# On Science Fiction **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 2, 2015, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-science-fiction/721491 "2015-06-02T23:38:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2015, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-science-fiction/721491/61 "2015-06-05T15:52:07Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Don’t forget the lasguns in _Dune._ I read this as “Don’t forget the \*lasagnas \*in Dune.” Opens up huge vistas for the next direction in the field. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2015, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-science-fiction/721491/62 "2015-06-05T18:02:26Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I read this as “Don’t forget the \*lasagnas \*in Dune.” > > Opens up huge vistas for the next direction in the field. I’m thinking a Garfield/Dune mashup. Jon as the Padishah Emperor. Nermal as Alia. Liz as a Reverend Mother. “I am the _tabicat rillyfat_!” ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2015, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-science-fiction/721491/63 "2015-06-05T18:11:46Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > I don’t think most science fiction contains any of those three things: > > 1. Faster than light spaceships > 2. Lasers used as weapons > 3. Monsters > > Here’s a list of what someone has rated as the top science fiction novels of all time: > > [http://bestsciencefictionbooks.com/top-25-best-science-fiction-books.php](http://bestsciencefictionbooks.com/top-25-best-science-fiction-books.php) > > Most of them do not contain any of the three. 20 out of 25 of those books contain at least one of those elements. Most combine all three, especially if you are generous with your understanding of “Monster” and understand “laser” to mean any directed energy weapon. ---
**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:** [June 5, 2015, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-science-fiction/721491/64 "2015-06-05T18:54:49Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > I’m thinking a Garfield/Dune mashup. Jon as the Padishah Emperor. Nermal as Alia. Liz as a Reverend Mother. “I am the _tabicat rillyfat_!” [I can see it now.](http://memegenerator.net/instance2/106623) ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2015, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-science-fiction/721491/65 "2015-06-05T18:59:02Z")
[“Paulfield, did you try to mail Nermalia to Geidi Prime again?”](http://www.angelfire.com/ca2/garfieldrocks/images/nermal01.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2015, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-science-fiction/721491/66 "2015-06-05T21:38:44Z")
> [@eburacum45](#): > > . . . The thing that irks me about much science fiction is that the people who are described as living in the far future and ‘enjoying superior technology’ are also described as being \*Homo sapiens \*-identical to us. . . . Often, but certainly not always. Arthur C. Clarke, in “City and the Stars” (I believe, quoting only from memory) had a bit about how humans had lost the instinctive fear of heights, because of safety equipment. More profound, “Brave New World” explores post-humanity…and did so eighty some years ago. Books like “Half Past Human” and “The Godwhale” by T.J. Bass look into similar ideas with updated technology. > [@](#): > > . . . It was fairly radical back in the Sixties to show black and white and Russians and Americans interacting as equals and friends, so kudos to them . . . There is the problem of making the drama relevant to the audience. Imagine, if you will, trying to promote and perform a play, in the year 1775, having to do with the socially dividing effects of the abortion controversy. Would audiences even begin to comprehend it? They’d just throw cabbages! Science fiction has long suffered from a ceteris paribus effect, where one single social change is presented, and the consequences of this are explored, but pretty much everything else is shown as unchanged. It’s a dramatic limitation, a problem inherent in the medium. (It’s also H.G. Wells directive: introduce one new idea, but leave everything else unchanged.) If your story is about robots, and self-aware DNA, and advanced aliens, and alterations in the basic physical forces, and time travel, and the sexualization of children, and the breakdown of organized religion, and the warrior-honor of a strong swordsman…it’d be a buggered-up muddle! ---
**Author:** ![Damfino](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Damfino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damfino)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2015, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-science-fiction/721491/67 "2015-06-05T22:50:47Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I read this as “Don’t forget the \*lasagnas \*in Dune.” > > Opens up huge vistas for the next direction in the field. National Lampoon’s \* Doon \* by Ellis Weiner featured a dessert planet entirely devoid of entrees . ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2015, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-science-fiction/721491/68 "2015-06-06T02:22:49Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **Trinopus** : > > If your story is about robots, and self-aware DNA, and advanced aliens, and alterations in the basic physical forces, and time travel, and the sexualization of children, and the breakdown of organized religion, and the warrior-honor of a strong swordsman…it’d be a buggered-up muddle! Why do I get the feeling that this is an actual example, and that Orson Scott Card wrote it? ---
**Author:** ![ralfy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ralfy/32/600_2.png) [@ralfy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralfy)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2015, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-science-fiction/721491/69 "2015-06-06T03:17:33Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Other than unreadable, what are we supposed to consider it? I don’t consider it unreadable. It should be considered given points in the OP. If there’s any other reason, then perhaps one can consider the awards it received: > **[The Road](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road#Awards_and_nominations)** > > The Road is a 2006 post-apocalyptic novel by American writer Cormac McCarthy. The book details the grueling journey of a father and his young son over several months across a landscape blasted by an unspecified cataclysm that has destroyed industrial civilization and nearly all life. The novel was awarded the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction in 2006. The book was adapted into a film of the same name in 2009, directed by John Hillcoat. > A fathe... ---
**Author:** ![ralfy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ralfy/32/600_2.png) [@ralfy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralfy)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2015, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-science-fiction/721491/70 "2015-06-06T03:33:31Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > Pretentious, depressing, scientifically and socially implausible, and over rated? I also found it depressing. I think the future envisioned in the work is plausible given the fact that we face multiple predicaments, as explained here: > **[Limits to Growth was right. New research shows we're nearing collapse | Cathy...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/02/limits-to-growth-was-right-new-research-shows-were-nearing-collapse)** > > Graham Turner and Cathy Alexander: Four decades after the book was published, Limit to Growth’s forecasts have been vindicated by new Australian research. Expect the early stages of global collapse to start appearing soon Finally, it was probably these two reasons why I could not see anything pretentious about the work. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2015, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-science-fiction/721491/71 "2015-06-06T06:30:09Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > I’m thinking a Garfield/Dune mashup. Jon as the Padishah Emperor. Nermal as Alia. Liz as a Reverend Mother. “I am the _tabicat rillyfat_!” [The Spice Must Flow](http://thebuzzmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/dune_cat_spice_must_flow-475x267.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2015, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-science-fiction/721491/72 "2015-06-06T06:57:49Z")
> [@ralfy](#): > > I don’t consider it unreadable. It should be considered given points in the OP. If there’s any other reason, then perhaps one can consider the awards it received: > > [The Road - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road#Awards_and_nominations) I do note the conspicuous lack of any Science Fiction awards there. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2015, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-science-fiction/721491/73 "2015-06-06T13:29:30Z")
