Mundane SF
James Nicoll
Mundane SF is a recent movement to suck all the fun^H^H^H^H^H
return SF to its supposed roots. Points from the original manifesto
can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mundane_science_fiction
But you may want to look fast before wikipedia's notability
police delete the article.
[A moment of silence for the soc.history.what-if entry,
now in a land where it no longer has to fear being edited by
BernardZ]
I know it's been suggested that the founders of the movement
might not be the sour-faced joykillers that they appear to be from their
manifesto but alas, there no guarantee when one starts a movement that
the people it attracts won't be ... unfortunate. Imagine, just for a
second, that there's a movement in favour of plausible SF whose members
don't have the basic skills to spot plausible SF.
This brings us to the Mundane SF Blog, whose contributors
are always on the lookout for SF that conforms either accidentally
or deliberately to the MSF manifesto. Oddly, for a subsubsubgenre
so concerned about plausibility, one of the stories they were very
enthusiastic about was Paolo Bacigalupi's "Calorie Man", in which
the coming End of Cheap Energy led to the development of that
liberating technology THE SPRING. THE SPRING is an amazing thing,
at least in the hands of a writer who is probably a bit fuzzy on
that whole thermodynamics thing.
Recently, one of the frequent posters to the MSF blog
posted this little bit, something that I feel summarizes the
entire problem with this movement, the fact that they don't have
the basic skills to carry out the task that they want to:
http://mundane-sf.blogspot.com/2007/08/cyber-present.html
Specifically the bit that goes:
"That's the diagnosis. The treatment is to either abandon the genre
somewhat and simply report things as they are happening, because they
are so ridiculous you cannot make them up. Or you can hypothesize that
the problem is due to the pernicious weeds that have grown up within
the genre, such as faster than light travel, aliens, brain downloads,
etc. which strangle all other development. Gibson, below, mentions that
he dropped the space travel and aliens in order to make his seminal
book, Neuromancer. Mundane-SF suggests getting rid of the rest of the
non-existent clutter and seeing how that works."
Which would sound so much more plausible if goatchurch had
picked a Gibson book other than NEUROMANCER to praise as MSF. As it
happens, the real NEUROMANCER (As opposed to the fantastical one
that goatchurch apparently encountered in a walking dream) is filled
with the very things that MSF hates: AIs, mind-uploading (two varieties),
alien signals from the stars, abundent space flight and so on. I guess
there might be even less suitable examples out there (He could have picked
GALACTIC PATROL) but about the only thing NEUROMANCER lacks from the
MSF hate list is FTL.
I helpfully pointed out his error on the MSF blog but thus far
have received no answer.
I see that Interzone is having an Mundane SF issue:
http://www.freesteel.co.uk/cgi-bin/mundane.py
One hopes it strives for a higher standard than the contributors
to the MSF blog.
--
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
http://www.cafepress.com/jdnicoll (For all your "The problem with
defending the English language [...]" T-shirt, cup and tote-bag needs)
David Tate
> Mundane SF is a recent movement to suck all the fun^H^H^H^H^H
> return SF to its supposed roots. Points from the original manifesto
> can be found here:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mundane_science_fiction
Hmm. The blog lists Gene Wolfe as an author who may have committed
MSF. Any idea which particular stories they had in mind there? None
of the famous, award-winning, critically-acclaimed ones seem to fit.
Has anyone yet taken the time to go through the various Lists (Hugo
winners, Nebula winners, Locus poll top 100, etc.) book by book,
eliminating any[*] that fail to meet the MSF criteria?
David Tate
[*]Which is to say, all of them.
James Nicoll
David Tate <dt...@ida.org> wrote:
>On Aug 17, 9:19 am, jdnic...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:
>> Mundane SF is a recent movement to suck all the fun^H^H^H^H^H
>> return SF to its supposed roots. Points from the original manifesto
>> can be found here:
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mundane_science_fiction
>
>Hmm. The blog lists Gene Wolfe as an author who may have committed
>MSF. Any idea which particular stories they had in mind there? None
>of the famous, award-winning, critically-acclaimed ones seem to fit.
>
is merely a hallucination suffered by brain-damaged or chronically
malnourished primitives?
Thomas Lindgren
jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) writes:
> Mundane SF is a recent movement to suck all the fun^H^H^H^H^H
> return SF to its supposed roots. Points from the original manifesto
> can be found here: /.../
(I'm not so sure about mundanity being the roots of SF; the roots I
know of were quite the opposite, in fact. But I'll try to stay on
message here.)
Technology is notoriously hard to predict, but one can always softball
that and go for social change instead.
Something like Bruce Sterlings ISLANDS IN THE NET perhaps. I don't
recall that pushing the tech very strongly. (He has a few more in the
same vein, I seem to recall.) Or, why not, peel away some of Vinge's
pet issues from RAINBOWS END and there you are. Or recent Gibsonian
work, at a guess. At the low end, we always have the venerable techno
thriller.
The drawback is that, as you indicated, those above ranged in
excitement from the drinking of mild herbal infusions to actual
sleeping draughts. So, without crossing into very wild technological
change, what is the stronger stuff? Post-apocalyptic work? Cloning?
(To take two worthy issues recently explored by our high lit
brethren.) Silverberg, THE WORLD INSIDE? Or, to the unalloyed joy of
many of our contributors, Ayn Rand?
Best,
Thomas
--
Thomas Lindgren "It was all very mechanical -- but
that's the way planetside life is." -- RAW
Jack Tingle
Nicoll) wrote:
> Mundane SF is a recent movement to suck all the fun^H^H^H^H^H
>return SF to its supposed roots. Points from the original manifesto
>can be found here:
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mundane_science_fiction
I followed the wikipedia link to Ian Macdonald's comments. I think he
has it right. It's an uncontroversial controversy.
Before these folks came up with a new brand name, it was called
'really hard sf'. I don't think they're creative, so much as obvious
and redundant. I'm a big advocate of 'really hard sf', as a much
underutilized subgenre, but I'm also aware that its only a subgenre.
It's also difficult to do, and difficult to sell to an audience*. Good
on them, if they can sell it, but they shouldn't expect anyone to
declare them 'Harlan Ellison'. 'Mundane sf' just doesn't have the ring
that 'New Wave' does.
Thoughtfully,
Jack Tingle
*I love 'Brightside Crossing', for example, as one of the best of the
subgenre, but I also read Weber's stunning tales of 41st Century
super-technology (though I skim most of the infodumps).
James Nicoll
Jack Tingle <wjti...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>On Fri, 17 Aug 2007 13:19:28 +0000 (UTC), jdni...@panix.com (James
>Nicoll) wrote:
>
>> Mundane SF is a recent movement to suck all the fun^H^H^H^H^H
>>return SF to its supposed roots. Points from the original manifesto
>>can be found here:
>>
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mundane_science_fiction
>
>I followed the wikipedia link to Ian Macdonald's comments. I think he
>has it right. It's an uncontroversial controversy.
>
>Before these folks came up with a new brand name, it was called
>'really hard sf'.
Actually, they aren't in it for the rigidity, although they
claim to be. They are in it for the doomcrying.
Stewart Robert Hinsley
Tate <dt...@ida.org> writes
>On Aug 17, 9:19 am, jdnic...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:
>> Mundane SF is a recent movement to suck all the fun^H^H^H^H^H
>> return SF to its supposed roots. Points from the original manifesto
>> can be found here:
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mundane_science_fiction
>
>Hmm. The blog lists Gene Wolfe as an author who may have committed
>MSF. Any idea which particular stories they had in mind there? None
>of the famous, award-winning, critically-acclaimed ones seem to fit.
"A Soldier of Arete"?
>
>Has anyone yet taken the time to go through the various Lists (Hugo
>winners, Nebula winners, Locus poll top 100, etc.) book by book,
>eliminating any[*] that fail to meet the MSF criteria?
>
>David Tate
>
>[*]Which is to say, all of them.
>
--
Stewart Robert Hinsley
James Nicoll
Thomas Lindgren <***********@*****.***> wrote:
>
>jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) writes:
>
>> Mundane SF is a recent movement to suck all the fun^H^H^H^H^H
>> return SF to its supposed roots. Points from the original manifesto
>> can be found here: /.../
>
>(I'm not so sure about mundanity being the roots of SF; the roots I
>know of were quite the opposite, in fact. But I'll try to stay on
>message here.)
