Talking SF until everyone’s eyes glaze over

[Rustyoznail]

I’ve always been a big reader, and sci-fi / fantasy is high on the list. At secondary school I started reading Asimov because, well, he was in the first rack. Voight was last, I think. They all tend to blur after so many years, and I rarely revisit books. Apart from Biggles...

I listened to Andy Weir’s “The Martian” on Audible while I was driving 5 hours to a project and back. I really enjoyed it. Very believable. The movie was pretty good too. Blade Runner - the revised version without the soppy ending is one of my favourites, but I did like all PKD’s work.

Hated “The Day of the Triffids”. Dull.

I can’t believe this post has gone from 0-9 pages in no time. As mentioned, there’s an element of escapism in both erotica and SF, so it shouldn’t really be surprising. I’ll have to dig out my old anthologies for a re-read.

 

[bushyTrail]

Over 90% of the books lining the shelves in my study (and my bedroom, and the guest bedrooms) are science fiction.

As was the first story I wrote for publication when I was in college (back when dinosaurs roamed the earth). Rejected, and rightly so - I cringe recalling it, and don't mourn losing the last copy - but until I started writing online erotica that's where I put any creative impulses I might have.

I figure I owe SF - in particular, RAH, Isaac Asimov, and Poul Anderson - for the shape of my life today. Including my profession, my hobbies, and my family - I met M'lady at a work friend's party.

Same. I love reading in general, but sci-fi really makes me feel good. Sometimes I wonder if it influenced my studies.

 

[Rustyoznail]

Same. I love reading in general, but sci-fi really makes me feel good. Sometimes I wonder if I became a physicist because of it.

Quite likely. I know it firmed engineering as career for me.

 

[Javahead]

Same. I love reading in general, but sci-fi really makes me feel good. Sometimes I wonder if I became a physicist because of it.

I wanted to become an astrophysicist until I considered employment prospects. So I went into engineering instead, with astronomy as a hobby. Though I’ve not done a dark sky run in far too long.

 

[Hypoxia]

Hated “The Day of the Triffids”. Dull.

The Guardian: The really exciting science fiction is boring. "Enough rockets and rayguns. It's time for the wonders of the Mundane."

I can’t believe this post has gone from 0-9 pages in no time.

I'm set for 100 posts per page -- much faster to slog through -- so it's only the end of page 2 for me. Ten pages take a little time, true.
_____

SF&F authors, them who got paid for it, arose from many backgrounds. Scientific; medical; military; education; literary; fandom; insanity. I favor Kage Baker's stuff. Her credentials: long involvement in re-enactment drama. She taught Medieval English As A Second Language. Barbara Hambly (medieval history major; her childhood bedroom walls were festooned with Tolkien images) was long active in SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) affairs and is a wiz on costumery.

How many other SF&F writers evolved from Medievalism and RenFaire culture?

 

[JamesMiehoff]

That plot on horseback is horse opera. At sea, likely with pirates, it's boat opera. Give it rockets and robots and it's space opera. (Where's innerspace opera?)

Asimov's Fantastic Voyage. Which was actually a reasonable movie. Raquel Welch in a wet suit wet dreams for everyone.

James

 

[Hypoxia]

(Where's innerspace opera?)

Asimov's Fantastic Voyage. Which was actually a reasonable movie. Raquel Welch in a wet suit wet dreams for everyone.

I'm thinking more of Brainstorm or Altered States. Or maybe Goblin Market. Looking beyond capillaries into souls or whatever.

 

[PrincepsCyberius]

An examplar, impossible to top IMHO. Narrator is their own father, mother, child, rapist, recruiter, savior, enabler -- in only a few pages. Masterwork.

Totally other, vastly underrated: Vonda McIntyre, DREAMSNAKE.

I'll read DREAMSNAKE sometime.

While Heinlein remains my all-time favorite science fiction author, it was Larry Niven who first got me hoo9ked on science fiction. He remains my #2 favorite.

Any other Larry Niven fans out there?

 

[MetaBob]

I'll read DREAMSNAKE sometime.

