[Shanoncia]

Science Fiction is a powerful and intelligent tool of literature. Think of sci-fi from the 60's, where things that people were in awe of and dreaming about, while saying " Oh, gee... Like that would ever be possible, but it's cool in fiction stories." Some of these things have been invented and are common modern devices that are massively used. So who's to say that a war in the stars can't happen? Perhaps science fiction is not entering a dream world, but a means of time travel into the world our children will know!

Shan - just corrected a couple of spellings! Hobbit

[ezchaos]

One of the reasons many readers including myself enjoy science fiction literature is because much of what is written about is theoretically possible. What makes it cool is many authors actually have the knowledge and expertise to back up what they write about. It's doubly cool if the they actually combine their knowledge with a quality story.

[Manuel Cuervo]

The function of the sci-fi writers cannot be underestimated. They are the engineers of the future. We know that many of the blueprints presented by writers end up in the labs of the future. Take for example Arthur C. Clarke omnidirectional satellite networks or Jules Verne uncanny visions of space.

Sci-fi may not achieve the respectability that other forms of literature have received. But there is no other form of literature that so strongly affects our cultural development. The fictitious scenerios presented in many sci-fi novels are actually more grounded in eternal truths than even the greatest Shakespearean tragedy.



:cool:

[kahnovitch]

I think more and more science is knocking on the door of science fiction and catching up with it.
However this may be because science fiction is also very set in the foundations of science and writers of sci-fi won't stray too far from the theoretical possibilites of "near-science" (That is scientific discoveries just over the horizon) as they either can't or won't through fear of being ridiculed by real scientists.
I find this a little sad as I think fantasy writers are allowed more freedom to exercise their imagination, whereas science fiction writers feel more obliged to "keep it real".

[Hereford Eye]

Originally posted by kahnovitch
["keep it real". [/B]
You think Heinlein, Robinson, or Resnick (my personal favorites) felt a need to "keep it real"? That doesn't fit my feel for SF. Good SF, to me, says "if this goes on, this is the consequence". IMHO way too much is made over Clarke's lone prediction for commsats. It was a good call; I'm not knocking it but there were people writing about ecologies and dependencies long before there were environmentalists. If I hadn't slept last night I would remember the guy who first put such a story in Analog but I did sleep so I don't remember. (Hobbit: where are you when I need you? Was it Laumer?) I just remember the feel I got reading that story and sensing its application to the world around us.
There were people writing about First Contact and that was way out there stuff before we fumbled contact with a humble little tribe in the Phillipines.
FTL was lousy science until popular explanations of Quantuum Mechanics showed a glimmer of possibility - and even that is the feintest of glimmers.
SF has always been described as a literature of ideas. Maybe all literature is a "literature of ideas", but SF takes the matter in a more straightforward manner.

[kahnovitch]

Actually old boy, I haven't read all science fiction, but all science fiction I have read is generally limited by "near science".
It's harder to push the boundary lines in sci-fi due to current scientific knowledge itself.
Contact was the only book I've seen where all we know about science was thrown out the window and it worked due to the context of the story.
I love sci-fi that treads down the lane of the fantastic, but a lot (not all) tends to be limited to "near science".

[Keyoke]

This quote has always stuck with me.

"Science Fiction is the herald of all possibities." - Isaac Asminov

Keyoke (Pretty sure that's the exact quiote, but, might be wrong, but, it's very close to it.)

