Sci-Fi, fantasy and speculative Indie Authors Review discussion
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Does Sci-Fi as a genre exist?
It is a genre. Because Amazon says it is. And the category it sells in as a better reason for thelable than anything else.
I once heard of Science Fiction being defined as a story that could not be coherent without its Science Fiction element(s). In other words, if you took away the SF part, could the story still stand? Time travel, in which history is changed because of the story actions, is an example.
I think it's kind of splitting hairs, since most genres will have a little bit of one thing and a little bit of another. A good example, I think, is my favorite series The Dresden Files. It's written in the style of a detective novel with noir influences, but it has fairies, vampires, and Dresden is a wizard. My library tends to categorize it under mystery, even though it's very much a fantasy.I think genre should depend on who your target audience is, or who you think would enjoy the book more. My current published novel has some sci-fi in it, but I published the book as a fantasy since the fantasy is more front and center than the sci-fi, and I felt fantasy lovers would get more of a kick out of it than sci-fi lovers. Your book would probably do a lot better as sci-fi, since most fans of westerns would generally expect the story to actually take place in that time period and that setting, and probably wouldn't be too keen on a story that's just western flavored.
But that's just my take on genre.
Several things mark stories as Scifi:* Does it take place in the future?
* Cubs winning the world series?
* Does it take space in outer space?
* Tech that doesn't exist?
* Time Travel?
* Aliens?
* Balanced budgets with no debt?
Martin wrote: "Several things mark stories as Scifi:* Does it take place in the future?
* Cubs winning the world series?
* Does it take space in outer space?
* Tech that doesn't exist?
* Time Travel?
* Aliens?
* Balanced budgets with no debt?"
* Flying freaking cars?
* Societies with only one government?
* Societies with no splinter factions?
* Societies with only one religion?
* Planets with only one climate zone?
* Planets with alien species of only one gender?
* Billionaires running for president with attractive hair?
Micah wrote: "Martin wrote: "Several things mark stories as Scifi:* Billionaires running for president with attractive hair?
Now THERE'S a premise! Wait...
Political scifi is a thing. Speculative fiction as to what would actually happen...
Melissa wrote: "I think it's kind of splitting hairs, since most genres will have a little bit of one thing and a little bit of another. A good example, I think, is my favorite series The Dresden Files. It's writt..."Melissa wrote: "I think it's kind of splitting hairs, since most genres will have a little bit of one thing and a little bit of another. A good example, I think, is my favorite series The Dresden Files. It's writt..."
Good points. I just read my first Dresden book recently and I like the whole spin on the detective noir genre with the fantasy element. It's all about the story ultimately, right? I guess genres help people to know if a story may be suited to their interests or to let the likes of Amazon and bookstores know how to organize them... but to try and come up with a unique story these days, seems inevitable to pull parts of different genres together.
The essence of the idea for my story was sci-fi related: authoritarian governments controlling with tech, etc. I do have aspirations of trying the traditional route when I'm ready to publish, and sure, they will demand a genre for the story. Sci-Fi works for me :)
Paul wrote: "But then I got to thinking a little more. This person in my group furthered her argument by pointing out how often other genres are cited as a basis for sci-fi stories, like Star Wars being a "Space Western", for one..."That's a very lame argument actually. Basing their argument on a movie that even SF fans argue about whether it's SF or Fantasy. Has this person ever actually tried to read SF?
Like maybe 2001: A Space Odyssey by Clarke, or his Rendezvous with Rama...or any of 10,000+ other books out there with no western or fantasy elements?
It's kind of like saying there's no such vehicle as an SUV because they always have something in common with trucks and sedans.
I find the premise totally spurious.
Mod
Science fiction is a very broad umbrella under which there are dozens of genres so it isn't surprising that people will want to try and narrow the definition (happens here on a regular basis). But I think Melissa nails it. Hybrid genres are happening more and more because we don't have publishers telling us what we can and cannot do.
My wife says my novels are actually just one big romance story. She isn't wrong.
Romance can include Genocide, AIs, Plasma weapons and nuclear weapons...
Mod
She isn't wrong.
Romance can include Genocide, AIs, Plasma weapons and nuclear weapons..."
Apparently as long as you have the happily ever after, you can nuke away as many civilizations as you want. Forget that happy ending though... May the deity of your choice have mercy on your soul. ;)
They never expected that pissing off Maintenance Guy 42 would result in the deaths of 110 million people...
Don't worry. I'm not going to exercise my usual hobby horse here. Morning all.
Could science fiction simply be detail oriented? Perhaps science fiction simply gives enough detail to actually make something someday while fantasy glosses over the details to the point where they are meaningless.
