SF--a clear, cohesive, and simple defintion
Ken_from_Chicago
What is "speculative fiction"?
A question a child might remotely ask, but not a childish question.
No need for a multi-volume series of Time-Life books or even one book,
at last a clear, cohesive, comprehensive--and simple--defintion of
"speculative fiction" can be revealed:
"Fiction where some significant scientific event is true."
Of course "significant" is subjective, but enough so that
"insignificant" scientific events, say something such as discovery of a
new form of the cold virus that makes you sick 1.4 minutes longer than
the average cold virus, story could be ruled out.
While I think "scientific event" is broad enough to apply still
(including both soft sf and hard sf), this is the internet and the
debate is in the details, thus to forestall or mollify some of the pent
up demand question or debate the above simplified definition, I would
offer a slightly more detailed definition of speculative fiction:
"Fiction where some significant scientific phenomenon, technological
development or chronological alteration is true."
This would allow for discovery of alien life forms, extradimensional
"rifts" or "portals", mutations in humans, plants or animals, new and
different kinds of fields of science--including branches of physics
that for lack of a better term, are "magick"--breakthroughs in
artificial intelligence, ranged weapons that involve focusing
lightwaves (aka lasers), working reusuable rocket ships or time ships.
Speaking of time, significant chronological alteration (of the
space-time continuum), as in changes in history, could be argued was a
"scientific event" and fit the simplified definition above or the more
common mainstream definition used publicly: alternate history.
I can't take total credit for the definition as it's basically inspired
by a discussion online with Wayne Throop and Justin Bacon, November
2004:
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/rec.arts.sf.written/msg/cccb99fafc6a1768?hl=en
-- Ken from Chicago
P.S. Now since that problem is solved, and we know who Deep Throat is,
who's buried in Grant's Tomb? who shot JFK? and what's in Area 51?
David Dyer-Bennet
> SPECULATIVE FICTION
>
> What is "speculative fiction"?
>
> A question a child might remotely ask, but not a childish question.
>
> No need for a multi-volume series of Time-Life books or even one book,
> at last a clear, cohesive, comprehensive--and simple--defintion of
> "speculative fiction" can be revealed:
>
> "Fiction where some significant scientific event is true."
So, then, _Dune_, _Lord of Light_, and _The Rolling Stones_ are not
science fiction? I don't think this is going to be a very useful
definition.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, <mailto:dd...@dd-b.net>, <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/>
RKBA: <http://noguns-nomoney.com/> <http://www.dd-b.net/carry/>
Pics: <http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/> <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/>
Dragaera/Steven Brust: <http://dragaera.info/>
Quiet Desperation
Ken_from_Chicago <kwic...@aol.com> wrote:
> "Fiction where some significant scientific event is true."
> "Fiction where some significant scientific phenomenon, technological
> development or chronological alteration is true."
Well... that's what I call *science* fiction, and I use "speculative"
fiction in a more generic context.
For example, "The Stars My Destination" by Alfred Bester would be
speculative fiction. The book grants ordinary humans the ability to
self-teleport at will across planetary distances. High;y improbable and
unscientific, but an interesting speculation and exploration of a
"what-if".
For me, the "speculative" fiction heading does not even need to involve
anything scientific. It could be speculation about social structures or
cultural fads or... whatever. Revisionist history (whether or right or
wrong) like "The DaVinci Code" comes under speculative fiction for me.
The Advent on Channel Twelve" by Cyril M. Kornbluth is a short story,
if I recall correctly, about a failing children's show ("Poopy Panda")
where the writers decide to go out blazing. They present Poopy Panda as
some sort of messianic figure on the last episode, and they
inadvertently start what becomes a globe encompassing religion.
> thus to forestall or mollify some of the ... debate
What? On Usenet? Are you insane? ;-)
The archtype of speculative short stories, IMHO, is one where I forget
title and author, I'm afraid.
It was written decades ago when talk of deliberately altering the
English language into something more orderly and less fraught with
ambiguities was popular. The idea was to make one change every couple
of years to let people get used to it. For example, changing all
instances of "c" to s or k because "c" is a redundant letter (I don't
recall how they handle "ch"). After that, "c" replaces "th", and so on.
But as each change is mentioned, the author incorporates the change
into how he wrote the story. The challenge for the reader is to keep
track of the changes, or by the end the story has become complete
gibberish, although it IS correct and readble according to the rule
changes detail in the story.
If anyone knows what that story was, I'd love to have a copy of it
again.
r.r...@thevine.net
wrote:
>SPECULATIVE FICTION
>
>What is "speculative fiction"?
>
snip
>
>"Fiction where some significant scientific phenomenon, technological
>development or chronological alteration is true."
>
>This would allow for discovery of alien life forms, extradimensional
>"rifts" or "portals", mutations in humans, plants or animals, new and
>different kinds of fields of science--including branches of physics
>that for lack of a better term, are "magick"--breakthroughs in
>artificial intelligence, ranged weapons that involve focusing
>lightwaves (aka lasers), working reusuable rocket ships or time ships.
>Speaking of time, significant chronological alteration (of the
>space-time continuum), as in changes in history, could be argued was a
>"scientific event" and fit the simplified definition above or the more
>common mainstream definition used publicly: alternate history.
>
However, it seems to totally leave out most fantasy, especially
traditional fantasy concerning the fairy races. You might lump them
in with "alien life forms", but it seems wrong to me to classify a
pooka and a Martian in the same group.
Rebecca
Ken_from_Chicago
David Dyer-Bennet wrote:
> "Ken_from_Chicago" <kwic...@aol.com> writes:
>
> > SPECULATIVE FICTION
> >
> > What is "speculative fiction"?
> >
> > A question a child might remotely ask, but not a childish question.
> >
> > No need for a multi-volume series of Time-Life books or even one book,
> > at last a clear, cohesive, comprehensive--and simple--defintion of
> > "speculative fiction" can be revealed:
> >
> > "Fiction where some significant scientific event is true."
>
> So, then, _Dune_, _Lord of Light_, and _The Rolling Stones_ are not
> science fiction? I don't think this is going to be a very useful
> definition.
I don't know the plots for LORD OF LIGHT and the only THE ROLLING
STONES that I know of are the rock group and the magazine. However DUNE
would qualify as SF since several significant scientific phenomena
(such as alien lifeforms such as the worms, precognition, and
telepathy) as well as technological developments (such as cloning,
force fields, lasers, faster-than-light travel) are depicted as true.
> --
> David Dyer-Bennet, <mailto:dd...@dd-b.net>, <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/>
> RKBA: <http://noguns-nomoney.com/> <http://www.dd-b.net/carry/>
> Pics: <http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/> <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/>
> Dragaera/Steven Brust: <http://dragaera.info/>
-- Ken from Chicago
David Dyer-Bennet
> The archtype of speculative short stories, IMHO, is one where I forget
> title and author, I'm afraid.
>
> It was written decades ago when talk of deliberately altering the
> English language into something more orderly and less fraught with
> ambiguities was popular. The idea was to make one change every couple
> of years to let people get used to it. For example, changing all
> instances of "c" to s or k because "c" is a redundant letter (I don't
> recall how they handle "ch"). After that, "c" replaces "th", and so on.
>
> But as each change is mentioned, the author incorporates the change
> into how he wrote the story. The challenge for the reader is to keep
> track of the changes, or by the end the story has become complete
> gibberish, although it IS correct and readble according to the rule
> changes detail in the story.
>
> If anyone knows what that story was, I'd love to have a copy of it
> again.
Meihem In Ce Klasrum
by Dolton Edwards
(originally published in Astounding Science Fiction in
1946)
<http://www.ecphorizer.com/Articles1/meiheminceklasru.html>
Ken_from_Chicago
Quiet Desperation wrote:
> In article <1117917003....@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
> Ken_from_Chicago <kwic...@aol.com> wrote:
>
> > "Fiction where some significant scientific event is true."
>
> > "Fiction where some significant scientific phenomenon, technological
> > development or chronological alteration is true."
>
> Well... that's what I call *science* fiction, and I use "speculative"
> fiction in a more generic context.
Speculative fiction includes science fiction and fantasy. While I think
the differences between science fiction and fantasy are arbitrary,
almost by definition if something is science fiction then it's
speculative fiction.
> For example, "The Stars My Destination" by Alfred Bester would be
> speculative fiction. The book grants ordinary humans the ability to
> self-teleport at will across planetary distances. High;y improbable and
> unscientific, but an interesting speculation and exploration of a
> "what-if".
Teleportation would qualify as a significant scientific discovery
depicted as true.
> For me, the "speculative" fiction heading does not even need to involve
> anything scientific. It could be speculation about social structures or
> cultural fads or... whatever. Revisionist history (whether or right or
> wrong) like "The DaVinci Code" comes under speculative fiction for me.
That would be a chronological alteration of history, aka the "alternate
history" subgenre of science fiction.
> The Advent on Channel Twelve" by Cyril M. Kornbluth is a short story,
> if I recall correctly, about a failing children's show ("Poopy Panda")
> where the writers decide to go out blazing. They present Poopy Panda as
> some sort of messianic figure on the last episode, and they
> inadvertently start what becomes a globe encompassing religion.
>
> > thus to forestall or mollify some of the ... debate
>
> What? On Usenet? Are you insane? ;-)
>
> The archtype of speculative short stories, IMHO, is one where I forget
> title and author, I'm afraid.
>
> It was written decades ago when talk of deliberately altering the
> English language into something more orderly and less fraught with
> ambiguities was popular. The idea was to make one change every couple
> of years to let people get used to it. For example, changing all
> instances of "c" to s or k because "c" is a redundant letter (I don't
> recall how they handle "ch"). After that, "c" replaces "th", and so on.
>
> But as each change is mentioned, the author incorporates the change
> into how he wrote the story. The challenge for the reader is to keep
> track of the changes, or by the end the story has become complete
> gibberish, although it IS correct and readble according to the rule
> changes detail in the story.
>
> If anyone knows what that story was, I'd love to have a copy of it
> again.
That too would be a significant alteration of history depicted as true.
-- Ken from Chicago
how...@brazee.net
On 4-Jun-2005, "Ken_from_Chicago" <kwic...@aol.com> wrote:
> I don't know the plots for LORD OF LIGHT and the only THE ROLLING
> STONES that I know of are the rock group and the magazine. However DUNE
> would qualify as SF since several significant scientific phenomena
> (such as alien lifeforms such as the worms, precognition, and
> telepathy) as well as technological developments (such as cloning,
> force fields, lasers, faster-than-light travel) are depicted as true.
Are you implying there are fantasy works where the magic is *not* depicted
as true?
Ken_from_Chicago
Nope, fantasy would be included. Magick would be that significant
scientific phenomenon, a field of science or physics, depicted as true.
How would "magickal creatures" (e.g., fairies, elves, orcs, goblins,
hobgoblins, dwarves, hobbits, dragons, trolls, etc.) DIFFER from alien
life forms or undiscovered mutations in plant, animal or human life
forms?
-- Ken from Chicago
Wayne Throop
: David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net>
: So, then, _Dune_, _Lord of Light_, and _The Rolling Stones_ are not
: science fiction? I don't think this is going to be a very useful
: definition.
So the Butlerian Jihad, the Star of India starship,
and the independence of the lunar colony don't count as
"scientific events" in your view?
Yes, well, I suppose they don't in my view either. But if you
follow the references, you see that what he means by "scientific
event" is not what it seems. He's basing his definition on the
"speculative fiction in which the what-if involves science or technology"
that Justin Bacon tossed around a while back.
So. Yes, it's definitely misleading phraseology.
And hence unuseful.
Wayne Throop thr...@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw
Ken_from_Chicago
I loved that story. Most appropo given the recent spelling bee
championship in the news. I hate them. Spelling bees are symbolic of
the very flaws in American English language. Spelling should be clear
cut, one spelling per phoneme. Most troubling are vowels. You have the
five vowels, a, e, i, o, u, long or short. You have all the consonants
and their combinations, beginning combinations (e.g., fl-, gr-, st-,
etc.), middle combinations (e.g., -sh-, -sk-, -th-, etc.), and ending
combinations (e.g., -nt, -rt, -lk, etc.). You should be able to hear
the sound and no how its spelled or see the word and know how it
sounds.
-- Ken from Chicago
Ken_from_Chicago
There are SF stories where magic is not depicted as true.
