Politics in Fantasy & Science Fiction

[All_Day_SCI-fi]

With that user name, I wondered if you were gonna be a spammer. Was pleased to see it was not the case.

But I have to wonder, as a sci-fi fan, how did you find this site? You might have noticed it's primary function (originally) was the discussion of a series of fantasy works. (Not that we're not glad to have you...these days, pretty much anything goes here. )

Does this mean you haven't read SRD? Or perhaps you've read his sci-fi series, The Gap?

--A
--A

LOL

SRD who?

Actually this thread turned up in a Google search about Star Trek and politics. I am interested in science fiction in relation to what goes on in the REAL WORLD. Technology is affecting EVERYTHING. So fantasy is somewhat out of the picture.

Theodore Sturgeon:
"'A good science-fiction story is a story about human beings, with a human problem, and a human solution, which would not have happened at all without its science content'"

Ray Bradbury:
"People ask me to predict the future, when all I want to do is prevent it. Better yet, build it."

Radio began being a cultural factor in the 1920s and television in the 1950s. Those were centralized information distribution systems. Now the internet is a decentralized system like nothing that has ever existed in history. I can find things I put on the net 10 years ago. But how effective is it with so much junk out there?

We are living in a science fiction society and the fantasy is not very interesting by comparison. But even if you know technology you are affected by the behavior of the massive number of people that don't. I consider the iPad to be laughable but this technology does create new educational possibilities.

Maybe you have psychic powers. LOL

alldaysci-fi.cerizmo.com/

ADSF

[danlo]

mmm, SRD is Stephen R. Donaldson, as in Kevin's Watch is his official discussion site.

[Orlion]

I kinda like to think that science fiction is the literature of change (and at least Isaac Asimov and Frederick Pohl agree with me, so if you don't, they'll beat you up! ) Technology or a new discovery in science is often a very convenient backdrop to show this change and carry out the mental exercise as to what it would mean to be human as a result.

At the same time, there are some settings that seem more fantasyish that could constitute this definition (Dragonriders of Pern comes to mind, as does Lord of Light), but I always like to think that fantasy is a literature of ideals, good vs. evil if you will.

[Holsety]

Well, I tell you what, next time I come across it, I'll give it another shot. Think I read them out of order last time anyway.
--A

Hmm. I didn't mean to try and encourage others to retry things they didn't like. People have different tastes, and I thought that most of the negative comments other people made were fairly accurate descriptions of the series (it's just that they disliked those attributes while I liked them).

All day sci fi, I actually agree with you to some extent about RS, even though I liked it. In the end some of the events made a big impression on me but I can't say my mind dwelled on the books for too long after I was done.

That being said, I think you seem to have an approach where you use science fiction to understand the world to some extent, I can't say I share that outlook at all.

I kinda like to think that science fiction is the literature of change (and at least Isaac Asimov and Frederick Pohl agree with me, so if you don't, they'll beat you up! )

Science fiction is the literature of change.
Calculus is the language of change.

Calculus is the language of science fiction.

Stop writing sci-fi novels in narrative form!

[All_Day_SCI-fi]

I think you seem to have an approach where you use science fiction to understand the world to some extent, I can't say I share that outlook at all.

Science fiction is the literature of change.

The technology changes and we must decide what to do with it. Or let other people try to manipulate us into doing with it what serves their purposes.

There are HUGE variations in all of the material that gets called science fiction. Some is much more relevant to what is going on in the world today than others. This must vary with the knowledge, biases and intent of the author. It undoubtedly affects why some people like some authors and not others.

There is also the matter of the writing versus the story. I think Lois McMaster Bujold is a vastly better writer than Mack Reynolds. But I think plenty of material that Reynolds produced in the early 60s has more to say about what is going on in the world now than Bujold's even though Reynold's characters are so bad you can smell the glue in the cardboard while Bujold's are amazingly detailed and lively without being tedious. It's the way she just slips stuff in at just the right moment. It's amazing.

Like now we need to turn computers into cool status symbols like cars of the 50s and 60s but they are more powerful than mainframes of the 80s. It is interesting and peculiar what people want these things for. They are without a doubt being VASTLY UNDERUTILIZED. But the average person isn't a mathematician or physicist, though these devices could be used to design nuclear weapons.

We don't even require accounting in our schools but complain about the economy.

I think Red Mars had huge amount to say but the reader would have to step away from the story and see that in the real universe we won't be colonizing Mars and this world is probably going to have some kind of blow up before 2050. Alexi Panshin's Rite of Passage said 2041 and that was written in 1968.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rite_of_Passage

ADSF

PS - I found this pretty funny:

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/a ... 30_pf.html

[Orlion]

I kinda like to think that science fiction is the literature of change (and at least Isaac Asimov and Frederick Pohl agree with me, so if you don't, they'll beat you up! )

Science fiction is the literature of change.
Calculus is the language of change.

Calculus is the language of science fiction.

Stop writing sci-fi novels in narrative form!

Brilliant, Holsety!

And ADSF, I believe you have a point as far as the reader needing to step back from the story to fully appreciate it. We can get hung up about the science or timeline of the story, or we could actually see what the author is trying to tell us.

[Fist and Faith]

Should works of fantasy and science fiction address social and political issues?

Of course. If the author wants to write about it, the author should write about it. The sci-fi (or fantasy) can revolve around politics, religion, or any other issue the author feels compelled to write about. It's up to each reader to decide whether or not each book is worth reading; it's not a matter of deciding whether or not certain genres of literature should contain certain elements.