>
>Technology is notoriously hard to predict, but one can always softball
>that and go for social change instead.
>
>Something like Bruce Sterlings ISLANDS IN THE NET perhaps. I don't
>recall that pushing the tech very strongly. (He has a few more in the
>same vein, I seem to recall.) Or, why not, peel away some of Vinge's
>pet issues from RAINBOWS END and there you are. Or recent Gibsonian
>work, at a guess. At the low end, we always have the venerable techno
>thriller.
>
or the recent past.
Elf M. Sternberg
> Mundane SF is a recent movement to suck all the fun^H^H^H^H^H
> return SF to its supposed roots. Points from the original manifesto
> can be found here:
I'm trying to figure out what those "roots" are, James.
Wells? Doc Smith? I mean, c'mon.
My current WIP is an STL universe with a Mundane Earth and a
posthuman Sirius, an infowar, and the niece of a certain famous hero.
If Charlie can do it, so can I.
Elf
--
Elf M. Sternberg, Immanentizing the Eschaton since 1988
http://www.pendorwright.com/
"You know how some people treat their body like a temple?
I treat mine like issa amusement park!" - Kei
Dan Goodman
> [*]Which is to say, all of them.
Kornbluth's _The Syndic_, which won a Prometheus award, fits the
criteria. (Problem: organized crime is degenerating into government.)
--
Dan Goodman
"You, each of you, have some special wild cards. Play with them.
Find out what makes you different and better. Because it is there,
if only you can find it." Vernor Vinge, _Rainbows End_
Journal http://dsgood.livejournal.com
Futures http://dangoodman.livejournal.com
mirror: http://dsgood.insanejoural.com
Links http://del.icio.us/dsgood
Derek Lyons
>
>jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) writes:
>
>> Mundane SF is a recent movement to suck all the fun^H^H^H^H^H
>> return SF to its supposed roots. Points from the original manifesto
>> can be found here: /.../
>
>(I'm not so sure about mundanity being the roots of SF; the roots I
>know of were quite the opposite, in fact. But I'll try to stay on
>message here.)
>
>Technology is notoriously hard to predict, but one can always softball
>that and go for social change instead.
It's worth pointing out that, AFAICT, this group spends rather more
time and energy talking about characters and societies rather than the
shiny bits.
D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.
http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/
-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL
David Johnston
Nicoll) wrote:
That is a misreading of the text, I think. Look here:
"development. Gibson, below, mentions that he dropped the space travel
and aliens in order to make his seminal book, Neuromancer. Mundane-SF
suggests getting rid of the rest of the non-existent clutter and
seeing how that works."
This "goatchurch" fellow is not suggesting that Neuromancer is an
example of Mundane SF, much less a good one. He's suggesting that
things like brain downloads are what are _wrong_ with Neuromancer and
the reason Gibson drifted away from science fiction. I doubt he
clearly remembered Neuromancer but was just going from something
Gibson said about it. Thus it's the whisper game in operation. He
misinterprets Gibson and you misinterpret him.
Aaron Denney
> That is a misreading of the text, I think. Look here:
If it's true that what James took away from the text was not what the
author intended, characterizing it as "misreading" inappropriately puts
blame on James, rather than the author. Goatchurch's words plainly
indicate that he thinks Neuromancer doesn't have these things.
--
Aaron Denney
-><-
Thomas Lindgren
jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) writes:
> In article <874piyx...@dev.null>,
> Thomas Lindgren <***********@*****.***> wrote:
> >
> >Something like Bruce Sterlings ISLANDS IN THE NET perhaps. I don't
> >recall that pushing the tech very strongly. (He has a few more in the
> >same vein, I seem to recall.) Or, why not, peel away some of Vinge's
> >pet issues from RAINBOWS END and there you are. Or recent Gibsonian
> >work, at a guess. At the low end, we always have the venerable techno
> >thriller.
> >
> The most recent Gibson that I read was either set in the now
> or the recent past.
And speaking of mundanity, here is Nick Hornby, member of the
chattering class in Islington, trying to get to know us (THE BELIEVER,
June/July 2005):
When I actually tried to read EXCESSION, embarrassment was swiftly
replaced by trauma. Iain M. Banks is a highly rated Scottish
novelist who has written twenty-odd novels, /.../ and though I'd never
previously read them, everyone I know who is familiar with his work
loves him. And nothing in the twenty-odd pages I managed of
EXCESSION was in any way bad; it's just that I didn't understand a
word. I didn't even understand the blurb on the back of the book:
'Two and a half millennia ago, the artifact appeared in a remote
corner of space, beside a trillion-year-old dying sun from a
different universe. It was a perfect black-body sphere, and it did
nothing. Then it disappeared. Now it's back.' This is clearly
intended to entice us into the novel -- that's what blurbs do,
right? But this blurb just made me scared. An artifact -- that's
something you find in a museum, isn't it? Well, what's a museum
exhibit doing floating around in space? So what if it did nothing?
What are museum exhibits supposed to do? And this dying sun -- how
come it's switched universes? Can dying suns do that?
The urge to weep tears of frustration was already upon me even
before I read the short prologue, which seemed to describe some kind
of androgynous avatar visiting a woman who has been pregnant for
forty years and who lives on her own in the tower of a giant
spaceship. (Is this the artifact? Or the dying sun? Can a dying sun
be a spaceship? Probably.) By the time I got to the first chapter,
which is entitled 'Outside Context Problem' and begins '(CGU Grey
Area signal sequence file #n428857/119)' I was crying so hard that I
could no longer see the page in front of my face, at which I
abandoned the entire ill-conceived experiment altogether. I haven't
felt so stupid since I stopped attending physics lessons aged
fourteen.'
The connoisseur of As Others See Us will keenly appreciate his friend
Harry's comment:
'It's not stupidity,' [Harry said.] 'Think of all the heavy metal fans
who devour this stuff. You think you're dimmer than them?'
Hornby goes on to acknowledge that yes, he does in fact think so, and
resolves to first grok Slayer before trying SF again. Pretty funny
("It's funny because it's true!"), I thought, even if that Harry bloke
was being snotty.
James Nicoll
opportunity to zing me for misreading when I posted to the MSF
Gene Ward Smith
news:87zm0qv...@dev.null:
> When I actually tried to read EXCESSION, embarrassment was swiftly
> replaced by trauma. Iain M. Banks is a highly rated Scottish
> novelist who has written twenty-odd novels, /.../ and though I'd never
> previously read them, everyone I know who is familiar with his work
> loves him. And nothing in the twenty-odd pages I managed of
> EXCESSION was in any way bad; it's just that I didn't understand a
> word.
That's why people say the novels are odd.
--
"I barf on you all." © Gene Ward Smith, 2007. All rights reserved.
Gene Ward Smith
news:kgbbc3lqiug289e65...@4ax.com:
> Before these folks came up with a new brand name, it was called
> 'really hard sf'. I don't think they're creative, so much as obvious
> and redundant. I
Well, no. "Mundane science fiction" rejects aliens which are close enough
to actually meet, for instance. Really hard sf does not. On my recent
list of real hard sf, I included The Black Cloud. That isn't mundane, and
serves as a pretty good example of the difference.
It also rejects quantum uncertainty as having any effect on the macro
level, which is an idea which contradicts hard sf, which has to stick to
known facts and cannot toss them out.
James Nicoll
At least one of its adherents rejects astrophysics, on rather similar
grounds to ones used by creationists to reject evolution: you can't run
very many experiments in the lab.
Biologists, please do not feel the need to correct me on this point.
lal_truckee
>
> At least one of its adherents rejects astrophysics, on rather similar
> grounds to ones used by creationists to reject evolution: you can't run
> very many experiments in the lab.
Huh? I wonder what they think Lawrence's Cyclotron and it's descendents
are all about?
PV
> Mundane SF is a recent movement to suck all the fun^H^H^H^H^H
>return SF to its supposed roots. Points from the original manifesto
>can be found here:
Losers. Big gigantic losers who don't even KNOW what the foundations of
Science Fiction are.
> I know it's been suggested that the founders of the movement
>might not be the sour-faced joykillers that they appear to be from their
>manifesto but alas, there no guarantee when one starts a movement that
>the people it attracts won't be ... unfortunate. Imagine, just for a
>second, that there's a movement in favour of plausible SF whose members
>don't have the basic skills to spot plausible SF.