-- Ken from Chicago
Captain Infinity
>P.S. Now since that problem is solved, and we know who Deep Throat is,
>who's buried in Grant's Tomb?
JFK.
>who shot JFK?
U.S. Grant.
>and what's in Area 51?
Grant's tomb.
**
Captain Infinity
Ken_from_Chicago
Wayne Throop wrote:
> :: "Fiction where some significant scientific event is true."
>
> : David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net>
> : So, then, _Dune_, _Lord of Light_, and _The Rolling Stones_ are not
> : science fiction? I don't think this is going to be a very useful
> : definition.
>
> So the Butlerian Jihad, the Star of India starship,
> and the independence of the lunar colony don't count as
> "scientific events" in your view?
The development of artificial intelligence does not count as a
"scientific event"? Space exploration and lunar colonies are not
"scientific events"?
> Yes, well, I suppose they don't in my view either. But if you
> follow the references, you see that what he means by "scientific
> event" is not what it seems. He's basing his definition on the
> "speculative fiction in which the what-if involves science or technology"
> that Justin Bacon tossed around a while back.
>
> So. Yes, it's definitely misleading phraseology.
> And hence unuseful.
"What if a space colony existed populated by people with enormous
powers?"
What is misleading?
> Wayne Throop thr...@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw
-- Ken from Chicago
Wayne Throop
:: Yes, it's definitely misleading phraseology.
: "Ken_from_Chicago" <kwic...@aol.com>
: "What if a space colony existed populated by people with enormous powers?"
:
: What is misleading?
The fact that you went from "event is true" to "what if [] existed".
They *can* be taken to mean the same thing, but "is true" is sufficiently
ambiguous, and "event" sufficiently restrictive, that it tends to mislead.
Especially since quite often "events" are harder to articulate than
"exists", or "involves technology", as the examples upthread seem to show.
I just think "where some significant scientific event" is trying
to compress things a bit too much. "Scientific" might be taken to
exclude mere technological change, and "event" doesn't connect as
directly to setting and background props as might be convenient.
David Dyer-Bennet
> David Dyer-Bennet wrote:
>> "Ken_from_Chicago" <kwic...@aol.com> writes:
>>
>> > SPECULATIVE FICTION
>> >
>> > What is "speculative fiction"?
>> >
>> > A question a child might remotely ask, but not a childish question.
>> >
>> > No need for a multi-volume series of Time-Life books or even one book,
>> > at last a clear, cohesive, comprehensive--and simple--defintion of
>> > "speculative fiction" can be revealed:
>> >
>> > "Fiction where some significant scientific event is true."
>>
>> So, then, _Dune_, _Lord of Light_, and _The Rolling Stones_ are not
>> science fiction? I don't think this is going to be a very useful
>> definition.
>
> I don't know the plots for LORD OF LIGHT and the only THE ROLLING
> STONES that I know of are the rock group and the magazine. However DUNE
> would qualify as SF since several significant scientific phenomena
> (such as alien lifeforms such as the worms, precognition, and
> telepathy) as well as technological developments (such as cloning,
> force fields, lasers, faster-than-light travel) are depicted as true.
You're saying "phenomena". The definition says "event". I don't know
what *either one of you* means yet.
Does this mean that anything that meets the "mundane SF" charter
*isn't* SF as you read Ken's definition?
David Dyer-Bennet
> David Dyer-Bennet wrote:
>> Quiet Desperation <nos...@nospam.com> writes:
>>
>> > The archtype of speculative short stories, IMHO, is one where I forget
>> > title and author, I'm afraid.
>> >
>> > It was written decades ago when talk of deliberately altering the
>> > English language into something more orderly and less fraught with
>> > ambiguities was popular. The idea was to make one change every couple
>> > of years to let people get used to it. For example, changing all
>> > instances of "c" to s or k because "c" is a redundant letter (I don't
>> > recall how they handle "ch"). After that, "c" replaces "th", and so on.
>> >
>> > But as each change is mentioned, the author incorporates the change
>> > into how he wrote the story. The challenge for the reader is to keep
>> > track of the changes, or by the end the story has become complete
>> > gibberish, although it IS correct and readble according to the rule
>> > changes detail in the story.
>> >
>> > If anyone knows what that story was, I'd love to have a copy of it
>> > again.
>>
>> Meihem In Ce Klasrum
>> by Dolton Edwards
>>
>> (originally published in Astounding Science Fiction in
>> 1946)
>>
>> <http://www.ecphorizer.com/Articles1/meiheminceklasru.html>
> I loved that story. Most appropo given the recent spelling bee
> championship in the news. I hate them. Spelling bees are symbolic of
> the very flaws in American English language. Spelling should be
> clear cut, one spelling per phoneme. Most troubling are vowels. You
> have the five vowels, a, e, i, o, u, long or short. You have all the
> consonants and their combinations, beginning combinations (e.g.,
> fl-, gr-, st-, etc.), middle combinations (e.g., -sh-, -sk-, -th-,
> etc.), and ending combinations (e.g., -nt, -rt, -lk, etc.). You
> should be able to hear the sound and no how its spelled or see the
> word and know how it sounds.
Most of my problems come with double consonants.
You do realize that that story is mostly *making fun* of spelling
reform, don't you?
David Dyer-Bennet
> Quiet Desperation wrote:
>> In article <1117917003....@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
>> Ken_from_Chicago <kwic...@aol.com> wrote:
>>
>> > "Fiction where some significant scientific event is true."
>>
>> > "Fiction where some significant scientific phenomenon, technological
>> > development or chronological alteration is true."
>>
>> Well... that's what I call *science* fiction, and I use "speculative"
>> fiction in a more generic context.
>
> Speculative fiction includes science fiction and fantasy. While I think
> the differences between science fiction and fantasy are arbitrary,
> almost by definition if something is science fiction then it's
> speculative fiction.
>
>> For example, "The Stars My Destination" by Alfred Bester would be
>> speculative fiction. The book grants ordinary humans the ability to
>> self-teleport at will across planetary distances. High;y improbable and
>> unscientific, but an interesting speculation and exploration of a
>> "what-if".
>
> Teleportation would qualify as a significant scientific discovery
> depicted as true.
But it wasn't a "scientific discovery" at all; it was a human ability
that was never explained.
David Dyer-Bennet
> :: "Fiction where some significant scientific event is true."
>
> : David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net>
> : So, then, _Dune_, _Lord of Light_, and _The Rolling Stones_ are not
> : science fiction? I don't think this is going to be a very useful
> : definition.
>
> So the Butlerian Jihad, the Star of India starship,
> and the independence of the lunar colony don't count as
> "scientific events" in your view?
Well, none of them take place during the stories, and aren't much
explained.
> Yes, well, I suppose they don't in my view either. But if you
> follow the references, you see that what he means by "scientific
> event" is not what it seems. He's basing his definition on the
> "speculative fiction in which the what-if involves science or
> technology" that Justin Bacon tossed around a while back.
>
> So. Yes, it's definitely misleading phraseology.
> And hence unuseful.
Well, that view, if it's what he means, at least very vaguely makes
some sense.
It's interesting that, by that definition, the thing that makes Dune
"science fiction" is the *rejection* by society of the scientific
possibility of AI.
David Dyer-Bennet
> Wayne Throop wrote:
>> :: "Fiction where some significant scientific event is true."
>>
>> : David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net>
>> : So, then, _Dune_, _Lord of Light_, and _The Rolling Stones_ are not
>> : science fiction? I don't think this is going to be a very useful
>> : definition.
>>
>> So the Butlerian Jihad, the Star of India starship,
>> and the independence of the lunar colony don't count as
>> "scientific events" in your view?
>
> The development of artificial intelligence does not count as a
> "scientific event"? Space exploration and lunar colonies are not
> "scientific events"?
AI wasn't *developed*, it just happened. So no, that's not a
scientific event. Neither is space exploration or the existence of a
lunar colony. I think we disagree on *both* what "scientific" and
"event" mean.
Robert Hutchinson
> David Dyer-Bennet wrote:
> > Ken_from_Chicago writes:
> > > What is "speculative fiction"?
> > >
> >
> > So, then, _Dune_, _Lord of Light_, and _The Rolling Stones_ are not
> > science fiction? I don't think this is going to be a very useful
> > definition.
>
> I don't know the plots for LORD OF LIGHT and the only THE ROLLING
> STONES that I know of are the rock group and the magazine. However DUNE
> would qualify as SF since several significant scientific phenomena
> (such as alien lifeforms such as the worms, precognition, and
> telepathy) as well as technological developments (such as cloning,
> force fields, lasers, faster-than-light travel) are depicted as true.
Good luck finding much fiction that *isn't* SF, then. There's no reason
for cloning and lasers to be any different from the internal combustion
engine, per your definition.
--
Robert Hutchinson | The Twenty is just so evil. The very name gloats
| over our suffering and powerlessness. It's a
| boot stomping on a human face for twenty minutes.
| -- Shaenon K. Garrity
Joe Bernstein
Ken_from_Chicago <kwic...@aol.com> wrote:
> r.r...@thevine.net wrote:
> > On 4 Jun 2005 13:30:08 -0700, "Ken_from_Chicago" <kwic...@aol.com>
> > wrote:
> > >SPECULATIVE FICTION
> > >
> > >What is "speculative fiction"?
> > >"Fiction where some significant scientific phenomenon, technological
> > >development or chronological alteration is true."
> > >
> > >This would allow for discovery of alien life forms, extradimensional
> > >"rifts" or "portals", mutations in humans, plants or animals, new and
> > >different kinds of fields of science--including branches of physics
> > >that for lack of a better term, are "magick"--breakthroughs in
> > >artificial intelligence, ranged weapons that involve focusing
> > >lightwaves (aka lasers), working reusuable rocket ships or time ships.
> > >Speaking of time, significant chronological alteration (of the
> > >space-time continuum), as in changes in history, could be argued was a
> > >"scientific event" and fit the simplified definition above or the more
> > >common mainstream definition used publicly: alternate history.
I'm quoting at the same length as the previous poster because I want
to be fair to him, but, um, it still looks to me like over-quoting. So
to try to make something useful out of this quote, I'll just note that
*every* example given in it (AI, lasers, rockets, time ships, and
alternate history) is usually conceived of as science fictional (though
AH, in particular, is sometimes hived off as co-equal to science
fiction and fantasy).
> > However, it seems to totally leave out most fantasy, especially
> > traditional fantasy concerning the fairy races. You might lump them
> > in with "alien life forms", but it seems wrong to me to classify a
> > pooka and a Martian in the same group.
And here, to redeem the quoting, I can do no better than "Me too".
I will, however, note the precision. I don't know whether Ms. Rice
*intended* the "seems" wording to work this way, but basically, *my*
take on the above "definition" is not that it *does* exclude fantasy,
but that it treats it in a fundamentally wrongheaded way, such that
it *seems* to leave fantasy out, and more importantly, such that
it's hard to *think* with this definition if fantasy is what you're
thinking about.
> Nope, fantasy would be included. Magick would be that significant
> scientific phenomenon, a field of science or physics, depicted as true.
> How would "magickal creatures" (e.g., fairies, elves, orcs, goblins,
> hobgoblins, dwarves, hobbits, dragons, trolls, etc.) DIFFER from alien
> life forms or undiscovered mutations in plant, animal or human life
> forms?
One very notable difference might be that the magickal creatures would
be highly un-amenable to scientific study. "Magic is just another
science" is a popular posture among US fantasy authors, but it is
far from universal, thankfully. Perhaps the easiest example I can
give of the opposing view would be, actually, the US author Peter
Beagle (<The Last Unicorn> and <The Folk of the Air> are both dense
with the incomprehensibility of true magic, in the former specifically
as applied to, well, unicorns, which are frequently considered the
prototypical magical beasts). Note the arguments pro and con reason
as applied to miracle in (again US) Lois McMaster Bujold's <The Curse
of Chalion>.
Now, to be fair, many science fictional aliens are also un-amenable
to scientific study. (I'm currently reading S. L. Viehl's <Stardoc>,
by way of resting after too much of a Very Serious UK Author, and
boy, does she ever have implausible aliens. Interbreeding, for
example, is so easy that nervous planets, including this one, pass
laws banning all ETs.) But the *idea* is different. In science
fiction, the author *usually* wants us to believe that the aliens are
amenable to scientific study (for example, Viehl is mainly concerned
to depict medical treatment of them); in cases where they aren't
(Darkover is perhaps the best-known), people tend to have trouble
accepting that the work is in fact science fiction and not fantasy.