While Heinlein remains my all-time favorite science fiction author, it was Larry Niven who first got me hoo9ked on science fiction. He remains my #2 favorite.

Any other Larry Niven fans out there?

Read back through the thread and you will see his name mentioned a bunch of times, including by me, mostly in positive terms, including by me.

I don't have a favorite author or a favorite book, fwiw, in this genre or any other. There are just books and authors that I like and want(ed) to read more of.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I have not read any of Martin's Game of Thrones novels, but I connected with the GoT show. It was the perfect antidote to the Lord of the Rings hangover from Jackson's movies. A dose of cold mountain water splashed liberally in the face like Reality.

Medieval times were dirty, stinky and life was hard and short. Not at all as glorious and sparkly as Tolkien wrote it. A land of elves and fairies where nobody ever goes to the bathroom. Or takes a shit in their pantaloons when they are run through with by a sword.

It's odd how "realism" strikes different people. I won't attempt to compare the two settings, since I encountered them at different ages and my tastes were very different, but lack of realism was a big problem for me in GoT.

It's not set in our world. It's set in a land where winters are much longer and can last for decades, so why on earth does it look so much like the 21st-century popular stereotype of medieval Europe? Westeros' long winters would have annihilated medieval European societies, quite likely to the point of human extinction. Famine, social collapse, buildings collapsing under the weight of ten years of accumulated snowfall, ...

So how has humanity in that world adapted to those conditions? How does this civilisation that's so unstable it spends much of its time engulfed in civil war manage to be so stable that it has managed to survive through thousands upon thousands of years? (IIRC, the history of Winterfell goes back about eight thousand years.) One way or another, society ought to be radically different to the history of our own world. But I can't see it.

 

[SimonDoom]

It's odd how "realism" strikes different people. I won't attempt to compare the two settings, since I encountered them at different ages and my tastes were very different, but lack of realism was a big problem for me in GoT.

It's not set in our world. It's set in a land where winters are much longer and can last for decades, so why on earth does it look so much like the 21st-century popular stereotype of medieval Europe? Westeros' long winters would have annihilated medieval European societies, quite likely to the point of human extinction. Famine, social collapse, buildings collapsing under the weight of ten years of accumulated snowfall, ...

So how has humanity in that world adapted to those conditions? How does this civilisation that's so unstable it spends much of its time engulfed in civil war manage to be so stable that it has managed to survive through thousands upon thousands of years? (IIRC, the history of Winterfell goes back about eight thousand years.) One way or another, society ought to be radically different to the history of our own world. But I can't see it.

This seems like a peculiar objection to me, because it's an objection one could make to about half, or more, of fantasy stories. The obvious answer to why a story like that features people who look like people and act like people and have many of the same customs is that we can relate to them. Same thing with Lord of the Rings, or Star Wars, or Star Trek. You name it. Most people have no difficulty suspending disbelief on this sort of thing. There's no way anyone could know how sentient life would develop on a world that followed the physical and climatological rules of Westeros, but it doesn't seem to me that any particular theory would be more believable than simply imagining it's much like it is here. Were they totally different the author would be required to come up with a whole new set of motivations and behaviors that some might find plausible but others would not.

Having people-like characters makes the characters relatable. GOT is more realistic in this sense, whatever the disconnect between the world it creates and the characters who inhabit it.

 

[Rustyoznail]

The Guardian: The really exciting science fiction is boring. "Enough rockets and rayguns. It's time for the wonders of the Mundane."

Don’t get me wrong, a well written slow bubbling story can be great. That wasn’t IMHO....

 

[SimonDoom]

It's odd how "realism" strikes different people. I won't attempt to compare the two settings, since I encountered them at different ages and my tastes were very different, but lack of realism was a big problem for me in GoT.

It's not set in our world. It's set in a land where winters are much longer and can last for decades, so why on earth does it look so much like the 21st-century popular stereotype of medieval Europe? Westeros' long winters would have annihilated medieval European societies, quite likely to the point of human extinction. Famine, social collapse, buildings collapsing under the weight of ten years of accumulated snowfall, ...