Personally, I'm not into politics. I'm not often found in the Tank. That's why I stopped reading GRRM's ASOIAF half-way through the second book. The characters were extremely well written. As good as I've ever seen. And his writing style is fine. I just wasn't nearly interested enough in who got the throne to keep reading. But hey, to each their own. I wouldn't dream of saying he shouldn't write books based on a struggle for the throne if that's what he wants to do.

[I'm Murrin]

Well, there's a difference between politics and political intrigue, as far as the ASoIaF part goes. When it's a plot about people vying for the throne of a fantasy country, it can be using the events to talk about how such things play out in real life, or it can be simply showing the events for the story's sake. I think with ASoIaF it's more the latter.

[Holsety]

I kinda like to think that science fiction is the literature of change (and at least Isaac Asimov and Frederick Pohl agree with me, so if you don't, they'll beat you up! )

Science fiction is the literature of change.
Calculus is the language of change.

Calculus is the language of science fiction.

Stop writing sci-fi novels in narrative form!

Brilliant, Holsety!

From this perspective, I guess economics is the literature of change, not science fiction (and other social and natural sciences that implement calculus to a large degree).

Of course, I'm sure that physics uses much more complex mathematics than calculus. I don't know what those mathematics might be, I'm only chugging through calculus B right now, but I'm sure they exist.

[Vraith]

From this perspective, I guess economics is the literature of change, not science fiction

Heh...I'd say that economics IS science fiction.

[Avatar]

Don't get me started...

--A

[Orlion]

Of course, I'm sure that physics uses much more complex mathematics than calculus. I don't know what those mathematics might be, I'm only chugging through calculus B right now, but I'm sure they exist.

A lot of it is calculus applied to multiple variables and matrices and what not. There's also a healthy dose of statistical analysis and group theory... and I think string theory in of itself is a mathematical discipline. Ooo, and vector analysis also. Then they're developing a non-commutative geometry over in France (which I think means that though A=B, and B=C, C does not necessarily equal A *head explodes*)

[Vraith]

If I recall correctly there are at least several [possibly many] mathematical systems to deal with topographical problems, and at least one specifically for dealing with infinities of various sizes...computer peeps use something called "discrete" that I know nothing of except the name...and god knows what others are out there...it seems like every new math leads to new actual possibilities, and every new physics discovery requires new math to deal with it.

[I'm Murrin]

I just sat and watched District 9, which is a pretty good example of how a film can successfully address these kinds of issues through a science fictional setting. It's pretty clear from the opening scenes of the film that the situation in D9 is referencing Apartheid, and I can imagine that as a film produced in South Africa, with a largely South African cast and crew, that it can be seen as a pretty important commentary not just on the segregation that occured in the past but on elements of it that continue today. On top of that, it also comments on the practice of governments contracting multinational corporations to carry out work for them, and allowing them to do so with so little government oversight that they are able to engage in very illegal and unethical activities.


On the other hand, the film which sparked this question was Avatar, and particularly the fact that that particular film is seen by many as something produced purely for entertainment and spectacle, yet nonetheless still contains elements that concern government and corporate exploitation of people and the environment.

[Fist and Faith]

How about the classic TOS Trek episode, Let That Be Your Last Battlefield?

[All_Day_SCI-fi]

From this perspective, I guess economics is the literature of change, not science fiction

Heh...I'd say that economics IS science fiction.

The fiction is when people can't figure out when they are being handed BS about the science.

Electronic computers aren't even 70 years old but Double-Entry accounting is 700 years old. Do you really think it can be that complicated with today's computers? Are the schools making things unnecessarily complicated. Try finding a computer book that explains von Neumann machines.

We had planes flying 400+ mph in WWII. Why should we cars about cars being changed every year? They just roll along the ground at less than 130 mph. How do readers understand science fiction if the don't know some science? It turns into magic and fantasy just like Clarke said. People weren't paying attention to what good sci-fi had to say in the 60s.

Subversive, by Dallas McCord Reynolds
www.gutenberg.org/files/23197/23197-h/23197-h.htm

Did anybody read that? That is why I like Mack Reynolds. Not dumb escapist sci-fi with nothing to say. To heavy handed at times but not shallow.

psik

[lucimay]

my my All_Day...how you do go on!

[All_Day_SCI-fi]

my my All_Day...how you do go on!

Go on about what?

I haven't read any SRD but I started checking some sites about what is said about his work.

Gap Disease ???

That affects people differently and causes the HERO to try to self destruct the ship.

This is SCIENCE fiction?

More like science FICTION. LOL

Try Tao Zero by Poul Anderson.

The variability of the SCIENCE versus the absurdity of the science fiction tropes is a problem that has existed in sci-fi since the beginning. Verne didn't like Wells for making up JUNK like Time Machines. But technology affects politics in the REAL WORLD. How much is an author trying to say about the real world in his story? What effect did the printing press have on the politics of Europe? What was Orson Scott Cars saying about the effect of a global communications net on politics in Ender's Game.

So techno-politics is something to ba addressed in serious science fiction but escapist sci-fi may hardly be any different from fantasy, but then what is there to discuss about it?

ADSF

[I'm Murrin]

Oh no you didn't.

(I'll be back.)

[Avatar]

Well, you'll have to read the series, won't you?

Of course, it's not really about the science. And he certainly admits himself to scientific inaccuracy.

But I think the distinction you draw between the two is moot myself. The defining point of the genre is that is is fiction. It doesn't pretend to be anything else.

Certainly there are authors who try for scientific versimillitude, but such considerations are almost always secondary to the story.

If you had read Asimov's The Feeling of Power in 1957, which category would you have placed it in?

(Or would you place it in the same category today based on it's lack of scientific explanation for the technology it predicted?)

--A