That said. Look. I'm not trying to convince you your definition
is no good. I think it's already been established that your *wording*
is no good, but you're free to have whatever definition you want, and if
*you* want to define speculative fiction in this way, go ahead. My
concern is that you understand that this is not a definition someone
who is primarily concerned with fantasy is likely to have a lot of
patience with. "If I want to treat my goblins as fundamentally
irreconcilable with physical law you're going to call it mainstream
fiction?" (Consider the recent movie <The Ring> or its progenitor
<Ringu>. Is the bogey in that movie, or her main mode of action,
something any respectable scientific approach can make sense of?)
And beyond that, I want to point you to the fact that people have been
at this sort of thing for quite a long time now, and they've come up
with ways to talk about what *seems* to be your main point, while
not, perhaps, getting people quite so annoyed. One such term is
one I've been using lately, or perhaps misusing: "novum". Apparently
this term was first used by someone named Ernest Bloch, and was
brought into sf criticism by Darko Suvin, who defined it as "a
strange newness ... a totalizing phenomenon or relationship deviating
from the author's and implied reader's norm of reality". Thus much
from Gary Wolfe's <Critical Terms for Science Fiction and Fantasy>,
quoting Suvin's <Metamorphoses of Science Fiction>, 1979. Now, this
does not, so far, look much like a term one wants to carry around
in one's wallet, to measure books on the bookstore or library shelves
with, although I *think* I can sorta guess what Suvin means by
"totalizing" ("relationship" still has me confused; well, that's what
you get for using reference books instead of original sources).
On the other hand, <The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction> has a quite
different treatment of this concept. In its entry "Definitions of SF"
by Brian Stableford, John Clute, and Peter Nicholls, we find instead
"a new thing - some difference between the world of the fiction and
what Suvin calls the 'empirical environment', the real world outside."
Now this is *also* not something you want to carry around in your
wallet, but for the opposite reason: it's too easy a definition to
meet; it makes <Pride and Prejudice> have a novum in that probably
Elizabeth Bennet did not, in fact, live. But my point is that if
you stick "novum" into your definition in place of "scientific
phenomenon, technological development, or chronological alteration",
then you are getting at the heart of the novum approach: You're
saying "It's speculative if there's something unreal in it and that
a) is significant and b) is significantly unreal."
At which point, of course, "significant" is your new subjective
bogeyman, but you've already indicated that you're OK with that.
Full disclosure: Suvin himself is apparently not happy at all with
this approach, and is quoted (again in the EoSF) as calling the
science fiction/fantasy linkage of modern publishing and writing
"a rampantly pathological phenomenon". But since you are apparently
trying to write something that *does* link the two, I assume you
don't share his objections.
Again, I'm not trying to tell you, don't use your definition. I'm
just trying to say, it looks to me like you're aiming fairly close to
this definition over here that already does what maybe you want.
Joe Bernstein
--
Joe Bernstein, writer j...@sfbooks.com
<http://www.panix.com/~josephb/>
Eldritch
> SPECULATIVE FICTION
>
> What is "speculative fiction"?
>
Not long ago I read one of Harlan Ellison's non-fiction books. It was
a collection of his movie reviews or something like that. In it, I
believe he defined science fiction along the lines of:
A story based on a scientific principal or set in the future.
This is very close to your definition. Just a hair different.
Then he went on, in his usual piercing way, to say a story about
spaceships and space battles may not meet his definition of science
fiction if it's structure didn't really *depend* on some scientific
principal.
For example, applying his definition very strenuously, "Star Wars" is
not a science fiction tale, because the same essential story could be
told if it were set in the past. Han Solo could just as easily have
been a rogue knight who helps a peasant boy and an old wizard rescue a
princess, who is being held in a castle stronghold, by an evil king and
his chief henchman, Darth Vader. Trade spaceships for horses and
lightsabers for swords and you have a medieval tale. Heck, you almost
have "The Princess Bride." He *really* wanted his science fiction tales
to be *based* on science. In the same way, "Outland" is not science
fiction at all, but only a badly translated western.
It's an interesting idea, which I think I like. It's a definition
based more on the philosophy the story is build on, than superficial
appearance. But it means many things are not inherently science
fiction rather than fantasy. For example, the conceit of telepathy is
fantasy if a character can do it because he was bonked on the head by
the Blue Fairy's wand or science fiction if it's due to medical
physiology or an external electronic device.
The difference between science fiction and fantasy is clear cut for me.
I use the above definition for science fiction whereas fantasy is a
story based on magic. Science versus magic. Couldn't be clearer. If
a story is based on a magic wish, witchcraft, or Satan's powers, then I
classify it as magic. So Frankenstein is science fiction, while
Wolfman and Dracula are magic. And, of course, they're all Horror!
Overlapping genres.
I'm not sure I've seen speculative fiction used to include both science
fiction and fantasy. But perhaps I'm out of touch on that.
E
Wayne Throop
: For example, applying his definition very strenuously, "Star Wars" is
: not a science fiction tale, because the same essential story could be
: told if it were set in the past.
No, Star Wars is still science fiction (well... if it is at all).
The other story that you claim is "essentially the same" may not be.
The fact that another story with some isomorphisms doesn't qualify
under the criteria doesn't mean the original story does not.
Ken_from_Chicago
I think for most people in the mainstream (and who are less debative
than we are online >=^>) "significant scientific event" can cover
technological inventions and wouldn't have a problem with "is true"
versus "exists".
But if they were unsure or required more specifics I included a more
detailed definition of speculative fiction:
"Fiction where some scientific phenomenon, technological development or
chronological alteration [of the space-time continuum] is true."
> Wayne Throop thr...@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw
It seems significantly comprehensive enough to cover the traditional
categories of science fiction and fantasy (and most horror) while
excluding discoveries, developments, alterations that are not
"significant" (e.g., finding a new breed of honey bee that's ORANGE and
black instead of yellow and black, inventing 44.1 magnum handgun,
current history aka the timeline "now" being altered to include
fictional characters, etc.).
I think your average bookstore or dvd store rookie would be able to use
the above definition to determine if a book or dvd belonged in the
"Science Fiction / Fantasy / Horror" section or not.
-- Ken from Chicago
Ken_from_Chicago
David Dyer-Bennet wrote:
> "Ken_from_Chicago" <kwic...@aol.com> writes:
>
> > David Dyer-Bennet wrote:
> >> "Ken_from_Chicago" <kwic...@aol.com> writes:
> >>
> >> > SPECULATIVE FICTION
> >> >
> >> > What is "speculative fiction"?
> >> >
> >> > A question a child might remotely ask, but not a childish question.
> >> >
> >> > No need for a multi-volume series of Time-Life books or even one book,
> >> > at last a clear, cohesive, comprehensive--and simple--defintion of
> >> > "speculative fiction" can be revealed:
> >> >
> >> > "Fiction where some significant scientific event is true."
> >>
> >> So, then, _Dune_, _Lord of Light_, and _The Rolling Stones_ are not
> >> science fiction? I don't think this is going to be a very useful
> >> definition.
> >
> > I don't know the plots for LORD OF LIGHT and the only THE ROLLING
> > STONES that I know of are the rock group and the magazine. However DUNE
> > would qualify as SF since several significant scientific phenomena
> > (such as alien lifeforms such as the worms, precognition, and
> > telepathy) as well as technological developments (such as cloning,
> > force fields, lasers, faster-than-light travel) are depicted as true.
>
> You're saying "phenomena". The definition says "event". I don't know
> what *either one of you* means yet.
The simplified definition says "scientific event" while the more
detailed definition says "scientific phenomenon, technological
development, or chronological alteration". I meant for them both to
mean the same thing, merely that the latter to be a more descriptive
version of the former.
For example, in physics a phenomenon = an observable event.
ToMAYto . . . toMAHto.
> Does this mean that anything that meets the "mundane SF" charter
> *isn't* SF as you read Ken's definition?
I would say something that was "mundane sf" would also be speculative
fiction as defined above.
> --
> David Dyer-Bennet, <mailto:dd...@dd-b.net>, <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/>
> RKBA: <http://noguns-nomoney.com/> <http://www.dd-b.net/carry/>
> Pics: <http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/> <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/>
> Dragaera/Steven Brust: <http://dragaera.info/>
-- Ken from Chicago
David Johnston
wrote:
>
> For example, applying his definition very strenuously, "Star Wars" is
>not a science fiction tale, because the same essential story could be
>told if it were set in the past. Han Solo could just as easily have
>been a rogue knight who helps a peasant boy and an old wizard rescue a
>princess, who is being held in a castle stronghold, by an evil king and
>his chief henchman, Darth Vader. Trade spaceships for horses and
>lightsabers for swords and you have a medieval tale.
I could do that with the vast majority of science fiction ever
written including the stuff Harlan Ellison wrote. Replace the evil
computer in "I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream" with a devil
accidentally summoned by stupid magicians. Shazam, fantasy.
There are a few highly technical science fiction stories that can't be
treated that way because even if Beowulf Schaffer is working for a
wizard, getting torn apart by tidal stresses is still science
fictional.
Incidentally, that plot synopsis sort of overlooks the most important
element of Star Wars. The central thing about which the whole movie
revolves. You know. It's sort of big so it is hard to overlook. And
translating it into a fantasy equivalent really loses something.
Ken_from_Chicago
I like science fiction and enjoy comedy making fun of the excesses of
sci-fi.
-- Ken from Chicago
Ken_from_Chicago
David Dyer-Bennet wrote:
> "Ken_from_Chicago" <kwic...@aol.com> writes:
>
> > Quiet Desperation wrote:
> >> In article <1117917003....@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
> >> Ken_from_Chicago <kwic...@aol.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> > "Fiction where some significant scientific event is true."
> >>
> >> > "Fiction where some significant scientific phenomenon, technological
> >> > development or chronological alteration is true."
> >>
> >> Well... that's what I call *science* fiction, and I use "speculative"
> >> fiction in a more generic context.
> >
> > Speculative fiction includes science fiction and fantasy. While I think
> > the differences between science fiction and fantasy are arbitrary,
> > almost by definition if something is science fiction then it's
> > speculative fiction.
> >
> >> For example, "The Stars My Destination" by Alfred Bester would be
> >> speculative fiction. The book grants ordinary humans the ability to
> >> self-teleport at will across planetary distances. High;y improbable and
> >> unscientific, but an interesting speculation and exploration of a
> >> "what-if".
> >
> > Teleportation would qualify as a significant scientific discovery
> > depicted as true.
>
> But it wasn't a "scientific discovery" at all; it was a human ability
> that was never explained.
Not all scientific discoveries are explained.
Some of the limits of teleportation was observed, understood and
explained, but not completely.
Is the Big Bang--the fact that the universe has a definite beginning
and is not infinitely old--not a scientific discovery just because it
is not completely explained?
> --
> David Dyer-Bennet, <mailto:dd...@dd-b.net>, <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/>
> RKBA: <http://noguns-nomoney.com/> <http://www.dd-b.net/carry/>
> Pics: <http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/> <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/>
> Dragaera/Steven Brust: <http://dragaera.info/>
-- Ken from Chicago
Ken_from_Chicago
David Johnston wrote:
> On Sun, 05 Jun 2005 05:46:08 GMT, Eldritch <Tiredo...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
> >
> > For example, applying his definition very strenuously, "Star Wars" is
> >not a science fiction tale, because the same essential story could be
> >told if it were set in the past. Han Solo could just as easily have
> >been a rogue knight who helps a peasant boy and an old wizard rescue a
> >princess, who is being held in a castle stronghold, by an evil king and
> >his chief henchman, Darth Vader. Trade spaceships for horses and
> >lightsabers for swords and you have a medieval tale.
>
> I could do that with the vast majority of science fiction ever
Or vice versa: Dwarves, elves, hobbits, orcs, etc., are mutants, magic
is psionics, wizards, Sauron, the Ringwraiths are extra-dimensional
beings who have crossed over to our dimensional plane.
> written including the stuff Harlan Ellison wrote. Replace the evil
> computer in "I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream" with a devil
> accidentally summoned by stupid magicians. Shazam, fantasy.
> There are a few highly technical science fiction stories that can't be
> treated that way because even if Beowulf Schaffer is working for a
> wizard, getting torn apart by tidal stresses is still science
> fictional.
