Fashion in literature

[ríomhaire]

It seems to me (though my knowledge is limited) that science fiction went out of fashion with the Cold War. It seems to have simply given way to fantasy and thriller novels instead. Is this really the case or am I perceiving things incorrectly? If I'm correct then are there social reasons behind this or is it just an arbitrary change in author focus over time?

 

[Viperidae]

Trends would be a clearer word.

Most of the old school sci fi writers have died.

 

[ríomhaire]

Trends would have been a better word but I wrote it while rather tired so my vocabulary was broken.

 

[Sulkdodds]

I don't think sci-fi is dead.
It's just more interesting!
Good topic. I can't think of what to say though. COME ON BRAIN

 

[ríomhaire]

Brian?

What put this into my mind was just having watched a documentary on Blade Runner and started reading Dune.

 

[Ennui]

Sci-fi is not dead at all... just because Tolkien is dead doesn't mean that the fantasy genre has died While it's true that many sci-fi greats have passed, there is still a lot of good sci-fi being written. Exhibit A: William Gibson.

 

[Sulkdodds]

hay guise

buy eet
and this too

 

[ríomhaire]

I'm not saying it's dead. I'm merely saying that the writing of sci-fi is not as popular as it once was and that fantasy writing is much more abundant now.

 

[Ennui]

I dunno. I don't really read much fantasy anymore so I don't pay much attention to it but it seems to be the same as it always has as far as I can tell. In literature at least. Sci-fi and fantasy have each been abundant in their own right for my entire life, and to the best of my knowledge for long before that as well.

 

[Reginald]

When I read "sci-fi" books, I prefer science fantasy as a genre rather than hard science fiction. I reckon the more we find out more about the universe we live in, the harder it is to make science fiction credible.

I generally read modern fantasy though e.g. American Gods etc.

 

[theotherguy]

I consider neither sci-fi nor fantasy literature.

Except in a few very rare cases. :|

 

[Ennui]

Why? That's a pretty incendiary thing to post in this thread without explaining.

 

[ríomhaire]

1. writings in which expression and form, in connection with ideas of permanent and universal interest, are characteristic or essential features, as poetry, novels, history, biography, and essays.
2. the entire body of writings of a specific language, period, people, etc.: the literature of England.
3. the writings dealing with a particular subject: the literature of ornithology.
4. the profession of a writer or author.
5. literary work or production.
6. any kind of printed material, as circulars, leaflets, or handbills: literature describing company products.
7. Archaic. polite learning; literary culture; appreciation of letters and books.

Seems to fit the bill pretty well to me.

 

[Sulkdodds]

Science fiction is, to me, the drama of progress. It grows future ideas and possibilities from a real contemporary base and speculates about coming worlds future, posing questions and constructing dilemnas about the future, what it might bring and about what-ifs and their implications; about what it would mean if things changed this way.

It's a genre very much of the modern material world in that its what-ifs must, by convention, be scientifically plausible, because they stem directly from the contemporary experience. The genre is rooted in the growth of 'civilisation' and 'progress' as concepts. When you start thinking of your own society or civilisation as 'a civilisation', and considering its changing path in terms of 'progress' (or the reverse), you can begin to extrapolate a future-time, and what it might bring. Each future is rooted in these concerns generally, and always in its own present specifically.

So I wouldn't define something as sci-fi because it's set in 2078 or includes speculative technology, but rather because it constitutes a discourse about that technology, about that future, about that progress. It's a literature of the modern age, in which the concept of 'civilisation' looms large, and as such it tends to be a genre where ideas are the obvious stars:

Fairy tales have been usefully described as the science fiction of the past; certainly Carter regarded them in this light, using them as a way of exploring ideas of how things might be different. She admired much science fiction with its utopian perspectives and speculative thinking - "It seemed to me, after reading these writers a lot, that they were writing about ideas..."

I don't think it's any less valuable for that. Nor is it any less capable of literary brilliance than, say, the bildungsroman or the realist novel. Like them, it is a genre classification which we can (problematically, as always) identify in terms of its formal and/or thematic characteristics.

EDIT: I'm interested to hear your opinions on this Ennui, seeing as you did a whole course module or something on sci-fi.

 

[Sulkdodds]

Of course, it may be that what TheOtherGuy really meant is "sci-fi is often rubbish". Which I suppose I agree with, but only to the extent that everything is often rubbish.

 

[Viperidae]

Literature is rubbish. eloel

This is of course assuming the view that science fiction is inseperable from fantasy, which is obviously not the case. What category would you put His Dark Materials under?

In theory I prefer the other term, speculative fiction, however it's too encompassing; I would, for instance, understand if for simplicity one blanketed any novel set in space with the sci fi label, as 'spec fi' just sounds stupid and could mean anything.

So, I'm an ambivalent bastard. I'd prefer if people broadened their view on the definition of sci fi (also in regard to its propriety as a form of fiction), but then I think calling everything speculative fiction would be going overboard.

 

[Ennui]

EDIT: I'm interested to hear your opinions on this Ennui, seeing as you did a whole course module or something on sci-fi.

Well, what you said wasn't all that far from them although I would describe it in some different terms. I'll respond at some point, it's been floating around in my mind... the problem is that I couldn't respond to it without writing A LOT and I'm too busy with schoolwork lately to have an hour to spend on it

If you want though I'll send you a paper I wrote last year for the class, about the role of technology in extinction (and progress). If I can find it on my PC, I usually name my papers files sort of absurd/asinine things that make them hard to find later.

 

[Sulkdodds]

Do eet. I could send you the one I did on dystopia if you like.

