June 07, 2005

• Hmm... been setting my sights on Clarion West for some time now. If this is at all representative of the Clarion East experience, I'll keep looking toward Seattle. I don't necessarily think this is just about hard sci-fi (tales of a future Earth could be quite cultural/interpersonal in focus), but it does take some of the fun out of speculative fiction, for me at least. Besides, just look at the last ten years of tech. Who's to say what's "probable" instead of just possible?
• Hmmm. I'd have to say Dune as well.
• I love Murakami's Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World. I don't know if it's sci-fi or fantasy or what, but it's beautiful and I don't care if it couldn't happen. Make mine Bradbury. < /classic>
• You mean, I'm only allowed to have one?! Ha, ain't gonna happen. I do like Enders Game and Dune, but I really loved the Foundation Series (except for the gawdawful one by Benford). If you're just talking about one book, I guess I'd say Einstein's Dreams. Really interesting though provoking and dreamy all at the same time.
• The Ender series was great. My personal favorite was the Mars series by Kim Stanley Robinson. Also a number books by Charles Sheffield. Growing up, I read everything I could get my hands on by Ray Bradbury (clearly not hard, but wonderful reading, nonetheless.)
• Oh, I'd forgotten all about the Mars Trilogy! I loved that, but I read it AGES ago. I really liked Gold Coast (the California Series) books too. I'm thinking that my Amazon wishlist is going to have some new additions soon.
• Iain M Banks, all that Culture stuff.
• Oo.. I forgot one also. One from my youth: Red Planet by Heinlein.
• A Canticle For Leibowitz, and all those gloriously weird Philip José Farmer stories. I guess the common thread is that they are all really character studies, set in very strange circumstances.
• Seconding Wolof's comment -- the Culture is one of the coolest systems I've ran into in a sci-fi universe so far.
• Geoff Ryman is actually an amazing, brilliant writer, but I find this a little weird from a man of whom some of his best books are rewrites of myths and fairy tales; at least one of his officially science fiction novels is much more about music and love than about how people photosynthesise. But the page doesn't say what his input was. Reading manifestos like this make me realise I never have been a science fiction fan, save for a bit of Asimov. Nor do I like that much high fantasy. But there is something in the grey areas between - the ones that aren't really stories about science or about magic, but just stories of places that never were, of places distant in the past or future or imagination. They seem to boil out the drama of human relations, open up new questions. They hit the places of imagination, for me, much harder than fiction set in either a contemporary or historical setting. I don't really understand it, why I gravitate towards the SF&F shelf - it's just that I know that the chance of my liking one of the books is so much greater there. For the longest time, my favorite SF/F was We by Yevgeny Zamiatin - the language and the themes of chaos versus order are very compelling. I haven't read it in a while though - I really should. Ryman's The Warrior who Carried Life (his first, I think) is also a longtime favorite, as is Guy Gavriel Kay's Tigana. (Yes, I realise that the last two are officially "fantasy" - but I've never really found the line between fantasy and soft SF, especially space opera, very firm.)
• Probably of all the plot devices I hated worst in Star Trek (and other) universes were the "Devices that can translate any language." I can accept the premise of faster-than-light travel and teleportation (as unlikely as they are), but a device that immediately translates Alienspeak into lucid English is a bit much.
• bobbo11 - I know what you mean, and totally agree. I know why they do it - to solve all sorts of plot problems. But at the same time, they loose the potentially fascinating stories of learning to communicate. The Star Trek episode in which the translators didn't work (Darmok?) was one of the best ever made. Picard had to confront trying to commmunicate with someone truly alien. On the second episode of Farscape, they screwed up their own language-magic. In a rather babel-fish like fashion, all of the aliens (and after the first episode, the only human) have "translator microbes" which live in their brains and translate languages. It wasn't a bad idea, and worked for most of the series. But just one episode after they were introduced, they landed on a planet that has never had alien contact - and the people still understood them. So sloppy. It would have been much more interesting to have them struggle to communicate. Or maybe have the main characters really be the aliens, speaking incomprehensibly, and the people on the planet speaking English. I think that a show should have a system - but then have times when that system doesn't work. And no breaking the rules of the system - if the aliens don't have translators, they can't understand you, even if you can understand them.