Tidal forces / angry spirits . . . toMAYto / toMAHto.
> Incidentally, that plot synopsis sort of overlooks the most important
> element of Star Wars. The central thing about which the whole movie
> revolves. You know. It's sort of big so it is hard to overlook. And
> translating it into a fantasy equivalent really loses something.
Sure it can.
Instead Luke believing in The Force, in a "Higher Power", switch it
around. In a world of Nature Magic where magic is drawn from nature,
Summoning Magic where magic simply teleports magical beings, Drawn
Magic (magic drawn from extra-dimensional beings or forces) . . .
rookie wizard Luke learns to cut out ties from outside sources because
those sources can be tainted, the connection skewed, the reaction time
slowed, and instead Luke delves INWARD to discover the power of the
Jedi Mage and learns to use Personal Magic, that we are not merely
lumps of flesh but beings of light, and so he learns to tap into that
chi, that Inner Light to break thru all the illusions, wards and spells
that protect The Death Castle.
-- Ken from Chicago
Beeblebear
"Ken_from_Chicago" <kwic...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1117932929....@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
But that fails to take regional accents into account. If what you describe
was the case, then the language spoken in Glasgow could not be written as
English.
As it is, no matter where you are in the English speaking world, people see
a word like "Lieutenant" and recognise it for what it means. Even if they
can't agree on how it sounds.
A rather useful feature from my point of view.
--
--
Chris Lyth (clyt...@ifis.org.uk - shoot the president to reply)
"Bother," said Pooh, as the EEC outlawed his favourite sized
honey pot.
W. Citoan
>
> David Johnston wrote:
>
> > Incidentally, that plot synopsis sort of overlooks the most
> > important element of Star Wars. The central thing about which the
> > whole movie revolves. You know. It's sort of big so it is hard to
> > overlook. And translating it into a fantasy equivalent really loses
> > something.
>
> Sure it can.
>
Maybe I've got it wrong, but I think David was referring to the Death
Star. Sure, you could do something similar in fantasy (the moving
fortress in _Krull_ comes to mind), but it would loose some of the scope
(destroying cities vs. planets).
- W. Citoan
--
If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, perhaps you
have misunderstood the situation.
-- Graffiti
Ken_from_Chicago
You'll note I did say "American" English. British English has its own
rules.
The problem with the "American" language is that in importing words
from other languages there is no one standard for transliterating the
words. Instead it accepts words from other languages INCLUDING their
rules of spelling, so you end up with a mix of contradicting spelling
rules and exception thereto.
If I had my way "Lieutenant" would be "Luetenant" or "Leftenant" ("a",
"e", "i", "o", "u", would be for short vowels while "ae", "ee", "ie",
"oe", "ue" would be for long vowels, or some symbol indicating long
vowels, maybe double vowels, with a "-" between combinations of vowels
as in "onomatopeia"onoematoepee-a" or maybe "onoqmatoqpeqa" since "q"
is a totally redundant letter fully replaceable by "kw")
-- Ken from Chicago ("Ken from Shicagoe")
Ken_from_Chicago
rift to another world or another dimensional plane and flee.
-- Ken from Chicago
David Johnston
wrote:
>> written including the stuff Harlan Ellison wrote. Replace the evil
>> computer in "I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream" with a devil
>> accidentally summoned by stupid magicians. Shazam, fantasy.
>> There are a few highly technical science fiction stories that can't be
>> treated that way because even if Beowulf Schaffer is working for a
>> wizard, getting torn apart by tidal stresses is still science
>> fictional.
>
>Tidal forces / angry spirits . . . toMAYto / toMAHto.
Not the same thing. The point about Neutron Star is that it was a
specifically educational story designed to reveal to the reader a
particular scientific fact. Lose that and you lose the point of the
story.
David Johnston
<wci...@NOSPAM-yahoo.com> wrote:
>Ken_from_Chicago wrote:
>>
>> David Johnston wrote:
>>
>> > Incidentally, that plot synopsis sort of overlooks the most
>> > important element of Star Wars. The central thing about which the
>> > whole movie revolves. You know. It's sort of big so it is hard to
>> > overlook. And translating it into a fantasy equivalent really loses
>> > something.
>>
>> Sure it can.
>>
>> Instead Luke believing in The Force ...(snip)
>
>Maybe I've got it wrong, but I think David was referring to the Death
>Star. Sure, you could do something similar in fantasy (the moving
>fortress in _Krull_ comes to mind), but it would loose some of the scope
>(destroying cities vs. planets).
And more importantly you'd lose symbolism. It is important that the
Deathstar is what you might call "evil technology" and that Luke
abandons his targetting computer and relies upon his faith to defeat
it. In many ways a silly symbolic message, the kind of thing that got
the Japanese trashed in World War II, but the point is that
translating everything into magical equivalents will not keep it
intact.
r.r...@thevine.net
wrote:
>
>
>r.r...@thevine.net wrote:
>> On 4 Jun 2005 13:30:08 -0700, "Ken_from_Chicago" <kwic...@aol.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >SPECULATIVE FICTION
>> >
>> >What is "speculative fiction"?
>> >
>> snip
>> >
>> >"Fiction where some significant scientific phenomenon, technological
>> >development or chronological alteration is true."
>> >
>> >This would allow for discovery of alien life forms, extradimensional
>> >"rifts" or "portals", mutations in humans, plants or animals, new and
>> >different kinds of fields of science--including branches of physics
>> >that for lack of a better term, are "magick"--breakthroughs in
>> >artificial intelligence, ranged weapons that involve focusing
>> >lightwaves (aka lasers), working reusuable rocket ships or time ships.
>> >Speaking of time, significant chronological alteration (of the
>> >space-time continuum), as in changes in history, could be argued was a
>> >"scientific event" and fit the simplified definition above or the more
>> >common mainstream definition used publicly: alternate history.
>> >
>> However, it seems to totally leave out most fantasy, especially
>> traditional fantasy concerning the fairy races. You might lump them
>> in with "alien life forms", but it seems wrong to me to classify a
>> pooka and a Martian in the same group.
>>
>> Rebecca
>
>Nope, fantasy would be included. Magick would be that significant
>scientific phenomenon, a field of science or physics, depicted as true.
>How would "magickal creatures" (e.g., fairies, elves, orcs, goblins,
>hobgoblins, dwarves, hobbits, dragons, trolls, etc.) DIFFER from alien
>life forms or undiscovered mutations in plant, animal or human life
>forms?
>
>-- Ken from Chicago
Take Cherryh's view of the Fae, especially in _Faery in Shadow_. It
seems clear (to me, at least) that the Faery races are embodiments of
natural forces. Pookas are dark, slippery, fickle, and dangerous
because they represent the destructive force of water, and are aligned
with the moon, and are definitely dark-sided (as opposed to the
selkie, which are also water elements, but aligned with the sun, and
yet dark-sided at the same time.) They are, in other words,
metaphorically-based life forms. This seems diametrically opposed to
considering them a "scientific" phenomena.
To put it simply, if you can explain it scientifically, it doesn't fit
the definition of magic. Supernatural creatures are, by definition,
outside the realm of science. And if you want to stretch the
definition of science to cover them, you have diluted the term so much
that it is meaningless.
Rebecca
Wayne Throop
: rgo...@telusplanet.net (David Johnston)
: Not the same thing. The point about Neutron Star is that it was a
: specifically educational story designed to reveal to the reader a
: particular scientific fact. Lose that and you lose the point of the
: story.
But if you transpose it to reveal to the reader a particular
magical or theological fact (fact in the sense that they could have
known it outside of the story, and so forth), it'd still be
essentially the same story.
Mind you, I don't have on the tip of my typing fingers
a good example of such a fact, but it doesn't seem impossible
Konrad Gaertner
>
> If I had my way "Lieutenant" would be "Luetenant" or "Leftenant" ("a",
> "e", "i", "o", "u", would be for short vowels while "ae", "ee", "ie",
> "oe", "ue" would be for long vowels, or some symbol indicating long
> vowels, maybe double vowels, with a "-" between combinations of vowels
> as in "onomatopeia"onoematoepee-a" or maybe "onoqmatoqpeqa" since "q"
> is a totally redundant letter fully replaceable by "kw")
>
> -- Ken from Chicago ("Ken from Shicagoe")
ITYM Shikagoe
--
Konrad Gaertner email: gae...@aol.com
http://www.livejournal.com/users/kgbooklog/
Beeblebear
But regional accents vary massively in the US as well. The Southern states
by your rules would very likely have no short vowels.
Obs SF Feersum Enjinn - for what happens when you start to write
onomatopeically.
--
--
Chris Lyth (clyt...@ifis.org.uk - shoot the president to reply)
My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met. --
Rodney Dangerfield
trike
>the more detailed definition says "scientific phenomenon,
>technological development, or chronological alteration". I
>meant for them both to mean the same thing, merely that
>the latter to be a more descriptive version of the former.
After all these years, I have yet to find a definition better than: "SF
is the literature of the possible, while Fantasy is the literature of
the impossible."
Doug
Michael Grosberg
Ken_from_Chicago wrote:
> David Johnston wrote:
> > Incidentally, that plot synopsis sort of overlooks the most important
> > element of Star Wars. The central thing about which the whole movie
> > revolves. You know. It's sort of big so it is hard to overlook. And
> > translating it into a fantasy equivalent really loses something.
> Sure it can.
>
> Instead Luke believing in The Force, in a "Higher Power", switch it
> around. In a world of Nature Magic where magic is drawn from nature,
> Summoning Magic where magic simply teleports magical beings, Drawn
> Magic (magic drawn from extra-dimensional beings or forces) . . .
> rookie wizard Luke learns to cut out ties from outside sources because
> those sources can be tainted, the connection skewed, the reaction time
> slowed, and instead Luke delves INWARD to discover the power of the
> Jedi Mage and learns to use Personal Magic, that we are not merely
> lumps of flesh but beings of light, and so he learns to tap into that
> chi, that Inner Light to break thru all the illusions, wards and spells
> that protect The Death Castle.
It won't be the same no matter what you do. Some, no, most of the magic
of "Star Wars" is that it is *science fantasy* done right. It's taking
all those old corny notions from 50's serials and barsoom-style space
adventure sci fi - princesses from other planets, rouge starship
captains, evil space overlords bent on planetary destruction, etc.
etc., and making them cool again. And for that, SW has to have elements
of both.
A light saber is cool exactly because it is both a sword (=fantasy) and
high tech (=sci fi). If it were only one or the other - if Luke used a
flaming magical sword, or a super powerful laser rifle - it just
wouldn't capture our imagination the way it does now.
trike
>Wars" is not a science fiction tale, because the same essential
>story could be told if it were set in the past. Han Solo could just
>as easily have been a rogue knight who helps a peasant boy and
>an old wizard rescue a princess, who is being held in a castle
>stronghold, by an evil king and his chief henchman, Darth Vader.
>Trade spaceships for horses and lightsabers for swords and you
>have a medieval tale. Heck, you almost have "The Princess Bride."
About 6 or 7 years ago, during a similar "SF v Fantasy" thread, someone
said you couldn't rewrite Star Wars as a Fantasy or Western story, so I
did just that. If you go to Google Groups and search on my name (Doug
Tricarico) and "Magic Wars" and "bocce" you'll likely find that post.
>The difference between science fiction and fantasy is clear
>cut for me.
> I use the above definition for science fiction whereas
>fantasy is a story based on magic. Science versus magic.
>Couldn't be clearer. If a story is based on a magic wish,
>witchcraft, or Satan's powers, then I classify it as magic.
>So Frankenstein is science fiction, while Wolfman and
>Dracula are magic. And, of course, they're all Horror!
>Overlapping genres.
I generally classify things with primary and secondary genres. To my
mind, there are two primary genres, Science Fiction and Fantasy.
Reason being, if you have a single element that is either science
fictional or fantastical in them, then no matter whatever else the
story is, it becomes either SF or Fantasy. These two genres are
mutually exclusive, because science fiction deals with extrapolation,
with what might be possible, while Fantasy deals with what is
impossible. No other genres have the diametrically opposed worldviews
the way these two are.
If they have both SF and Fantasy elements, then the Fantasy trumps,
because there's no way to reconcile the impossible with logical
explanations, a requirement of science fiction. VAN HELSING puts
Frankenstein and Mr. Hyde in with Dracula and the Wolfman, and the
impossible elements push that film into the Fantasy genre, despite the
SFnal trappings.