I think we live in that world. Too plausible.
Everything fits in Science Fiction, it's all about what if. Even if
occasionaly the "what" is complete bollocks it doesn't matter, provided
it's in the service of a good story. Putting limits on that is
nonsensical, especially entirely artificial ones. *
--
* PV something like badgers--something like lizards--and something
like corkscrews.
PV
> The most recent Gibson that I read was either set in the now
>or the recent past.
Assuming you're talking about the brilliant "Pattern Recognition", I don't
really consider that an SF novel - the only fantastical content is that
someone could in the current day render an entire movie digitally that
looks photorealistic. But I'll happily dump it into the genre because it's
one of the best books I've read in the last several years. *
PV
>And speaking of mundanity, here is Nick Hornby, member of the
>chattering class in Islington, trying to get to know us (THE BELIEVER,
>June/July 2005):
Hornby is a damn clever guy, you think he might be making a joke? I thought
that was freaking hilarious.
Iain Banks isn't exactly who I would first recommend to an SF newbie - it's
a good thing he didn't pick up "Use of Weapons", or he'd still be in a
corner of the rubber room, rocking ... *
Andrew Wheeler
For Wolfe, I'd think "Seven American Nights" would qualify -- both as
ostensibly Mundane and as fitting their not-so-secret agenda (to make
the Western world feel guilty about itself and drop into a fit of
leftist existential despair).
But Wolfe hasn't written a single novel even remotely Mundane -- the
ones that could be close are all fantasy.
--
Andrew Wheeler: Professional Editor, Amateur Wise-Acre
--
Also available in blog form!
http://antickmusings.blogspot.com
Andrew Wheeler
>
> In article <874piyx...@dev.null>,
> Thomas Lindgren <***********@*****.***> wrote:
> >
> >jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) writes:
> >
> >> Mundane SF is a recent movement to suck all the fun^H^H^H^H^H
> >> return SF to its supposed roots. Points from the original manifesto
> >> can be found here: /.../
> >
> >(I'm not so sure about mundanity being the roots of SF; the roots I
> >know of were quite the opposite, in fact. But I'll try to stay on
> >message here.)
> >
> >Technology is notoriously hard to predict, but one can always softball
> >that and go for social change instead.
> >
> >Something like Bruce Sterlings ISLANDS IN THE NET perhaps. I don't
> >recall that pushing the tech very strongly. (He has a few more in the
> >same vein, I seem to recall.) Or, why not, peel away some of Vinge's
> >pet issues from RAINBOWS END and there you are. Or recent Gibsonian
> >work, at a guess. At the low end, we always have the venerable techno
> >thriller.
> >
> The most recent Gibson that I read was either set in the now
> or the recent past.
Time to mention my Grand Unified Gibson theory again (which I first
thought up around _Virtual Light_) -- all Gibson novels take place in
the year 2000. It's just not the *same* year 2000...
David Johnston
What I was saying was that Goatchurch's words plainly indicate that he
thinks Neuromancer DOES have brain downloads.
Sea Wasp
> Mundane SF is a recent movement to suck all the fun^H^H^H^H^H
> return SF to its supposed roots.
Yes, like that founding father of much of SF, Doc Smith. :)
As long as the fools insist on being mundane and having no aliens,
psionic powers, or superscience, they will never be able to defeat me!
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://seawasp.livejournal.com
bm2...@eve.albany.edu
>
> > The most recent Gibson that I read was either set in the now
> > or the recent past.
>
> Time to mention my Grand Unified Gibson theory again (which I first
> thought up around _Virtual Light_) -- all Gibson novels take place in
> the year 2000. It's just not the *same* year 2000...
>
> --
> Andrew Wheeler: Professional Editor, Amateur Wise-Acre
> --
So Gibson is actually an AH writer?
Bruce
Mike Schilling
"Sea Wasp" <seawasp...@sgeObviousinc.com> wrote in message
news:46C63049...@sgeObviousinc.com...
> James Nicoll wrote:
>> Mundane SF is a recent movement to suck all the fun^H^H^H^H^H
>> return SF to its supposed roots.
>
> Yes, like that founding father of much of SF, Doc Smith. :)
Not to mention Wells and Verne.
Thomas Lindgren
> Thomas Lindgren <***********@*****.***> writes:
> >And speaking of mundanity, here is Nick Hornby, member of the
> >chattering class in Islington, trying to get to know us (THE BELIEVER,
> >June/July 2005):
>
> Hornby is a damn clever guy, you think he might be making a joke? I thought
> that was freaking hilarious.
>
> Iain Banks isn't exactly who I would first recommend to an SF newbie - it's
> a good thing he didn't pick up "Use of Weapons", or he'd still be in a
> corner of the rubber room, rocking ... *
It seemed all too authentic to me ... including a middle-aged literary
type in all innocence picking a Banks because he's also known outside
the field. He gave up a bit soon, though, didn't he? Or maybe he was wise
to cut his losses.
James Nicoll
PV <pv+u...@pobox.com> wrote:
>jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) writes:
>> The most recent Gibson that I read was either set in the now
>>or the recent past.
>
>Assuming you're talking about the brilliant "Pattern Recognition",
SPOOK COUNTRY and it's not really SF either.
Damien Sullivan
Particle physics, not astrophysics and cosmology. Experimental vs.
observational.
-xx- Damien X-)
Damien Sullivan
>It also rejects quantum uncertainty as having any effect on the macro
>level, which is an idea which contradicts hard sf, which has to stick to
>known facts and cannot toss them out.
I thought that was just part of the "no parallel universes"; they don't
want alternate Earths you can visit. (Cross-time adventures.)
-xx- Damien X-)
Gene Ward Smith
@naig.caltech.edu:
It was the reason given for no parallel univereses. It's not my fault no
aspect of it made sense.
Mike Van Pelt
PV <pv+u...@pobox.com> wrote:
>Thomas Lindgren <***********@*****.***> writes:
>>And speaking of mundanity, here is Nick Hornby, member of
>>the chattering class in Islington, trying to get to know
>>us (THE BELIEVER, June/July 2005):
>
>Hornby is a damn clever guy, you think he might be making a
>joke? I thought that was freaking hilarious.
I hope he was joking. I have this feeling he was not,
though. Behind the deliberate flippancy, he was serious.
Maybe he should just stick to the Bobbsy Twins.
(That slam not directed at anyone who doesn't like Banks;
I'm not sure I like Banks all that much. But Hornby's
examples of things he didn't understand just struck me
as not very bright. Especially the "artifact" thing.)
--
Mike Van Pelt | Wikipedia. The roulette wheel of knowledge.
mvp at calweb.com | --Blair P. Houghton
KE6BVH
Mike Van Pelt
James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>>Before these folks came up with a new brand name, it was called
>>'really hard sf'.
>
>claim to be. They are in it for the doomcrying.
Hm... I was going to mention G. David Nordley's stories as
examples of what they're talking about, at least, the ones
set in the Solar System. Even in the ones with interstellar
travel, he sticks very close to known physics. Interstellar
travel is decades-long trips made possible by particle
beam projectors based in solar systems, not ships with
self-contained propulsion.
But though he doesn't do utopias, he doesn't do doomcrying,
either, so I guess that leaves him out.
Del Cotter
James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> said:
>Aaron Denney <wno...@ofb.net> wrote:
>>> That is a misreading of the text, I think. Look here:
>>
>>If it's true that what James took away from the text was not what the
>>author intended, characterizing it as "misreading" inappropriately puts
>>blame on James, rather than the author. Goatchurch's words plainly
>>indicate that he thinks Neuromancer doesn't have these things.
>
>If I was wrong, it's odd that goatchurch didn't take the
>opportunity to zing me for misreading when I posted to the MSF
>blog.
I know nothing of goatchurch, but I hardly ever try to point out that
someone has misread me any more. In the new Internet Kewl Kids style of
discourse, far from being an "opportunity" for the writer to correct a
misapprehension, it's an opportunity for the misreader and his friends
to laugh and point.
The latest version is to keep a "bingo board" with predictions like "if
we distort what someone has written, he will object that we have
distorted him." Since they predicted correctly, the victim must have
done something wrong, and they get to shout "Bingo!"