I don't think that works, Robert. A lot of science fiction includes things like FTL, "psi" powers, time travel and so on without adding detailed descriptions of how they work. Any detailed description will just annoy the reader in any case, since its bound to be bogus.Sci-fi is magic with techy-sounding words. Fantasy is magic with wizardy-sounding words.
If there were no other things in the story besides psi powers and time travel, I guess it would be fantasy. If there were other things in the story that are somewhat practical it could still be science fiction. Does hard science fiction include time travel and psi powers?
Robert wrote: "If there were no other things in the story besides psi powers and time travel, I guess it would be fantasy. If there were other things in the story that are somewhat practical it could still be sci..."
I'd say that anything's possible in a Science Fiction story as long as there is a scientific or technological basis for it. Otherwise it's fantasy. To me, Star Wars had too many fantasy elements to be strictly Science Fiction. Speculative Fiction would fit better. Star Trek seemed to walk that line a bit, but I don't recall every episode, so I might be wrong.
I'd say that anything's possible in a Science Fiction story as long as there is a scientific or technological basis for it. Otherwise it's fantasy. To me, Star Wars had too many fantasy elements to be strictly Science Fiction. Speculative Fiction would fit better. Star Trek seemed to walk that line a bit, but I don't recall every episode, so I might be wrong.
This reminds me of a statement I once heard at a family gathering where someone pronounced that they don't like fiction because they only watch Reality TV. Yeah. I was stunned.
I like Richard's definition, by the way.
Mod
It doesn't really have to be plausible, just believable. Often the believability of something depends on how you explain it.
Per Arthur C. Clarke: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."That said I watched a cheesy Western / Sci-Fi flick that if memory serves was titled "Cowboys and Aliens". The alien technology depicted was usually cryptic.
I often write Sci-Fi with Action, Romance, or whatever works for the story.
Like the intelligent prototherian race from an alternate Earth that goes to war with humanity, because a human shot (and nearly killed) an unborn embryo still in the egg. The good news is the aliens destroyed L.A. before climate change could. The story is Sci-Fi, but there are elements of humor and reality to it.
As others have stated you can have many sub-genres under the Speculative / Sci-Fi / Fantasy umbrella.
My advice would be label it as you see fit, whether Western / Sci-Fi or as Sci-Fi / Western, or whatever else may work.
As per Arthur C. Clarke: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.That is the point surely; Science does not have an explanation for everything (not yet) and is continuously changing it's mind as knowledge progresses, so we cannot say that FTL is impossible. But we can say that there is no such thing as a Witch. Magic wands are impossible as are flying broomsticks! The margins between SF and Fantasy are blurred but it's important to try and preserve those margins intellectually. That is because serious science fiction does often have a serious message, for example about the future, about the uses and misuses of Science, about our attitudes to violence and racism. How will we get on with Aliens if we can't get on with each other for example. What will the future be like if we continue to be more and more dependent on technology? Do we really want to live for hundreds of years? Will we get on better with each other if we were telepathic, or 'empathic'? Can computers be conscious and if so what are the consequencies? These and other questions are the bread and butter off SF. Of course, as R.F.G says, we still need Love and romance, adventure, mystery and suspense and humor to make a good novel. But for me, the difference between SF and Fantasy is that SF also has the 'philosophical' element; It asks questions about the unknown.
I'm not saying everyone should do this, but I myself am very careful to include only things which are possible with technology which is already proved to work, because I write with the hope that it will encourage people to make concrete plans to settle the solar system.That said, I do have broomsticks, and even have my characters plan quidditch. In a large air-filled environment with no gravity, broomsticks are possible - a battery-operated fan on the front and a duct to lead the air out the back is all you need.
On a more serious note, I limit the speed of travel to about 10 km/s, include light-speed delays in communication and take account of the hazards of meteorites and radiation. I don't want people to suspend belief to read my stories, I want them to acquire belief from reading them. But that's just me.
Oops, my hobby-horse got out. Sorry. (ish)
Jet propelled broomsticks? I want one!
Sorry, that should say 'play' quidditch of course.
Christina wrote: "When folks begin demanding plausibility of scifi tech, then no, scifi as a genre will indeed cease to exist."It would certainly negate at least 90% of everything ever classified as SF.
By the original argument would "Star Wars" be classed as romance because it;s about a guy rescuing a girl? Or maybe action because there's a lot of gunplay? War because there' a lot of quasi-military scenes? Or maybe children's because it has teddy bears in it?Everyone has their own idea of what a genre is, but there are no real set boundaries. As Christina says, they're very fluid. Clarke wrote a story called "Home on the Range" which was a western - set underwater with Dolphins instead of Cows.