Joe Haldeman's _Tool of the Trade_ is a Science Fiction Thriller. It
features one SFnal device (a watch that hypnotizes people with
ultrasonics) but the rest is standard politcal thriller. The film NO
WAY OUT features a similar protagonist to the Haldeman book, but
without the one SFnal element. Tom Clancy's _The Hunt for Red October_
is science fiction, because the submarine is a SFnal vehicle that
didn't exist at the time the book was written. But the rest of that
story is a political potboiler. (This is the reason why I consider
technothrillers to be a subgenre of SF -- they have SFnal elements,
which is all that's necessary for inclusion in the genre.)
Doug
Mark Atwood
>
> Are you implying there are fantasy works where the magic is *not* depicted
> as true?
"The Wizard of Oz"
--
Mark Atwood When you do things right, people won't be sure
m...@mark.atwood.name you've done anything at all.
http://mark.atwood.name/ http://www.livejournal.com/users/fallenpegasus
Mark Atwood
> of years to let people get used to it. For example, changing all
> instances of "c" to s or k because "c" is a redundant letter (I don't
> recall how they handle "ch").
My preference would be to keep "c", but use it only for the "ch"
sound. (Which, I think, was it's original purpose.)
Mark Atwood
>
> It was written decades ago when talk of deliberately altering the
> English language into something more orderly and less fraught with
> ambiguities was popular. The idea was to make one change every couple
> instances of "c" to s or k because "c" is a redundant letter (I don't
>
> But as each change is mentioned, the author incorporates the change
> into how he wrote the story. The challenge for the reader is to keep
> track of the changes, or by the end the story has become complete
> gibberish, although it IS correct and readble according to the rule
> changes detail in the story.
>
> If anyone knows what that story was, I'd love to have a copy of it
> again.
I think Mark Twain wrote it, or one like it.
Mark
Ken_from_Chicago wrote:
> SPECULATIVE FICTION
>
> What is "speculative fiction"?
>
> A question a child might remotely ask, but not a childish question.
>
> No need for a multi-volume series of Time-Life books or even one book,
> at last a clear, cohesive, comprehensive--and simple--defintion of
> "speculative fiction" can be revealed:
>
> "Fiction where some significant scientific event is true."
You might make this apply--and I say "make" with intent
aforethought--for science fiction, but speculative fiction has come to
include all forms of fantastic fiction in which a quality of
plausibility is important to the suspension of disbelief, be it
anything from Crowley's Aegypt series to Peter Straub's horror to
Robnert L. Forward's most physics-drenched work.
You would do better to try it from the area of philosophy--wherein we
have made some philosophical principle materially present, not as
metaphor but as essential to the reality portrayed in a given work.
(SF is very much "philosophical fiction"--in all its manefestations--in
that we play the castle in the sky what-if games that underpin Socratic
dialogue through existential somatic discourse.)
Science fiction can be reduced to a claim--one which can be
counterexampled easily, but at least it's a more useful starting point
than Knight's axiom (it's what I point at when I say the words)--that
it is fiction that employs the esthetics of a scientific viewpoint as
its major qualifying metaphor.
Mark
author of:
the SECANTIS SEQUENCE
REMAINS (July '05)
www.marktiedemann.com
Ken_from_Chicago
Ah, but the magical equivalent would be to show wizards and witches,
mages and sorcesseresses who use technology: staves, rings, totems,
amulets, scrolls, gems and other relics and artifacts to aid in the
wielding of powerful magics--kinda like Gandalf the White still needing
his staff when confronting Wormtongue in LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO
TOWERS. For the Jedi Mage, however, they would not rely on such
trinkets, but inward and outward, DIRECT wielding of powers WITHOUT the
intercessations of material items.
Then again, even in a world of magic, leaps of faiths still abound.
-- Ken from Chicago
P.S. "The first lesson a Watcher learns is to separate truth from
illusion. Because in a world or magics, it's the hardest thing to
do."--'Wesley Windham-Price', Alexis Denisof, "Not Fade Away", ANGEL.
Ken_from_Chicago
of Stephen Baxter's stories.
-- Ken from Chicago
Ken_from_Chicago
It's just a different FIELD of science.
A branch of science governed by will, determination, belief, faith,
trust, symbolism, emotionals, "vibes", "currents", "ley lines", "chi",
self-control, etc.
The fact that it be described at all, that there is some SYSTEM and is
not totally random BY DEFINITION allows for scientific analysis. The
fact that there are superstitions, stepping on cracks, black cats, 13,
etc., gives this field of science, often called "Parascience" or the
"Paranormal", some shape and form.
NOTHING is outside of "Science".
We just don't understand all the rules. Admittedly some people
disagree, to which I would respond their definition of "Science" is far
far narrower than mine. For some their definition of science rules out
personal feelings and observations and can only look to phenomena that
can be measured by tools, instruments.
But if that was a universal view then psychology would not be a field
of science since it relies on the intangible, the thoughts, the
feelings, words and behavior of subjects. Psychologists have to trust,
have to have faith that their subjects are being honest with them at
some point, or have a reliable and thus interpretable and predictable
pattern of deception--including self-deception on the subject's part.
Do you consider psychology a field of science?
Sure, behavioral psychology studies external observable behavior, but
what about the study of the underlying thought processes, aka cognitive
psychology, is it a field of science?
-- Ken from Chicago (who goes to lie on a couch)
Ken_from_Chicago
Nora Roberts nee J.D. Robb includes stuff in some of her novels about
Wiccan beliefs and Celtic lore.
-- Ken from Chicago
Ken_from_Chicago
I would have indeed meant, "Shikagoe" since "c" is also redundant
seeing how it can be replaced with "k" or "s".
-- Ken from Chicago.
Ken_from_Chicago
banjo
viddles
reckin
Weesiana
Albama
Missippi
Jawja
Lanta
Texas
cattle
Tennsee
Nor Carlina
Sou Carlina
Even if what you said was true, there would always be a "standard"
pronunciation and local dialects. Rappers and rockers can have been
doing what poets have done for centuries, take "poetic license" with
the language even tho they knew what the "standard" pronunciation was.
Kids know how to talk one way in front of parents and teachers and with
their peers. People know how to talk with their friends and families
and with their business associates. Online chatters and newsgroup
posters know how to talk IRL and online IMHO.
> --
> --
> Chris Lyth (clyt...@ifis.org.uk - shoot the president to reply)
>
> My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met. --
> Rodney Dangerfield
-- Ken from Chicago
Ken_from_Chicago
That's very nice, very poetic.
But where would STAR WARS fit?
Or Laurell K. Hamilton's "Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter" series of
novels--of a contemporary world where vampires and magic were public
and common knowledge--fit (before it degenerated into porn that is)?
-- Ken from Chicago
P.S. "Non-fiction is about facts, while Fiction is about truths."--Ken
from Chicago (who is not a megalomaniac because occassionally he quotes
himself, nope. Not. One. Bit.)
P.P.S. "BWAHAHAHAHAHA!"--Ken from Chicago
Ken_from_Chicago
Michael Grosberg wrote:
> Ken_from_Chicago wrote:
>
> > David Johnston wrote:
> > > Incidentally, that plot synopsis sort of overlooks the most important
> > > element of Star Wars. The central thing about which the whole movie
> > > revolves. You know. It's sort of big so it is hard to overlook. And
> > > translating it into a fantasy equivalent really loses something.
>
>
> > Sure it can.
> >
> > Instead Luke believing in The Force, in a "Higher Power", switch it
> > around. In a world of Nature Magic where magic is drawn from nature,
> > Summoning Magic where magic simply teleports magical beings, Drawn
> > Magic (magic drawn from extra-dimensional beings or forces) . . .
> > rookie wizard Luke learns to cut out ties from outside sources because
> > those sources can be tainted, the connection skewed, the reaction time
> > slowed, and instead Luke delves INWARD to discover the power of the
> > Jedi Mage and learns to use Personal Magic, that we are not merely
> > lumps of flesh but beings of light, and so he learns to tap into that
> > chi, that Inner Light to break thru all the illusions, wards and spells
> > that protect The Death Castle.
>
> It won't be the same no matter what you do. Some, no, most of the magic
True, it's never totally identical.
> of "Star Wars" is that it is *science fantasy* done right. It's taking
The original SW trilogy did so. That's what makes the episode SW
trilogy doubly disappointing, to see how the mighty have fallen . . .
to the excesses of movie technology. Luke learned to put away his
excessive reliance on technology by the end of STAR WARS, a lesson
Lucas unlearned by the beginning of PHANTOM MENACE--omens of such were
on display during the special editions.
> all those old corny notions from 50's serials and barsoom-style space
> adventure sci fi - princesses from other planets, rouge starship
> captains, evil space overlords bent on planetary destruction, etc.
> etc., and making them cool again. And for that, SW has to have elements
> of both.
> A light saber is cool exactly because it is both a sword (=fantasy) and
> high tech (=sci fi). If it were only one or the other - if Luke used a
> flaming magical sword, or a super powerful laser rifle - it just
> wouldn't capture our imagination the way it does now.
-- Ken from Chicago
how...@brazee.net
On 5-Jun-2005, "trike" <dougtr...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> After all these years, I have yet to find a definition better than: "SF
> is the literature of the possible, while Fantasy is the literature of
> the impossible."
Because we find so many exceptions to this I take this as one more vote that
says these categories should be ignored.
Quiet Desperation
<dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
> Meihem In Ce Klasrum
> by Dolton Edwards
Thank you! :-)
Wow. 1946? The concept must have been having a revival in the 1970s
when I first heard about it.
Quiet Desperation
<dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
> You do realize that that story is mostly *making fun* of spelling
> reform, don't you?
It was sort of a flawed criticism, though.
Every reform plan I have heard about talks in spans of decades, not a
readthrough of a short story.
Still, fun story, and the ultimate in speculation. :)
Quiet Desperation
Ken_from_Chicago <kwic...@aol.com> wrote:
> Teleportation would qualify as a significant scientific discovery
> depicted as true.
Yeah, but in this story it was something humans could just do by
themseles with no instrumentality. One person discovered it by accident
by accciddently teleporting himself out of harm's way, and it
eventually became a technique people could just learn. It was presented
as a latent ability that had been there for millennia.
I think... it's been a while...
You could teleport yourself to any place you had seen or could
accurately envision, so instead of barbed wire and steel doors,
security became a matter of surrounding your precious items with mazes
and difficult to imagine scenery. :)
Quiet Desperation
> That would be a chronological alteration of history, aka the "alternate
> history" subgenre of science fiction.
Mmmm... no. I mean the re-interpretation of "accepted" history into
something radically new using a new POV of existing records or the
revelation of hidden or suppressed knowledge- AKA Jesus got married and
had children in THIS world, not a parallel.
how...@brazee.net
On 5-Jun-2005, Quiet Desperation <nos...@nospam.com> wrote:
> Yeah, but in this story it was something humans could just do by
> themseles with no instrumentality. One person discovered it by accident
> by accciddently teleporting himself out of harm's way, and it
> eventually became a technique people could just learn. It was presented
> as a latent ability that had been there for millennia.
>
> I think... it's been a while...
>
> You could teleport yourself to any place you had seen or could
> accurately envision, so instead of barbed wire and steel doors,
> security became a matter of surrounding your precious items with mazes
> and difficult to imagine scenery. :)
And despite this out and out fantasy - _The Stars My Destination_ would get
serious consideration from me for my #1 vote if I had to vote for the best
Science Fiction novel ever.
Funny thing, A.E. Van Vogt had a similar need in teleportation, but Van Vogt
came across as ignorant, while Bester came across as an artist who was
willing to break rules (Picasso like).
how...@brazee.net
On 5-Jun-2005, "Ken_from_Chicago" <kwic...@aol.com> wrote:
> The original SW trilogy did so. That's what makes the episode SW
> trilogy doubly disappointing, to see how the mighty have fallen . . .
> to the excesses of movie technology. Luke learned to put away his
> excessive reliance on technology by the end of STAR WARS, a lesson
> Lucas unlearned by the beginning of PHANTOM MENACE--omens of such were
> on display during the special editions.
Lucas' technology made him the wealthiest person in Hollywood.
