waterspyder | Science Fiction

It's a genre. Genre's are disliked. Horror, fantasy, Romance, Westerns etc aren't respected either, even the really good ones. It probably doesn't help that a number of writers use the genre elements as props to hold up their story, instead of accents.

What

zenten said. I don't know why genre is so disliked, since "non-genre" fiction, most of the time (to me), is incredibly boring, and I don't see what people like about it. Why read a book about regular everyday life when you could be living it instead? That's why I greatly prefer "genre" fiction, since it is about situations and worlds that I can't experience myself.

sci-fi is stigmatized and inaccessible?

We've moved past the point in the 70s and 80s where libraries wouldn't shelve it (which is why my mother owns so much of it despite being a huge fan of the library), but when I talk to people in everyday life or at University, they are really vocal about not reading those kinds of books.
I think this is a real shame as there are some phenomenal ideas presented in these stories. Academics tend to dismiss the ideas as being flighty or invalid. General people seem to associate it with trekkies or something and that makes it wierd.

Even looking at the New York Times Best Sellers list, fantasy may make the list, but sci-fi rarely does. Vonnegut made #1 twice in 60 years, but that's the only sci-fi #1 (aside from The Phantom Menace, because I refuse to acknowledge it).

What about Jurassic Park, or Prey?

From what I can tell Jurassic Park peaked at # 6 on the New York Times Best Sellers list, in the week of January 20, 1991. That may however be a local maxima, but I don't think so.

I was looking at the wrong book. I saw the t-rex skull and assumed it was JP, when it was in fact the sequel:

"The Lost World", #1, October 8, 1995
"Prey", #1, December 15, 2002

...and that's just from a two second look over books in my bookshelf that have NYT blurbs on them. I'm sure there are other bestsellers.

In any case, the NYT bestseller list is less a measure of a book's quality as it is a measure of a book's publisher.

Because science fiction, like many fantasy, has too many characters and settings to the point where I get overwhelmed and frustrated, and I already have facial/character recognition problems so why make it worse?

However, I'll take a dystopia any day.

I think there are varying degrees of this – I can understand the perception.

I'm confused, how do facial recognition problems come up in a book?

And how many characters and settings fit what you'd like?

Try one to two settings and fewer than 10 characters with normal sounding names.

If author(s) talk about what a character, let's say A, looks like, I can't get A's description correct in my mind and compare them to B and C without thinking that they're the same, particularly if their features are similar.

Character recognition issues are widespread for me and can be annoying (like the other day, I kept thinking every guy with dark stubble and hair looks exactly like Sylar - it's pathetic!).

I don't think there's a specific number of characters or settings but it's rather dependent on how the author(s) present them (i.e., confusing vs. crystal clear). It may be fantasy, but as an example, The Fionavar Tapestry is a novel that I had EXTREME difficulty with due to the character recognition problem. I wasn't able to enjoy that novel, :S.

I also have patience issues and must know every single detail about each character/setting whether or not they're important, so if there are too many characters/settings, trying to get familiar with all of them becomes a burden for me.

For all the above reasons, I can not get myself to read Lord of the Rings.

Ah.

I just never remember what anyone looks like in any book for the most part.

And yes, Lord of the Rings is hard for just about anyone to get through.

I know I failed. I've never been able to get past Flotsam and Jetsam in Book 2. Try the Hobbit instead. They're all short and interchangeable anyhow.

A dystopia is science fiction. It's a big genre.

I know it is, it's the exception to my 'rules'.

Why do you think Sci-Fi endures a worse rep than any other sub-genre? Personally I think it has its fans and detractors just like any other. Now, maybe certain long running franchises (and their fans) might get razzed periodically but I don't think it carries any worse mark than fantasy or horror or whatever. Why do you think that it does?

The total lack of people who've read Asimov, Heinlein and Clarke outside of geek circles? Hell, the lack of people who've heard of these authors!

I would challenge you to find someone who hasn't read at least one book by Stephen King. Even if you don't read Westerns, you've probably at least heard of Louis L'Amour.

Science Fiction also doesn't get the same academic and public recognition.

I'm just spit-balling here, but didn't most of the really good, nay SEMINAL works of science fiction get written damn near forty years ago? I mean, weren't A.C. Clarke, Asimov and (my favorite) Heinlein's salad days before you and I were even born? Louis L'Amour (toujours L'Amour) had his heyday in the late seventies/early eighties and Stephen King was an 80's horror guy. Maybe that has something to do with it.

Also, with the advent of video, perhaps an inherently 'show me' genre is suffering. I mean, all good sci-fi has a story or moral behind the glitz, but truth be told ANY genre could convey those messages. That being the case, sci-fi gets used purely as a toys showcase these days, somewhere for special effects people to cut their teeth. Maybe that has something to do with it too.

I know my favorite book of all time - Starship Troopers is considered a tainted work in today's modern liberal societies.

But there are Sci Fi writers like Vonnegut (60s to 90s), Dick (60s to 80s), L'Engle (60s to 80s), and Gibson (70s to present) who have more of a cult following than anything (and Dick's work more because of the drugs than the moral).

I don't fully get it.

Hmm. I wonder.

I wonder if;

1) the science fiction genre as a whole hasn't been eclipsed by it's film cousins - ie: I wonder whether or not when people think of sci fi as a general genre of story telling they don't automatically default to what's on TV or film (since it's easier to relate to in many ways).

Since most of the DEMONSTRABLE sci fi geeks tend to be spawned from the visual media I wonder if the print part of the genre is being made to answer for what the film part does and spawns.

