What is SciFi exactly?

Discussion in 'Science Fiction' started by Monte Thompson, Mar 17, 2014.

  1. Bryan Romer

    Bryan Romer Contributor Contributor

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    I'm afraid I disagree with your entire post :)

    As I have already stated, as far as I am concerned, SF is an extrapolation of scientific (including social) trends which may or may not contain certain assumptions of technological achievement. The extrapolation may be inaccurate or downright wrong, but the author must at least make the effort and base his story on the premise.

    Fantasy is drawn out of the authors arse with no concern for possibility or even trending. Simply speaking, the author doesn't care. Nothing limits his creations, not even his own sense of what is likely ever to be possible.

    As for historical reconstruction, I also cannot hope to get 100% into the mind of my neighbour. However, I do know that certain factors are common human motivations both today and most likely when we lived in caves. On top of that, we know a considerable deal about the customs, laws and religions of our ancestors. When it comes to the major players in history, you can assume that any historian has his own axe to grind, but we do know what that character, that person, actually did, and we know the position he held in society. Caesar's power base was his Legions, the military. So when faced with a serious problem, his most likely solution would have been a military one. From history, we can quite accurately judge the resources available to him at any particular time, the allies he had, and the enemies he faced. Once again, extrapolations can be made to a fair degree of accuracy for (say) a Roman general, a Victorian Thief Taker, a Redcoat at Waterloo, a rider in Genghis Khan's hordes, or a Romanian noble, with regard to how they would act or respond.

    We know a great deal about how homosexuals lived in Edwardian times, how they behaved publicly, and how they were treated by others. It really doesn't matter what I write the character thinking, so long as his actions are consistent with what we know people like them really did. My modern perspective does not affect that in the slightest.

    When taken as a group, people are depressingly predictable in they way they respond given a set of circumstances.

    A modern military officer will have no trouble at all understanding Hannibal's thinking at the battle of Cannae, or his subordinates. I doubt very much if a prostitute in Pompeii had very much different thoughts than a prostitute in Las Vegas.

    We know that brothels existed in Roman cities. Their remains still exist today. We know what kind of sexual positions they favoured because they were painted on the walls. We even have some idea how much they were paid from various contemporary writings. From archaeological and historical records, we know that superior men (non slaves or servants) did not concern themselves with the giving of pleasure during sex. They also almost never performed cunnilingus. Given all this, I am pretty confident that I can write a scene involving a visit to a Roman brothel by a Legion officer with sufficient accuracy not to be absolute nonsense. Nor will it be "contaminated" by modern sexual mores or other concepts, because I already know the objectives, the means by which they are to be achieved, and the result.

    I would be less confident if I were writing a historical soap opera, but that is not the genre in which I write.
     
  2. Burlbird

    Burlbird Contributor Contributor

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    @Bryan Romer in a way, I completely agree with your post :) but, we are probably talking about two different things here. Understanding the sequence of (historical) events is to construct a narrative - based on the information available to you and structures you choose to apply. However, you said yourself you want to write about what "happened", not what "they were thinking". Again, the question is how do you plan on writing about humans without touching on the subjects of motivation, for example. But again, that's for you to try...
     
  3. Bryan Romer

    Bryan Romer Contributor Contributor

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    I understand what you are saying but I don't think it is a great an obstacle as you make out. A Sumerian lord discovers that bandits have stolen or burned his latest crop. Would his emotions and thoughts be so truly opaque? Supposing his eldest son is killed during the raid as well. Again would modern thought processes or knowledge truly interfere with the ability to empathise with his feelings or to guess his likely reaction?

    Two Chinese generals face each other across the river running past Red Cliff. One has a land base at that spot while the other, with a bigger more powerful force, has to bring them upriver to confront his opponent. They used to belong to the same empire, speak the same language, and both consider the other to be a traitor. Would an attempt to fathom their thoughts be likely to be so twisted and corrupted by time and distance? Their thoughts were actually set out in poems and essays they wrote, and in the records of the scholars who accompanied them. And they were not so very alien to what we might imagine.