Ken_from_Chicago
trike wrote:
> >For example, applying his definition very strenuously, "Star
> >Wars" is not a science fiction tale, because the same essential
> >story could be told if it were set in the past. Han Solo could just
> >as easily have been a rogue knight who helps a peasant boy and
> >an old wizard rescue a princess, who is being held in a castle
> >stronghold, by an evil king and his chief henchman, Darth Vader.
> >Trade spaceships for horses and lightsabers for swords and you
> >have a medieval tale. Heck, you almost have "The Princess Bride."
>
> About 6 or 7 years ago, during a similar "SF v Fantasy" thread, someone
> said you couldn't rewrite Star Wars as a Fantasy or Western story, so I
> did just that. If you go to Google Groups and search on my name (Doug
> Tricarico) and "Magic Wars" and "bocce" you'll likely find that post.
That's just silly, especially the Western part considering it's
well-reported that Lucas was inspired by the John Wayne western, THE
SEARCHERS.
Making a fantasy version would be dirt simple since NOT EVERYONE in
fantasy stories believe in magic, everything from contemporary
fantasies such as BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER or THE X-FILES or CHARMED to
medieval stories, such as MACBETH. The Death Star could easily change
into a Death Ship or Death Tank or Death Dirigible (ala Alan Moore's
LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN, volume 1).
A Western version would be simple to: The Jedi simply become Native
American or Asian warrior monks. The Death Star becomes a Death Wagon
of wrought iron so large and moved by a steam-powered, coal-fueled
engine with multiple spiked wheels with chain-linked tracks, gatling
guns, and megapowerful magna-cannon, using powerful electro-magnets to
power an obscenely huge cannon to fire enormous cannonballs filled a
special form of nitroglycerin than can blow up an entire town in an
single blast--or ignite a massive fire to ignite a major city like San
Franciso, Denver City or Kansas City. Natch if you can drop a single
stick of TNT into the STORAGE chamber where the cannonballs are kept .
. . .
> >The difference between science fiction and fantasy is clear
> >cut for me.
> > I use the above definition for science fiction whereas
> >fantasy is a story based on magic. Science versus magic.
> >Couldn't be clearer. If a story is based on a magic wish,
> >witchcraft, or Satan's powers, then I classify it as magic.
> >So Frankenstein is science fiction, while Wolfman and
> >Dracula are magic. And, of course, they're all Horror!
> >Overlapping genres.
>
> I generally classify things with primary and secondary genres. To my
> mind, there are two primary genres, Science Fiction and Fantasy.
> Reason being, if you have a single element that is either science
> fictional or fantastical in them, then no matter whatever else the
> story is, it becomes either SF or Fantasy. These two genres are
> mutually exclusive, because science fiction deals with extrapolation,
> with what might be possible, while Fantasy deals with what is
> impossible. No other genres have the diametrically opposed worldviews
> the way these two are.
Define what is NOT possible. Prove a negative.
Cite some examples of the Impossible shown in Fantasy that would not
belong in the extrapolated Possible of Science Fiction.
> If they have both SF and Fantasy elements, then the Fantasy trumps,
> because there's no way to reconcile the impossible with logical
> explanations, a requirement of science fiction. VAN HELSING puts
> Frankenstein and Mr. Hyde in with Dracula and the Wolfman, and the
> impossible elements push that film into the Fantasy genre, despite the
> SFnal trappings.
For example?
> Joe Haldeman's _Tool of the Trade_ is a Science Fiction Thriller. It
> features one SFnal device (a watch that hypnotizes people with
> ultrasonics) but the rest is standard politcal thriller. The film NO
> WAY OUT features a similar protagonist to the Haldeman book, but
> without the one SFnal element. Tom Clancy's _The Hunt for Red October_
> is science fiction, because the submarine is a SFnal vehicle that
> didn't exist at the time the book was written. But the rest of that
> story is a political potboiler. (This is the reason why I consider
> technothrillers to be a subgenre of SF -- they have SFnal elements,
> which is all that's necessary for inclusion in the genre.)
>
> Doug
-- Ken from Chicago
Ken_from_Chicago
Mark wrote:
> Ken_from_Chicago wrote:
> > SPECULATIVE FICTION
> >
> > What is "speculative fiction"?
> >
> > A question a child might remotely ask, but not a childish question.
> >
> > No need for a multi-volume series of Time-Life books or even one book,
> > at last a clear, cohesive, comprehensive--and simple--defintion of
> > "speculative fiction" can be revealed:
> >
> > "Fiction where some significant scientific event is true."
>
>
> You might make this apply--and I say "make" with intent
> aforethought--for science fiction, but speculative fiction has come to
> include all forms of fantastic fiction in which a quality of
> plausibility is important to the suspension of disbelief, be it
> anything from Crowley's Aegypt series to Peter Straub's horror to
> Robnert L. Forward's most physics-drenched work.
Wow, you're the first person I've heard argue that science fiction
should be LESS plausible than speculative fiction, that speculative
fiction is LESS inclusive than science fiction.
> You would do better to try it from the area of philosophy--wherein we
> have made some philosophical principle materially present, not as
> metaphor but as essential to the reality portrayed in a given work.
> (SF is very much "philosophical fiction"--in all its manefestations--in
> that we play the castle in the sky what-if games that underpin Socratic
> dialogue through existential somatic discourse.)
>
> Science fiction can be reduced to a claim--one which can be
> counterexampled easily, but at least it's a more useful starting point
> than Knight's axiom (it's what I point at when I say the words)--that
> it is fiction that employs the esthetics of a scientific viewpoint as
> its major qualifying metaphor.
>
> Mark
> author of:
> the SECANTIS SEQUENCE
> REMAINS (July '05)
> www.marktiedemann.com
What is science fiction one quintessimal claim that is easily
counter-exampled?
-- Ken from Chicago
Daniel Damouth
news:1117917003....@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
> "Fiction where some significant scientific phenomenon,
> technological development or chronological alteration is true."
I think the above must be missing a word or two, because every fiction
I've read satisfies this definition, including historical and romance
novels. Is that the intent? The only fiction I can think of that
would not satisfy your definition is some extreme fantasy in which all
the known laws are not true, which is hard to imagine.
I can't really figure out what it's supposed to mean, but perhaps
adding some verbage such as "new", "is discovered", "is posited" or "is
about" would clarify it.
-Dan Damouth
Ken_from_Chicago
Daniel Damouth wrote:
> "Ken_from_Chicago" <kwic...@aol.com> wrote in
> news:1117917003....@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
>
> > "Fiction where some significant scientific phenomenon,
> > technological development or chronological alteration is true."
>
> I think the above must be missing a word or two, because every fiction
> I've read satisfies this definition, including historical and romance
> novels. Is that the intent? The only fiction I can think of that
> would not satisfy your definition is some extreme fantasy in which all
> the known laws are not true, which is hard to imagine.
The key word is "significant".
General fiction, including historical or romantic fiction doesn't have
a "significant" scientific phenomenon, technological development or
chronological alteration turn out to be true.
> I can't really figure out what it's supposed to mean, but perhaps
> adding some verbage such as "new", "is discovered", "is posited" or "is
> about" would clarify it.
True, but then it would rule out hard sf, plus "is posited" = "is
true".
> -Dan Damouth
-- Ken from Chicago
David Dyer-Bennet
> David Dyer-Bennet wrote:
>> "Ken_from_Chicago" <kwic...@aol.com> writes:
>>
>> > Quiet Desperation wrote:
>> >> In article <1117917003....@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
>> >> Ken_from_Chicago <kwic...@aol.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> > "Fiction where some significant scientific event is true."
>> >>
>> >> > "Fiction where some significant scientific phenomenon, technological
>> >> > development or chronological alteration is true."
>> >>
>> >> Well... that's what I call *science* fiction, and I use "speculative"
>> >> fiction in a more generic context.
>> >
>> > Speculative fiction includes science fiction and fantasy. While I think
>> > the differences between science fiction and fantasy are arbitrary,
>> > almost by definition if something is science fiction then it's
>> > speculative fiction.
>> >
>> >> For example, "The Stars My Destination" by Alfred Bester would be
>> >> speculative fiction. The book grants ordinary humans the ability to
>> >> self-teleport at will across planetary distances. High;y improbable and
>> >> unscientific, but an interesting speculation and exploration of a
>> >> "what-if".
>> >
>> > Teleportation would qualify as a significant scientific discovery
>> > depicted as true.
>>
>> But it wasn't a "scientific discovery" at all; it was a human ability
>> that was never explained.
>
> Not all scientific discoveries are explained.
But was it a scientific discovery at all? What do you mean by
"scientific discovery"? Does it differ from something a non-scientist
discovers?
> Some of the limits of teleportation was observed, understood and
> explained, but not completely.
>
> Is the Big Bang--the fact that the universe has a definite beginning
> and is not infinitely old--not a scientific discovery just because it
> is not completely explained?
It's not a discovery, it's a theory.
jayembee
> Not long ago I read one of Harlan Ellison's non-fiction books. It was
> a collection of his movie reviews or something like that. In it, I
> believe he defined science fiction along the lines of:
>
> A story based on a scientific principal or set in the future.
> [...]
> Then he went on, in his usual piercing way, to say a story about
> spaceships and space battles may not meet his definition of science
> fiction if it's structure didn't really *depend* on some scientific principal.
Shrug. Leinster's "First Contact" doesn't *depend* on some scientific
principal. It could easily have been set on Earth in a past time, with two
human civilizations meeting for the first time. I dare say that you'll find few
SF readers who wouldn't consider it to be science fiction.
> In the same way, "Outland" is not science fiction at all, but only a
> badly translated western.
The question then becomes, does he believe that THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN isn't
really a Western because it's just SEVEN SAMURAI "translated" into the American
West? Or does he believe, as a lot of people do, that SEVEN SAMURAI is itself a
Western, despite being set in feudal Japan?
> It's an interesting idea, which I think I like. It's a definition based more on
> the philosophy the story is build on, than superficial appearance.
My definition of science fiction is "A story set in a world that could not exist
without the assumption of a principle of science or technology beyond our
understanding or experience."
The catch is that the "soft sciences", such as sociology, count as "science". In
fact, the author Richard McKenna, whose best known work was the novel THE
SAND PEBBLES, but who primarily wrote short stories for the SF magazines, once
said that he considered THE SAND PEBBLES to be science fiction, because he
believed that sociology was a science.
-- jayembee
Daniel Damouth
news:1118024893....@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
>
>
> Daniel Damouth wrote:
>> "Ken_from_Chicago" <kwic...@aol.com> wrote in
>> news:1117917003....@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
>>
>> > "Fiction where some significant scientific phenomenon,
>> > technological development or chronological alteration is true."
>>
>> I think the above must be missing a word or two, because every
>> fiction I've read satisfies this definition, including historical
>> and romance novels. Is that the intent? The only fiction I can
>> think of that would not satisfy your definition is some extreme
>> fantasy in which all the known laws are not true, which is hard
>> to imagine.
>
> The key word is "significant".
Is gravity is not significant? In the worlds presented in most
fiction I've read, including romance novels, the theory of gravity is
true. Usually, fiction simply stiplulates most known significant
scientific phenomena. For it to be speculative, something has to be
new (or presently unknown).
> General fiction, including historical or romantic fiction doesn't
> have a "significant" scientific phenomenon, technological
> development or chronological alteration turn out to be true.
I think the key phrase is then "turn out to be". Which means the
author was positing something, or a character discovered something,
or a new law is theorized. That's what spec fic is about.
>> I can't really figure out what it's supposed to mean, but perhaps
>> adding some verbage such as "new", "is discovered", "is posited"
>> or "is about" would clarify it.
>
> True, but then it would rule out hard sf, plus "is posited" = "is
> true".
Hard sf is all about phenomena that have yet to be confirmed.
Therefore, at this point, they are posited.
-Dan Damouth
J. Clarke
Please be kind enough to explain the distinction you are trying to make
here. It's a theory yes, like gravitation is a theory and thermodynamics
is a theory and electromagentism is a theory. So what.
--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)
J. Clarke
So a story taking place on a lunar base or involving a Mars landing then
would not in your view be science fiction? After all, these require no
"principle of science or technology beyond our understanding or
experience", just application of well known and well established
principles.
> The catch is that the "soft sciences", such as sociology, count as
> "science". In fact, the author Richard McKenna, whose best known work was
> the novel THE SAND PEBBLES, but who primarily wrote short stories for the
> SF magazines, once said that he considered THE SAND PEBBLES to be science
> fiction, because he believed that sociology was a science.