--
Del Cotter
NB Personal replies to this post will send email to d...@branta.demon.co.uk,
which goes to a spam folder-- please send your email to del3 instead.
Michael Grosberg
> Mundane SF is a recent movement to suck all the fun^H^H^H^H^H
> can be found here:
>
I can't see anything about returning SF to its roots here... were you
just taking a pot shot here?
> Recently, one of the frequent posters to the MSF blog
> posted this little bit, something that I feel summarizes the
> entire problem with this movement, the fact that they don't have
> the basic skills to carry out the task that they want to:
>
> http://mundane-sf.blogspot.com/2007/08/cyber-present.html
>
> Specifically the bit that goes:
>
> "That's the diagnosis. The treatment is to either abandon the genre
> somewhat and simply report things as they are happening, because they
> are so ridiculous you cannot make them up. Or you can hypothesize that
> the problem is due to the pernicious weeds that have grown up within
> the genre, such as faster than light travel, aliens, brain downloads,
> etc. which strangle all other development. Gibson, below, mentions that
> he dropped the space travel and aliens in order to make his seminal
> book, Neuromancer. Mundane-SF suggests getting rid of the rest of the
> non-existent clutter and seeing how that works."
>
> Which would sound so much more plausible if goatchurch had
> picked a Gibson book other than NEUROMANCER to praise as MSF. As it
> happens, the real NEUROMANCER (As opposed to the fantastical one
> that goatchurch apparently encountered in a walking dream) is filled
> with the very things that MSF hates: AIs, mind-uploading (two varieties),
> alien signals from the stars, abundent space flight and so on.
Hmm. Goatchurch seems to be taking a stance that is much more extreme
than that of the Wikipedia article. I tried googling for the original
manifesto, but it seems to be offline. I did read it at the time, but
I don't remember the details. Were AI and brain downloads on the
"verbotten" list?
As for Neuromancer, it does include near-earth space travel and a
signal from an alien AI, but does MSF preclude (I'm not an English
speaker, so if I used the wrong word tell me) these concepts? the
Wikipedia article says interstellar travel and alien visitations are
highly unlikely, but Interplanetry travel seems to be OK, and so is
detecting signals from space (also two-way speed of light
communication, although it is improbable and may take decades). Then
again the Interzone web page for the upcoming MSF issue seems to
preclude any kind of profitable space flight at all.
All in all, I'm not quite sure Goatchurch is an honest representative
of Mundane SF. Plus, he has a positive mention of Kevin Warwick in one
of his other posts - always a warning sign in my book.
James Nicoll
Michael Grosberg <grosberg...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>Hmm. Goatchurch seems to be taking a stance that is much more extreme
>than that of the Wikipedia article. I tried googling for the original
>manifesto, but it seems to be offline. I did read it at the time, but
>I don't remember the details. Were AI and brain downloads on the
>"verbotten" list?
>
I thought so but have had as much luck as you finding the
full original text.
James Nicoll
James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>In article <1187440458.1...@k79g2000hse.googlegroups.com>,
>Michael Grosberg <grosberg...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>Hmm. Goatchurch seems to be taking a stance that is much more extreme
>>than that of the Wikipedia article. I tried googling for the original
>>manifesto, but it seems to be offline. I did read it at the time, but
>>I don't remember the details. Were AI and brain downloads on the
>>"verbotten" list?
>>
>
> I thought so but have had as much luck as you finding the
>full original text.
This might be all of it:
http://www.theswordreview.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?p=2332#2332
If so, phrases like "That the most likely future is one in which
we only have ourselves and this planet," and "the imaginative challenge
that awaits any SF author who accepts that this is it: Earth is all we
have," suggests to me that they aren't keen on insystem space flight
either, except to the extent that it lets us stare at the Earth more
effectively.
Oh, and lookie here:
"The number of great writers or movies which independently work within
these guidelines, indicating that the Mundane Manifesto produces better
science fiction. These works include:
[snip snip]
* Neuromancer
Jasper Janssen
And Victor Hugo.
Jasper
Michael Grosberg
> If so, phrases like "That the most likely future is one in which
> we only have ourselves and this planet,"
But then you've got sentences like:
"...That therefore our most likely future is on this planet *and
within this solar system* "
norrin
> And speaking of mundanity, here is Nick Hornby, member of the
> chattering class in Islington, trying to get to know us (THE BELIEVER,
> June/July 2005):
>
> When I actually tried to read EXCESSION, embarrassment was swiftly
> replaced by trauma. Iain M. Banks is a highly rated Scottish
> novelist who has written twenty-odd novels, /.../ and though I'd never
> previously read them, everyone I know who is familiar with his work
> loves him. And nothing in the twenty-odd pages I managed of
> EXCESSION was in any way bad; it's just that I didn't understand a
> word. I didn't even understand the blurb on the back of the book:
> 'Two and a half millennia ago, the artifact appeared in a remote
> corner of space, beside a trillion-year-old dying sun from a
> different universe. It was a perfect black-body sphere, and it did
> nothing. Then it disappeared. Now it's back.' This is clearly
> intended to entice us into the novel -- that's what blurbs do,
> right? But this blurb just made me scared. An artifact -- that's
> something you find in a museum, isn't it? Well, what's a museum
> exhibit doing floating around in space? So what if it did nothing?
> What are museum exhibits supposed to do? And this dying sun -- how
> come it's switched universes? Can dying suns do that?
An artifact in a museum can be harmless, or it could be
something like the Ark of the Covenant. The Excession,
the artifact from the story of the same name, isn't safe.
> The urge to weep tears of frustration was already upon me even
> before I read the short prologue, which seemed to describe some kind
> of androgynous avatar visiting a woman who has been pregnant for
> forty years and who lives on her own in the tower of a giant
> spaceship. (Is this the artifact? Or the dying sun? Can a dying sun
> be a spaceship? Probably.) By the time I got to the first chapter,
> which is entitled 'Outside Context Problem' and begins '(CGU Grey
> Area signal sequence file #n428857/119)' I was crying so hard that I
> could no longer see the page in front of my face, at which I
> abandoned the entire ill-conceived experiment altogether. I haven't
> felt so stupid since I stopped attending physics lessons aged
> fourteen.'
He doesn't tell what an OCP is but shows what it's like.
lal_truckee
Exactly.
Lab experiment directly supporting, suggesting, refuting astrophysical
and cosmological theory. You see it differently?
That'd be like denying that lab fruit fly experiments represent evolution.
Damien Sullivan
>Hm... I was going to mention G. David Nordley's stories as
>examples of what they're talking about, at least, the ones
>set in the Solar System. Even in the ones with interstellar
>travel, he sticks very close to known physics. Interstellar
>travel is decades-long trips made possible by particle
>beam projectors based in solar systems, not ships with
>self-contained propulsion.
See, that's nice diamond hard SF, which we could use more of. But the
Mundanes are "man's future is on Earth!" And one can always ask what
the people are doing space, or who's paying for the beamships, and how
they all got off Earth. But the Mundanes seem to prohibit creative
answers to those questions.
-xx- Damien X-)
Damien Sullivan
>Damien Sullivan wrote:
>> lal_truckee <lal_t...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>> James Nicoll wrote:
>>>> At least one of its adherents rejects astrophysics, on rather similar
>>>> grounds to ones used by creationists to reject evolution: you can't run
>>>> very many experiments in the lab.
>>> Huh? I wonder what they think Lawrence's Cyclotron and it's descendents
>>> are all about?
>>
>> Particle physics, not astrophysics and cosmology. Experimental vs.
>> observational.
>
>and cosmological theory. You see it differently?
It's not *my* bugaboo. You asked what they think it's about, and I
answered what I think they think it's about.
Though I'd note that particle physics and cosmology teaming up is
relatively recent. Lawrence's cyclotron was probably just about
particles, not evolution of the universe.
-xx- Damien X-)
Damien Sullivan
>>>manifesto, but it seems to be offline. I did read it at the time, but
>>>I don't remember the details. Were AI and brain downloads on the
>>>"verbotten" list?
>http://www.theswordreview.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?p=2332#2332
Yeah, that looks familiar. By itself, it doesn't look that bad.
"That there is no evidence whatsoever that quantum uncertainty has any
effect at the macro level and that therefore it is highly unlikely that
there are whole alternative universes to be visited."
Second part's fine, even if it's a non-sequitur from the first.
