# Why the hatred for Science Fiction? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 17, 2008, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-for-science-fiction/460288 "2008-08-17T00:28:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2008, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-for-science-fiction/460288/81 "2008-08-19T19:25:40Z")
[QUOTE=BwanaBob] This is the most profound statement I have read here in a long time. [/QUOTE] Why thank you 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2008, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-for-science-fiction/460288/82 "2008-08-19T19:36:39Z")
[QUOTE=Dangerosa] BTW, this is all really interesting in that Michael Chabon won a Hugo for The Yiddish Policeman’s Union. A book that isn’t “filed” under SF, doesn’t have a lot of the SF characteristics (alternative history), and wasn’t written by an SF author, but a mainstream piece of literature written by one of America’s most highly respected novelists. [/QUOTE] Michael Chabon has said quite a few things about [literary vs genre fiction](http://www.latimes.com/features/books/la-ca-chabon27-2008jul27,0,7653961.story): > [@](#): > > **Where did this bias against work created for a popular audience come from?** > > In all fairness, it came from the fact that the vast preponderance of art created for a mass audience is crap. It’s impossible to ignore that. But the vast preponderance of work written as literary art is high-toned crap. The proportion may settle down in the neighborhood of 90/10 – Sturgeon’s Law said that 90% of everything is crud. > > **Let’s talk about this in a specific instance – Cormac McCarthy’s novel “The Road” and its reception.** > > I thought it was an excellent novel. The least interesting thing to me as a reader was that it was science fiction. It presented a very pure example of post-apocalyptic literature, pared down to the essentials of a post-apocalyptic vision. But it’s nothing that anybody reading science fiction over the last 60 or 70 years hasn’t seen done many, many times before – maybe not by writers of McCarthy’s caliber. > > […] > > And when this happens, when a writer of unassailable literary reputation, like McCarthy, does produce a work of genre fiction, under his own name, unlike say John Banville, the critical machine prints out and issues a pass to a writer: “This isn’t science fiction, because it was written by Cormac McCarthy.” Or, “We think all science fiction is bad, unless it’s written by a Margaret Atwood or Cormac McCarthy.” ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2008, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-for-science-fiction/460288/83 "2008-08-19T19:50:26Z")
[QUOTE=Terminus Est] Regardless, science fiction - perhaps you prefer the more pretentious term “speculative fiction” - isn’t only about science or technology. It’s about change, the extrapolation thereof, and the impact of that change on humans, humanity and human society. [/QUOTE] The term speculative fiction is pretentious? That’s kind of ironic: I bet Gene Wolfe would disagree. The term has considerable pedigree, and only fell out of favor in the 70s or so. If anything, it is less pretentious than “literary SF”. ---
**Author:** ![Jayn\_Newell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Jayn\_Newell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jayn_Newell)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2008, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-for-science-fiction/460288/84 "2008-08-19T20:01:16Z")
[QUOTE=Maeglin] If anything, it is less pretentious than “literary SF”. [/QUOTE] _twitch_ Agreed. ‘Literary SF’ is pretty much a way of saying ‘SF is by definition crap’. Nevermind that I wouldn’t touch most ‘literature’ of my own volition. ---
**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:** [August 19, 2008, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-for-science-fiction/460288/85 "2008-08-19T20:04:21Z")
You realize that the term “speculative fiction” was coined by Heinlein hisself, who considered himself the enemy of pretention. ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2008, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-for-science-fiction/460288/86 "2008-08-19T20:06:17Z")
[QUOTE=Maeglin] The term speculative fiction is pretentious? That’s kind of ironic: I bet Gene Wolfe would disagree. The term has considerable pedigree, and only fell out of favor in the 70s or so. If anything, it is less pretentious than “literary SF”. [/QUOTE] Heh. I am quite aware of the provenance of the term. It has served its purpose. Let it fall back into oblivion. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Plastic\_Ninja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f07891/32.png) [@Little\_Plastic\_Ninja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Plastic_Ninja)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2008, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-for-science-fiction/460288/87 "2008-08-19T20:09:02Z")
I took a short-story writing class in college. We were instructed to write no genre fiction. Our professor’s distinction between genre fiction and regular ordinary everyday fiction was this: fiction has people driving the plot, genre fiction has the plot or elements of the plot driving the people. Anything historical was out, anything in the future was out, anything in another world is out – “Because if you’re writing anything worth reading that takes place on Mars or medieval England or whatever, you can set it today. People don’t change and you can’t write effectively about aliens without giving them human characteristics, and if they have human characteristics then they should be human.” The irony that our textbook included _The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas_ was not lost on me. I think it may even have been assigned reading. So what was okay to read? What was, in the professor’s opinion, an excellent example of what our writing should reflect? John Updike. Yeah, I hated that class. If you want me to write Updike I’ll write Updike, but I’ll hate it. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2008, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-for-science-fiction/460288/88 "2008-08-19T20:26:22Z")
