SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

Just saw a new book (Mazes of Power) referred to as “sociological science fiction” by Penguin. What books do you think of as distinctly “sociological” science fiction as opposed to other sub genres of SF? I probably need to put some of them on my TBR.

More often called social scifi.

I think this is the stuff I want to read more of. Even within this area there seems to be wide variety. Just a couple from my tbr...

Foreigner - Alien and human first contact

Shelter - Future earth society aligning tech to its values

Ursula LeGuin, I think, and Marge Piercy....

Pretty much anything labeled "feminist SF" I'd guess?

Maybe even most sf that's not specifically "military" or "adventure?"

This is definitely the type of SF I love. It used to or is still often called Soft (as opposed to physical/hard) Science Fiction.

I think Malka Older's Centenal Cycle, starting with Infomocracy, might qualify.

I'd suggest nearly all SF is sociological on some level. In fact, I'd almost say that one of SF's key functions is to propose sociological / political thought experiments which inevitably accompany evolutions in technology. Even something as overtly shoot-em-up adventure as Independence Day has sociological overtones including fear of Otherness and the capacity for the currently sundered human race to join together for the common good.

Adrian says 'I'd suggest nearly all SF is sociological on some level.'

I agree, anything that examines how a society operates and thinks, (prevailing cultures, alternatives etc.) can be described as sociological, I would even include fantasy such as TLOR or GOT.

HG Wells is definitely the key one to use sci fi as a vehicle for exploring themes of a different society. Just about everyone after him and Jules Verne owes a debt to both.

And I hate to say it, but there’s more to sociological themes than just sex politics, not that I think they aren’t important too.

The Time Machine was one that offered a glimpse of the future if we don’t change society soon. Island of Doctor Moreau and Invisible Man we’re cautionary tales about the misuses of science. War of the Worlds examined imperialism.

A lot of Philip K Dick's later work is of this kind. A Scanner Darkly especially. But even Do Androids Dream of electric Sheep? is very much social sci-fi. Not so much in its film version but certainly the book was.

If a SF novel describes a future Humanity, with its various social and economic strata, government system and values, then I will consider it to be at least partly social SF.

When I hear "sociological scifi" Ursula K. Le Guin & Sheri S. Tepper are the two writers that come immediately to mind. As Adrian says above, in a way most SF is sociological - it is the great game of social "what if?", but traditionally the 'harder' the SF, the shallower it delves into the social considerations.



I think that just about all good SF is about the present, a mirror on the now, but that doesn't necessarily fit the description of sociological. For example, Iain M. Banks' books are definitely about current society, politics and morality, but I'd not generally lump him into that category. I think it has to be more directly addressing culture for that to be the case.

I think it was Asimov who said, “A good science fiction writer invents the car; a great one comes up with the traffic jam.” (Don’t bother Googling it — the only hit that comes up is me from 20+ years ago.) But in that regard, the best SF is also sociological SF.

Some focus more on the social impacts than the tech, though, and those I’d definitely call social sci-fi. Classics like Brave New World, The Handmaid's Tale, The Stepford Wives and Fahrenheit 451 fall into that category. Recent books like Friday Black, Station Eleven and A Calculated Life slot in there, as well.

When I saw this topic two novels came to mind immediately: The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin and China Mountain Zhang by Maureen F. McHugh.

After viewing Anna's list, I've come to the conclusion that pretty much anything dystopian qualifies: Wool Omnibus, The Sheep Look Up, Severance, The Broken Earth Trilogy: The Fifth Season, The Obelisk Gate, The Stone Sky, the list goes on...

Octavia Butler, The Parable of the Sower is a pretty terrifying social thought experiment.

Thank you so much for all your thoughts/explanations/suggestions. I’m realizing that I have actually read a great deal of social/sociological sci-fi, just hadn’t really identified it as such. So much more to delve into now!

Octavia Butler's works, including THE PARABLE OF THE SOWER and KINDRED;

Ursula K. LeGuinn's books, especially THE DISPOSESSED and THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS;

Shirley Jackson's THE LOTTERY (okay, it's a short story);

Walter M. Miller's A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ

Mary Doria Russell's THE SPARROW and its sequel, CHILDREN OF GOD

That's just off the top of my head.

Carolyn wrote: "Thank you so much for all your thoughts/explanations/suggestions. I’m realizing that I have actually read a great deal of social/sociological sci-fi, just hadn’t really identified it as such. So mu..."


That is the joy/terror of goodreads; the avalanche of recommendation and discovery!

Social sci-fi is like saying social-horror or social-romance. It's all sociological speculative fiction. I'd like to call it all Futurism instead.

I quite like the idea that you can build a new (future) setting and then drop our species or another into it and see how they change the way they live and socialise into a new pattern that works better, or is dysfunctional, purely because of the new parameters of the box. This is about large scale change, a level above the characters and personalities who can then be shown by the writer making the best they can of it.

It's like giving an author the right to tweak one of the physical laws of the Universe and then see what happens as a result, who is advantaged and who isn't - and there's the basis of the evolving society story. When we moved from hunter-gatherer processes to farming, the way we lived and developed changed. Whatever happens, e.g. a catastrophe, "There was never a storm yet that did not fill somebody's sails."

I think of the Long Earth, by Pratchett, in which there are a million Earths in a long procession behind each other's reality. When the barrier between them is opened, the first thing to happen is that gold loses its value because the rules of commodities (rarity) are suddenly nonsense, then enforcing law is no longer possible, people drop their jobs and just go, etc. If you change the rules, people do fascinating things.

More rec's specifically like that, Faith, might fit my desire for more What If stories. (I get tired of so much plain old adventure, intrigue, or near future 'If This Goes On.')

The Long Earth for a convenient link. :)

“A good science fiction story should be able to predict not the automobile but the traffic jam.” – Frederik Pohl.

Maybe our Google is better here in Oz.....

Not as famous as the others mentioned but I highly recommend The Moon and the Other