"Radio communication between star systems"
Possible but slow, and depends on finding radio-talkative aliens.
Certainly arguably not for the next few centuries... on the other hand,
the fact that the Mundanes don't believe in much interstellar travel
means they don't get to invoke Fermi's Paradox, so there might well be
lots of aliens trapped in their systems, desperate to talk.
"The relief of focusing on what science tells us is likely rather than
what is almost impossible such as warp drives. The relief will come from
a sense of being honest.
An awakening sense of the awesome power of human beings: to protect or
even increase their local patrimony ... or destroy it."
See, hard ScF. What's likely, honesty, the power we have to actually do
real things.
"The number of themes and flavours open to Mundane fiction including
robotics, virtual realities, enhanced genomes, nanotechnology, quantum
mechanics ... Please continue."
And hey! Robotics! (Which to me suggests AI.) Nanotech! (guess they
are optimistic after all.) Quantum! (meaning what, though?)
Of course, as I pointed out when I first saw this, "space is hard"
interacts oddly with "robotics, enhanced genomes, nanotechnology".
>"The number of great writers or movies which independently work within
>these guidelines, indicating that the Mundane Manifesto produces better
>science fiction. These works include:
>
>* Neuromancer
Bugger that. *Timescape*. Isn't that about time travel?
-xx- Damien X-)
Gene Ward Smith
@naig.caltech.edu:
>>"The number of great writers or movies which independently work within
>>these guidelines, indicating that the Mundane Manifesto produces better
>>science fiction. These works include:
>>
>>* Neuromancer
>
> Bugger that. *Timescape*. Isn't that about time travel?
It's hardly either hard sf or mundane.
James Nicoll
But it does have a world doomed by misapplication of
technology, which I assume warms the cockles of goatchurch's
apocalyptalist heart.
James Nicoll
True but judging by the movement's most vocal adherent I would
guess that they don't really mean that humans would create any kind of
off-planet presence and if they did, that would only show that we haven't
come to love Earth enough.
Jack Tingle
<acwh...@optonline.net> wrote:
>...as fitting their not-so-secret agenda (to make
>the Western world feel guilty about itself and drop into a fit of
>leftist existential despair).
Huh? Is that what it's all about? That's stupid.
"Myrtle, what's ex-is-stenchal?" "That's that new perfume with the
strange commercial on that 'Style' channel Honeydew is always watchin'
ain't it?" "Is it commie, cause this feller said it's leftist. That's
like a Democrat, right?" "I don't think so." "Damned USENET
ree-tards..."
The MSF are even less smart than Al Queda.
"We must destroy the West. Quickly, let us destroy two overpriced,
badly conceived Manhattan office towers. The Americans will lie at our
feet and the Holy Sites will be cleansed!" "HA! Go with Allah and kill
yourselves!"*
"Damnit, after twenty-five years we finally managed to turn a profit
on that white elephant and now look at it. Stupid Arab extremists. Go
get the Escalade out, James. Sheik Al-Faizak will hear about this in
our video conference this afternoon."
At least we _noticed_ Al Queda. Existentialist despairers are the most
ineffectual of all leftists.
Sadly,
Jack Tingle
*Yes, I know AQ was a little** more nuanced than that, and yes, I know
we played right into their hands. Lighten up.
**Though not by much, IMO.
Monte Davis
>"The number of great writers or movies which independently work within
>these guidelines, indicating that the Mundane Manifesto produces better
>science fiction. These works include..."
Data mining alert! Cherry-picking in progress...
PV
>I hope he was joking. I have this feeling he was not,
>though. Behind the deliberate flippancy, he was serious.
>
>Maybe he should just stick to the Bobbsy Twins.
Don't be disrespecting Nick Hornby. He's a great writer, and that essay is
just the kind of play I think he'd like.
>(That slam not directed at anyone who doesn't like Banks;
>I'm not sure I like Banks all that much. But Hornby's
>examples of things he didn't understand just struck me
>as not very bright. Especially the "artifact" thing.)
The impression I got was that he was playing off of the over-the-top and
nigh-impenetrable jargon at the start of that book (incidentially, it's by
far my least favorite Banks novel). If you've really never read any science
fiction before, it would look like 20 pages of gibberish.
I like Banks a lot, but he's not a larval stage author. *
--
* PV something like badgers--something like lizards--and something
like corkscrews.
David DeLaney
>The impression I got was that he was playing off of the over-the-top and
>nigh-impenetrable jargon at the start of that book (incidentially, it's by
>far my least favorite Banks novel). If you've really never read any science
>fiction before, it would look like 20 pages of gibberish.
I had the same problem once, on a lesser scale, when my grandparents asked what
I was reading and I showed them _Repent, Harlequin, Said The Ticktockman_.
Dave
--
\/David DeLaney posting from d...@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.
Gene Ward Smith
news:slrnfchs3...@gatekeeper.vic.com:
> PV <pv+u...@pobox.com> wrote:
>>The impression I got was that he was playing off of the over-the-top
>>and nigh-impenetrable jargon at the start of that book (incidentially,
>>it's by far my least favorite Banks novel). If you've really never
>>read any science fiction before, it would look like 20 pages of
>>gibberish.
>
> I had the same problem once, on a lesser scale, when my grandparents
> asked what I was reading and I showed them _Repent, Harlequin, Said
> The Ticktockman_.
I have no mouth, and I must explain Harlan Ellison's titles to my
grandparents.
Mike Schilling
When I explained it to my grandfather, he just walked off muttering "mreee,
mreee, mreee...".
Charlie Stross
as <jdni...@panix.com> declared:
> In article <1187460176....@57g2000hsv.googlegroups.com>,
> Michael Grosberg <grosberg...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>On Aug 18, 6:10 pm, jdnic...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:
>>
>>> If so, phrases like "That the most likely future is one in which
>>> we only have ourselves and this planet,"
>>
>>But then you've got sentences like:
>>
>>"...That therefore our most likely future is on this planet *and
>>within this solar system* "
>>
>
> True but judging by the movement's most vocal adherent I would
> guess that they don't really mean that humans would create any kind of
> off-planet presence and if they did, that would only show that we haven't
> come to love Earth enough.
*clears throat*
Is this the time to mention that I've written a Mundane SF novel?
HALTING STATE, due this October.
(At least, Geoff seems to agree that it fits the canon, regardless of
what Goatchurch might opine, so ... )
NB: the novel after *that* is a space opera (and a Heinlein hommage.)
-- Charlie
James Nicoll
Charlie Stross <cha...@antipope.org> wrote:
>Stoned koala bears drooled eucalyptus spittle in awe
>as <jdni...@panix.com> declared:
>
>> In article <1187460176....@57g2000hsv.googlegroups.com>,
>> Michael Grosberg <grosberg...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>On Aug 18, 6:10 pm, jdnic...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:
>>>
>>>> If so, phrases like "That the most likely future is one in which
>>>> we only have ourselves and this planet,"
>>>
>>>But then you've got sentences like:
>>>
>>>"...That therefore our most likely future is on this planet *and
>>>within this solar system* "
>>>
>>
>> True but judging by the movement's most vocal adherent I would
>> guess that they don't really mean that humans would create any kind of
>> off-planet presence and if they did, that would only show that we haven't
>> come to love Earth enough.
>
>*clears throat*
>
>Is this the time to mention that I've written a Mundane SF novel?
>HALTING STATE, due this October.
Ah, but it completely misses out on the misanthropy of MSF. Where's
the call for draconian population control or predictions of dire consequences
if rigid and draconian environmental laws are not enacted.
Michael Hellwig
> <cha...@antipope.org> wrote:
>>*clears throat*
>>
>>Is this the time to mention that I've written a Mundane SF novel?
>>HALTING STATE, due this October.
>>
>
> date. They do keep messing up preorder releases.
>
checking on amazon.de, where I do my ordering, they have the hardcover
for October and 2 listings of (maybe?) the same paperback (both from
Orbit, but with different ISBNs) for january. Ah. The hardcover seems to
be American .. price is in USD (from Ace Books).
Well, maybe the kind author can shed some light on this confusion .. (I
am, as always, looking for the option that will move the largest amount
of money authorwards, because that will keep me supplied with his books
in future times).