• That was one of the things I appreciated about Enterprise: they made a point of explaining how the universal translators came about and the trial and effort required to have such an impossible thing.
• Ah, Dune. A favourite also. But I'm also going to say Red Dwarf the book (heck, the three sequels too), and for some reason I've always loved the pop-philosophy navel gazing of David Zindell's Neverness series. As for Farscape - just finished watching all 4 seasons plus miniseries over the past month (in New Zealand, we only got the 1st season) on DVD, and I was wondering if anyone else had noticed what I think must be an in-joke about the translator microbes? Over the 4 seasons, the words "bought" and "brought" are mentioned about 20 times. Every single time the people are supposed to say "bought" I hear "brought" and vice versa! (Well, there are a couple of cases where it might have been the correct word). Very noticeable when you're watching up to 10 episodes a day :) Am I going deaf? Or was it a deliberate joke by the scriptwriters about the fallibility of translator systems?
• I don't know how anyone can read Asimov. My god! The exposition!
• Ooh, such a difficult question.. I think I'll go with Bester's "The Stars My Destination" (also known as "Tiger! Tiger!") Can't quite place it - it isn't a typical space opera, nor is it hard SF... nor mundane SF. "Adventures in the future" is the closest I can bill it. But Iain M. Banks' culture novels are very good too.. especially "Use of Weapons". As for the Mundane SF manifesto - yep, sounds very much like typical Hard SF to me. With some more restrictions - there are some Hard SFers that still go overboard on futuristic imaginary technology/science. Mundane SF seem to want to project the current science to the future and only allow a little extrapolation. Hm, would Brunner's "Stand on Zanzibar" and "The Sheep Look Up" classify as Mundane SF?
• Wow. No one's sticking up for Lem? Never mind the hideous Clooney movie -- everyone go read Solaris right now. Actually, The Futurological Congress is better. I also like Peace on Earth. SF done right.
• Oh, and hands down, Cowboy Feng's Space Bar and Grille.
• Props to Banks, his "The Player Of Games" and "Excession" are two of my very favorites, but if I had to pick a number one? Probably "Count Zero" by William Gibson. Post-Neuromancer, it was dense with detail and Gibson's talent was plain, but he had tempered it with his experience as a writer and it was a superb book - well written and plotted, evocative and dystopiac. Not to be discounted: Stormin' Norman Spinrad's "The Void Captain's Tale" is myth writ large and charged with burbling sexual tension - Campbell would've had a field day with this story, it hits home at the hindbrain.
• Strange that they hide their email address from the page (using blzblack [at] yahoo [dot] com) but not from the mailto tag. (mailto:blzblack@yahoo.com) Then again, they are only average.
• Dune is wonderful, probably my favorite standard SF fare, but if they're saying 1984 is "mundane SF," then it's my favorite SF book. (Not that I can possibly wrap my mind around the notion of Other Memories in Dune as a vaguely scientific thing unless we're counting Jung as science today.) The notion of "mundane SF" is interesting to me, partly because of the works listed as good examples of "better science fiction." Orwell's 1984 was an anti-totalitarian political work. Neuromancer was part of the cyberpunk revolution in science fiction, which was a rejection of the libertarian hard sci-fi of the late '70s and its themes and tropes, and the purposeful use of science fiction to comment on the technological and political situations of the world around the authors. Philip K. Dick was the most bizarre author I've read, and his work is hard to even define as science fiction. It is absolutely a prelude to cyberpunk, in that it comments on the world using exaggerated science fictional means, though it also had a spiritual layer that cyberpunk would lack. I think the "mundane" movement has possibility, but needs something more than just rejection of fantastic elements to drive it.
• I really love cyberpunk - all of Gibson, Sterling, Noon, and now I'm re-reading Fairyland by Paul McCauley. So I can see the point of their manifesto. However, I like stories set on other planets, from the Mars Chronicles to Heinlein (before he became sex crazed and started setting up time machines so he could screw his mother) to the strange & captivating Sean McMullen's Moonworlds books. (Note that he also wrote a couple of very what they're calling mundane sf books; i.e.Eyes of the Calculor.) Which is kind of a longwinded way of saying that I think there's always room for imagination, and always room for worlds with three moons and talking cats and ghosts and even dragons, because although I can't read them now, when I was 13 and discovered Anne McCaffrey and Andre Norton, I was a happy girl.