So how has humanity in that world adapted to those conditions? How does this civilisation that's so unstable it spends much of its time engulfed in civil war manage to be so stable that it has managed to survive through thousands upon thousands of years? (IIRC, the history of Winterfell goes back about eight thousand years.) One way or another, society ought to be radically different to the history of our own world. But I can't see it.

The bigger "realism" problem of GOT, in my view, is that once it establishes the basic parameters of its universe it plays around with them too much. Sometimes it takes people days or weeks or more to get from one place to another. Other times, they get there almost instantly. Varys shows up almost at whim all over the known world. GOT sometimes suffers from the problem of "too much magic."

I can pretty much buy any premise, even if it's outlandish, but I expect the author to more or less stick with it once it's established.

 

[ChloeTzang]

I'm thinking more of Brainstorm or Altered States. Or maybe Goblin Market. Looking beyond capillaries into souls or whatever.

Christina Rossi’s Goblin Market?

 

[ruddygore]

Lucifer's Hammer by Niven and Pournelle.

Did anybody else ever read Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex, about why Superman couldn't marry Lois Lane?

Some of these may count more as fantasy than hard SF, but I currently read mostly Eric Flint, Harry Turtledove, David Weber, Wen Spencer, and Sharon Lee and Steve White.

Wen had one of the best opening lines in one of her books, "There are some mistakes that oops just didn't make up for."

 

[MetaBob]

Lucifer's Hammer by Niven and Pournelle.

Yes. But Stephen King's The Stand came out at just about the same time, and I thought it superior in every way.

Did anybody else ever read Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex, about why Superman couldn't marry Lois Lane?

Yes. Good short story. Thought-provoking, and I remember it still, but not so much inspiring: superpowered jizz shredding a woman's internal organs? Not for me. Pyramids in Minnesota, "a modest proposal?" or whatever it was, from about the same time, that felt better. Footfall, yeah huh, but not crazy yeah huh. Same with The Mote in God's Eye and its less memorable sequel: The Gripping Hand.

 

[MetaBob]

buildings collapsing under the weight of ten years of accumulated snowfall

How does this civilisation that's so unstable it spends much of its time engulfed in civil war manage to be so stable that it has managed to survive through thousands upon thousands of years?

Experience. For instance, people have known how to build roofs that withstand heavy snowfalls for hundreds (thousands?) of years. Think A-frames.

Sometimes it takes people days or weeks or more to get from one place to another. Other times, they get there almost instantly.

That's another thing that happens in writing. Sometimes time compresses. Weeks or months pass between depicted events. A good writer usually indicates that somehow. GRRM did so to my satisfaction.

Most people have no difficulty suspending disbelief on this sort of thing.

Glad you mentioned that, so I don't have to. Except I just did. Oops.

 

[SimonDoom]

That's another thing that happens in writing. Sometimes time compresses. Weeks or months pass between depicted events. A good writer usually indicates that somehow. GRRM did so to my satisfaction.

.

I'm thinking in particular about the next to last episode of season 7 of the television show, when they go north of the wall. That sequence makes no sense whatsoever. It cannot be explained, unless dragons have access to magic portals through space. And even that wouldn't make sense of it either, unless Gendry and his raven also had access to the same portal.

Or Euron's ability to build a massive fleet from scratch in a very short time -- completely impossible.

Seasons 7 and 8 were a good example of what I'm talking about. The early part of the show sets up the universe and you become familiar with it and the rules it runs by, and I was fine with that. But in the last two seasons (not based on GRRM's books) the show writers go sloppy and cut corners to explain how things happened. Too much new magic.

 

[MetaBob]

Or Euron's ability to build a massive fleet from scratch in a very short time -- completely impossible.

Ok, True. I thought that, too. For me, the worst part was: where did all the wood to build 1K ships come from? Britain's "Walls of Oak" were built from its own forests, then Ireland's, then from those wretched rebellious colonials. The Iron Islands could not have supplied enough timber to build 1000 ships (or the sailors to man them!) on top of what they'd already supplied, especially in that short a time.

