# Any genuinely new ideas in recent science-fiction? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 7, 2012, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-genuinely-new-ideas-in-recent-science-fiction/640267 "2012-11-07T19:28:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Aquadementia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aquadementia/32/555_2.png) [@Aquadementia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aquadementia)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-genuinely-new-ideas-in-recent-science-fiction/640267/21 "2012-11-09T01:35:00Z")
> [@Declan](#): > > In Peter F Hamilton’s Pandora’s Star, he was using trains to go through wormholes. Never seen that coming, with space opera using primarily spaceships to go where no man has gone before. > > Declan Is that like StarGate SG1 or [Galaxy Express 999](http://www.absoluteanime.com/captain_harlock/index-ge999-2.jpg)? ---
**Author:** ![Lasciel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e79b87/32.png) [@Lasciel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lasciel)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-genuinely-new-ideas-in-recent-science-fiction/640267/22 "2012-11-09T02:12:21Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > Well, there’s Galaxy Quest. > > “They’re not ALL ‘historical documents.’ Surely, you don’t think _Gilligan’s Island_ is a…” > **“THOSE POOR PEOPLE!”** God I love that movie. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-genuinely-new-ideas-in-recent-science-fiction/640267/23 "2012-11-09T02:51:36Z")
> [@Bridget\_Burke](#): > > Cordwainer Smith was doing enhanced animals (Underpeople) in the 1960’s. > > Will keep watching to see if there’s anything new… Jules Verne was [doing it](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Island_of_Doctor_Moreau)in the 1890’s ---
**Author:** ![tanstaafl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ba8739/32.png) [@tanstaafl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tanstaafl)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-genuinely-new-ideas-in-recent-science-fiction/640267/24 "2012-11-09T03:04:51Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#): > > Jules Verne was [doing it](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Island_of_Doctor_Moreau)in the 1890’s You misspelled H.G. Wells name… 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-genuinely-new-ideas-in-recent-science-fiction/640267/25 "2012-11-09T03:21:28Z")
D’oh :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-genuinely-new-ideas-in-recent-science-fiction/640267/26 "2012-11-09T07:13:04Z")
> [@Aquadementia](#): > > That is a pretty common theme in sci-fi. > Usually with aliens not familiar with the concept of lies or people are conditioned somehow. > There was a Twilight Zone that used the first method. > I think there was even a Carol Burnett sketch where they had to perform a song while electronically monitored for lies. > Plus a few short stories I don’t remember the names of off the top of my head. But in past treatments I’ve seen, people understood the concept of deceit, they were just unable to use it (same thing with the Jim Carrey movie _Liar Liar_). _The Invention of Lying_ is the only book or movie I’ve seen where we have a society where the concept of deceit doesn’t exist. I’ll grant the Thermians in _Galaxy Quest_ seem to have no concept of deceit but _Galaxy Quest_ wasn’t about that idea. It was just something in the background to move the story along. We saw very little about how their society worked. ---
**Author:** ![Tristan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tristan/32/18058_2.png) [@Tristan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tristan)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-genuinely-new-ideas-in-recent-science-fiction/640267/27 "2012-11-09T15:45:55Z")
In the Larry Niven/Brenda Cooper book “Building Harliquin’s Moon”, a group of human refugee’s are fleeing the Solar System in a fusion powered space ship. The humans are in suspended animation, until the drive goes nuts, and has to dump the anti-matter core. Given the near perfect suspended animation technology, the humans smash together some small planetoids to create an Earth like world upon which to build a particle accellerator to create anti-matter. That’s just the rough frame surrounding a very interesting story. I recommend the book! ---
**Author:** ![FlyingDragonFan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c89c15/32.png) [@FlyingDragonFan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlyingDragonFan)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-genuinely-new-ideas-in-recent-science-fiction/640267/28 "2012-11-09T16:58:33Z")
Not exactly sci-fi, more like a mashup of western and fantasy, but Felix Gilman’s _The Half-Made World_ had some ideas I’d never seen before. The reality in the book is a vaguely 1800s America, except instead of a central government, it’s a wild west dominated by two opposing factions, the Engine and the Gun. The Engine is a dystopian society ruled by seemingly sentient giant trains, bent on controlling nature. The Gun is an outlaw group of assassins and rebels who are given superhuman abilities by their demon-possessed sidearms. In addition, the further west across the continent the characters go, the more reality breaks down, as physics and time get weird and monsters appear. It’s a crazy trip, and I definitely recommend it. ---
**Author:** ![well\_he\_s\_back](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/3ab097/32.png) [@well\_he\_s\_back](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/well_he_s_back)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-genuinely-new-ideas-in-recent-science-fiction/640267/29 "2012-11-09T17:18:11Z")
Has anyone done anything further with ambisexual species since LeGuinn’s “Left Hand of Darkness”? Love that book. Some of Octavia Butler’s works were/are pretty unique ---
**Author:** ![Meurglys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/258eb7/32.png) [@Meurglys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meurglys)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-genuinely-new-ideas-in-recent-science-fiction/640267/30 "2012-11-09T17:26:41Z")
Yes, I really liked _The Half-Made World_, too. Weird stuff. He has a sort-of sequel to it due out soon, I believe. **Kim Stanley Robinson** ’s latest, _2312_, takes the idea of asteroid habitats to extremes! Hundreds of them have been hollowed out and all sorts of ecologies developed inside. And their orbits have all been changed as well… edit to clarify which book I liked! ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-genuinely-new-ideas-in-recent-science-fiction/640267/31 "2012-11-09T17:33:24Z")
