Kevin's Watch

jacob Raver, sinTempter wrote:Is Dune even really sci-fi?

Sure it is. Even the weird things like presience, the 'prana-bindu' training, and memories from your ancestors have a relationship with science [some relationships more...umm...loose than others]. And the entire ecology of the planet is built around actual desert ecology. There are errors/extrapolations/limits based on his knowledge (and the science at the time of the writing). Not to mention the sociological/anthropological aspects [though some don't consider sociology 'real' science, that's their problem]
I'm only slightly familiar with pre-1975 sf, but he's the first in sf that I know of to consider chaos as a necessary part of survival.

Oh, and Dreaming, there are blast waves in space, and most are radiation based as you say...but they do have physical effects as soon as they hit something. And very hot matter does some pretty strange things. Radiation should be light-constant theoretically, but in practice different kinds arrive at different times...Still...all that effect from one ship, and noticeable lag at those distances?
Oh, well...I love a space battle.

Pre-1975 sci-fi is the best. It ain't called the Golden Age of Science Fiction for nuttin.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Age_of_science_fiction

TheWormoftheWorld'sEnd wrote:Pre-1975 sci-fi is the best. It ain't called the Golden Age of Science Fiction for nuttin.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Age_of_science_fiction

Sturgeon's Law: "Ninety percent of everything is crud."

There was no "golden age" really, it's just that over time all the crud has been forgotten and the best stuff is still read (Foundation, Childhood's End, The Stars my Destination, etc.)

Now that Kindle publishers are publishing most of the "golden age" stories (why?), I've sampled some of those forgotten stories, and most of them deserve to stay forgotten.

High Lord Prothall wrote:

TheWormoftheWorld'sEnd wrote:Pre-1975 sci-fi is the best. It ain't called the Golden Age of Science Fiction for nuttin.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Age_of_science_fiction

Sturgeon's Law: "Ninety percent of everything is crud."

There was no "golden age" really, it's just that over time all the crud has been forgotten and the best stuff is still read (Foundation, Childhood's End, The Stars my Destination, etc.)

Now that Kindle publishers are publishing most of the "golden age" stories (why?), I've sampled some of those forgotten stories, and most of them deserve to stay forgotten.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_Law --

The first written reference to this appears in the March 1958 issue of Venture, where Sturgeon wrote: “I repeat Sturgeon’s Revelation, which was wrung out of me after twenty years of wearying defense of science fiction against attacks of people who used the worst examples of the field for ammunition, and whose conclusion was that ninety percent of SF is crud”.[1] Using the same standards that categorize 90% of science fiction as trash, crud, or crap, it can be argued that 90% of film, literature, consumer goods, etc. are crap. In other words, the claim (or fact) that 90% of science fiction is crap is ultimately uninformative, because science fiction conforms to the same trends of quality as all other artforms do.

If you really want some hard sci fi read Charles Stross. There is no denying that the term hard sc-fi applies.

Roynish wrote:If you really want some hard sci fi read Charles Stross. There is no denying that the term hard sc-fi applies.

It's hard to say which of his works are sci-fi, he works in multiple genres.