    A soldier in George Washington's army desires the wife of his officer to the point of madness. He will be going out on patrol alone with that officer that night to scout for Redcoats. Is it so impossible to guess what might be going through his mind? Yes, he might be more swayed by fear of hellfire and damnation than we would, but he is also free of the fear of forensic science proving his guilt. Was the all encompassing desire for a woman who belongs to another man so different then, as opposed to today? What could he possibly think or feel that could not be reasonably be foreseen/extrapolated?
    You keep saying that such attempts at empathy and understanding are futile. Show me why and how. Give me an example. Simply saying "It can't be done" demonstrates nothing except your personal belief. I have no doubt that there are numerous examples of "historical" novels or shows that have been painfully twisted by modern prejudices and beliefs. I just watched one last night from the BBC. But without exception these "distortions" have been deliberate in order to appeal to modern sensibilities, or because the author couldn't be bothered to even try.
     
  4. Aled James Taylor

    Aled James Taylor Contributor Contributor

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    I don't think your knowledge of past times needs to be perfect or even particularly good to write historical fiction. It only needs to be better than that of the reader (who's probably done no research at all). You could make the most horrendous mistakes but if the text seems plausible enough, you'll get away with it.
     
  5. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    Yes, agreed. But I think what @Burlbird is trying to illuminate (as I too was) is that correctness, precision, and anachronism in historical fiction (presence or lack of those, as the case may or may not be) is a different phenomenon than the manner and tone in which the writer perceives and thus asks the reader to perceive the characters. To invoke Thomas the butler again, I could write him, his actions, the actions of those around him towards him, all in period perfection, lacking any anachronism, and yet still present him to the reader as a human to be considered because my modern sensibility is to regard him as such. A writer from the 19th century would also create a period correct set of circumstances, lacking altogether in anachronism, but undoubtedly that writer from that time would be asking the reader to consider the character as the vile misbegotten thing that that writer would hold in his/her perception of the time. What happens in the story, what the characters do, think and say is different than how the writer asks the reader to consider these things.
     
  6. Bryan Romer

    Bryan Romer Contributor Contributor

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    But knowing that, you (or at least I) should not allow that to happen. You admit you already know which is the historically correct attitude, or you could discover it, and therefore it is not an invisible, unknowable force that distorts historical accuracy, but a deliberate choice on your part. So what is stopping you from choosing to be historically accurate? Why not write the butler as a "vile misbegotten thing"? (No offense intended)

    It seems to me that the argument boils down to you saying you *refuse* to be accurate even when you know what the correct thought or choice would be for a person of that time, not that you (or anyone) can't possibly do it.
     
  7. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    We are still not speaking about the same thing, you and I. I am saying that there are two very different phenomena at play that are separate, one from the other. I would write a story about Thomas where his life is perfectly precise to the possible outcomes of things in his day. He would be presented in his attempt to pass as str8. He would eventually slip up. He would pay dearly for his error. He might well end up dead in the gutter of a back alley, the bobby (cop) and the man who had been payed off to catch men making passes both sniggering over his dead body and spitting on him as they left. I would write this story. I would be compelled in fact to write this story because I know it was a truth that occurred uncounted times. When I presented Thomas's inner clockwork, his inner thinking, it would reflect the cultural dogma and rhetoric he heard since childhood indicating to him, instilling in him the knowledge (not the belief, not the opinion, but the knowledge) that this back-alley death was not a possibility but an eventuality.

    I would write all of this and still be able to present Thomas to the reader as someone to be considered as a complete and total person, I could still present him to the reader with sensitivity toward his human condition, I could still do this and I would do this because this is the part of my skin that won't slip off. I would be compelled to paint the story as correctly and vividly as possible because it's important to me, with my modern thinking, that this chapter of gay life be remembered so as never to be revisited. This is what separates me from my 19th century writer counterpart who would write the same story, but with a tone and intent in line to satisfy the 19th century reader's righteous sensibility that Thomas got exactly what he and all other inverts deserved. I would not interject myself, in a kind of falsified authorial intrusion, and have the reader believe that I too, the writer, from 2014, given the chance to time travel back to Thomas's day, would have coughed up a slimy one to leave on Thomas's face. That, to me, would itself comprise a sort of anachronism through narrative intrusion, (falsely) representative of the writer, not the writing.
     
  8. Bryan Romer

    Bryan Romer Contributor Contributor

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    I'm afraid it is you who is not understanding me. I absolutely do see what you mean.

