Science Fiction Categories: A Proposal

[psikeyhackr]

100 year old thinking about science fiction:

With the move from Japanese to Chinese, we encounter the writer Lu Xun, generally considered the “father” of modern Chinese literature. Lu Xun was also one of the first Chinese to fall in love with science fiction. In 1903, as a 22-year-old medical student in Japan who had studied Japanese for only a year, he translated Verne’s De la terre à la lune based on Inoue’s Japanese version. Lu Xun thought of the act of translation as a vital piece of the revolutionary work of introducing scientific thinking to the Chinese:

The typical reader is bored by the tediousness of science books and cannot finish them. But when dressed up in the form of fiction, the science can seep into readers’ minds without boring them. … As the reader’s heart is touched, the reader gains insight and wisdom without taxing the mind, knowledge that would break down legacy superstitions, improve their thoughts, and supplement our culture. What a powerful tool is such fiction!

- Lu Xun, Preface to From the Earth to the Moon

http://io9.com/the-heroic-translato...tm_source=plus.google.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Of course that means the SF must contain some real science.

psik

 

[Alasdair Shaw]

I think categories could be helpful, but then thsee already exist (BISAC etc). As a reader I personally distinguish between three types of science fiction:
1 A normal story which just happens to be in the future/alternate reality.
2 A story in which the science/technology plays a significant role but is generally believable.
3 A story in which the science/technology is totally unbelievable.

For believable I would want things which are currently theoretically possible but not necessarily technologically possible yet, things which we haven't yet explicitly proven impossible. I would accept the occasional bending - eg. something which allows FTL.

Of course this doesn't impact on the quality if the writing g or of the story. I just think 1 and 3 aren't science fiction - 1 is just regular fiction and 3 is fantasy.

 

[psikeyhackr]

DO WRITERS WRITE WHAT READERS WANT TO READ?

http://kadaxis.com/blog/2015/6/17/d...tm_source=plus.google.com&utm_campaign=buffer

I don´t see any explanation of their analysis methodology but it has got to be with a computer though there is no explanation of the algorithm used for the analysis.

psik

 

[psikeyhackr]

There is nothing new under the Sun.

Scientific Content in Science Fiction: A Methodology for Comparative Analysis
http://www.academia.edu/11042618/Sc...iction_A_Methodology_for_Comparative_Analysis

psik

 

[psikeyhackr]

Tribes of sci-fi? LOL

Hard Sciencers
There’s a near irreconcilable tension between the poetic values of literature, storytelling and novels, with the logic driven realms of science and technology. When Hard SF inhabits that tension, as it does in the novels of Kim Stanley Robison, and the best work of earlier masters like Robert A Heinlein, it produces some of the greatest writing of the the last century. But taken as a whole the Hard Sciencers slip easily into an ideological quest to prove science can stand alone without poetry, emotion, or human insight. From their pinnacle in the 1980s when authors like Larry Niven banged out bestseller after bestseller, the Hard Sciencers are now a dwindling minority even within areas they once dominated. But the recent success of The Martian and Gravity among other suggests that, when it remembers to tell great stories, there’s still a huge appetite for hard SF.

https://damiengwalter.com/2016/05/18/the-8-tribes-of-scifi/

psik