>
> -- jayembee
--
David Johnston
>>> In the same way, "Outland" is not science fiction at all, but only a
>>> badly translated western.
Outland? As I recall Outland's plot revolves around a company plot to
improve productivity by giving performance enhancing (but psychosis
making) chemicals to workers. I can't quite imagine the Western
equivalent to that plotline which would not still be science fiction.
It could be made fantasy of course, but almost anything can be made
fantasy.
Ken_from_Chicago
I listed some examples in the OP:
This would allow for discovery of alien life forms, extradimensional
"rifts" or "portals", mutations in humans, plants or animals, new and
different kinds of fields of science--including branches of physics
that for lack of a better term, are "magick"--breakthroughs in
artificial intelligence, ranged weapons that involve focusing
lightwaves (aka lasers), working reusuable rocket ships or time ships.
Speaking of time, significant chronological alteration (of the
space-time continuum), as in changes in history, could be argued was a
"scientific event" and fit the simplified definition above or the more
common mainstream definition used publicly: alternate history.
If a non-scientist discovers an alien ship, wouldn't that count as a
"scientific discovery" despite a non-scientist discovering it?
> > Some of the limits of teleportation was observed, understood and
> > explained, but not completely.
> >
> > Is the Big Bang--the fact that the universe has a definite beginning
> > and is not infinitely old--not a scientific discovery just because it
> > is not completely explained?
>
> It's not a discovery, it's a theory.
I can remember as a kid in the 70s when there was major theory about
the history of the universe: The Steady State (that the universe is
infinitely old). However over time, more and more evidence was
discovered that supported the Big Bang theory.
Theories are merely hypotheses--until evidence is discovered.
> --
> David Dyer-Bennet, <mailto:dd...@dd-b.net>, <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/>
> RKBA: <http://noguns-nomoney.com/> <http://www.dd-b.net/carry/>
> Pics: <http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/> <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/>
> Dragaera/Steven Brust: <http://dragaera.info/>
-- Ken from Chicago
Joe Bernstein
Ken_from_Chicago <kwic...@aol.com> wrote:
> NOTHING is outside of "Science".
So would it be correct to say that what you mean by "scientific
discovery" is the same thing as what you mean by "discovery" ?
If not, I'll ask again, since you evaded the question when David Dyer-
Bennet asked: What's the difference, in your view?
Joe Bernstein
beginning to wonder whether you're a troll. Why on earth did you
cross-post your original post to four groups?
--
Joe Bernstein, writer j...@sfbooks.com
<http://www.panix.com/~josephb/>
Ken_from_Chicago
jayembee wrote:
> Eldritch <Tiredo...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Not long ago I read one of Harlan Ellison's non-fiction books. It was
> > a collection of his movie reviews or something like that. In it, I
> > believe he defined science fiction along the lines of:
> >
> > A story based on a scientific principal or set in the future.
> > [...]
> > Then he went on, in his usual piercing way, to say a story about
> > spaceships and space battles may not meet his definition of science
> > fiction if it's structure didn't really *depend* on some scientific principal.
>
> Shrug. Leinster's "First Contact" doesn't *depend* on some scientific
> principal. It could easily have been set on Earth in a past time, with two
> human civilizations meeting for the first time. I dare say that you'll find few
> SF readers who wouldn't consider it to be science fiction.
But discovering an alien race would be "significant scientific event".
> > In the same way, "Outland" is not science fiction at all, but only a
> > badly translated western.
>
> The question then becomes, does he believe that THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN isn't
> really a Western because it's just SEVEN SAMURAI "translated" into the American
> West? Or does he believe, as a lot of people do, that SEVEN SAMURAI is itself a
> Western, despite being set in feudal Japan?
Any story can be rewritten into another format. Argubly the finale of
Clint Eastwood's THE GAUNTLET was a contemporary cop translation of
STAR WARS' "trench run".
> > It's an interesting idea, which I think I like. It's a definition based more on
> > the philosophy the story is build on, than superficial appearance.
>
> My definition of science fiction is "A story set in a world that could not exist
> without the assumption of a principle of science or technology beyond our
> understanding or experience."
Then that would rule out hard sf.
Stories about lunar, Martian, Earth orbital, or marine colonies would
be possible with current technology and considered hard sf.
However the presence of such colonies would be a "significant
scientific event".
> The catch is that the "soft sciences", such as sociology, count as "science". In
> fact, the author Richard McKenna, whose best known work was the novel THE
> SAND PEBBLES, but who primarily wrote short stories for the SF magazines, once
> said that he considered THE SAND PEBBLES to be science fiction, because he
> believed that sociology was a science.
>
> -- jayembee
-- Ken from Chicago
Ken_from_Chicago
-- Ken from Chicago
Ken_from_Chicago
Quiet Desperation wrote:
> In article <1117931657.6...@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
> Ken_from_Chicago <kwic...@aol.com> wrote:
>
> > Teleportation would qualify as a significant scientific discovery
> > depicted as true.
>
> Yeah, but in this story it was something humans could just do by
> themseles with no instrumentality. One person discovered it by accident
> by accciddently teleporting himself out of harm's way, and it
> eventually became a technique people could just learn. It was presented
> as a latent ability that had been there for millennia.
How would that not count as a scientific discovery? If someone
discovered telepathy, telekinesis, an alien ship a million years old
buried, a portal to another dimension, an unknown race of animals or
humans, an unknown material that counteracted gravity, etc., that
always existed but was unknown, wouldn't that still count as a
significant scientific discovery?
> I think... it's been a while...
>
> You could teleport yourself to any place you had seen or could
> accurately envision, so instead of barbed wire and steel doors,
> security became a matter of surrounding your precious items with mazes
> and difficult to imagine scenery. :)
Yeah you don't want to mess up teleportation. You end up with a messy
Tyger, Tyger, burning bright.
-- Ken from Chicago
Ken_from_Chicago
Ah, "secret history" genre. Ala BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER having a
secret world of vampires or THE X-FILES having secret conspiracies or
stories about the Illuminatti or the Free Masons.
It is the overlap, a bridge, between alternate history and historical
fiction genres.
-- Ken from Chicago
Ken_from_Chicago
Daniel Damouth wrote:
> "Ken_from_Chicago" <kwic...@aol.com> wrote in
> news:1118024893....@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
>
> >
> >
> > Daniel Damouth wrote:
> >> "Ken_from_Chicago" <kwic...@aol.com> wrote in
> >> news:1117917003....@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
> >>
> >> > "Fiction where some significant scientific phenomenon,
> >> > technological development or chronological alteration is true."
> >>
> >> I think the above must be missing a word or two, because every
> >> fiction I've read satisfies this definition, including historical
> >> and romance novels. Is that the intent? The only fiction I can
> >> think of that would not satisfy your definition is some extreme
> >> fantasy in which all the known laws are not true, which is hard
> >> to imagine.
> >
> > The key word is "significant".
>
> Is gravity is not significant?
No. The presence of gravity is not significant. The ABSENCE of gravity
or a "significant" CHANGE in gravity would be.
In the worlds presented in most
> fiction I've read, including romance novels, the theory of gravity is
> true. Usually, fiction simply stiplulates most known significant
> scientific phenomena. For it to be speculative, something has to be
> new (or presently unknown).
Unless it's hard sf.
> > General fiction, including historical or romantic fiction doesn't
> > have a "significant" scientific phenomenon, technological
> > development or chronological alteration turn out to be true.
>
> I think the key phrase is then "turn out to be". Which means the
> author was positing something, or a character discovered something,
> or a new law is theorized. That's what spec fic is about.
Unless it's hard sf.
For example a story set on a lunar colony in contemporary times would
be hard sf. No new theories of science, physics or technology is
required.
It's the Hard Science Fiction that mucks up many definitions of science
fiction or even speculative fiction--until now, IMNQSHO. >=^>
> >> I can't really figure out what it's supposed to mean, but perhaps
> >> adding some verbage such as "new", "is discovered", "is posited"
> >> or "is about" would clarify it.
> >
> > True, but then it would rule out hard sf, plus "is posited" = "is
> > true".
>
> Hard sf is all about phenomena that have yet to be confirmed.
> Therefore, at this point, they are posited.
Stories about colonies in Earth orbit, on the moon, on Mars, on one of
Jupiter's or Saturn's moons, even in Earth oceans, are commonly
categorized as "hard sf", since the science, the technology is possible
(even if politically or economically unfeasible)--even tho they don't
require some posited but unconfirmed phenoma.
> -Dan Damouth
-- Ken from Chicago
P.S. If you want to argue that all of fiction is science fiction
because all fiction is alternate history where fictional characters are
treated as existing--I have no argument with that. I've actually
suggested it. However most people tend to dismiss the notion
immediately--if they aren't too busy laughing at you first. I find
putting cotton in my ears blocks out the laughter (altho not the voices
in my head, but I digress).
Ken_from_Chicago
Joe Bernstein wrote:
> In article <1118009591.8...@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
> Ken_from_Chicago <kwic...@aol.com> wrote:
>
> > NOTHING is outside of "Science".
>
> So would it be correct to say that what you mean by "scientific
> discovery" is the same thing as what you mean by "discovery" ?
Touche. A hit very palpable hit.
A non-scientific discovery: Within 2 miles from my home I found a candy
store that sells root beer barrel candy separately (as opposed to
buried in a mixed-variety bag sold at grocery stores), Madonna's (the
singer) birth name is Madonna Louise Ciccone, red is my favorite color,
etc.
A scientific discovery: finding a rare brand of candy that boosted
intelligence, strength, enabled one to fly, a hidden portal in a closet
to a parrellel world, tiny humanoids cleaning up tailor shop overnight,
finding out the lady next door with a pointed nose who always carries
around a broom and who dresses in black has "abilities" beyond mere
mortals, the kid in the Kansas farm next door can bend steel in his
bare hands and is faster than a speeding bullet, etc.
> If not, I'll ask again, since you evaded the question when David Dyer-
> Bennet asked: What's the difference, in your view?
>
> Joe Bernstein
> beginning to wonder whether you're a troll. Why on earth did you
> cross-post your original post to four groups?
Four? I thought it was only rec.arts.sf.tv, rec.arts.sf.written and
rec.arts.sf.movies newsgroups since those are the three major
entertainment mediums--and that are relevant to the subject.
No, I'm not a troll, just coming up with an answer to an age-old
question.
> --
> Joe Bernstein, writer j...@sfbooks.com
> <http://www.panix.com/~josephb/>
-- Ken from Chicago
Mark
anything. Something need not be less a particular quality in order to
be different from something else, which may be similar but is concerned
with something else. Science fiction, on the contrary, must be
concerned with being, in its presentation at least, more plausible than
fantasy--but plausibility is necessary to the suspension of disbelief
essential for the vicarious experience. How much plausibility is a
subjective question.
As for a counter claim about the esthetics of science being necessary
to science fiction--Wolfe's Book of the New Sun. It is SF, but parades
as a kind of fantasy. The science is buried in the deep background (he
does something but less buried in the Book of the Long Sun). You have
more of the esthetic quality of fantasy present.
Mark
author of:
THE SECANTIS SEQUENCE
REMAINS (July '05)
www.marktiedemann.com
Ron Henry
news:1117917003....@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> No need for a multi-volume series of Time-Life books or even one book,
> at last a clear, cohesive, comprehensive--and simple--defintion of
> "speculative fiction" can be revealed:
>
> "Fiction where some significant scientific event is true."
This implies that the backgrounds in mundane fiction do not contain any
"true" significant scientific events, doesn't it?
(Beware of "simple" comprehensive definitions.)
Ron Henry
ANIM8Rfsk
Ken_from_Chicago at kwic...@aol.com wrote on 6/6/05 3:17 AM:
> Any story can be rewritten into another format. Argubly the finale of
> Clint Eastwood's THE GAUNTLET was a contemporary cop translation of
> STAR WARS' "trench run".
Which means Sandra Locke is R2D2?
I like it.
Brian Henderson
>Lucas' technology made him the wealthiest person in Hollywood.
No, Lucas' insistance on the merchandizing rights made him the
wealthiest person in Hollywood. Star Wars has made over 9 billion in
merchandizing sales so far and Lucas is the sole beneficiary of it.
Taki Kogoma
allegedly declared to rec.arts.sf.written...
>
>>>> In the same way, "Outland" is not science fiction at all, but only a
>>>> badly translated western.