[QUOTE=Little Plastic Ninja] I took a short-story writing class in college. We were instructed to write no genre fiction. Our professor’s distinction between genre fiction and regular ordinary everyday fiction was this: fiction has people driving the plot, genre fiction has the plot or elements of the plot driving the people. Anything historical was out, anything in the future was out, anything in another world is out – “Because if you’re writing anything worth reading that takes place on Mars or medieval England or whatever, you can set it today. People don’t change and you can’t write effectively about aliens without giving them human characteristics, and if they have human characteristics then they should be human.” [/quote] Wow, that is concept-for-concept (almost even word-for-word) exactly what my own creative writing teacher said when I was an undergrad. I can’t remember my teacher’s name… I think his last name was Lee. -FrL- ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2008, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-for-science-fiction/460288/89 "2008-08-19T20:27:12Z")
[QUOTE=Jayn\_Newell] _twitch_ Agreed. ‘Literary SF’ is pretty much a way of saying ‘SF is by definition crap’. Nevermind that I wouldn’t touch most ‘literature’ of my own volition. [/QUOTE] There has been sort of an interesting backlash against Chabon’s Hugo - which is some SF Fans saying “hey, don’t give it to a guy who writes ‘literature’ - he isn’t one of us.” (Ignoring the Chabon has fairly substantial geek cred), or “But that’s literature!” Its almost a reverse snobbery. To some extent - Atwood deserves derision from SF Fandom for her own attitudes about them (I love Atwood as a novelist, but her anti-genre snobbery is not my favorite feature about her - however, I think that the author has the right to state her own intent - her intent is not to write works that can be simplifed down into genre terms), but Chabon really doesn’t. However, it does point out bi-directional nature of the OPs question. To some extend, SF doesn’t get respect because the readers themselves reject it. When SF/Fantasy hits mainstream (Rowling’s Hugo for Goblet of Fire is another example), there is a certain rejection of that mainstream from the readers. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2008, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-for-science-fiction/460288/90 "2008-08-19T20:34:33Z")
[QUOTE=Terminus Est] Heh. I am quite aware of the provenance of the term. It has served its purpose. Let it fall back into oblivion. [/QUOTE] Reasonable people can disagree. For my part, I really like the term. I also kind of loathe the “hard/soft” SF distinction that is often made, so I recognize that this is very much a matter of taste. Gene Wolfe also did say that all authors write fantasies: some authors are just more honest about it than others. I like the term speculative fiction because I believe it focuses more in the ideas and less on the “science” or often pseudo-science. ---
**Author:** ![Jayn\_Newell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Jayn\_Newell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jayn_Newell)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2008, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-for-science-fiction/460288/91 "2008-08-19T20:39:30Z")
[QUOTE=Dangerosa] To some extend, SF doesn’t get respect because the readers themselves reject it. [/QUOTE] Now my mind is trying to play out a chicken-and-egg scenario (and tying itself in a knot in the process). When the SF/F section is always buried in the back of the store with the front filled with, what is in your opinion, crap, it might just be easier to split them into two groups, who never the twain shall meet, than to try and recognise that genre definitions aren’t cut and dried. Classic us vs. them mentality. ---
**Author:** ![burundi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3ec8ea/32.png) [@burundi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burundi)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2008, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-for-science-fiction/460288/92 "2008-08-19T20:40:59Z")
[QUOTE=Little Plastic Ninja] We were instructed to write no genre fiction. Our professor’s distinction between genre fiction and regular ordinary everyday fiction was this: fiction has people driving the plot, genre fiction has the plot or elements of the plot driving the people. Anything historical was out, anything in the future was out, anything in another world is out – “Because if you’re writing anything worth reading that takes place on Mars or medieval England or whatever, you can set it today. People don’t change and you can’t write effectively about aliens without giving them human characteristics, and if they have human characteristics then they should be human.” [/QUOTE] Frankly, your professor sounds like an ignorant, complacent dick. I wonder if he’d ever read any Mary Doria Russell or Michael Flynn–authors who use SF concepts to explore ideas about humanity and faith. > [@Maeglin](#): > > Gene Wolfe also did say that all authors write fantasies: some authors are just more honest about it than others. I really like that. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2008, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-for-science-fiction/460288/93 "2008-08-19T20:41:07Z")
[QUOTE=Frylock] Wow, that is concept-for-concept (almost even word-for-word) exactly what my own creative writing teacher said when I was an undergrad. I can’t remember my teacher’s name… I think his last name was Lee. -FrL- [/QUOTE] I am not a creative writer for a living, but I do think there is a pedagogic logic to this. It is critical to learn to express yourself and to learn to tell interesting stories. It is all too easy to rely on genre conventions to do the lifting for you. To that end, aspiring writers should avoid mystery, romance, spy, etc. The only genres they should rely on are structural and formal: short story, novella, novel, etc. Once you have learned and internalized the rules, then you can write in your own voice in whatever genre you like. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2008, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-for-science-fiction/460288/94 "2008-08-19T20:54:57Z")