• Besides, where do you then put China Mieville? Is he disallowed? He's brilliant.
• This is just another group of Young Turks trying to get attention by saying outrageous things. I mean: * No interstellar travel * No aliens * No alternative universes or parallel worlds * No magic or supernatural elements * No time travel or teleportation Why not just say "no SF" and have done with it? This is the same crap people were saying before I was born: "Science fiction is dumb! Rocket ships and Martians!" Except now it's SF writers (writers I've never heard of, not that that's saying much, since I haven't been keeping up with the field) trying to get a little press, get some name recognition. It's pretty much the same thing the Dogme filmmakers were doing with their own ridiculous manifesto (films must be shot entirely on location with no outside props; the camera must be hand-held; there must be no artificial lighting and all sound must be recorded on location; action must take place in the here and now and everything seen on screen must actually take place). Once they've got the attention, they'll ignore their own manifesto, and a good thing too. That said, I couldn't possibly pick one novel. Here's a selection of all-time faves: The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin, More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon, A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr., The Man in the High Castle and Martian Time-Slip by Philip K. Dick, The Stars My Destination and The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester, Neuromancer by William Gibson, The Einstein Intersection and Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany, The Female Man by Joanna Russ, Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card, and Galatea 2.2 by Richard Powers (billed as literary fiction and brilliantly written, but qualifies as sf by any definition). Oh, and Zamyatin's We -- good call, jb! Special mention to The Weapon Shops of Isher, by A.E. van Vogt; nobody could call it a great novel, but it's mind-bending and unforgettable. As for Asimov, I wouldn't go as far as Chyren -- I loved his books when I was young and cared much more about plot -- but his actual writing is so plodding and uninteresting that I don't think I could get through much of it any more. And that goes triple for Lem, whom I've never been able to read at all. Sorry, scartol.
• mygothlaundry: However, I like stories set on other planets I think the point of the Mundanes is that science fiction can be more than the frivolities of what has gone before if and only if authors are willing to abandon the stereotypical tropes they label "stupidities"; they're calling for insight, the legitimacy that SF has long wanted and been loath to earn. It's valid to try it. Science fiction that's not published under a franchise logo or Baen or some such needs something to distinguish itself and make itself a presence again; it's a worthwhile field, and could make some very good comments about society and science from extrapolation. We need some genre of art today that looks critically at society and where it can go; I think this is quite possible within the realm of SF. Should be interesting to see where it goes from here.
• My guilty pleasure was Snow Crash.
• The legitimacy thing has a lot more to do with marketing - the publishers & the bookstores & distribution in general - than with the plots. SF has been ghettoized to an unbelievable degree for years, to the point where any novel by any writer who has ever written anything slightly fantastic (Neal Stephenson comes to mind) is promptly plopped down in the SF/Fantasy section, regardless of its merits, theme or plot. If they want to change that (and I think that would be brilliant) they need to look at more than the stereotypical plots. Novels that look at where society might go, well within the bounds of the manifesto, like A Canticle for Leibowitz, have been around for years, but when they don't get distributed outside the SF/Fantasy ghetto, then they don't get read by as large an audience. It's kind of interesting, actually, to look at books with undeniably SF themes that don't get ghettoized, for whatever reason. That includes a lot of books, starting way back with Neville Chute's On the Beach and then the magical realists like Allende, Garcia-Marquez and even Alice Hoffman. More recently, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell which somehow never got put in back with the "weird" books but sat up front in mainstream fiction. I'm impressed by that publisher and also irritated that so many others (again Neal Stephenson) don't get the marketing they deserve. Even William Gibson's recent set in contemporary times novel got shoved to the back, and it was completely non SF.