Genre categories are broad strokes to assist readers find something they like. If you ask me the obsession with genre and sub genre down to seeming microscopic levels as gone too far.
I tend to agree broadly with Ken's idea, but that's just my opinion and we all know what they say about opinions...
And you can argue that genre X does or doesn't exist till the Dolphins come home...
Anyone know when the term science fiction first appeared?Where I come from witches do exist, but no ftl. So I can put the witches in the sci-fi category and the ftl in the fantasy column.
Picking apart ftl, I can see using a wormhole or a fold in space as a practical shortcut but not jamming the engines on full throttle to get there yesterday. So I find myself putting wormhole technology in the sci-fi category and more than full speed ahead in the fantasy column.
Robert wrote: "Anyone know when the term science fiction first appeared?..."When in doubt, google it: http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~hbf/sfh...
The term "science fiction" was used first in 1851 (in Chapter 10 of William Wilson's A Little Earnest Book upon a Great Old Subject): "Science-Fiction, in which the revealed truths of Science may be given interwoven with a pleasing story which may itself be poetical and true."
Which would put the term only 11 years after the first use of the term "scientist" according to the same article.
Looking up William Wilson, I ran across Hugo Gernsback, who said in 1929 that "Science fiction would make people happier, give them a broader understanding of the world, make them more tolerant."I guess those times are long gone.
Robert wrote: 'Looking up William Wilson, I ran across Hugo Gernsback, who said in 1929 that "Science fiction would make people happier, give them a broader understanding of the world, make them more tolerant."...'I'd like to think it worked that way for me.
Looking up William Wilson, I ran across Hugo Gernsback, who said in 1929 that "Science fiction would make people happier, give them a broader understanding of the world, make them more tolerant."I guess those times are long gone."
Who knows, he may have been correct. I mean, we don't know how bad things would have been without science fiction, now do we?
o_O
(Take that as a writing prompt: Alternate history book about an Earth where science fiction was never invented.)
I don't know...just a little later we get the Great Depression, Nazis, the rise of the Soviet Union as a world power, Imperial Japan, the A-bomb--
I guess it could have been worse, but it would have to really get bad. Maybe write that story.
I guess it could have been worse, but it would have to really get bad. Maybe write that story.
Ken wrote: "I don't know...just a little later we get the Great Depression, Nazis, the rise of the Soviet Union as a world power, Imperial Japan, the A-bomb--I guess it could have been worse, but it would ha..."
Stephen Fry wrote a (kind of) time travel, kill Hitler book called Making History where not having Hitler around turned out to be worse. (view spoiler)
Stan Schmidt's definition of science fiction, slightly paraphrased because I can never remember it:A story in which some element of future science or technology is so integral that without it the story could not happen.
I go by that definition. It's a simple rule of thumb, easy to remember conceptually.
I followed the definition as it changed over the passage of time, that seemed to be the nicest one.I doubt it is making people more tolerant. People have a hard time tolerating other people who are different from themselves and if the party in question is not wearing a human jump suit, all bets are off.
As far as all the technological disasters are concerned, I call that misapplied science, which sometimes is as beneficial as no science at all for that particular field of operations.
Robert wrote: "...People have a hard time tolerating other people who seem to be different from themselves..."Fixed that for you. ;D
When people really get to know each other, they find out we're all far more alike than different.
However...aliens? Yeah, there will be problems.
Jennifer wrote: "Stan Schmidt's definition of science fiction, slightly paraphrased because I can never remember it..."Google is your friend:
"My definition of science fiction is simply fiction in which some element of speculation plays such an essential and integral role that it can't be removed without making the story collapse, and in which the author has made a reasonable effort to make the speculative element as plausible as possible."
That's pretty open ended, although what constitutes "reasonable effort" and "plausable" are up for interpretation.
Thanks for the seem to be different. Took a shortcut. Combined animals and people on planet and off planet into one vague statement. I Would say seem to be applies to animals as well. They just got bad interpreters.
Mod
More specifically, what makes sci-fi unique for me is that it's the one kind of fiction in which ideas take precedence over characters. By that I don't mean that characters are unimportant or irrelevant, but that if what you most want to read about is people - with ideas a way of exploring how they think, feel, react under pressure and so on - then there are dozens of other genres out there to choose from. Science fiction is different, the other way around - a genre for exploring ideas first and foremost, with characters its way of doing that.
I think Sci Fi changes over time. An example I am faced with, because I am old, is that I loved Star Trek fifty years ago. I think I even wore a Trekkie sweat shirt in my first year Chemistry class at university. Anyway, I remember being impressed by the sick bay with weird readouts on the monitors above the patients, showing all manner of parameters, and no IV lines! Now, I practice medicine in my day job, and know that oxygen levels for years required arterial lines. Then one day, back from holiday I walk into the ICU and find all my patients on O2 sat monitors...reading their oxygen levels without any invasive procedure required The point is, you don't have to think very long before you come up with what was Science Fiction to Jules Verne and H G Wells, is Science Fact today.
