much as possible. But I feel obligated to mention Star Trek and Avatar at least (I try to keep away from the Matrix though because I have a feeling everybody is tired it by now because it had been so ridiculously overyped. I agree it's good of course.. But with all these games and sequels to it, discussions in school about it in every subject, etc.. It really was just way over the top imo).
I'll write you a pm about the other part of your message.
You're just fucking stupid, everyone hates you, sorry to tell you the truth. no one likes you, you're someone pretentious and TASes only to be on speed game, but don't have any hope, you won't get there.
Wikipedia has that story in the "Science fiction short stories" category, unlike anything from Kafka. :P
I think Borges has always been science fiction, but sci-fi has always been a bad word for "serious" writers, so they rather call him something else.
You're just fucking stupid, everyone hates you, sorry to tell you the truth. no one likes you, you're someone pretentious and TASes only to be on speed game, but don't have any hope, you won't get there.
Joined: 8/26/2006
Posts: 1139
Location: United Kingdom
I don't really read science fiction. However, I do absolutely love this short story. It is from a collection of short stories called Cosmocomics by Italo Calvino. Each story begins with a scientific 'fact' (many have been refuted since this was written) that the author uses as inspiration for a folk style tale. The story linked above is based on George Darwin's view that the moon was once very close to the Earth and has very gradually been pushed away. It imagines our ancestors traveling in boats to meet the moon and using ladders to climb on to its surface. It's a really quite beautiful story. I suggest that you read it.
Pretty much all above-average science fiction, like any noteworthy piece of art, conveys a message. Vast majority of the early sci-fi authors, before the industry commercialized it to the point where cheap thrills won the popularity contest against the subtext (about early 80s or so, I guess), had created the fiction entourage to illustrate their political, social, and pilosophical views and ideas, first and foremost, in the light of technological advancements.
In my opinion using sci-fi as a medium to convey some kind of sociological, political, moral or other such type of message does not necessarily make it good sci-fi, nor is it a requisite. A sci-fi story can be good even if it does not contain any deep message, or even deep and involved story-telling.
I once read the opinion that one requisite of good sci-fi is that it tells a story (or contains relevant elements, plot points or messages) which couldn't be easily told in a non-sci-fi story (usually also non-fantasy, as the line between sci-fi and fantasy can often be quite blurred when talking about story-telling). If a sci-fi story could be told equally easily and fluently in a completely non-sci-fi non-fantasy setting (for example by moving the setting to European colonialists invading some native cultures somewhere, thus introducing a significant difference in technology between two cultures) then it makes the whole point of it being sci-fi kind of moot, from the story-telling point of view. The sci-fi becomes decoration and not an integral part of the story.
The Matrix trilogy could probably not be told very fluently in a non-sci-fi setting. Also Terminator 2 contains pearls like:
Watching John with the machine, it was suddenly so clear. The terminator wouldn't stop, it would never leave him. It would never hurt him or shout at him or get drunk and hit him or say it was too busy to spend time with him. And it would die to protect him. Of all the would-be fathers that came over the years, this thing, this machine, was the only thing that measured up. In an insane world, it was the sanest choice.
(I'm not saying that the Matrix trilogy and Terminator 2 are good sci-fi. I'm just saying that IMO they contain many elements which could not be told in a non-sci-fi story and hence are good candidates for good sci-fi.)
In my opinion using sci-fi as a medium to convey some kind of sociological, political, moral or other such type of message does not necessarily make it good sci-fi, nor is it a requisite. A sci-fi story can be good even if it does not contain any deep message, or even deep and involved story-telling.
Prerequisite or not, it's how it's been done originally for nearly the first hundred years of sci-fi's existence, and I think it's a good thing. If a work of fiction has something else to say aside from describing unrealistic events happening in unrealistic circumstances, it only increases its value, doesn't it? I believe it's not even the fact of political, social, or philosophical subtext that matters, but how well does a book allow to read deeply into itself. But then again, there's this brilliant episode of South Park. :D
Warp wrote:
I once read the opinion that one requisite of good sci-fi is that it tells a story (or contains relevant elements, plot points or messages) which couldn't be easily told in a non-sci-fi story (usually also non-fantasy, as the line between sci-fi and fantasy can often be quite blurred when talking about story-telling). If a sci-fi story could be told equally easily and fluently in a completely non-sci-fi non-fantasy setting (for example by moving the setting to European colonialists invading some native cultures somewhere, thus introducing a significant difference in technology between two cultures) then it makes the whole point of it being sci-fi kind of moot, from the story-telling point of view. The sci-fi becomes decoration and not an integral part of the story.