    What I am saying is that I would *not* be "compelled" to do anything similar if my story did not absolutely require it for the plot to carry on. For instance, I don't mind telling you that direct relatives of mine (civilians) were beheaded/machine gunned by the Japanese in Singapore during WW2. But if I chose to write a story about the adventures of a Japanese officer (and I have) invading the region, I would not at all feel the need to portray the point of view of the British and Empire colonials in a way that reflects my sympathies, even if it is just their inner thoughts and emotions. If the plot required the Japanese officer to be the conquering hero and the Empire characters ignorant and cowardly scum, then I would write them as such. I would do nothing that would prevent the reader from cheering loudly for the officer at the end of the book or to leave a sour taste in the reader's mouth when thinking about him.

    So yes, perhaps from your perspective you would be inevitably affected by your knowledge and experiences, and I can respect that. But you need to consider the possibility that someone else (me, for instance) might not be similarly driven or affected.
     
  9. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    But this is exactly my point. We are in agreement, man! :) Seriously. We're coming at it from two different sensibilities and two rather different directions, but I think we're coming to the same conclusion. You can write the story you speak of because your modern sensibility allows for this. My personal example is just one example that reflects just me and my modern take on life. It's not about my compulsion to write that story; it's my ability to. There are people alive today whose insular modern sensibility would happily allow them to write the story about Thomas that I would not write, because their personal modern experience of life allows for it. The story you mention just now, to me, reflects perfectly the fact that you are a man of this time and this place, able to tell a story about situations in a way that, just post-war, would have subjected you to ridicule and scorn, and perhaps even legal action. Your proposed story perfectly reflects your modernity as a writer. Remember that the whole reason I even brought any of this up was as a counterpoint to the idea of "what is science fiction" as I am sure any forum onlookers to this conversation are wondering why in the heck I keep going on about Edwardian characters. Though we might be getting lost in the specifics of the ideas, the concept I was trying to express is that the science fiction future is really always about the writers real life now, as was much more eloquently expressed by Gibson in the article of his I quoted.
     
  10. Christine Ralston

    Christine Ralston Active Member

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    There are so many types of stories that fall under the umbrella of science fiction. If it involves science or technology that doesn't exist in the real world (at least not yet) then it is science fiction. Some fiction can be soft science fiction as with the time travel example, while other fiction is hard core as with a story about planet colonization. Whether the premise is interesting, that's up to the reader.
     
  11. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

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    And what if the story has the sci-fi components but none of that dominates the story?

    When I tell people my story is sci-fi, they're disappointed it's missing the bells and whistles of sci-fi.

    I'm debating about reconsidering my genre label.
     
  12. AJC

    AJC Active Member

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    I think it would fall under another genre then. I realize that the boundaries that define a genre are always changing, so my opinion may not mean much here. When a book says that it's science fiction, I expect certain elements, like time travel or AI, to dominate the story. If the book focuses too much on the romance between characters instead, I'd have to wonder why it wasn't advertised as a romance in the first place.

    Some of the ways books are categorized are weird, however. I realized this when I saw several science fiction books shelved under General Fiction at the bookstore. Maybe doing this is a marketing technique, I don't know.
     
  13. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    I'm getting closer to understanding what you mean, but I remain confused. Why can't I use a scientific anachronism in the past, to write about my present feelings about my future? Or, if I can, which part of that makes that writing not science fiction?
     
  14. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    Of course you could, and alternate time-line stories do so all the time with great satisfaction to those who enjoy these stories. It wouldn't make it not science fiction in the least (double negatives... tricky :)) Where I was going with my train of argumentation (and I had to read back over where that came from and where I was going with it) is exactly what you mention: you would be writing about your present feelings about your future.

    I used the historical story as a counterpoint only because the history is already there. There is something against which to compare when we contemplate why the writer bothered laying pen to paper today. We have some good idea of things that happened, how people felt about them at that time and so on. The modern writer's modern take on the past, no matter how perfectly presented, would be noticeable in the elements the writer choses tackle, the events, the realities of the people living back then. I used Thomas from Downton Abbey merely as an example of how a modern eye can talk about happenstance that most assuredly happened to one degree or another in that era, where a writer actually from that era would have either shunned the idea as unmentionable, or if mentioned, you would be made to know that the writer thought Thomas beneath contempt as well. Thomas exists today in Downton Abbey story, presented as a real and complete human, because gayness and LGBT issues are part of the cultural conversation right now. It is not a perfect example because there are some undeniably anachronistic elements in the story, such as the Earl of Grantham shrugging Thomas's gayness off with a rather modern mindset, mentioning the times boys had tried to kiss him at Eton.