[QUOTE=Busy Scissors] On the flipside, a pedestrian SF writer like Margaret Atwood has somehow managed to market her books as mainstream fiction, and inspires much chin-stroking pseudery from critics who have no grasp of the mediocrity of her ideas in SF terms. That riles me bad! [/QUOTE] But if they’re good books and people like them, how does that make them bad SciFi books? I mean, it’s science _fiction_–what makes them mediocre as ideas? ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2008, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-for-science-fiction/460288/95 "2008-08-19T20:57:37Z")
[QUOTE=Freudian Slit] But if they’re good books and people like them, how does that make them bad SciFi books? I mean, it’s science _fiction_–what makes them mediocre as ideas? [/QUOTE] It is a dubious proposition that they are even good books in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2008, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-for-science-fiction/460288/96 "2008-08-19T21:02:44Z")
[QUOTE=Maeglin] It is a dubious proposition that they are even good books in the first place. [/QUOTE] Well, I’d disagree that they aren’t good books…but if people enjoy them and they’re getting literary praise, how can one argue that they’re bad sci fi , as opposed to just bad books? ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2008, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-for-science-fiction/460288/97 "2008-08-19T21:04:14Z")
[QUOTE=Little Plastic Ninja] I took a short-story writing class in college. We were instructed to write no genre fiction. Our professor’s distinction between genre fiction and regular ordinary everyday fiction was this: fiction has people driving the plot, genre fiction has the plot or elements of the plot driving the people. Anything historical was out, anything in the future was out, anything in another world is out – “Because if you’re writing anything worth reading that takes place on Mars or medieval England or whatever, you can set it today. People don’t change and you can’t write effectively about aliens without giving them human characteristics, and if they have human characteristics then they should be human.” [/QUOTE] But he seems to be ignoring a whole lot of potentially interesting “explorations” into the human condition introduced by science. What happens when all disease is wiped out, and humans become essentially immortal? There are bound to be some profound socialogical and physcological ramifications there… ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2008, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-for-science-fiction/460288/98 "2008-08-19T21:08:22Z")
[QUOTE=Jayn\_Newell] Now my mind is trying to play out a chicken-and-egg scenario (and tying itself in a knot in the process). When the SF/F section is always buried in the back of the store with the front filled with, what is in your opinion, crap, it might just be easier to split them into two groups, who never the twain shall meet, than to try and recognise that genre definitions aren’t cut and dried. Classic us vs. them mentality. [/QUOTE] Yep. I know a lot of readers who don’t bother to purchase books from anywhere other than Uncle Hugo’s or Dreamhaven (Twin Cities SF/Fantasy bookstores). They don’t respect non-genre literature (or genre literature outside of “their” genre) enough to even be familiar with what is on the shelves at Barnes and Noble - and feel free to condemn it as “crap” - but get upset when their own genre isn’t respected. A good example is Busy Scissors describing Atwood as a “pedistrian SF writer.” Atwood isn’t an SF writer at all - she has written two (arguably three) books that have some SF attributes out of 13 and doesn’t accept the label. However, she’s hardly pedestrian - or if she is you need to discount her five Booker nominations and one win, her two Governor’s General Awards, or her Prince of Asturias Award. (She also has an Arthur C Clarke Award for Handmaids Tale - so someone in the SF community thought she wrote one decent SF book). By objective measures, she is neither pedistrian nor does she write crap. ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2008, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-for-science-fiction/460288/99 "2008-08-19T21:15:05Z")
[QUOTE=Freudian Slit] Well, I’d disagree that they aren’t good books…but if people enjoy them and they’re getting literary praise, how can one argue that they’re bad sci fi , as opposed to just bad books? [/QUOTE] If the _idea_ (i.e., the science fictional idea, the “what if”) is bad, illogical, or poorly presented. See _The Time Traveler’s Wife_ for (arguably) good literature but bad science fiction. See _Slaughterhouse Five_ for both good literature and good science fiction. ---
**Author:** ![Jayn\_Newell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Jayn\_Newell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jayn_Newell)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2008, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-for-science-fiction/460288/100 "2008-08-19T21:41:20Z")
[QUOTE=Dangerosa] Yep. I know a lot of readers who don’t bother to purchase books from anywhere other than Uncle Hugo’s or Dreamhaven (Twin Cities SF/Fantasy bookstores). They don’t respect non-genre literature (or genre literature outside of “their” genre) enough to even be familiar with what is on the shelves at Barnes and Noble - and feel free to condemn it as “crap” - but get upset when their own genre isn’t respected. [/QUOTE] In my case it’s less lack of respect and more lack of interest. It’s rare that I go outside the genre into more mainstream books for my reading (though it does happen on occasion). Basically, there’s little there that appeals to me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-for-science-fiction/460288.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-for-science-fiction/460288.md?page=6)