• To be honest, the best science fiction does end up being recognised, even appropriated by the non-SF literary crowd, with little recognition of the genre. Both Ursula K. LeGuin and Geoff Ryman have been published by non-SF publishers, and marketed as literary fiction; literary people also happily laud some of the great classics, like Brave New World or We. But if you dare suggest that the genre is capable of producing good and bad fiction, just like any other genre (romance, bildungsroman, gothic)? I had a creative writing instructor who once began a class by talking about how we were there to write literary fiction, not genre fiction, as if you could ever write fiction without a genre. I wrote a story for her that was half complete realism, half crazy colourful myth, and then gave her a copy of We at the end of the year, which she had never read. (She was a really good teacher and critic, genre prejudices aside). I don't know if 1984 would count as mundane science fiction - it isn't about science at all. It's a projection of social trends. I hereby stake out claim on the genre of sociological fiction, in which concepts of society will be played with. If the scientists want to come, they have to play nice :) on preview: the ghettoisation is a mixed blessing. I actually like it - it directs me to the fantasy and speculative stuff without having to wade through endless novels about women and their comical yet deep household struggles. (Nothing against chick lit, I just really don't like it.) I want the authors to get more recognition, but I have more trouble finding them - Terry Pratchett could be shelved with general fiction, with SF&F or in satire.
• They need to get writing instead of whinging.
• Where is CJ Cherryh on you guys favorite lists? Bleah. And where's Ken Macleod in the Mundanes? Bleah.
• SF has been ghettoized to an unbelievable degree for years Spec fiction, both fantasy and sci-fi, are in a rut. Tolkien casts a long shadow on fantasy, and Star Trek carves a mighty trough. Any fledgling writers here, if you've been submitting to mags, compilations, or even workshops (like Clarion), you'll probably have realized that you need to come up with some pretty bizarre material to be considered, and anything with the taint of the Big M ("Mainstream") can stay in your desk drawer. Tales of alternate cultures, particularly those involving alternate sexualities, are the new thing (as of about ten years ago, anyway), though thankfully, simply tacking this on is no longer considered any sign of originality (are you listening, Neil Gaiman!?). Frankly, I'd love to see a writer's colony produce fantasy using rules comparable to these mundanes (ie: no Tolkien middle-earth elves/dwarves/humans tales). The average time a new fantasy novel spends in my hands in the bookstore is about 12 seconds, if I bother to look at all. I've had enough exiled princes, awakening ancient evils, and quests for magical baubles to last a lifetime.
• Frankly, I'd love to see a writer's colony produce fantasy using rules comparable to these mundanes (ie: no Tolkien middle-earth elves/dwarves/humans tales). I've been pondering for a while a rather long low fantasy; the main problem is hashing out what is and isn't a writable story at this point. That, and the question of whether fantasy really conveys any of the ideas I'd like to convey at this point. Does George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire go into any wackiness about races and what not? I haven't read much of it, but I don't recall any big presences in the high fantasy camp. But, for the most part, fantasy is a toxic waste dump these days.
• Snow Crash and Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep (the religion of that time, rocks).
• Rorschach - Fantasy for you: - Anything by the above-mentioned Geoff Ryman, especially The Warrior who Carried Life (mostly because it's my favorite, I've also read Was which is good, but very dark, and The Child Garden may as well be fantasy). - Anything by Guy Gavriel Kay, except his Finovar Tapestry (it was a Tolkien tribute, after all, albeit without dwarves and with Canadian university students instead) - but Tigana, the Sarantine Mosaic, even the not quite so strong Song for Arbonne and Lions of Al-Rassan bend, if they do not break, the fantasy mold. - Kate Elliot's recent Crown of Stars series - that description sounds much more stereotypical than series actually is - it's very fresh in its style and ideas. - and a long time favorite of mine - Bridge of Birds, a novel of Ancient China that never was. Actually, this reminds me of a really good SF novel, which still confuses and intrigues me - The Maerlande Chronicles, also published under the title of In the Mother's Land. I have tried to read some of Vonarburg's more recent SF, which has been widely acclaimed, but found it too challenging for the reading energy I had at the time. But it's definitely not cliched in the least (cliched would have been easier to read). Her style in The Maerlande Chronicles is beautiful and the story fascinating (if still utterly confusing). Finally, if you want good dwarves, go straight to Terry Pratchett.