    So, again, the only reason I mention all the Edwardian fra-fra-fra (that I love so much) is because we can see the modern writer's modernity when we compare to an actual late 19th century writer's work. The late 19th century writer is, by necessity, writing a different story because in 1894, the writer is thinking about and being affected by things happening in his/her 1894 world.

    Science Fiction is no different, only the timeline is different. It goes into the blank slate of the future, not the written history of the past. There's nothing to compare against. There's no filter you can pull away and say "See the difference?" like you can with a historical piece. But science fiction is still always about the writer's present state of being. It's always about his/her present feelings (just as you mention). The concern with anachronism was less mine than my interlocutor partner in the earlier conversation. Downton Abbey contains a lot of anachronism. It doesn't stop it from being utterly enjoyable. I was only emphasizing that I could write a story that was perfect down to the letter of the law and still easily not leave you, the reader, thinking that I the writer was bigoted in my portrayal of Thomas. Thomas would come to a grim end and you would think, poor man, not, this Fuentes dude is an asshole. :)
     
  15. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    That all made sense to me, and gave me a better idea of where your thoughts on the larger discussion are. But I'm still confused: I thought that you said that one of the two scenarios presented 'way back in the thread was not science fiction, and I thought it was the second one. And I'm still failing to follow why.

    If you feel that you've explained why to death, and I'm just failing to get it, I won't be offended if you just say so. :) But I'm still curious and confused.
     
  16. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    Ah, you mean when Aled posed this set of questions:

    I gave a hesitant no to question #2 because though the tech is cutting edge for the time, it's still correct to the time. It would merely be a historical story that focused on the technology of the day. No different than the film Jobs, concerning the life of Steve Jobs isn't science fiction, it's historical, though clearly technology is everywhere in the telling of that tale. There came a point in the earlier conversation in this thread when there appears to have been a misread of Aled's question to mean technology that had no business in the time period when it was presented, and thus the whole deal with anachronism came up, but if you read Aled's questions carefully, that's not how he worded his queries. :)
     
  17. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    Ah! Thank you. Confusion unconfused. I think. :)
     
  18. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    LOL :) I was bored today and playing in GIMP and came up with this:

    [​IMG]
    Aled's set of questions are, together, asking if a Science Fiction story ever ages out of being Science Fiction? And be that the case, what does this mean when regarding the writer's living timeline compared to the story's timeline and the reader's living timeline as compared to the story's timeline for any story.

    • The first timeline is no story at all. It's just you and I having a conversation, @ChickenFreak, which I enjoy having because you are one of our most engaging members. ;) It only sets the stage for what is past and what is future.
    • The second timeline is Aled's first question. A Science Fiction story written in the past, aging up to us in the present, and presumably existing on into our future. It doesn't matter that the story has aged and the science is old or wrong or poorly predictive. Writers are not fortune tellers and so to say that science fiction is meant to be predictive or talk to us about the unknown future, untied to the writer's present, is to ask the genre to fail each and every time. The writer in 1914 has no way to know what will actually concern us in 2014. The writer in 1914 is writing about concerns present in 1914, no matter there be rocket ships and silver cloaks and unitards. The writer is in 1914, physically, temporally, and paradigmatically. The story is forever science fiction because it is written into the author's future, and it doesn't matter when this future becomes our actual past because it intersects with us square in the blue unknown.
    • The third timeline is Aled's second question. The writer lives today in 2014, but is writing about a span of time that is the same as the first question, but compared to the writer, it's in the real past not the real future. It's historical, not science fiction, assuming one sticks to the facts and doesn't have Hitler win or cellphones with touch screens in 1921. It was written into no one's future. It doesn't matter that it be about the group of fellahs who first invented automobiles and the effect that invention had on society. You in 2014 are writing about a real past invention. It's not your future. The story's timeline intersects us at the join between past and future. It's historical.
    • The last timeline is the premise you posed, CF, as to inserting anachronism into a story written about the past. When that happens, you create the tabula rasa I mentioned in a past post. Even though it's still the actual past, you the writer have taken the liberty to wipe part of that past slate clean. We might perhaps instead call this speculative fiction instead of science fiction to keep purists from having a T.I.A., but what's the difference, really? ;) Instead of the aforementioned story about the first automobile inventors in their hayloft barns, you have a someone who trumps the whole game with fuel cell technology, and off history goes in a very different direction. The story intersects us in the blue unknown that you the writer have cleared away with your pen.