This opinion has merit, but it really is dodgy, because the sci-fi being a decoration and not an integral part of the story boils down to a matter of opinion.
Is, say, Neon Genesis Evangelion (excuse the trivial example) a series about giant robots fighting giant aliens with biblical symbols to save the world from an impending disaster? That can't easily be told in non-fiction, that's for sure. Or is it a series about fragility of humans and their relationships and problems of self-determination? This requires as much fiction as going outside and talking to the next person. So which of the two is a decoration, and which one is the real thing? Maybe I'm mistaken, but there can never be a solid consensus.
Warp wrote:
The Matrix trilogy could probably not be told very fluently in a non-sci-fi setting.
The main issue with the Matrix is that it can't be told fluently at all. :D
But you know, it would be an interesting challenge to try and describe the events of the 2nd and 3rd movies in a concise manner without touching any of the symbolism every scene is so rich in and still have it make sense.
Warp wrote:
Watching John with the machine, it was suddenly so clear. The terminator wouldn't stop, it would never leave him. It would never hurt him or shout at him or get drunk and hit him or say it was too busy to spend time with him. And it would die to protect him. Of all the would-be fathers that came over the years, this thing, this machine, was the only thing that measured up. In an insane world, it was the sanest choice.
Yeah, I actually consider Sarah's narration to be one of the things that make T2 a good movie, heh.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Joined: 8/26/2006
Posts: 1139
Location: United Kingdom
So I was recently reminded of this short story and this short thread. I think that some of you guys may find this interesting so I'll post it here.
It is called Ms fnd in a lbry by Hal Draper and it is a science fiction satire of what would become the information age (it was written back in 1961). I think you will be pleasantly surprised at how the information age as we know it now has been represented here. Bear in mind that this was written before the internet or many of the means of data storage that we now know, and also consider the significance of, what we would now call, textese in the title and its purpose in the story.
This short piece of writing is set billions of years in the future and is told from the perspective of an alien anthropologist writing about the fate of Earth through over-information.
The text is here:
http://home.comcast.net/~bcleere/texts/draper.html
It is by no means a masterpiece, but it is interesting and quite amusing nonetheless, and I'm sure that there are some users here that will get get a kick out of it.
Mukki's story neatly encapsulates the major problem with most science fiction, something along the lines of, it's written to service a misinformed or misguided conceit of the author, and has virtually no redeeming literary value because the writer isn't actually a good writer or interested in telling a story or in relating to the reader, but rather, someone that has stupid ideas about science and is compelled to write nonsensical fiction with sciencey sounding words and letters and numbers because it makes them feel smart.
As a young child I used to read a lot of science fiction but gradually found myself to despise the genre almost universally. I didn't give it much thought, I just stopped reading it since it no longer pleased me. That is, until I started getting into the nonfiction of analyzing fiction.
For me, the most easily accessible book on the subject is Six Walks in the Fictional Woods by Umberto Eco. In a nutshell, it talks about the roles of both the reader and the author in fiction, and the responsibilities they have to each other, and the ways they fail. Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of science fiction authors fail their readers nearly entirely. Here is a a telling passage from Six Walks that has much to do with one of science fiction authors' primary failings:
Figure 11
Certain authors have suggested that a good visual metaphor of a self-voiding fiction is the celebrated optical illusion shown in Figure 11, which on a first "reading" gives both the impression of a coherent world and the feeling of some inexplicable impossibility. On a second reading (to read it properly, one should try to design it), one realizes how and why it is bidimensionally possible but tridimensionally absurd.
Yet even in this case, the impossibility of a universe in which Figure 11 can exist derives from the fact that we tend to think such a universe operates according to the same laws of solid geometry that obtain in the real world. Obviously if these laws hold, the figure is impossible. But as a matter of fact, this figure is not geometrically impossible, and the proof is that it was possible to design it on a bidimensional surface. We are simply misled when we apply to it not only the rules of plane geometry but also the rules of perspective used in drawing three-dimensional objects. This figure would be possible not only in Flatland but also in our own world, if we did not take the shading as a representation of shadows on a three-dimensional structure. And so we must admit that in order to be impressed, disturbed, frightened, or touched by even the most impossible of worlds, we must rely upon our knowledge of the actual one. In other words, we ought to take the real world as a background.
This means that fictional worlds are parasites of the real world. There is no rule that prescribes the number of fictional elements that are acceptable in a work. In fact, there is a great deal of variety here -- forms such as the fable, for instance, lead us to accept correctives to our knowledge of the real world at every step. But everything that the text doesn't name or describe explicitly as different from what exists in the real world must be understood as corresponding to the laws and conditions of the real world.
