Poorly chosen names for invented things. I'm going to use an example away from Sci-Fi, Game of Thrones. The people who are wargs. Did no one inform GRRM of how close that sounds to the British epithet, wog, especially when someone of British origin pronounces the word? They sound identical under the dynamics of most of the accents of the U.K., and given that it's an all Brit/Aussie cast enacting the books....
Haha, wow. I pronounced it in my head something like vari, like it was Swedish. Good point though, it's a good idea to pronounce the word that one's created. Might look good in writing, might sound wrong when pronounced. I'm glad I haven't named any of my characters Zizi (willy in French) or Zeezee though it sounds science fiction-y. Actually... maybe I should, then I can make dumb jokes about it.
Science fiction is a bit tricky. You have to appeal to those who are going to be looking for the 'science' in their 'fiction', but you should also be cautious that you're not saying the same thing that hasn't already been said over a million times before. You want my own personal advice? Avoid robots with artificial intelligence, time travel, and dystopian futures if you are able. These are all such common tropes that, regardless of how fantastic your story ends up being, you end up finding yourself trapped in endless comparisons to other classic sci-fi works. That isn't to say that you can't use them if you have something distinctly you to say about them, just be aware that unless you bring something new to the table many readers will be tuning out. What I would ask you to do, as a writer, is to come up with your own vision of where 'you' think the world will end up. Where do you hope humanity will go? What is the inevitable reality? What are some cool things that you want to see in your lifetime? What things are you terrified of seeing? Once you've got the answers to those questions, start doing your research. If you have some grounding in reality for your far-out visions, people will buy into it. It doesn't have to always be one-hundred percent accurate as long as it seems plausible. Michael Crichton has managed to convince readers about completely absurd things countless times, but he comes packed with enough scientific theories to make an average reader's head spin. I would say don't worry about what particular voice the genre is supposed to have. If you have the 'fiction' first and you bring the 'science' to back it up, you will have a reader like me hooked. Bring your own voice to it and write the story that you want to write. As long as you avoid the cliches already illustrated by past posters, you'll do just fine.
Well, don't forget there's the fantasy-sci-fi mix genre (no idea what that's called officially), and then there's also soft sci-fi. Star Wars probably falls into the mixed category. Say, for example, what is 1984? It's a dystopian novel set in the future, and while I have no idea which genre it's officially grouped in, I'd call it sci-fi. It's set in the future where the reality and possibilities are different, but without a focus on technology. Hunger Games is called soft sci-fi - again, the focus on technology is basically zero, with some simple and brief explanations for certain things to give it a "technological" feel rather than magic (say, the Jabberjay and mockingjay - genetic mutation and adaptation was what was used to explain the existence of these creatures, but I would guess any real sci-fi fans would argue it's not really good enough. But it is science, and it's explained, and it does make sense). Mind you, I don't know if this is all due to a looser definition of "sci-fi" - if in the past it was much more strictly technology-based and it didn't only have to be set in the future. For me, anything set in the future with an alternate reality (based on any kind of realistic change in the political, cultural or geographical areas) is "sci-fi", but I'd probably say those were soft sci-fi. Just a few thoughts from someone who doesn't read any hardcore sci-fi at all so take my words with a pinch of salt.
Actually, as far as I know, immortality is a fairly unlikely scenario, almost as unlikely as time travel. The problem is that even if you, say, grow yourself a new body, and your brains are transplanted into the new body, or even just a part of your brains (the parts that contain your "self"), you'll get some decades more (no idea if it's closer to 30 or 300 years or something in-between), but eventually your brains grow old and you die. Or that appears to be the current consensus when it comes to brain/full body transplants nowadays. They've done experiments with mice and... was it apes? Can't remember, but while "mind transplants" are at least theoretically possible and perhaps possible in the not-so-distant future, immortality is still out of our reach. Then again, who'd want to live forever anyway? Mind transfer, then gain, I do get, because then you could switch your mind from a sick/injured body into a healthy one.
An area of medicine that is being seriously looked at even today is cell regeneration. I'm not sure how much research has been done into it, and certainly don't know how much has been done into neural cell regeneration, but if it ever came about then that would in effect mean massive life extension, possibly even immortality, so it shouldn't be discarded as an idea so quickly.
Yeah, this is pretty good. I think an alternative definition to sci fi might depend more on settings which resemble our universe. Under this definition, a man in New York spurting forth fireballs from his hand could be sci fi (x-men), unless we add in some fantastical element to setting, like a Hogwarts (from Harry Potter), which would then earn the story a fantasy label.
Not discarding it altogether, but it is very unlikely, because immortality doesn't mean living 1 000 000 000 years, it means living forever. Heck, the sun doesn't last forever. Can you imagine living longer than humans have existed? The human body is such a complex machine, that advances in the field of cell generation might take us a step closer, but we'd still be miles from immortality. Personally, I'm about as sceptical about it as I am of time travel.
