Calling sf types

[pozorvlak]

steerpikelet can use your help! She's writing her special topic paper on the internet and the like in fiction (and especially science fiction, AFAICT), and needs booklisting. She describes it thusly:

Under the general bracket of 'fiction in English,' I'm doing an extended essay all about how 20th/21st century literature uses t'internet as a narrative hook, and I'm going to go on a bit about narratology and post-structuralism and probably end up talking about fanfiction. I intend to use the words 'semiotic' and 'schema' a great deal.

Knowing that a lot of you a) know loads about sf, b) don't read her journal, I thought I'd post the message here - her original cry for help can be found here. Thanks in advance!

When I was little, I always assumed that science fiction would be the default reading matter of the intelligentsia - after all, it's SCIENCE fiction. I had a bit of a shock when I went away to Big School and found that it was not only much less popular than I'd thought, it was actually looked down on by many intelligent-seeming people. It's good to have so many intelligent sf readers on my friends list, as it suggests my earlier belief might not be so much wrong as twenty years too early :-)

Comments

[neoanjou.livejournal.com]

The trouble I'm finding with a lot of the Sci-Fi I've read recently is that people don't know when to *stop* being Sci Fi authors. IMHO the 'science' in science fiction should basicaly be invoked in the setting up of the tale - this story takes place on a Human colony around Alpha Centuri, this story takes place on spaceship, in this reality there are humanoid robots, but otherwise it is the 1980's... etc. The science isn't there to be a deus-ex-machina when the plot reaches a hole.

Obviously the classic example would be Star Trek, however that can be somewhat excused on the grounds that in a typical episode they only had 45 minutes to tell a story.

A related thing is stories become 'too' Sci Fi. I may have grumbled about this before, but I recently read 'Snow' by Adam Roberts. It starts as a great story, with snow falling and not stoping until it covers the earth to about three miles deep. There are a lot of political machinations as a new society is created on top of the snow, included rumors that the southern hemisphere is snow free, and there is an idylic life to be had in Australia.

Then about a third before the end its revealed that Aliens did it. They lived in snow so terreformed our world, without knowing it would hurt us. What a pile of Bull S**t. The chap who wrote it is an English professor so there's really no excuse! [Although he does go to Warwick IIRC...]

[pozorvlak.livejournal.com]

I dunno, the second half of the story sounds interesting... and far more satisfying than the magical-realist "it just happened because I wanted snow, OK?" approach.

Have you read the Shrove Tuesday (Observed) piece If All Stories Were Written Like Science Fiction Stories (http://www.shrovetuesdayobserved.com/flight.html)?

[neoanjou.livejournal.com]

Ah - well, in the first half of the book (its written as a series of documents) there is a scientific report in which a specific (terrestial) cause is speculated - it nicely leaves the door open to speculation along the lines of 'was it an accident, a weapon, terriorist action, etc.'

As interesting as the cause is though, the story was strong enough in my opinion without it - it wasn't a story about the snow, it was a story about how people coped afterwards, if the cause had been revealed in the conclusion then I would have been happy, but I was more concerned with the fate of humanity and the characters of the story in general.

[neoanjou.livejournal.com]

Oh, have just read that piece - my god is that dull!