Another of China Mieville’s books defies easy genre-categorization (and I hope folks won’t discuss it here, because even categorizing it may involve spoilers): **The City and the City**. The relationship between the two titular characters is unlike anything I’ve seen elsewhere. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-genuinely-new-ideas-in-recent-science-fiction/640267/32 "2012-11-09T20:40:16Z")
> [@tanstaafl](#): > > H. Beam Piper’s Fuzzies had no concept of lying. There’s a major plot point in one of the books where they are having to ironically teach a Fuzzy how to lie in order to prove that it is telling the truth about something. (The society in the book has a perfect lie detector but they have to be able to prove that it works on Fuzzies (by showing that it will detect one of them lying) in order to prove that its statements are in fact true) It’s only a short, but it may be Harry Harrison’s finest work: “The Streets of Ashkelon.” A relatively primitive race works everything out according to exhaustive logical analysis. Then a missionary shows up… ---
**Author:** ![FlyingDragonFan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c89c15/32.png) [@FlyingDragonFan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlyingDragonFan)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-genuinely-new-ideas-in-recent-science-fiction/640267/33 "2012-11-09T21:57:07Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Another of China Mieville’s books defies easy genre-categorization … I started reading Mieville’s \*Kraken \*just this morning. Enjoying it so far, though the heavily colloquial British English makes some of it hard to follow. I’m almost wondering if he’s making some of it up, like Burgess did for _A Clockwork Orange_. ---
**Author:** ![BrassyPhrase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ea666f/32.png) [@BrassyPhrase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrassyPhrase)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-genuinely-new-ideas-in-recent-science-fiction/640267/34 "2012-11-09T22:44:57Z")
> [@NitroPress](#): > > It’s only a short, but it may be Harry Harrison’s finest work: “The Streets of Ashkelon.” A relatively primitive race works everything out according to exhaustive logical analysis. Then a missionary shows up… I was thinking of that story, but I couldn’t remember the name of it! Really great short story. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-genuinely-new-ideas-in-recent-science-fiction/640267/35 "2012-11-09T23:07:23Z")
> [@Declan](#): > > In Peter F Hamilton’s Pandora’s Star, he was using trains to go through wormholes. Never seen that coming, with space opera using primarily spaceships to go where no man has gone before. > [@Aquadementia](#): > > Is that like StarGate SG1 or [Galaxy Express 999](http://www.absoluteanime.com/captain_harlock/index-ge999-2.jpg)? Timothy Zahn’s Quadrail series has as a central feature the Quadrail, which is a train that travels between stars. And it’s not quite trains, but the Starrigger trilogy has interstellar travel by truck (they use an alien built Road that passes between gigantic [Tipler cylinders)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotating_Cylinders_and_the_Possibility_of_Global_Causality_Violation). Good series, both of them. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-genuinely-new-ideas-in-recent-science-fiction/640267/36 "2012-11-09T23:12:27Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > And it’s not quite trains, but the Starrigger trilogy has interstellar travel by truck (they use an alien built Road that passes between gigantic [Tipler cylinders)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotating_Cylinders_and_the_Possibility_of_Global_Causality_Violation). > > Good series[…] Seconded. DeJohn’s never quite hit that level of sweeping accomplishment since, unfortunately. But I reread the StarRigger books every year or so with great pleasure. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2012, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-genuinely-new-ideas-in-recent-science-fiction/640267/37 "2012-11-10T18:54:56Z")
Whereas older SF was very often genuinly original and thought provoking, especially in the pulps, todays efforts are more akin to “Space Opera”, (Westerns, Soaps etc.set in space/the future) or rehashes at best of very old “original ideas”. The only contemporary author that I know of, who has any reallly original ideas was mentioned in the o.p. (Ian M Banks), and unfortunately I’m not a great fan of his actual plots. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2012, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-genuinely-new-ideas-in-recent-science-fiction/640267/38 "2012-11-10T20:15:21Z")
> [@Lust4Life](#): > > Whereas older SF was very often genuinly original and thought provoking, especially in the pulps, todays efforts are more akin to “Space Opera”, (Westerns, Soaps etc.set in space/the future) or rehashes at best of very old “original ideas”. Wellll… I’d suggest you round up a good selection of pulps and read all the stuff that was never, ever going to make it into a later collection. I suspect your view of pulps comes from the very select best of the Golden Age, hardly a fair sampling. That said, I don’t think I’ve read a truly compelling piece of short sf since the 1970s or so. The stuff of the last 20 years seems thin and trite where it’s not an obvious rehash of some great sf old enough to pillage. Just offhand, I’d date it from the sharp peak of the first cyberpunk to a rapid devolution into formulaic repetition. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2012, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-genuinely-new-ideas-in-recent-science-fiction/640267/39 "2012-11-12T07:25:37Z")
> [@PookahMacPhellimey](#): > > I thought China Mieville’s _Embassytown_ had a very interesting premise - a species that, very roughly paraphrased, doesn’t/can’t distinguish between language and reality, i.e. a word for them doesn’t refer to a thing, but _is_ the thing - sort of… Like Plato’s Republic? ---
**Author:** ![Cugel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cugel/32/1199_2.png) [@Cugel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cugel)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2012, 8:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-genuinely-new-ideas-in-recent-science-fiction/640267/40 "2012-11-12T08:37:59Z")
> [@Disposable Hero](#): > > where a group of humans had taken from Earth thousands of years ago resulting in non-terran human societies across the cosmos. Jack Vance’s Planet of Adventure series uses this idea. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-genuinely-new-ideas-in-recent-science-fiction/640267.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-genuinely-new-ideas-in-recent-science-fiction/640267.md?page=3)