• A Song of Ice and Fire does not have any elves or whatnot. Thank god. The best SF-ish book I've read recently was Replay by Ken Grimwood. An excellent tale which I've thought about off and on for months now after reading it. It wouldn't make the cut demanded by these folks, as it is a semi-timetravel story. I am really looking forward to Dan Simmons' next book, Olympos. He's one of my all time favorite authors, as is Iain M. Banks. Along the lines of this discussion, what mainstream books have you read or started to read due at the insistence of others, only to be horribly disappointed? For me, that would be The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen. Bleah and bleah some more. Add to that, anything by Umberto Eco.
• Lem's the Cyberiad, which I found by accident in a small bookstore in New York. The Mars Trilogy. Jules Verne, of course! The whole Culture universe is amazing, as well. And the last one, Olaf Stapledon.
• I think that, for a while, it can be pretty liberating to write under a set of rules like these. They can be useful to force writers out of generic ruts and into more fruitful, interesting paths. (After a while, of course, the rules become their own rut. See Languagehat's comment about Dogme above.) I think it would be interesting to read this fiction, if it's done well. I like to read a wide variety of SF and fantasy (including lots of what's been mentioned above), but I have noticed, especially after the LOTR movies did so well, that authors are going back (and back and back) to Tolkein. When I was in high school, a friend and I set up a similar list of "don'ts" for writing a romance novel. No pirates, no throbbing members, no rape scenes that the heroine ends up liking, etc.... We never got around to writing it. Now, we'd have to add a bunch of don'ts from chick lit...
• what mainstream books have you read or started to read due at the insistence of others, only to be horribly disappointed? I farted my way through The Da Vinci Code at the insistence of my neighbor; after, he wanted to discuss it: "What'd you think?" Me: "Well, it was pretty much you basic mystery potboiler with a bunch of pseudo-religious mumbo-jumbo thrown in for flavor." Him: "Yeah, but what about that villian?" Me: "You mean the ancient, crippled, incredibly wealthy psychotic driven by a single crazy goal? Have you not seen ANY James Bond movies?" Oy.
• I can't believe nobody's mentioned Greg Egan yet. His clever idea/page ratio is unmatched, and his writing is not bad either.
• I was okay with The Corrections. Not blown away, and his nonfiction's arguably better (I really liked How to Be Alone), but it was all right. Mrs. Tool likewise limped her way through The Da Vinci Code and left it feeling the need to scrub her brain with a Brillo pad.
• everyone go read Solaris right now. I am reading solaris right now

• * No magic or supernatural elements

  Would Arthur C. Clarke take issue w/ this?
• Thanks for the fantasy recommendations, folks! That's a genre I'd far rather get suggestions on than wade through the homogenized tripe. That, and the question of whether fantasy really conveys any of the ideas I'd like to convey at this point. I hear you, gray. I am NOT in the deconstructionist camp, but seriously, I can scarcely wade through the classism and racism in fantasy to get to any good stuff (too preoccupied with the real world, I think). Anything by Guy Gavriel Kay I was just thinking of him. Missed his book/etc sale this last weekend -- argh -- for the second year in a row. Next year, for sure. Me: "You mean the ancient, crippled, incredibly wealthy psychotic driven by a single crazy goal? Here's Neil Gaiman's idea of an interesting, well-rounded character in "Neverwhere": a woman called The Hunter, with "perfect, caramel skin" (he says over and over and OVER again) who never speaks and skulks around a lot looking hot and tough -- oh, but hey let's make her a fully developed character. Let's see... oh I know! She's also a lesbian! There, that's original! Instant well-rounded character. Yet people gobble this book up.