Charlie Stross
> On Mon, 20 Aug 2007 12:31:04 GMT, Charlie Stross
><cha...@antipope.org> wrote:
>
>>
>>*clears throat*
>>
>>Is this the time to mention that I've written a Mundane SF novel?
>>HALTING STATE, due this October.
>>
>
> I pre-ordered it from Amazon uk and they quote January as publication
> date. They do keep messing up preorder releases.
The British edition is indeed coming out three months later. There's no
mix-up.
-- Charlie
Charlie Stross
Two publishers. US publisher is Ace: hardcover comes out on October 2nd.
UK publisher is Orbit: trade paperback comes out in early January.
There'll probably be a German translation from Heyne in due course -- in
2009? -- as long as my poor translator's head doesn't explode ...
-- Charlie
Charlie Stross
as <jdni...@panix.com> declared:
>>Is this the time to mention that I've written a Mundane SF novel?
>>HALTING STATE, due this October.
>
> Ah, but it completely misses out on the misanthropy of MSF. Where's
> the call for draconian population control or predictions of dire consequences
> if rigid and draconian environmental laws are not enacted.
Ya got me there -- I just took the manifesto at face value! Nobody told
me about the secret Benderite handshake ...
-- Charlie
James Nicoll
humans lose higher tech but do not go extinct. Instead we keep Earth's
ecosystems simple until the Sun becomes bright enough to wipe out all
life on Earth. I believe that that's the solution for the Fermi paradox
in that universe as well.
PV
>Before these folks came up with a new brand name, it was called
>'really hard sf'.
Really hard SF can have spacecraft, orbital habitats, even interstellar
travel if you're willing to pay the price. It's not the same thing as
saying that SF should just be techno-thillers, because stuff ain't never
gonna change.
>and redundant. I'm a big advocate of 'really hard sf', as a much
>underutilized subgenre, but I'm also aware that its only a subgenre.
No argument there, but it's rare that it works as a story. *
Dave O'Neill
"norrin" <adwe...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1187460640.8...@r23g2000prd.googlegroups.com...
> Thomas Lindgren wrote:
> He doesn't tell what an OCP is but shows what it's like.
Actually, I think it was the other way around. I didn't think he showed
the OCP all that well in Excession at all.
He did explain very well with an example of what one is.
Dave
Dave O'Neill
"James Nicoll" <jdni...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:fac8ik$sdj$1...@reader1.panix.com...
You mean it if it doesn't have a crumbling Arcology battered by massive
huricanes and run by a secretive cabal, it can't be Mundane?
I can see the ad campagin now.
Dave
Dave O'Neill
> In article <t43pp4-...@antipope.org>,
> Charlie Stross <cha...@antipope.org> wrote:
>>Stoned koala bears drooled eucalyptus spittle in awe
>>as <jdni...@panix.com> declared:
>>
>>>>Is this the time to mention that I've written a Mundane SF novel?
>>>>HALTING STATE, due this October.
>>>
>>> Ah, but it completely misses out on the misanthropy of MSF. Where's
>>> the call for draconian population control or predictions of dire
>>> consequences
>>> if rigid and draconian environmental laws are not enacted.
>>
>>Ya got me there -- I just took the manifesto at face value! Nobody told
>>me about the secret Benderite handshake ...
>>
> You know what is a perfect MSF story? That Baxter story where
> humans lose higher tech but do not go extinct. Instead we keep Earth's
> ecosystems simple until the Sun becomes bright enough to wipe out all
> life on Earth. I believe that that's the solution for the Fermi paradox
> in that universe as well.
While it's buried as a throw away, Hamilton uses this one in _The Dream
Void_, and, thinking about it, so did Neal Asher in his stuff.
But they did it as a backdrop to _real_ SF, the one with robots, AIs, FTL
and lots and lots of spaceships.
Dave
Justin Fang
Damien Sullivan <pho...@ofb.net> wrote:
>jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:
>
>>>>manifesto, but it seems to be offline. I did read it at the time, but
>>>>I don't remember the details. Were AI and brain downloads on the
>>>>"verbotten" list?
>
>>http://www.theswordreview.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?p=2332#2332
>And hey! Robotics! (Which to me suggests AI.) Nanotech! (guess they
>are optimistic after all.) Quantum! (meaning what, though?)
Perhaps something like what manifesto originator Geoff Ryman does in _Air_.
Half of the novel is about what happens, for better and for worse, when a
remote central Asian village gets its first Internet connection. The other
half is about a brand-new tech, "Air", apparently based on quantum
cosmological bogosity, which will allow the brains of everyone on the planet
to be directly linked to the net. (Why anyone thought this was a good
idea...) Side effects of the latter include something that looks a lot like
mind uploading, as well as weirder stuff.
--
Justin Fang (jus...@panix.com)
Michael Hellwig
> Two publishers. US publisher is Ace: hardcover comes out on October 2nd.
> UK publisher is Orbit: trade paperback comes out in early January.
> There'll probably be a German translation from Heyne in due course -- in
> 2009? -- as long as my poor translator's head doesn't explode ...
>
not very likely that I'd read the translated version though .. Whenever
I've looked at translations of books where I am able to understand the
original language (i.e. english and french), I found the translations
almost unbearable. Not necessarily because they're bad, since quite a
number of them should be OK-ish due to shere statistics, but usually the
translator has a completely different idea about the general tone and
feeling of a novel than I do. Which is not a complaint as such, it just
seems to be I'm not compatible with most translations. Or something like
that.
Ericth...@gmail.com
> Stoned koala bears drooled eucalyptus spittle in awe
>
>
>
>
>
> > In article <1187460176.258809.17...@57g2000hsv.googlegroups.com>,
> > Michael Grosberg <grosberg.mich...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>On Aug 18, 6:10 pm, jdnic...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:
>
> >>> If so, phrases like "That the most likely future is one in which
> >>> we only have ourselves and this planet,"
>
> >>But then you've got sentences like:
>
> >>"...That therefore our most likely future is on this planet *and
> >>within this solar system* "
>
> > True but judging by the movement's most vocal adherent I would
> > guess that they don't really mean that humans would create any kind of
> > off-planet presence and if they did, that would only show that we haven't
> > come to love Earth enough.
>
> *clears throat*
>
> Is this the time to mention that I've written a Mundane SF novel?
> HALTING STATE, due this October.
You could also retool the Merchant Family to Mundane SF specs. You'd
have to lose the interdimensional travel aspect of course, so the
heroine would probably instead be commuting by Airbus 380 to
Baluchistan, or something.
It could even break out of the SF field entirely, by virtue of there
not being any SF in it. Something I'm sure the Mundane SF people
would appreciate.
Eric Tolle
bm2...@eve.albany.edu
> >Is this the time to mention that I've written a Mundane SF novel?
> >HALTING STATE, due this October.
>
> Ah, but it completely misses out on the misanthropy of MSF. Where's
> the call for draconian population control or predictions of dire consequences
> if rigid and draconian environmental laws are not enacted.
>
A request: SF where the environmental collapse has happened, yet
somehow human technological civilization has continued, and some
people are actually having a reasonably good time. I'm thinking of
other very grim periods of history (the Mongol invasions, the Black
Death, the 40 years war) in spite of which people continued falling in
love, creating art and music, writing and striving and creating.
The world has been clobbered by global warming, new diseases,
environmental degredation, and a rather poorly implemented shift to
the post-cheap-oil era, yet we still have big cities, cool
electronics, continued technological development, and even some
governments that could be described as democratic.
Bad Things have happened to a very large percentage of humanity -
perhaps a majority of them - yet civilization has not collapsed, and
there's no Inevitable Doom - technological civilization has taken some
hits, but has survived, and will survive. Post-disaster setting, but a
_hopeful_ post-disaster setting, in which the hope lies in science and
government Of And By the people, rather than in an escape to pastoral
squalor or The Manly Survivalist Life. No MagicTech salvations either,
but simple application and development of what we know is possible.
(I only vaguely remember Brin's "Earth" - was it anything like this
before it drifted into MagicTech alien supercomputers?)
Bruce
Damien Sullivan
>A request: SF where the environmental collapse has happened, yet
>somehow human technological civilization has continued, and some
>people are actually having a reasonably good time. I'm thinking of
My first thought was Niven's time travel stories, but I'm not sure they
fit the last criterion. Or that we'd know either way. Certainly
post-collapse high tech, though.
