Kevin's Watch

Cail wrote:On The Beach, Danlo? One of the best stories I've ever read, but not really sci-fi, is it?

I think it could be considered speculative fiction, though, couldn't it?

Myste wrote:

Cail wrote:On The Beach, Danlo? One of the best stories I've ever read, but not really sci-fi, is it?

I think it could be considered speculative fiction, though, couldn't it?

Oh absolutely.

But how do we actually classify "speculative fiction" ? Would Earth Abides, Brave New World, 1984, Stranger In a Strange Land and Farenheit 451 be in that category as well? And don't slight The Dragon Waiting...very good book-one of the best alternate histories I've ever read and it's very hard to write a convincing book in that genre: the only other books I've seen that were actually good "AHs" are The Secret Ascencion (of P. K. Dick) and Christoper Priest's Darkening Island (which may very well be the best). And for added interest Fortchen's Civil War AHs are gaining huge popularity... No I would never correlate Anthony with Pratchett--to tell you the truth The Blue Adept was the only Anthony book that ever held my attention...Orn was one of the worst book I've ever read and I tried one or two Xanths and they're very childish.

Other than Arthur C. Clarke and Assimov the first book (pre Dune) that really propelled me into hyperspace was Priest's The Inverted World---one of the most amazing concepts ever penned. Priest's Indoctrinaire (which I call Sci Fi's "Jacob's Ladder") is one of the most mindblowing books in any genre--that is if you, or anyone, can fully understand it. His Dream Lover was a precursor to VR and is pretty damm eyepopping too...

Other than Arthur C. Clarke and Assimov the first book (pre Dune) that really propelled me into hyperspace was Priest's The Inverted World---one of the most amazing concepts ever penned.

As I mentioned earlier, in regards to science fiction, even though I still have tremendous respect for hard science fiction authors, many of whom which were the truly brilliant writers in the genre (Asimov), it's never been the segment I try enjoyed the most. The works that really got me interested in Sci-fi were Hebert's Dune novels, and Philip Jose Farmer's work, particularly To Your Scattered Bodies Go , the first installment of his Riverworld Saga.

EDIT

My apologies, I forgot to include some works by Jack Vance that were pivotal to turning me to Sci-fi one being The Languages of Pao, The Demon Prince novellas. Of course I absolutely loved his Lyonesse an Dying Earth work in fantasy. I really ahve a profound respect for Farmer, Hebert and Vance.

danlo wrote:But how do we actually classify "speculative fiction" ? Would Earth Abides, Brave New World, 1984 and Farenhiet 451 be in that category as well?

1984 is close to being sci-fi, but given its purpose, I'd say it is more of a political novel.

Something like On the Beach really has no science to it, other than existing technology, nor is there anything fantastical about it, so I'd label it as speculative fiction. Guns of the South OTOH uses time-travel to propel a speculative fiction story, so I'd say that makes it sci-fi.

Loremaster wrote:1984 is close to being sci-fi, but given its purpose, I'd say it is more of a political novel.

[Ecotopia, by Richard Callenbach, is similar to 1984 in that sense. It's certainly speculative fiction, and in some ways very scifi, but its political motives are as clear as the writing is wooden.]

So is a novel's genre defined by its content, or by its purpose?

Myste wrote: So is a novel's genre defined by its content, or by its purpose?

Now that is a very good question.

If it is content, 1984 barely makes a classification of sci-fi. There is no scientific exploration besides the Telescreens and the ubiquitous 'cameras', and it was written about a future.

However, as for purpose, well it could be sci-fi; there is no law saying that sci-fi cannot be used as a form of social commentary. Yet as a whole, content and purpose, I'd say 1984 is more political commentary than sci-fi.

Aah, some great titles mentioned in this thread, some of whihc I haven't thought about for years. Norton's BeastMaster, (and the sequel, whose name I can't remember), and the other one by her about the Star people?

I think of 1984 as a horror myself. A political horror, but horror nonetheless. It's one of the very few books that I can honestly call frightening.

Myste, that is a good question. I'm tempted to say that the answer is in its purpose, but then, even the purpose is a matter of subjective opinion on the whole, and the percieved purpose may or may not be compatible with the actual purpose.

Perhaps here, we re-open the question of the importance of the author's intent?

--Avatar

Loremaster wrote:If it is content, 1984 barely makes a classification of sci-fi. There is no scientific exploration besides the Telescreens and the ubiquitous 'cameras', and it was written about a future.

However, as for purpose, well it could be sci-fi; there is no law saying that sci-fi cannot be used as a form of social commentary. Yet as a whole, content and purpose, I'd say 1984 is more political commentary than sci-fi.

I tend to agree with you--maybe it's a question of theme? Thematically, 1984 is a political novel. Contextually, it's a scifi novel. Same goes for
Ecotopia (though I think the latter is more specfi than scifi).

Avatar wrote:Perhaps here, we re-open the question of the importance of the author's intent?

In that case, it should probably be in a different thread....Sorry for hijacking!

I don't know if this would be considered hijacking. Most of my favorite writers don't simply write sci-fi/fantasy; they inject other things like politics (Farenheit 451 is another good example), religion (Stranger in a Strange Land; Dune), psychology (TCTC, Robots and Foundation), etc. So, a look at why the best writers are so good is definitely on-thread discussion. My examples are generalizations based on my opinions, so don't give me crap if you disagree;-)

That's why I love Zindell's Sci-Fi's so much, aside from universe crafting, new technologies and postulations of life in the far-far future it's the quality of character developement, mathematical thinking, politics/intrique, galactic religions, psychologies, differing philosopies, alien mindsets and quality quotes and poetry.

I want to be a writer, but I do not want to simply explore a genre - I need to inject philosophy, psychology and social commentary into my works.

I agree with dAN, including his examples. I think that the fact that a book operates on more than a single level is part of what differentiates between the good and the mediocre.

--A

Harlan Ellison

Of the list, aren't most of these writers teen fiction writers? Asimov, Heinlein, Card, and Niven certainly are.

What about science fiction/fantasy written for adults? (If this is a teen board, I appologize.)

How about Vance, Wolfe, Lafferty, Lem, Harrison. . .

A lot of people read Asimov, Heinlein, Card, and Niven when in their teens, but I would never say that they were teen fiction writers. That's like saying Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote The Scarlet Letter for teens because they make you read it high school.

I never considered Asimov a teen writer...

Myste wrote:A lot of people read Asimov, Heinlein, Card, and Niven when in their teens, but I would never say that they were teen fiction writers. That's like saying Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote The Scarlet Letter for teens because they make you read it high school.

Not really. Bad analogy.

Asimov did not write fiction for adults. He wrote entertaining adventure stories, enjoyed best by young (typically) men between the ages of 10 and 16. His characters have no depth because his readers are not looking for depth of character. He explored no complex themes because his readers are typically not mature enough to appreciate complex themes. He is what he is--a good science fiction storyteller for youth. And I don't mean this as a criticism. He writes for a young audience and does a fabulous job. He's not writing for the same audience as, say, a Gene Wolfe or a John Harrison--and to his credit, he never made any pretensions that he was.