• "You mean the ancient, crippled, incredibly wealthy psychotic driven by a single crazy goal? Have you not seen ANY James Bond movies?" Oy. LOL, thank you Fes. I too worked my way through the very popular Da Vinci code--and had to wash myself off with some quality Conrad. Also, an aside Some of my SF favorites are Dune and Ender's Game (pity about the continuing evidence that OSC is indeed an asshat). Also, I quite agree with Languagehat and his thoughts on the faddishness of this manifesto and its similarity to the Dogme filmmakers--a group that has never impressed me--perhaps that, as an aspiring filmmaker with a strong background in the theatre, I know I can go see a good production of the Cherry Orchard or Fences (or Ibsen or Strindberg or more August Wilson) and have all the selective realist one-set drama I need. I like quiet films too, (currently watching Kitchen Stories and enjoying it). However, the Dogme folks don't seem to realise, or refuse to admit, one of film's strengths as an art form: it can do things, fulfill some genres more than other art forms. Genres, like science fiction and action thrillers do well on film. The Mundane SF might not. It might not do well on paper. Prescriptions don't do well for art. It sort of defeats the purpose of art. I mean, I cook and bake. For me, the interest is in what new recipes, what new ingredients and cuisines, what more I can try and taste and share. These manifestos, the Mundane and the Dogme, seem more about abrupt and ill-thought (though apparently well-meaning and sincere) restrictive diets. It won't work: for them, for the people they want to convert to this diet, and, well, to anyone in the end. Sort of like how a friend of mine who's in great shape and eats relatively well says on the subject of weight loss, "Once you say the word 'diet', you've lost right there." Permenent weight loss is about a lifestyle change. I daresay the same can apply to the would-be mundane writers. It's not a bad idea to try their hand at "high-fiber" hard SF. But art is imagination--and speculative fiction, that umbrella category in which SF resides is so dependent on imagination and the spices it brings. I can understand their distaste at things seeming to be overly processed, but that doesn't mean abandoning sweets altogether. No, they're in need of some literary metamucil.
• I'm not sure what the need was to wheel Big Karl out in one of the articles. Still, could have been Freud.
• I actually quit reading The Corrections when a couple hunnert pages in I realized I really didn't give a shit what happened next, what had happened in the past, or what these people were thinking. Maybe I missed out on something soul-shaking, but there you go. I don't read scifi or fantasy, though, so maybe I'm imaginatively challenged, and shouldn't have added my comment to this thread.
• Stephen Donaldson, Frederick Pohl, Patricia McKillip are some of my personal favorite authors nobody's mentioned yet. Donaldson's titles are terrible but his stories are desperately beautiful, intense, and epic. Pohl's Gateway is a classic and he has some great short fiction. McKillip's prose is smooooother than poetry. And CJ Cherryh is indeed fascinating, Rats. I did the bulk of my sci-fi reading in middle school. It would be interesting to go back and re-read things now that I've got a bit more, ehm, perspective. Could anyone else make heads or tales of that Kuro5hin link? The EXCELLENT Kessel article blew my mind and then the post at Kuro5shin (and especially the followup comments) confused the hell out of me.
• Weighing in late: I fourth/fourteenth/whatever the Dogme connection. While I like PKD and limited-speculation fiction (What was the Campbell rule? Just one thing that broke what we know?), I also love the Star Wars-style outrageous serials. As a response, though, the manifesto seems an overreaction. Write that way if you want, and you have good ideas that work in it, but also keep Sturgeon's Law in mind, and Ellison's corollary. Along the same lines as the manifesto, I, too, would be very interested in seeing a Dogme-style set of rules for fantasy (although I love my high fantasy when it's well done). The problem I have with the pseudohistorical stuff, especially the ones set in pseudo-medieval worlds, is that they're often wrong in ways that drive me nuts. I've started looking at pseudo-historical fantasy from other time periods to get that fix (GGK, Greg Keyes' Newton's Cannon series, Paula Volsky, Martha Wells' Ile-Rien books, The Armor of Light). There may be problems with the way the world works, but they don't make my teeth itch the way stuff from my period of study does. Whoever said "sociological fiction" upthread, I love you and I want to read your books.
• immlass - I have that problem with pseudohistorical fiction too - it's why I much prefer Tigana to Guy Gavriel Kay's more recent books. But I don't know the history as well as you do - it isn't so much what they get wrong, it's that they have places and events that are almost exactly the same, only with different names, and it bugs me. I think I would rather they just take the plunge and do historical fiction (I never had a problem with Bernard Cornwall, until he started breaking his own continuity). Tigana is Italian-flavoured, but makes no attempt to be anything like Italy (though it does pick up on events from Carlo Ginzburg's Night Battles, but doesn't do as much with it as it could.) Have you read Connie Willis's Doomsday Book? I'd be curious to know what a medievalist thought of it.