-xx- Damien X-)
Michael Stemper
>"James Nicoll" <jdni...@panix.com> wrote in message news:fac8ik$sdj$1...@reader1.panix.com...
>> Ah, but it completely misses out on the misanthropy of MSF. Where's
>> the call for draconian population control or predictions of dire
>> consequences
>> if rigid and draconian environmental laws are not enacted.
>
>You mean it if it doesn't have a crumbling Arcology battered by massive
>huricanes and run by a secretive cabal, it can't be Mundane?
Y'know, I'd actually read one of those. It would be best if the cabal
(TINC) was reasonably competent.
--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
There is three erors in this sentence.
Charlie Stross
as <di...@diemnothiszone.net> declared:
>>The British edition is indeed coming out three months later. There's no
>>mix-up.
>>
> But that's a paperback? I'll have to get an american edition if I want
> a hardback? Oh well, most of the others that I have are american
> editions.
No. The British first edition is a trade paperback. No hardback for
HALTING STATE in the UK. (This may change for the subsequent novel,
SATURN'S CHILDREN, wot I just emailed to my editor at Ace this morning
:)
-- Charlie
Thomas Lindgren
> jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) writes:
>
> > In article <874piyx...@dev.null>,
> > Thomas Lindgren <***********@*****.***> wrote:
> > >
> > >Something like Bruce Sterlings ISLANDS IN THE NET perhaps. I don't
> > >recall that pushing the tech very strongly. (He has a few more in the
> > >same vein, I seem to recall.) Or, why not, peel away some of Vinge's
> > >pet issues from RAINBOWS END and there you are. Or recent Gibsonian
> > >work, at a guess. At the low end, we always have the venerable techno
> > >thriller.
> > >
> > The most recent Gibson that I read was either set in the now
> > or the recent past.
>
> And speaking of mundanity, /.../
I may be accused of threadjacking, but by chance, the New Yorker
writes on PKD:
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2007/08/20/070820crbo_books_gopnik/?currentPage=1
Best,
Thomas
--
Thomas Lindgren "It was all very mechanical -- but
that's the way planetside life is." -- RAW
James Nicoll
<bm2...@eve.albany.edu> wrote:
>On Aug 20, 8:30 am, jdnic...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:
>
>> >Is this the time to mention that I've written a Mundane SF novel?
>> >HALTING STATE, due this October.
>>
>> Ah, but it completely misses out on the misanthropy of MSF. Where's
>> the call for draconian population control or predictions of dire consequences
>> if rigid and draconian environmental laws are not enacted.
>>
>
>A request: SF where the environmental collapse has happened, yet
>somehow human technological civilization has continued, and some
>people are actually having a reasonably good time. I'm thinking of
>other very grim periods of history (the Mongol invasions, the Black
>Death, the 40 years war) in spite of which people continued falling in
>love, creating art and music, writing and striving and creating.
>
humans, single-celled organisms and a handful of animals in zoos
but the society is clearly wealthy. Svetz does suffer from some
job-related stress.
"Riding the Torch" by Norman Spinrad. Earth is gone, there
appear to be no other lifebearing worlds and yet the humans have
built an impressive civilization between the stars.
Thomas Lindgren
bm2...@eve.albany.edu writes:
> A request: SF where the environmental collapse has happened, yet
> somehow human technological civilization has continued, and some
> people are actually having a reasonably good time. I'm thinking of
> other very grim periods of history (the Mongol invasions, the Black
> Death, the 40 years war) in spite of which people continued falling in
> love, creating art and music, writing and striving and creating.
Hmm, might Pangborn's DAVY fit the bill? Also AND STILL I PERSIST IN
WONDERING, though that one remains unread in the stacks.
There's plenty of post-apocalyptic fiction that fits this framework to
a lesser or greater extent, now that I think of it. The pleasantly
unclaimed frontier is never far away.
Joseph Nebus
>A request: SF where the environmental collapse has happened, yet
>somehow human technological civilization has continued, and some
>people are actually having a reasonably good time. I'm thinking of
>other very grim periods of history (the Mongol invasions, the Black
>Death, the 40 years war) in spite of which people continued falling in
>love, creating art and music, writing and striving and creating.
James Blish and Norman Knight (?)'s novel 'A Torrent of Faces',
in which the human population (counting the genetically tweaked humans
who live in the sea and have superpowers) totters around one trillion,
and while the environment consists of yeast farms and paranoid fears
of bugs getting into things, plus some zoos in Canada with fantastically
stupid animal control procedures, most of the humans are living in
tolerably good shape and think they're happy and such.
On top of that there's disasters gonig on ranging from a cruise
ship sinking all the way to Chicago being destroyed by a meteor, but
they're handled with various degrees of competence.
--
Joseph Nebus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Keith F. Lynch
> Whenever I've looked at translations of books where I am able to
> understand the original language (i.e. english and french), I found
> the translations almost unbearable. Not necessarily because they're
> bad, since quite a number of them should be OK-ish due to shere
> statistics, but usually the translator has a completely different
> idea about the general tone and feeling of a novel than I do.
Maybe you should become a professional translator.
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.
bm2...@eve.albany.edu
>
> James Blish and Norman Knight (?)'s novel 'A Torrent of Faces',
> in which the human population (counting the genetically tweaked humans
> who live in the sea and have superpowers) totters around one trillion,
> and while the environment consists of yeast farms and paranoid fears
> of bugs getting into things, plus some zoos in Canada with fantastically
> stupid animal control procedures, most of the humans are living in
> tolerably good shape and think they're happy and such.
>
Isn't that the one where Blish comes out in favor of Fascism? (Not the
Nazi version, but the "good" kind, whatever that may be)
Bruce
bm2...@eve.albany.edu
> In article <1187669507.091893.43...@r23g2000prd.googlegroups.com>,
>
> Larry Niven's Svetz stories. Life on Earth consists of
> humans, single-celled organisms and a handful of animals in zoos
> but the society is clearly wealthy. Svetz does suffer from some
> job-related stress.
Hmm - I can't recall there being a backstory referring to the massive
and concentrated effort it must have required to get rid of insects,
weeds, rats....is the earth's atmosphere artificially maintained, or
are there still some sort of plants? (I do recall it was supposed to
be too polluted for pre-industrial revolution animals to survive on).
It also was, as I recall, a planetary dictatorship, my belief in which
was somewhat weakened by the idiotic inbred god-king being apparently
descended from the UN secretary general.
Bruce
Dan Goodman
Blish considered the principles of Fascism good, though unfortunately
not properly followed by the politicians who took it up.
Yes, that's the one.
--
Dan Goodman
"You, each of you, have some special wild cards. Play with them.
Find out what makes you different and better. Because it is there,
if only you can find it." Vernor Vinge, _Rainbows End_
Journal http://dsgood.livejournal.com
Futures http://dangoodman.livejournal.com
mirror: http://dsgood.insanejoural.com
Links http://del.icio.us/dsgood
Blue Tyson
> James Nicoll wrote:
> > Mundane SF is a recent movement to suck all the fun^H^H^H^H^H
> > return SF to its supposed roots.
>
> Yes, like that founding father of much of SF, Doc Smith. :)
>
> As long as the fools insist on being mundane and having no aliens,
> psionic powers, or superscience, they will never be able to defeat me!
>
> --
> Sea Wasp
> /^\
> ;;;
> Live Journal:http://seawasp.livejournal.com
Mundane SF Speaks For Boskone?
:)
Del Cotter
Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> said:
>Michael Hellwig <michael...@uni-ulm.de> wrote:
>> Whenever I've looked at translations of books where I am able to
>> understand the original language (i.e. english and french), I found
>> the translations almost unbearable. Not necessarily because they're
>> bad, since quite a number of them should be OK-ish due to shere
>> statistics, but usually the translator has a completely different
>> idea about the general tone and feeling of a novel than I do.
>
>Maybe you should become a professional translator.
I gather the money's not great, which accounts for the low quality of
many translations (kudos to the dedicated professionals who do strive to
do a good job on not-great money)
--
Del Cotter
NB Personal replies to this post will send email to d...@branta.demon.co.uk,
which goes to a spam folder-- please send your email to del3 instead.