[fortytwo]

To answer the question. I think it is (mostly). Some of it has happened ,some will happen and some may not. Of course when Clarke first mentioned satellites in a geo-synchronous orbit it would have been s.f. if it had been part of a novel. That was about 1947.
A prediction made in 1949 by Popular Mechanics was “computers of the future may only weigh 1.5 tons” and another one by the Astronomer Royal Richard van der Riet Woolley on assuming his post in 1956 was ”space travel is utter bilge” ( it took 2 years for the Russians to put up a satellite and 13 years for the Americans to land on the moon ) I’m assuming they did (imagine a little smilie here )
We can laugh at these predictions now but an author in s.f. is making predictions all the time. Sometimes, authors like Clarke tend to specialise in stories where the science is based on good hard facts. So there is a good chance these will come about relatively quickly. There are other authors like Orson Scott Card writing about events 40 million years in the future (The Homecoming Series ) where they use ansibles for instantaneous speech transmission across the galaxy. It’s all fiction in my eyes though.
When they invented the laser the scientist then had to think what they could use it for-any good s.f. author could have told them straightaway!
The point I’m trying to get to in my usual laborious way is that there is plenty of good s.f. there to be read but with the rate of scientific advancement now maybe authors ought to be looking a bit further ahead otherwise they will be caught up by the scientists

42

[Rumfuddle]

As regards whether or not sf can ever come true; I think New Wave sf of the 60's allowed writers to be less bound to hard science than the sf pioneers had been. In contrast to the vigourous scientific optimism of the early decades the 60's saw a certain pessimism creep in along with a concern with style, linguistic experimentation and charaterisation that ultimately enriched and expanded sf as a whole. ( I recall Brian Aldiss saying somewhere that a knowledge of science wasn't even necessary to write good sf!) I'm no scholar, but I imagine it was around then that people began to use the word speculative fiction.
Yet we still tend to know sf when we see it. ( Damon Knight, when asked for a definition of science fiction said something along the lines of :" when I point at something and say it's science fiction, then it is!" )
To answer the thread, I would say most sf is heavier on the fiction than on the science. And that's not neccesarily a bad thing. There's room for the hard scientific prediction along with the exotic, wilder imaginings that I suspect most people (me!) love sf for. I imagine in the past, and to a certain extent still nowadays, alot of people felt a need to justify their interest in sf on the grounds that it was "useful".
In the tradition of hard, very scientifically relevant sf these days I'd mention Charles Stross ( Though I won't pretend I understand an awful lot of his references :confused: ).) But I get the impression he's out there making cutting edge hard sf about information technology.
I must learn to make shorter posts
I must learn to make shorter posts I :o

[Hobbit]

Good thread, chaps (and chapesses)! Lots to think about here and lots of good points made.

I agree with both Hereford and Keyoke's quotes - they are the reasons why I like SF - the 'what if' factor combined with that sense of wonder so apparent in Clarke's work (and Greg Bear's and Greg Benford's etc etc)

Hereford, you've got me thinking now. My immediate thoughts are that Dyson's ecologies which were heralded in Analog as out of orbit environments by Stine in the 60's and 70's. In terms of fiction you've got me - the idea of ecologies go way back - Heinlein's Orphans of the Sky I remember from the 60's. Where does Silent Running fit in? Even Blish's' Cities in Flight? John Brunner's 'The Sheep Look Up' is one of the first eco-disaster books I remember, again from the 60's.

One of the recent comments about Sf that struck a chord with me is that there is a certain degree of 'inward looking' now - SF's recent trends tend to be towards the microscopic and the genetic rather than the galactic and the universal. People are less inspired by the genetic than the idea of exploration of outer space (though Greg Bear's Darwin's Children scared the hell out of me!). Though their effects are amazing and have long term impacts, they are too small to be recognised as such by the non-scientist, and this has led to the decline of 'real' science in Sf.

Instead we tend to get the character driven narratives of lets say Peter Hamilton or even Lois McMaster Bujold which are good stories without relying too much on the 'hard' science. (I'm not knocking these btw - I am a fan of both!)

As ever, there are exceptions to this (I've already named some, with others such as Stephen Baxter and Alastair Reynolds coming up fast!)

I'll keep thinking Hereford - it's late here and I need to sleep! - but there's a lot of things here already mentioned that need exploring - does SF automatically have to deal with near futures, for example, as Shan and ezchaos imply? Does that make Tom Clancy an SF writer? Matthew Rielly? Do SF authors have to be realistic in order to gain kudos?

Leave you with it!

Hobbit