    So, my personal conclusion is that what makes Science Fiction Science Fiction isn't the technology, because that will always eventually age out; it's the direction of time into which the story is written into the unknown, unwritten timeline as compared to the author, a thing which is a constant and does not ever change. There need be no tech at all. My constant repetition of the writer always writing about his/her now is a statement that applies to every fiction story, historical or science fiction. It's not exclusive to Science Fiction at all, it's global to all genre's, but I think many readers/writers do feel that Science Fiction is excluded from the dynamic. It's not.

    </rant> :friend:
     
  19. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    I like the diagrams. :) That all makes sense,

    Now, I found myself thinking, can a person think of the future without it being about the present? Even as an exercise? Is it possible? Is there any 'what if' that isn't at some level about one's own thoughts and hopes and beliefs and fears? I realize that it will include those things--it's not possible to wipe the writer's mind--but will it always be about them?

    Probably.

    OK, that all sounds like just a re-evaluation of the same premise. I guess I'm saying that while I agree that fiction always is at core about the writer's present, is it possible, as an exercise, for it not to be?

    OK, I need caffeine.
     
  20. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    As an exercise, I think you absolutely can try, though I think there will be little luck in the effort. It would also mean - I think - that you would have to ask the reader (who knows you are a 2014 writer) to consider the story with the same premise in mind. Not so easily accomplished.

    Example:

    A while back I was talking to a past member (DrWhozit) about the book The Windup Girl. I made mention of the fact that in the book, one of the elements in play is that global warming effects are happening/have already happened. In the story coastlines have already altered. A satellite picture of the Earth would already look strange. I made mention of a timeline in the book that appears to be about 40 to 60 years out from our present day (maybe a little more). I was immediately lambasted about how these numbers are irresponsible and insane and that global warming is NOW and crazy, crazy, crazy, walleyed, frothy crazy... Now, I know that climate change is a real thing, but I wasn't making a statement as to when I thought climate change would begin to affect us or anything like that at all. I wasn't taking any side. I was simply stating when the book appeared to be set. So, if I, making a casual comment on someone else's book cannot help but catch the flame of unintentional over-interpretation of my words, how is the writer going to fair? :) The writer may have chosen the timeline for other reasons and the effects of climate change are never said to have just happened yesterday or anything like that. Still, DrWhozit berzerked on me.

    Think you could write that story about the fuel cell being invented in 1920 and not have people read climate change messages, carbon emission statements, The Great Green Battle Cry, into your work, intentional or not? Is it even possible for me to pose an idea to you that isn't affected by my present geopolitical, sociological, demographic reality? *shrug* :)
     
  21. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    Probably not. If I ignore an aspect of our society, or reverse it, then my views will of course be affected by that aspect. For example, if I assume a society where new members just pop out of the earth full-grown and fully educated and therefore all societal elements related to reproduction and children and the family as a unit of reproduction go away, I have to look at all of those things before I can strip them out of society, and what I strip and how will be affected by how I feel about those things.

    But. I still contemplate.
     
  22. thewordsmith

    thewordsmith Contributor Contributor

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    Science fiction: The genie in the bottle? Sci-Fi is very simple, really. If any type or form of science is at the center of the story plotline - whether past, future, or present - and is the crux of the catalyst for the story's action, then it is Science Fiction. That's all. Does science, either real or imagined, play a pivotal part in the story? Then you've got Science Fiction.
     
    Last edited: Nov 11, 2014
  23. Christine Ralston

    Christine Ralston Active Member

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    I was explaining this to a friend the other day. She thought sci-fi was all about aliens. Sci-fi is so much more than that. It can be futuristic. It can deal with time travel, dimension travel, or be about some new fangled technology that may or may not exist in the near future. It can be about any science-based story that explores "what if?"
     
    thewordsmith likes this.
  24. Shadowfax

    Shadowfax Contributor Contributor

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    Absolutely.

    Asimov's robot stories are set in a future universe, and examine racial prejudice.
     
  25. Robert_S

    Robert_S Senior Member

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    That's too vague for me. All stories ask what if, if you think about it:

    What if a woman gets a brain injury and loses her short term memory?

    What if one of the refugees from Cuba became a crime lord?

    What if a writer meets his most fanatical fan?

    In a creative writing class, the teacher said almost all sci-fi asks and tries to answer the question: what does it mean to be human? So, often you have to compare and contrast that against something/someone not human.

    I think Wreybies also put forth that sci-fi presents what we can/would become through what we are today. How would technology, events, trends change us?
     

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