 

[99.vikram]

Sci-Fi isn't dead, it's just branched out a lot. Today we have steampunk, cyberpunk, galaxy spanning epics etc. which all have some elements of sci-fi.

What I miss are really original and thought provoking ideas like in Asimov's robot series.
Arthur Clarke stories are occasionally interesting too.

 

[Ennui]

Do eet. I could send you the one I did on dystopia if you like.

Okay! I'd like that.

Here is the intro paragraph for my paper, and the attached text file is the rest of it. If the text format is too annoying let me know and I'll send you a .docx, that format is just convenient because it's the only text-based format you can attach on the forums. There was no specific prompt for this assignment, only that we had to come up with a thesis and run it by the prof beforehand. Mine was technology's role in extinction.

Spoiler

Life on Earth has been around, as best we can tell, for about four billion years. For the vast majority of that time, it existed more or less in a state of equilibrium, always changing but always balanced, constantly maintaining and tending to itself as a function of its intrinsic nature as a system of forces acting upon each other. Then, in the course of a short million years, an evolutionary fluke - the glimmer of self-aware consciousness and true sentience - engendered the rise of humanity, and the balance tipped. For the first time, the progeny of nature had found the ability to not only break free from the natural laws governing life, but also to use the system itself to further its own purposes, often to the detriment of the system as a whole. Those basic axioms on which nature had functioned thus far - the food chain, survival of the fittest, the natural regulation of population, and a thousand other loosely defined tendencies towards equilibrium - no longer applied to humanity. We became the first species on this planet to overcome, for good or bad, the constraints that had previously shackled all forms of life on Earth. Our mental capacity gave us the opportunity to take technology to nearly unimaginable extremes, making what was formerly impossible into reality, and thus forever altered our relationship as a species with the fact of extinction. Technology allows us to both potentially accelerate or decelerate on our trek towards species extinction, and thus is a vital consideration in any meditation having to do with how humanity will eventually become extinct.

To be honest I'm not very proud of this paper, I wrote it quickly and hurriedly and while it's well-written for the most part it's just not very deep at all. Utterly formulaic essay. There are some great quotes and references in it though, since that was the awesome part of the class. I know any of you who are taking a look at it appreciate the Half-Life reference!

 

[theotherguy]

Of course, it may be that what TheOtherGuy really meant is "sci-fi is often rubbish". Which I suppose I agree with, but only to the extent that everything is often rubbish.

That's what I'm saying. Most sci-fi and fantasy is garbage penned for mass profits. Good literature is rare, and spans many genres, which is why I say "in very rare cases." I consider sci-fi and fantasy just one notch above romance in the likelyhood that these genres will generate good literature.

 

[Ennui]

That's what I'm saying. Most sci-fi and fantasy is garbage penned for mass profits. Good literature is rare, and spans many genres, which is why I say "in very rare cases." I consider sci-fi and fantasy just one notch above romance in the likelyhood that these genres will generate good literature.

I would order it more like romance -> fantasy -> sci-fi. There's way more trashy, pointless fantasy series than science fiction, probably due to a bigger audience and the fact that generally sci-fi is more critically analyzed than fantasy. The thing about it though is that there's really a ton of great sci-fi being written each year, if you filter through the usual trash. Added to the already huge amount of great sci-fi that's been written in the past 100 years you have quite a lot of good material. Thus, not dead in any means, nor degenerating, nor rubbish. Although changing perhaps, since society/technology is at a point that was considered sci-fi in the past.

 

[Viperidae]

Trashy law dramas? Spy novels? Endless Tom Clancy rip offs? Tom Clany's books themselves? Stephen King's latest weekend novel?

There's pop food in every genre. Not sure why sci-fi/fantasy gets picked on more than the others. In fact, I don't think I've ever heard of a groundbreaking law novel(?), so at least sci-fi/fant can make up for the crap.

 

[Oreolek]

Fantasy is very popular.
All [Russian] publishers are looking for a technical books,not the fantasy ones.Fantasy is super-fashioned,there're LOTS of fantasy crap and only numbers of good literature.

 

[Sulkdodds]

To be honest I'm not very proud of this paper, I wrote it quickly and hurriedly and while it's well-written for the most part it's just not very deep at all. Utterly formulaic essay. There are some great quotes and references in it though, since that was the awesome part of the class. I know any of you who are taking a look at it appreciate the Half-Life reference!

I kinda liked it, although there was a lot of repetition of ideas that were stated and then re-stated in more detail without perhaps being driven further. I also thought it was really unfocused until I realised it was not necessarily actually a literature essay (which I would expect to stay closer to texts).

It might have been interesting to note, although perhaps tangental, that Sunshine represents

Spoiler

the triumph of a technology-using humanity against God or nature. What was previously outside of our control - the sun, the source of all life and often accordingly worshipped - begins to die; it's Nietzsche's god-is-dead. The crew of Icarus I immolated themselves and abandoned the mission because they felt the death of the sun was 'divine will', and Pinbacker seems to think he's an angel. Thus the final fantastic helio-deicide, enacted by the ship's science officer, takes humanity's destiny finally into its own hands.

As Mecha summarised:

"the sun-worshiping dude says he's an angel destined to kill the world, but then the ship science officer says 'NUH-UH' and saves the day by BLOWING UP GOD."

But then I looked in that thread where Mecha said that and you said the same thing as me about Sunshine so I guess you knew it already and it wasn't something worth putting in.

Curses, foiled again!

Here is my essay on the uses of language in dystopian novels.
LINQ