While other genres do have their geeks, (I hate that word) I think sci-fi's are more over the top - more flashy and noticeable. They draw more fire and it's 'more okay' to put them down openly. Thus I wonder if people make that association.

That is some good postulating

I think the science fiction community is deliberately insular. I mentioned Chrichton above; when he wrote The Andromeda Strain, he was essentially laughed out of the sci-fi community and pushed out of sci-fi bookstores by the sci-fi author-elite because he didn't go to cons, hang out with fans, he didn't write comics, etc. It was only many, many years later (after jurassic park, iirc) that the sci-fi bookwriting community as a whole begged forgiveness.

Sci-fi doesn't go out of its way to explain itself to the audience. There is so much assumed knowledge when it comes to sci-fi that isn't present in other genres. Picking up a Bear/Benford/Pohl book and you don't know what a Dyson Sphere is? You'll be lost by the end of the third chapter.

In my experience, the sci-fi crowd views themselves as a community, rather than a genre, and they're not.

There's mention above of the libraries not stocking sci-fi during the 80s, but that wasn't the case in my experience. I did all my reading through libraries, and during the 80s, sci-fi was the only genre I read. I also don't agree that sci-fi doesn't get academic or public recognition; I see documentaries pushed out on a regular basis about the impact that sci-fi has had on space technology, or how star trek changed the world, or how the cell phone was inspired by Asimov, or what-have-you. I don't see documentaries about how Dune or The Gunslinger affected mass culture.

There's also the fact that, more than any other genre, sci-fi is a boys club -- and books are consumed by women in a higher proportion than television, movies, or any other creative medium.

Foundation is quite possibly the greatest sci-fi series ever written, but the women in it are generally treated like property, or idiots, and the same is true of most books from golden age authors. 'Stranger in a Strange Land' is the big groundbreaking book in sci-fi for gender roles, but it's still a book which claims most rape victims were kinda asking for it.

Sci-fi is my favourite genre, but I don't think sci-fi is stigmatized. I think it's insular, navel-gazing, and hasn't climbed out of the 40s, because the 40s were so good to it. The last generation of popular sci-fi writers (Stephenson, etc) are the only ones who've started pushing character development to new places within the genre.

>>Foundation is quite possibly the greatest sci-fi series ever written, but the women in it are generally treated like property, or idiots, and the same is true of most books from golden age authors. 'Stranger in a Strange Land' is the big groundbreaking book in sci-fi for gender roles, but it's still a book which claims most rape victims were kinda asking for it.<<

That makes a lot of sense. Sci-Fi is a genre that tells a lot of its story through 'toys', and as Waterspyder and I have opined at each other on numerous occasions gadgetry is not what TENDS to interest ladies.

When one gender is left to its own devices in literature for too long it tends to get funny ideas about the nature of the other gender. Not to mention that in AC Clarke, Asimov, Bradbury and Heinlein's heyday it was still very much a 'Man's World'.

I know in my favorite book - Starship Troopers - women are placed upon pedestals, and pretty much left there. It's an older attitude that seeks to bombard women with the status of jewel in the hopes that all the flattery will outweigh the rest of male behaviour towards them at the time.

Some good points about insularity of concepts in the book too. Hadn't thought of that.

There's also the fact that, more than any other genre, sci-fi is a boys club -- and books are consumed by women in a higher proportion than television, movies, or any other creative medium.

Foundation is quite possibly the greatest sci-fi series ever written, but the women in it are generally treated like property, or idiots, and the same is true of most books from golden age authors. 'Stranger in a Strange Land' is the big groundbreaking book in sci-fi for gender roles, but it's still a book which claims most rape victims were kinda asking for it.

Sci-fi is my favourite genre, but I don't think sci-fi is stigmatized. I think it's insular, navel-gazing, and hasn't climbed out of the 40s, because the 40s were so good to it. The last generation of popular sci-fi writers (Stephenson, etc) are the only ones who've started pushing character development to new places within the genre.

I have trouble believing that the foundation series is any more sexist than other books from the 40s and 50s. As to Stranger in a Strange Land, it seems pretty in line with books from it's era.

Claiming that science fiction hasn't climbed out of the 40s by referring to a book series started in the 40s doesn't make sense to me.

SIASL came out the same year as Catch-22, The Stone Angel, and Thunderball. I don't think anyone is going to argue that Thunderball is the progressive book out of those three, but would still take Thunderball's portrayal of gender roles over SIASL's.

In any case, my point isn't that books were sexist fifty years ago, my point is that sci-fi has not produced the significantly progressive works every other genre has in the last fifty years to explain, provide context for, and replace them.

I'm sorry, but how the hell is Catch-22 progressive in terms of gender roles?

Stranger in a Strange Land took a sexist character, from a sexist universe, deliberately because most of the readers at the time were sexist and needed someone to identify with, and presented an alternate viewpoint.

As to things not progressing, the fact that something like Hominids can be written without people making much comment shows that it has.

Catch-22 isn't progressive. Neither is Thunderball. That's my point. I haven't read the Neanderthal books yet, so I can't really comment on them.

What I'm saying is that in my experience, science-fiction alienates female readers (for a variety of reasons) far, far more than any other genre does. Part of it is gender roles. Part of it is technobabble. Part of it is an assumed language, and part of it is the fact there are so few female authors that there aren't a terribly high number of well-developed female characters.

I'm disagreeing with you on the gender role point. I can see the rest of them, but I was under the impression that most published authors, period, are male.

I want, very badly, to address this. I really, truly, don't have time. Please ask me again.

I blame the media.

Science Fiction

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