> [@ralfy](#): > > I also found it depressing. > > I think the future envisioned in the work is plausible given the fact that we face multiple predicaments, as explained here: > > [Limits to Growth was right. New research shows we're nearing collapse | Graham Turner and Cathy Alexander | The Guardian](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/02/limits-to-growth-was-right-new-research-shows-were-nearing-collapse) > > Finally, it was probably these two reasons why I could not see anything pretentious about the work. I find most of the works of modern “literary” writers to be pretentious as all fuck. This doubles down when they use the well-worn tropes of an entertainment genre (such as science fiction) in an “artistic” fashion. I suppose that’s their job and their intention, so I cannot fault them for doing it, but dayum I hate it. (In the interest of full disclosure, I used to read a great deal of fiction. I read f&sf genre almost exclusively from my teens into my twenties, read a great number of classics - Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and the Russians- through my thirties, and now that I am in my fifties my light reading is mostly history and biography. I never seemed to have developed a taste for consciously crafted “literature.”) ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2015, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-science-fiction/721491/74 "2015-06-06T23:03:05Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > I find most of the works of modern “literary” writers to be pretentious as all fuck. . . . I never seemed to have developed a taste for consciously crafted “literature.”) Agreed. There seems to be, as you say, a self-consciously crafted element to this, almost a formula. And it’s a formula I don’t care for either. I far prefer the “formula” of a story the reader enjoys. ---
**Author:** ![ralfy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ralfy/32/600_2.png) [@ralfy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralfy)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2015, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-science-fiction/721491/75 "2015-06-07T05:58:38Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > I do note the conspicuous lack of any Science Fiction awards there. Literary award will do, especially > **[Pulitzer Prize](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulitzer_Prize)** > > The Pulitzer Prizes (/ˈpʊlɪtsər/) are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters." They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fortune as a newspaper publisher. > Prizes in 2024 were awarded in these categories, with three finalists named for each: > Each winner receives a certificate and $15,000 in cash, except in the Public Service category, where a gold medal is awarded. ---
**Author:** ![ralfy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ralfy/32/600_2.png) [@ralfy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralfy)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2015, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-science-fiction/721491/76 "2015-06-07T06:00:41Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > I find most of the works of modern “literary” writers to be pretentious as all fuck. This doubles down when they use the well-worn tropes of an entertainment genre (such as science fiction) in an “artistic” fashion. > > I suppose that’s their job and their intention, so I cannot fault them for doing it, but dayum I hate it. > > (In the interest of full disclosure, I used to read a great deal of fiction. I read f&sf genre almost exclusively from my teens into my twenties, read a great number of classics - Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and the Russians- through my thirties, and now that I am in my fifties my light reading is mostly history and biography. I never seemed to have developed a taste for consciously crafted “literature.”) I don’t think it makes sense to compare fiction with non-fiction. ---
**Author:** ![ralfy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ralfy/32/600_2.png) [@ralfy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralfy)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2015, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-science-fiction/721491/77 "2015-06-07T06:04:37Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Agreed. There seems to be, as you say, a self-consciously crafted element to this, almost a formula. And it’s a formula I don’t care for either. > > I far prefer the “formula” of a story the reader enjoys. Generally all narrative works from different media use them. The irony is that these elements generally mirror reality, which is part of non-fiction. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2015, 8:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-science-fiction/721491/78 "2015-06-07T08:40:15Z")
> [@ralfy](#): > > Literary award will do, especially > > [Pulitzer Prize - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulitzer_Prize) That doesn’t make it _good SF_ or readable as such. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2015, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-science-fiction/721491/79 "2015-06-07T10:33:50Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > That doesn’t make it _good SF_ or readable as such. I disagree - a good book that happens to be SF is by definition good SF. SF is legitimate literature, and is judged according to the same merits as any other form of literature. ---
**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:** [June 7, 2015, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-science-fiction/721491/80 "2015-06-07T13:50:46Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > That doesn’t make it _good SF_ or readable as such. I think The Road is not definitely SF, but it’s also not definitely not-SF. As I said earlier, I think SF requires a Maguffin which has some sort of scientific or quasi-scientific explanation, and which plays a pivotal role in determining how the characters act in the story. In The Road, there’s an apocalyptic event which among other things destroys all plant life, and to which the characters spend the book responding. That could make it SF. However, it’s deliberately VERY light on the explanation part: while it sure feels like a meteor strike or something, the “or something” is kind of key. Even books like **The DIspossessed** , with its ansible technology (very poorly explained), at least spend some time talking about what it is. McCarthy never tells you what’s going on. That said, people who call it unreadable? Again, obviously different tastes, but for me I couldn’t put it down. It was exactly up my alley, beautiful and dark and suspenseful and dreadful and bleak as all fuck, and I genuinely loved it. There’s a lot of “literary” SF that I think is a steaming pile, but not this one. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-science-fiction/721491.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-science-fiction/721491.md?page=5)