It is almost irrelevant, then, except as a guide to the reader, to what the writer likes to read.
Maybe some might call Science Fiction literature with more imagination; I think that's what it should be. The good imagination should not be an excuse for a lack of discipline and tools in writing. If you have great world building and a lousy story, it's still going to be a lousy story, and I think sometimes people object to being hooked in by the fascinating speculation and left cold by the poor character development. Traditional fiction has the constraint of reality, which may actually be harder to serve. On the other hand, when we write Science Fiction, we have an extra job to get right, so each genre has it's own set of challenges.
Micah wrote: "Martin wrote: "Several things mark stories as Scifi:* Balanced budgets with no debt?"
I got a rating from an andrew jackson last week, so for the fun of it looked up the president on wikipedia and his page points out he was the only president to pay off the national debt.
Reading one of those articles that circulates every now and then on what makes up the debt, it happened to point out that our paper currency used to be considered part of the debt into the 1970s. so technically we can never pay off the debt unless all the currency collectors trade in all those old bills they collect.
Also they point to debt going back to the Revolution that was never claimed. Though it's likely those notes have been lost or destroyed, the Fed won't write it down because it calls into question the "full faith and credit" of the US. And if there really are notes that old still unredeemed, I'm not sure how Jackson was able to "pay off" the national debt unless it wasn't technically recorded as part of the "debt" back then.
Micah wrote: "Ken wrote: "I don't know...just a little later we get the Great Depression, Nazis, the rise of the Soviet Union as a world power, Imperial Japan, the A-bomb--I guess it could have been worse, but..."
I just released the latest book in my current series where a character is revealed to be a time traveler who uses the Hitler scenario as a warning for changing history. He's not as dystopian, pointing out that the economic malaise was broken because of the war, the boom of the 50s and 60s came out of that war along with all the government spending (space exploration), and the baby boom would not have happened. He never concludes things would be worse if Hitler never came to power, but suggests the small, subtle differences rippling out would create a society and a future that might be difficult to balance with the lives that might be saved.
Does a good science fiction story need character development? It seems like character development is used to help the commercial success of any fictional story but is not required to make every story a good story. If character development is the driving force, it could be run through any background. How much of a story needs to be science fiction to be science fiction? Does anyone know of a good science fiction story with 10 pages of science fiction out of 200 pages?
Mod
As a matter of fact, I'm currently reading Regeneration X which is the exact type of scifi you describe. It takes place in the near distant future and the device that drives the plot is science that is beyond anything we are currently capable of, but beyond that, it is more of a literary exploration of human psychology. Could the story stand on it's own without the scifi element? Yes it can,but that does not negate the fact that it is science fiction.
Robert wrote: "Does a good science fiction story need character development? It seems like character development is used to help the commercial success of any fictional story but is not required to make every sto..."I think it has to otherwise, we wouldn't care about the main character or understand why he/she does or acts the way they do. That doesn't mean you have to write a hundred pages of two people exploring a romance or waxing poetic on their past life, but with Sci-fi it should be woven into the action and discovery.
When the MC is presented with the danger, show us why it's important to that person. If two characters have a backstory, you can show us with some well placed dialog, or show it in how they work together. If they have to play the unwilling hero, show some hesitation or nervousness when they approach the problem.
I agree. If we don't show the reader enough of the character to make us care, they won't follow the story, regardless of technically interesting it might be. I'm not sure I'm successful at it, but I do think it's important.
I would consider real time expressions of characters obvious emotional states to be more like an enhanced description of the character. I think a relationship between multiple characters that results in an evolving method of handling situations to be a form of character development. That would also apply for an isolated character adapting to survive a changing or new found world.
Sci-Fi, fantasy and speculative Indie Authors...
Books mentioned in this topic
Something to Tell You (other topics)Regeneration X (other topics)
But then I got to thinking a little more. This person in my group furthered her argument by pointing out how often other genres are cited as a basis for sci-fi stories, like Star Wars being a "Space Western", for one.
Again, let me clarify, I'm on the side that sci fi is as much a genre as any other, though you can of course see elements of other genres within it. I'm working on a dystopian story where one influence for my main character is Wyatt Earp. And there's the revenge subplot, which I know can crop up a lot in westerns. But when it's all said and done I feel most comfortable with this story as a sci-fi setting.
Just curious where you all stand as far as do you see sci-fi as just another "frame" for the stories you write that could just as easily be based in another genre?