Seasons 7 and 8 were a good example of what I'm talking about.

I won't hold GRRM to the standards of what Dan and Dave had to do to end the cable series. I liked S7 very much, and even the first part of S8. I still despise the S8 ending. It felt like D&D wanted to thwart script-stealers as much as (or more than) serving the story. And to save money, which at that point quite a lot of was being spent.

Yes, I read the books.

 

[RandyD1369]

OATH might be their most filmable. FOOTFALL needs CGI tuskers or folks in funny rubber suits. (Sure, ya can't beat the line, "Lead me, oh herdmaster.") But OATH could be done cheap, fast, nasty, and provocative. No exploding planetoids, alas.

One of the things shown in Oath of Fealty was true cyber-sex as the couple was mind-melded (for lack of a better descriptor) via computer assisted telepathy but in separate locations while doing the deed. Yes, the mind really is the ultimate erogenous zone in that one. No physical contact required.

Come to think of it (pardon the expression in this context), Lawrence Sanders (not usually associated with SF) wrote an SF novel called The Tomorrow File that did the same thing but by using chemical means and there actually was no partner.

 

[Hypoxia]

Christina Rossi’s Goblin Market?

Christina Rossetti, yes, a fine speculative fantasy and without orcs. Goblins represent aliens. Or capitalists. Or sysops (modern interpretation).

 

[Bramblethorn]

This seems like a peculiar objection to me, because it's an objection one could make to about half, or more, of fantasy stories.

And I would. It's one of the common failings of Extruded Fantasy Product: introducing magic without putting thought into how humans would respond to the existence of that magic.

The obvious answer to why a story like that features people who look like people and act like people and have many of the same customs is that we can relate to them. Same thing with Lord of the Rings, or Star Wars, or Star Trek. You name it. Most people have no difficulty suspending disbelief on this sort of thing.

"Ability to suspend disbelief" isn't the same as "realism". I don't think anybody would laud those settings for "realism", in the way that people make that claim about GoT.

(Though LotR probably has more excuse than GoT for resembling medieval Earth - while there is magic there, it's rare and mostly subtle. At the time of LotR, Sauron is a two-thousand-year-old legend for most people.)

There's no way anyone could know how sentient life would develop on a world that followed the physical and climatological rules of Westeros, but it doesn't seem to me that any particular theory would be more believable than simply imagining it's much like it is here.

That's not true, though. We might not know exactly what kinds of societies might develop in a place like Westeros, but we have a big range of climates here on Earth, and we can look at places that experience severe winters or irregular crops to see how they adapt. Or an author could invent something not seen on Earth to help explain how humans have adapted (cf. Brian Aldiss' "Helliconia" series). Just about anything is more plausible than believing a medieval-Europe-style society could survive a decade of winter without massive social upheaval.

Experience. For instance, people have known how to build roofs that withstand heavy snowfalls for hundreds (thousands?) of years. Think A-frames.

I'm so glad you mentioned this, because it's a perfect example of what I'm talking about.

Yes, if you visit a place that experiences harsh winters, you'll see the buildings usually have steep-pitched roofs so the snow slides off instead of building up until it collapses the place. (An A-frame is a popular way to achieve that, but not the only way.) It's a simple and highly visible adaptation to climate. But if you look at the visual design of Westeros as shown in the series, there's very little sign of that kind of adaptation. If these people have "experience", they're not using it.

Similarly, where are the massive granary systems you'd expect in a land that can survive a ten-year winter without social collapse? Who's in charge of keeping them full? I'm not saying the story needs to dwell on these things, but they're barely evident even in the background. There's no Keeper of the Granaries in among the soldiers and cops and spymasters on the King's Small Council, for instance.

(Disclaimer: my impressions here are based mostly on the TV series and what I can discern from a bit of googling; I didn't make it very far through the books before deciding it wasn't going to be my thing. If the TV series has left out stuff that was addressed in the books, do let me know.)

Even aside from the climate, Westeros' world-building is not particularly realistic or consistent.