>
>Outland? As I recall Outland's plot revolves around a company plot to
>improve productivity by giving performance enhancing (but psychosis
>making) chemicals to workers. I can't quite imagine the Western
>equivalent to that plotline which would not still be science fiction.
It's an adaptation of "High Noon".
--
Capt. Gym Z. Quirk (Known to some as Taki Kogoma) quirk @ swcp.com
Just an article detector on the Information Supercollider.
David Johnston
wrote:
>On Mon, 06 Jun 2005 08:19:18 GMT, rgo...@telusplanet.net (David Johnston)
>allegedly declared to rec.arts.sf.written...
>>
>>>>> In the same way, "Outland" is not science fiction at all, but only a
>>>>> badly translated western.
>>
>>Outland? As I recall Outland's plot revolves around a company plot to
>>improve productivity by giving performance enhancing (but psychosis
>>making) chemicals to workers. I can't quite imagine the Western
>>equivalent to that plotline which would not still be science fiction.
>
>It's an adaptation of "High Noon".
There was an railway company giving cocaine to their rail builders in
"High Noon"? Wait, that doesn't work. It would have been legal.
James Nicoll
I was just thinking that if this plot ever came up, it was
probably on CSI: Old West^H^H^H Hec Ramsey, because the writers on
that show _loved_ making the protagonist contend with the effects
of cutting edge (for the time) technology.
Is there a name for a western that has much of the sensibilities
of a SF novel?
--
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
Michael Stemper
>SPECULATIVE FICTION
>
>What is "speculative fiction"?
>No need for a multi-volume series of Time-Life books or even one book,
>at last a clear, cohesive, comprehensive--and simple--defintion of
>"speculative fiction" can be revealed:
>
>"Fiction where some significant scientific event is true."
All you've done is moved the problem from "what is speculative fiction?"
to "what is a scientific event?"
Really. I'm not being sarcastic or facetious. I really have no idea what
you mean be "scientific event".
The images that this phrase brings to mind are:
- Gallileo timing a swinging pendulum with his pulse
- Gallileo and his assistant standing with shuttered lanterns on
well-separated hills
- Becquerel (or whoever it was) discovering fogging on photographic
plates stored next to pitchblende samples
But, since these events are all true (in the sense that they really
happened), that tells me that they're speculative fiction.
As you know, Bob, we are living in the modern world of the future. But,
we never speak in infodumps.
>While I think "scientific event" is broad enough to apply still
>(including both soft sf and hard sf), this is the internet and the
>debate is in the details, thus to forestall or mollify some of the pent
>up demand question or debate the above simplified definition, I would
>offer a slightly more detailed definition of speculative fiction:
>
>"Fiction where some significant scientific phenomenon, technological
>development or chronological alteration is true."
Also, it seems as if you're trying to redefine "speculative fiction" to
mean "science fiction". As you know, Bob, the whole point of *having* the
term "speculative fiction" is to have a term that embraces both science
fiction and fantasy.
--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
No animals were harmed in the composition of this message.
Mark Atwood
>
> Any story can be rewritten into another format. Argubly the finale of
> Clint Eastwood's THE GAUNTLET was a contemporary cop translation of
> STAR WARS' "trench run".
"How many lives must that cursed movie claim?!"
-- Martian Commander, "Invictus Interruptus"
--
Mark Atwood When you do things right, people won't be sure
m...@mark.atwood.name you've done anything at all.
http://mark.atwood.name/ http://www.livejournal.com/users/fallenpegasus
trike
>>is *not* depicted
>> as true?
>
>"The Wizard of Oz"
I don't get that. The Wizard himself was a poser, but Glenda and the
Wicked Witch of the West were using magic, and there's no other way to
explain Dorothy's travelling compainions (except Toto).
One could make the case that the movie version of The Wizard of Oz is
not strictly a Fantasy, since it's all a dream (although that first
song is hard to get around unless you invoke the similar "she's
imagining the orchestral score"), but the stuff that goes on in the
color sequences is pretty fantastical.
Doug
trike
>> is the literature of the possible, while Fantasy is the literature of
>> the impossible."
>
>Because we find so many exceptions to this I take this as one more
>vote that says these categories should be ignored.
What exceptions are those?
Doug
Michael Stemper
>"Ken_from_Chicago" <kwic...@aol.com> writes:
>> Quiet Desperation wrote:
>>> For example, "The Stars My Destination" by Alfred Bester would be
>>> speculative fiction. The book grants ordinary humans the ability to
>>> self-teleport at will across planetary distances.
>> Teleportation would qualify as a significant scientific discovery
>> depicted as true.
>
>But it wasn't a "scientific discovery" at all; it was a human ability
>that was never explained.
Well, it was discovered in a laboratory. It was studied (rather
callously -- I thought that was a nice touch) by scientists.
It's scientific! Quant. suff.
--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
Life's too important to take seriously.
Michael Stemper
> somebody uncredited wrote:
>>For example, applying his definition very strenuously, "Star
>>Wars" is not a science fiction tale, because the same essential
>>story could be told if it were set in the past.
I think that you'll find that many people here view _Star Wars_ as
fantasy, due to its tropes. The fact that the essential story
could have been told in other settings is just the cherry on top.
>About 6 or 7 years ago, during a similar "SF v Fantasy" thread, someone
>said you couldn't rewrite Star Wars as a Fantasy or Western story, so I
>did just that. If you go to Google Groups and search on my name (Doug
>Tricarico) and "Magic Wars" and "bocce" you'll likely find that post.
Looking for
Message-ID: <6vjnst$m...@sjx-ixn6.ix.netcom.com>
might be faster. (I've saved my copy all these years.)
>>The difference between science fiction and fantasy is clear
>>cut for me.
It is for lots of people. But, as it says in the FAQ, it's also located
in a slightly different place for each person.
Michael Stemper
>> somebody uncredited wrote:
>> >For example, applying his definition very strenuously, "Star
>> >Wars" is not a science fiction tale, because the same essential
>> >story could be told if it were set in the past.
>That's just silly, especially the Western part considering it's
>well-reported that Lucas was inspired by the John Wayne western, THE
>SEARCHERS.
Funny, I'd always read that it was based on Kurosawa's _The Hidden Fortress_.
trike
>
>But where would STAR WARS fit?
Fantasy. I'm not persuaded by iconography or props. I like that
flavor*, but for genre typing you need to draw the line somewhere.
Using science fictional set dressing doesn't make it science fiction.
It has to go beyond that. Yes, I'm aware this is an unpopular point of
view, but when you get right down to it, the stuff that happens in Star
Wars is impossible, so it's Fantasy. Same thing for Star Trek and Lost
in Space.
>Or Laurell K. Hamilton's "Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter" series
>of novels--of a contemporary world where vampires and magic
>were public and common knowledge--fit (before it degenerated
>into porn that is)?
I haven't read these, but if there's no attempt at a scientific
explanation for the vampirism, then it's impossible, and therefore
Fantasy. Even if there is an attempt at an explanation but what
happens is clearly impossible, then it's still a Fantasy. Buffy the
Vampire Slayer is a case in point -- there are lots of technological
things going on there including consistent rules for the universe, but
when you get right down to it, the show is a Fantasy.
Doug
* The science fiction flavor is often enough to get me to enjoy
something I wouldn't otherwise care for. When First Person Shooter
video games first came out, I wasn't interested in the "hunt the Nazis"
or "kill the demons" kind of games, but as soon as they had a SFnal
setting I was interested. There's no appreciable thematic difference
between Star Wars and Willow, but the iconography of Star Wars draws me
far more readily than that in Willow. However, I think that for
classifying something's genre you need to look beyond the iconography.
HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER and PALE RIDER are both Clint Eastwood Westerns,
but looking beyond the setting and props, it's pretty clear they're in
the Fantasy genre, even if the fantastic element isn't front-and-center.
trike
>
>Cite some examples of the Impossible shown in Fantasy
>that would not belong in the extrapolated Possible of
>Science Fiction.
As long as there's a rational explanation for it that holds together
under reasonable scrutiny, then I think it's fair game for science
fiction. So if the usual tropes of Fantasy can be explained by some
sort of science, we can call it science fiction. Unicorns = genetic
engineered horses. Vampires = result of a disease. Ghosts = quantum
mechanical information that borders on the edge of perception.
Whatever. If your vampires can't be seen in a mirror, there'd better
be a good explanation for it other than it's the result of the disease,
because we know that's impossible, You have a guy walking around who
craves blood and is allergic to sunlight because he has a mutated form
of xeroderma pigmentosum, then to explain the "no reflection" thing,
you better put him in the Predator's light-warping camo suit.
But it needs that rational explanantion, the attempt at scientific
rationalization. If a work doesn't come up with such an explanation
and it features something that's impossible, then it's a Fantasy.
Some examples:
A miniature human with dragonfly wings is impossible, as is flying
"just because you believe you can." Belief doesn't negate the law of
gravity, so Tinkerbell and Peter Pan are impossible. Tell that exact
same story but have the opening line be, "They sat down and put on
their virtual reality headsets," then it's science fiction, nevermind
that 99.9% of the goings-on in the story are fantasy.
Even if time travel is possible, you can't do it by getting conked on
the head or by wishing it. So both _ A Connecticut Yankee in King
Arthur's Court_ and SOMEWHERE IN TIME are impossible. However, if you
were to make the argument that the protagonists of those tales simply
imagined they'd had their time travel experiences, then those stories
aren't Fantasies.
Cosmic rays may sleet through your body, but it's impossible for you to
turn invisible, stretch your body like taffy or fly around while on
fire. Those things simply can't happen, because they violate the laws
of physics and/or biology as we know them. So the Fantastic Four is
impossible.
You can anthropomorphize your car all you want, but if you don't invoke
artificial intelligence, then Herbie the Love Bug is strictly Fantasy,
nevermind that you can achieve the same story with K.I.T.T., because
one is impossible, while the other is possible.
Doug
David Johnston
Stemper) wrote:
>In article <1118020186.9...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>, Ken_from_Chicago writes:
>>> somebody uncredited wrote:
>>> >For example, applying his definition very strenuously, "Star
>>> >Wars" is not a science fiction tale, because the same essential
>>> >story could be told if it were set in the past.
>
>>That's just silly, especially the Western part considering it's
>>well-reported that Lucas was inspired by the John Wayne western, THE
>>SEARCHERS.
>
>Funny, I'd always read that it was based on Kurosawa's _The Hidden Fortress_.
By the time they were finished fiddling with it and adding influences
from other films like Triumph of the Will and Dambusters, the actual
resemblance to THF was minimal.
trike
>sensibilities of a SF novel?
"Science fiction." If by "sensibilities" you mean "rational" where the
protagonists rely on real-world facts rather than mumbo-jumbo, then the
TV show "Wild, Wild West," starring Robert Conrad and Ross Martin was
such a thing -- but I don't think there's a particular name for it.
Now's your chance to coin a word!
Doug
John Schilling
>>>> In the same way, "Outland" is not science fiction at all, but only a
>>>> badly translated western.
>Outland? As I recall Outland's plot revolves around a company plot to
>improve productivity by giving performance enhancing (but psychosis
>making) chemicals to workers. I can't quite imagine the Western
>equivalent to that plotline which would not still be science fiction.
Outland's plot revolves around an aged lawman who is going to have to
face four murderous criminals as soon as the next transport arrives,
will get no support from his family or community on this because they
are scared, selfish, and/or don't really think things were that bad back
before the lawman drove out the criminals, and has nothing but his own
sense of honor and duty to keep him from skipping town like everyone
else wants.
The specific nature of the criminal enterprise in question is almost
irrelevant, and the story is a direct translation to the SFnal setting
of one of the most famous Westerns around.
--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
*schi...@spock.usc.edu * for success" *
*661-951-9107 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *
trike
>have a "significant" scientific phenomenon, technological
>development or chronological alteration turn out to be true.
What you need in your definition is the quality of extrapolation.
YOU'VE GOT MAIL could be considered science fiction under a loose
interpretation of this definition, because the ready availability of
email and the internet allowed that romantic comedy to take place.
Science fiction needs to have the quality of "is doesn't exist, but
here's how it might exist." My definition using possible/impossible
can also be misunderstood outside the confines of a discussion such as
this, so I take pains to define the terms. I include extrapolation as
part of it, because that takes into account any setting, incuding
alternate history.
Doug