My skepticism regarding the concept is, fine, we achieve immortality through medicine and science. The body is everlasting. How long can a human mind last? A sudden paradigm shift like instant immortality never takes that into account.
Hmm. I've never thought of immortality as indestructibility (that is, not able to die no matter what happens). I've always thought of it as not being able to die of old age but still able to die of illness, violence and accident. Semantics, who'd have 'em, eh?
Good Science Fiction takes one or more things that are assumed different from our world and explores how people are affected by those things. Ideally it should involve assumptions that we do not know to be impossible, but that's not a firm requirement for me. It can explore the effect of technology on society, or just put society in a new setting to see it in a different light. The assumed "science" is there to support a story, and is not the meat of a story. There are a limited number of plots in the world, so saying Star Wars just changed the characters from another plot isn't a big problem with me. However, I think they let "action and excitement" take priority over doing a good job of exploring the societies - just stereotype everybody. Star Trek was good scifi, even if the science was pretty lame at times, because the stories usually involved people and societies' dilemmas and customs in a different setting. The parallels to our own society were often obvious (e.g., the episode with half-black and half white people versus the half white and half-black ones). Setting social issues in a different world lets people think more clearly about them. Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" is good SF because it explores the political and economic problems of a lunar or space colony, and involves characters that you can relate to, as well as a look at what a juvenile artificial intelligence might be like. If time travel or FTL is used, the story should look closely at the effect on people and society, not just use it to pop into a different world or get the MC out of a bad situation. Look at the SF you have enjoyed most. I'll bet a lot of it was about people and their problems in a different setting.
Just to clarify: I didn't mean being indestructible either, but if medicine is so advanced that it can make us live literally forever unless we die of disease or accident/violence etc, it's probably advanced enough to cure most diseases/heal most injuries, so if a person is careful, they could, in essence, live forever, i.e. outlive the sun, Earth etc. I just find something like that a little hard to believe.
I think if the sun goes out, any 'immortal' would die of the secondary effects of cold, starvation, etc, anyway. The universe is moving inexorably towards thermodynamic equilibrium so at some point there simply would be nothing for an immortal to live on and they'd die. I too think it is extremely hard to believe, but I don't think we should discount the possibility and how the issues within immortality could be explored in science fiction. As Wreybies was saying, the effect on a sentient's mind of living that long could be quite disturbing.
Lol, you can't just say that dude. How do you really know what medicine is and isn't advanced enough to do? The end of aging involves a few rewrites in the human cell. Reattaching a human head might be harder.
Reattaching a human head can be done with an office stapler. Making it work, on the other hand, is another question entirely. "A few rewrites in the human cell"? I think your phrase is masking a world of complexity. Do you have a source for this?
Sure, this is pretty common knowledge. At spanish National Cancer Centre. "Abstract A major goal in aging research is to improve health during aging. In the case of mice, genetic manipulations that shorten or lengthen telomeres result, respectively, in decreased or increased longevity. Based on this, we have tested the effects of a telomerase gene therapy in adult (1 year of age) and old (2 years of age) mice. Treatment of 1- and 2-year old mice with an adeno associated virus (AAV) of wide tropism expressing mouse TERT had remarkable beneficial effects on health and fitness, including insulin sensitivity, osteoporosis, neuromuscular coordination and several molecular biomarkers of aging. Importantly, telomerase-treated mice did not develop more cancer than their control littermates, suggesting that the known tumorigenic activity of telomerase is severely decreased when expressed in adult or old organisms using AAV vectors. Finally, telomerase-treated mice, both at 1-year and at 2-year of age, had an increase in median lifespan of 24 and 13%, respectively. These beneficial effects were not observed with a catalytically inactive TERT, demonstrating that they require telomerase activity. Together, these results constitute a proof-of-principle of a role of TERT in delaying physiological aging and extending longevity in normal mice through a telomerase-based treatment, and demonstrate the feasibility of anti-aging gene therapy." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22585399 Bear in mind, I stand by my original premise that a technology doesn't have to be proven probable to be included in science fiction. In fact, I wouldn't even call anti aging science fiction anymore, just science.
This is very cool. Thanks for providing it! And I agree with your last statement. Science fiction wouldn't be possible without improbable technology.
I also agree, especially with science-fiction becoming, well...less 'fictiony.' With more and more impressive technology being invented these days, an author would have a pretty hard time writing something fantastical without pushing the boundaries a little more.
Or from playing around with DNA, we alter humanity so that we could live like 4-5k years. That with Cloning technology and ability to implant memory from a brain to another. Then we have immortality. For the record, I like Fantasy in Space
Here! Here! You dang skippy "High Stepper!" Now on the the "Real Abomination." A. Clark... Bout dropped me frigging teeth listening to the man speak, "Yeah, little boys are such a joy." I threw away his books after learning he was a child rapist and wrote in several library's copies telling just that, just on the inside cover though. To praise his work would be like complimenting Hitler for some beautiful opera he wrote filled with songs of life.