Is that a bad thing? It doesn't have to be. There's plenty of cool stuff in GoT, and if you enjoy that, more power to you. My partner loves it. I don't love it, but there's plenty of equally unrealistic stuff I do love.

But "realistic" it ain't, and I'm not altogether clear on why people keep insisting that it is.

 

[BelleCanzuto]

Bramblethorn:

"Ability to suspend disbelief" isn't the same as "realism". I don't think anybody would laud those settings for "realism", in the way that people make that claim about GoT.

(Though LotR probably has more excuse than GoT for resembling medieval Earth - while there is magic there, it's rare and mostly subtle. At the time of LotR, Sauron is a two-thousand-year-old legend for most people.)

There are a lot of things I could say about Game of Thrones, but "realistic" is just not a word that describes that world to me. My biggest problem with the books (i've read the five that were published before the TV show started; no idea if he's pusblished any since) is that Martin *didn't* flesh out his world in a meaningful way. He kept adding kindgdoms and characters to plaster over plot holes, and never bothered to incorporate them. The reader was just supposed to take everything on faith. Which, I'm ok with to an extent, but then I expect the author to pull things together somehow. I'm sure I'll get blasted for this opinion. By the time I finished the fifth book, i was so frustrated by the inconsistencies that I wouldn't have read another book anyway.

I watched the first two and a half seasons of the show, and had to quit because of the way the producers ramped up the violence past gratuituous.

I never considered GoT to be SciFi, at all, unless you're including all of Fantasy under that.

ETA: Someone upthread mentioned the Dragonriders of Pern, and those were the first books I read that were written for adults (well, those and some PD James's mysteries). My mother was a fan and had the two first trilogies. That's a pretty clearly complete world, with an episodic extra-planetary danger that the civilization had to adapt to. When you get deeper into the series, McCaffrey starts revealing the science that set everything up, and provides an explanation as to why the society is so underdeveloped. Anyway, to me, the Dragonriders book are more realistic within their world, and at least have a tenuous connection to science. Much more so than GoT.

 

[SimonDoom]

But "realistic" it ain't, and I'm not altogether clear on why people keep insisting that it is.

I can't speak for what others think, but when I talk about GOT being "realistic" I'm not referring to the world building but to the treatment of character motivation. In GOT, high mindedness is in short supply. It's there, in some characters, like Ned Stark, but it tends not to be rewarded. Most people are trying to survive. Life is brutal. People cheat and lie. Prudence and cunning are rewarded more than principle and kindness, and to survive the characters are required to act accordingly. The characters curse and take dumps. It's a grim, brutal take on reality, but I think it's one of the most interesting and compelling aspects of GOT. It's what makes GOT so different from something like LOTR, which offers a much more idealistic and simplistic perspective on human nature.

 

[BelleCanzuto]

I can't speak for what others think, but when I talk about GOT being "realistic" I'm not referring to the world building but to the treatment of character motivation. In GOT, high mindedness is in short supply. It's there, in some characters, like Ned Stark, but it tends not to be rewarded. Most people are trying to survive. Life is brutal. People cheat and lie. Prudence and cunning are rewarded more than principle and kindness, and to survive the characters are required to act accordingly. The characters curse and take dumps. It's a grim, brutal take on reality, but I think it's one of the most interesting and compelling aspects of GOT. It's what makes GOT so different from something like LOTR, which offers a much more idealistic and simplistic perspective on human nature.

Actually, you've hit on another thing that I found wearying about GoT (especially in the later books). Limiting human behavior to lying and cheating, and being cunning and always favoring those aspects of human behavior is also a simplistic perspective. That the people who were trying to be honorable and think of the greater community typically got killed or corrupted is just as (imho) unrealistic as if they always got rewarded.

"Most people are trying to survive". Yes, but most of Martin's characters are doing that without regard to anyone else, which is only one of myriad ways of surviving in a harsh environment. Banding together in a strong sense of community, doing for each other, finding opportunities for joy, are also ways that humans survive terrible things. There are hint that some of the smaller kingdoms do those things, but in my reading of the books anyway, when those smaller kingdoms had any interaction with the main arcs of the storylines, they got wiped out.