Of course, most science fiction authors fail us at every turn with nonsensical fictional elements, without proper or believable correctives to our knowledge that would allow a thoughtful person to suspend disbelief and immerse themself in the story. In his seminal essay On the Structural Analysis of Science Fiction (which can be read in his essay collection Microworlds), Stanislaw Lem talks about a similar problem specifically from the perspective of science fiction:
If we were to change railway signals so that they ordered the stopping of trains in moments of danger not by blinking red lights but by pointing with stuffed dragons, we would be using fantastic objects as signals, but those objects would still have a real, nonfantastic function. The fact that there are no dragons has no relationship to the real purpose or method of the signaling.
As in life we can solve real problems with the help of images of nonexistent beings, so in literature can we signal the existence of real problems with the help of prima facie impossible occurrences or objects. Even when the happenings it describes are totally impossible, a science fiction work may still point out meaningful, indeed rational, problems.
For example, the social, psychological, political, and economic problems of space travel may be depicted quite reliastically in science fiction even though the technological parameters of the spaceships are quite fantastic in the sense it will for all eternity be impossible to build a spaceship with such parameters.
But what if everything in a science fiction work is fantastic? What if not only the objects but also the problems have no chance of ever being realized, as when impossible time travel machines are used to point out impossible time travel paradoxes? In such cases science fiction is playing an empty game. Since empty games have no hidden meaning, since they represent nothing and predict nothing, they have no relationship at all to the real world and can therefore please us only as logical puzzles. Their value is autonomous, because they lack all semantic reference, therefore they are worthwhile or worthless only as games.
But how do we evaluate empty games? Simply by their formal qualities. They must contain a multitude of rules, they must be elegant, strict, witty, precise, original. They must therefore show at least a minimum of complexity and an inner coherence, that is, it must be forbidden during the play to make any change in the rules that would make the play easier. Nevertheless, ninety eight percent of the empty games in science fiction are very primitive, very naive on parameter processes.
And there is the rub. Almost all of science fiction (and indeed, much of fiction in general) is just one big giant empty game of no semantic value. Inelegant, imprecise, unclever, unoriginal, with neither intrinsic nor extrinsic meaning. Of course, certain allowances must be made, and we evaluate fiction written in 1890 differently from that written in 1990. But even when we allow for the fact that people didn't know as much back in the early days of science fiction, we are still stuck with the inevitable realization that they knew enough to construct a story with semantic value, they just didn't care to. And almost none of the science fiction authors in history are good enough at their craft to make their empty games worth our while.
It's easy to come up with a long list problems of any genre. Are you trying to say science fiction is just bad and state it as a fact? You can't judge art just by checking if it follows certain rules. Any attempt at an objective judgement of art will always fail, no matter how long the list of arguments. That's because all of those argument will always be based on personal or cultural values. But there are always other people who have different values. And if you want to argue that their values must be flawed then, then that's just telling them how superior you think you are. You can't be an objective judge of that. I'm totally fine with arguing why you think science fiction is bad and I'm also fine with literary criticism if it's labeled as such, but in the context of these forums I feel the tone of your message is a bit off. If it had been (properly?) labeled as literary criticism I think I'd have enjoyed the read very much though.
Figure 11 Certain authors have suggested that a good visual metaphor of a self-voiding fiction is the celebrated optical illusion shown in Figure 11, which on a first "reading" gives both the impression of a coherent world and the feeling of some inexplicable impossibility. On a second reading (to read it properly, one should try to design it), one realizes how and why it is bidimensionally possible but tridimensionally absurd. Yet even in this case, the impossibility of a universe in which Figure 11 can exist derives from the fact that we tend to think such a universe operates according to the same laws of solid geometry that obtain in the real world. Obviously if these laws hold, the figure is impossible. But as a matter of fact, this figure is not geometrically impossible, and the proof is that it was possible to design it on a bidimensional surface. We are simply misled when we apply to it not only the rules of plane geometry but also the rules of perspective used in drawing three-dimensional objects. This figure would be possible not only in Flatland but also in our own world, if we did not take the shading as a representation of shadows on a three-dimensional structure. And so we must admit that in order to be impressed, disturbed, frightened, or touched by even the most impossible of worlds, we must rely upon our knowledge of the actual one. In other words, we ought to take the real world as a background. This means that fictional worlds are parasites of the real world. There is no rule that prescribes the number of fictional elements that are acceptable in a work. In fact, there is a great deal of variety here -- forms such as the fable, for instance, lead us to accept correctives to our knowledge of the real world at every step. But everything that the text doesn't name or describe explicitly as different from what exists in the real world must be understood as corresponding to the laws and conditions of the real world.