Matthias Warkus
> On Tue, 21 Aug 2007, in rec.arts.sf.written,
> Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> said:
>
>> Michael Hellwig <michael...@uni-ulm.de> wrote:
>>> Whenever I've looked at translations of books where I am able to
>>> understand the original language (i.e. english and french), I found
>>> the translations almost unbearable. Not necessarily because they're
>>> bad, since quite a number of them should be OK-ish due to shere
>>> statistics, but usually the translator has a completely different
>>> idea about the general tone and feeling of a novel than I do.
>>
>> Maybe you should become a professional translator.
>
> I gather the money's not great, which accounts for the low quality of
> many translations (kudos to the dedicated professionals who do strive to
> do a good job on not-great money)
In the field of technical publications, it's not all that bad. I
remember getting paid something like 5 DM per page by a large computer
book publishing company (the one who puts funny animals on their
covers); today I suppose rates are above 3 EUR/p. If you worked full
time and managed to do ten pages per hour, which isn't all that hard
when you're working on reference manuals, you could make more than 2000
euros after taxes, which isn't all that bad. I suppose the main problem
is keeping your pipeline full enough so that you can actually work full
time.
I wonder whether and how conditions are different in translating fiction?
mawa
--
http://www.prellblog.de
James Nicoll
From the preface:
"But what sort of [world state is suitable for a trillion person Earth]?
We concluded that nothing less than a Utopia would do. We realize that
Utopias are out of fashion lately' on the other hand the picture of the
future as a universal Asiatic despotism atop the starving masses has been
painted to death by all modern dystopians from Huxley on -- and we could
not believe that a population of this size could be a slave society.
For one thing, a tyranny is too indifferent to individual human lives
to undertake the colossal engineering effort involve; for another, the
existance of so enormous a population even under very mean circumstances
would require a citizenry capable of intelligent cooperation -- it could
not be run as a multi-billion horde of sullen yes-men.
It might surprise some readers, and perhaps horrify a few, that the
economic system we settled on for our Utopia is a form of the corporate
state, or what was once called fascism. We were interested in the fact
that this kind of economic system has never actually been tried
(Mussolini's version was a clumsy and indifferent fake and that of Jerry
Voorhis, though eminently sensible, suffered the usual fate of any
political notion born in California). We thought it might be workable,
and perhaps even inevitable, in a high-energy economy ; and while we
would agree that the notion of an even quasi-deomcratic fascism is
unlikely, we don't view the possibility of a democratic socialism as
likely, either."
And while he didn't actively advocate eugenic pruning, his setting
might have been better off for it. Only one in a thousand people are good
enough to participate usefully in the world-economy. Part of this is
Norbert Weiner's fear about automation used as part of the world-building
and part of it is:
"[...] the leaching out of the gene-pool, which took place while the
population was reaching its current peak, has left us with a high
majority of pure thump-heads."
Michael Hellwig
> Michael Hellwig <michael...@uni-ulm.de> wrote:
>> Whenever I've looked at translations of books where I am able to
>> understand the original language (i.e. english and french), I found
>> the translations almost unbearable. Not necessarily because they're
>> bad, since quite a number of them should be OK-ish due to shere
>> statistics, but usually the translator has a completely different
>> idea about the general tone and feeling of a novel than I do.
>
> Maybe you should become a professional translator.
well, right now I'm sortof busy with my PhD-thesis in physics .. and I
kinda hope that afterwards I'll also be busy with physics.
Kay Shapero
wjti...@hotmail.com says...
> I followed the wikipedia link to Ian Macdonald's comments. I think he
> has it right. It's an uncontroversial controversy.
>
> Before these folks came up with a new brand name, it was called
> 'really hard sf'. I don't think they're creative, so much as obvious
> and redundant. I'm a big advocate of 'really hard sf', as a much
> underutilized subgenre, but I'm also aware that its only a subgenre.
At least "really hard sf" doesn't have the connotation of "boring" (and
even denotationally, I notice one of the three definitions given by the
Random House Unabridged is "common; ordinary; banal; unimaginative" (see
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=mundane&x=38&y=12 ). Not the
image one seeks for one's writing...
--
Kay Shapero
http://www.kayshapero.net
Address munged - to email use kay at the domain of my website, above.
Kay Shapero
says...
> m...@web1.calweb.com (Mike Van Pelt) writes:
> >I hope he was joking. I have this feeling he was not,
> >though. Behind the deliberate flippancy, he was serious.
> >
> >Maybe he should just stick to the Bobbsy Twins.
>
> Don't be disrespecting Nick Hornby. He's a great writer, and that essay is
> just the kind of play I think he'd like.
>
> >(That slam not directed at anyone who doesn't like Banks;
> >I'm not sure I like Banks all that much. But Hornby's
> >examples of things he didn't understand just struck me
> >as not very bright. Especially the "artifact" thing.)
>
> The impression I got was that he was playing off of the over-the-top and
> nigh-impenetrable jargon at the start of that book (incidentially, it's by
> far my least favorite Banks novel). If you've really never read any science
> fiction before, it would look like 20 pages of gibberish.
The impression *I* got was that he was being snarky (which I believe is
a fairly common reviewer trait. :) )
William December Starr
jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) said:
> Jack Tingle <wjti...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Before these folks came up with a new brand name, it was
>> called 'really hard sf'.
>
> Actually, they aren't in it for the rigidity, although they
> claim to be. They are in it for the doomcrying.
Now *there's* a tourism ad slogan:
"Come for the rigidity; stay for the doomcrying."
--
William December Starr <wds...@panix.com>
William December Starr
bm2...@eve.albany.edu said:
> (I only vaguely remember Brin's "Earth" - was it anything like
> this before it drifted into MagicTech alien supercomputers?)
From what I remember, the only people having any fun were the folks
in the secret evil conspiracy.
William December Starr
jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) said:
> Ah, but it completely misses out on the misanthropy of
> MSF. Where's the call for draconian population control or
> predictions of dire consequences if rigid and draconian
> environmental laws are not enacted.
These people would love Ming the Okay He Can Be Merciless
When He Has To But It's Not Like He Goes Out Of His *Way* To
Hurt Anybody in the latest incarnation of "Flash Gordon."
William December Starr
jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) said:
[ re James Blish and Norman Knight's A TORRENT OF FACES ]
> From the preface:
>
> "But what sort of [world state is suitable for a trillion person
> Earth]?
One in which ID numbers have at least twelve digits, for starters.
Thomas Lindgren
It was in snark-allergic THE BELIEVER
(http://www.believermag.com/issues/200303/?read=article_julavits), so
possibly not. Though with those wily brits, you never can tell.
Christopher J. Henrich
<***********@*****.***> wrote:
Oh, I think I can. One look convinces me that The Believer is about one
tenth as snark-allergic as Terry Austin.
Hmph. Have I been whooshed?
--
Chris Henrich
http://www.mathinteract.com
God just doesn't fit inside a single religion.
Default User
> In article <fac8ik$sdj$1...@reader1.panix.com>,
> jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) said:
>
> > Ah, but it completely misses out on the misanthropy of
> > MSF. Where's the call for draconian population control or
> > predictions of dire consequences if rigid and draconian
> > environmental laws are not enacted.
>
> These people would love Ming the Okay He Can Be Merciless
> When He Has To But It's Not Like He Goes Out Of His Way To
> Hurt Anybody in the latest incarnation of "Flash Gordon."
You mean the CEO of MongoCorp?
Brian
--
If televison's a babysitter, the Internet is a drunk librarian who
won't shut up.
-- Dorothy Gambrell (http://catandgirl.com)
William December Starr
"Default User" <defaul...@yahoo.com> said:
> William December Starr wrote:
>
>> These people would love Ming the Okay He Can Be Merciless
>> When He Has To But It's Not Like He Goes Out Of His Way To
>> Hurt Anybody in the latest incarnation of "Flash Gordon."
>
> You mean the CEO of MongoCorp?
More likely MongoH2O, I suspect, but yes.
Ericth...@gmail.com
> Mundane SF is a recent movement to suck all the fun^H^H^H^H^H
> can be found here:
I was looking at the manifesto and some of the related writings, and
came to the conclusion that it's not really about taking the fun out
of science fiction, but ratherather to focus it on current issues, and
so become more relevant.
Pretty much in exactly the same way the 1970s " SF like "Stand on
Zanzibar", "Make Room! Make Room!" and "Where Late the Sweet Birds
Sang" were "relevant.
Eric Tolle