The SF (as in literature) thread

[Ummon]

Just as preliminary, SF is not Star Wars or BSG or Terry Goodkind, etc. Those are sci-fi and fantasy, respectively.


So, currently I'm reading a novel called Spin (published in '05) by Robert Charles Wilson. I'm almost a hundred pages into it and the only 'action' there's been was a childhood bike accident. Wilson, at least in this story, is interested in the characters in an old-school fashion. This book so far is perhaps in the vein of To Kill A Mockingbird, etc, except that the time is around now or soon in the future and there are scientific descriptions and explanations of the elements that are 'the conflict'.

It's pretty decent. There's definitely a craft in the story-telling, the characters are real, and for the most part the science looks right.

[Singapura]

If you like reality grounded SF, read Jame5 by Stefan Pernar. It's free to download from the writer's website. Very thought provoking stuff about technological singularity.

[Malenko]

I clicked this.... there is no Street Fighter in here 

[BORIStheBLADE]

I clicked this.... there is no Street Fighter in here 

Thats why I clicked on the thread.

[hypernova]

Not being in the know, I'm trying to figure out what the hell SF means here.

[boykster]

My favorite SF author is Philip K. Dick.  Clans of the Alphane Moon is one of my favorite works of fiction of any genre

[AmericanDemon]

Yeah expected Street Fighter also.  LOL.  I have no idea what SF means....  My two cents.....  please educate us uneducated

[somunny]

Sorry, plebes.  This thread is for Science-Fiction snobs only.  And don't try to bring your Star War or Star Track nonsence in here, either.  It doesn't rate.

I do feel somewhat validated though, as I read Event Horizon before it was a movie.  Does that mean I can stay?   

[danny_galaga]

Yeah expected Street Fighter also.  LOL.  I have no idea what SF means....  My two cents.....  please educate us uneducated

im pretty sure SF stand for San Francisco...

[FrizzleFried]

First I thought San Fran,  then I thought Street Fighter,  but when I saw the OP wasn't interested in Star Wars or Star Trek I knew it was Science Fiction.  I am more of a Fantasy book reader...I tried reading some of Asimov's science fiction but I got tired of busting out the dictionary to figure out WTF the dude was trying to say.

[Ginsu Victim]

Yoga fire!

[CheffoJeffo]

Hmmm ... SF snob ... hmmm ...

 

[ark_ader]

I love Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison.  Make Room Make Room is another.

Alan Dean Foster Spellsinger and Hour Of The Gate.

And while I'm on a SF kick - L.Ron Hubbard - The Invaders Plan (well the whole series too). 

[massive88]

Personally Im fired up about HD Remix coming out next week... seems like it was announed years ago!

[Ed_McCarron]

My favorite SF author is Philip K. Dick.  Clans of the Alphane Moon is one of my favorite works of fiction of any genre

Boykster likes Di...

Nah, too easy.

Go here:  http://www.baen.com/library/defaultTitles.htm

Baens free library.  Usually the first book of a series.  Some good stuff in there, and some really bad stuff.

[SirPeale]

I gotta admit when I saw the title I thought it was Street Fighter too.  I like Sci Fi much better.

I edited the main thread title.  Hopefully there won't be any more confusion.

[Singapura]

Double post 

[Singapura]

one of my favorites as is Battlefield Earth

I love Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison.  Make Room Make Room is another.

Alan Dean Foster Spellsinger and Hour Of The Gate.

And while I'm on a SF kick - L.Ron Hubbard - The Invaders Plan (well the whole series too). 

You're not taking that scientology crap serious are you?

[ark_ader]

Actually I was told that L. Ron Hubbard made a bet with a lady writer, saying that he could invent a religion and people would follow it.   Who is to know if L. Ron Hubbard is laughing from above or from some galaxy. 

[Singapura]

At least his cronies are... all the way to the bank.

[saint]

I gotta admit when I saw the title I thought it was Street Fighter too.  I like Sci Fi much better.

I edited the main thread title.  Hopefully there won't be any more confusion.

Heh. SciFi is bug eyed monsters and bad television. SF is real science fiction. For what the OP wanted, you can call it SF or Science Fiction, but not Sci Fi. It's almost a religious argument in the making.

[Ed_McCarron]

I made it through most of "Enders Game" last night.  Pretty good.

[Ed_McCarron]

Heh. SciFi is bug eyed monsters and bad television. SF is real science fiction. For what the OP wanted, you can call it SF or Science Fiction, but not Sci Fi. It's almost a religious argument in the making.

Wat?  Explain the difference.  What is 'real' science fiction?

[saint]

Heh. SciFi is bug eyed monsters and bad television. SF is real science fiction. For what the OP wanted, you can call it SF or Science Fiction, but not Sci Fi. It's almost a religious argument in the making.

Wat?  Explain the difference.  What is 'real' science fiction?

You have to be a hard core science fiction fan to grok the difference, to the rest of the world it's a silly distinction.

The movie "Mission to Mars" was science fiction.  "Star Wars" was Sci-Fi (technically space-opera but I digress...).  There's a decent take on the difference here:

http://dynamicsubspace.net/2008/08/20/ontap-5-minute-teaching-session-sci-fi-or-sf/

So, what are some examples of SF and sci-fi?  A recent example of SF film would be The Matrix.  It extrapolates from our world to create a reasonably plausible future based around computer simulation, autonomous robot beings, and a planet devastated by war.  An example of sci-fi would be George Lucas’ Star Wars movies.  Sure, there are space ships, ray guns, and aliens, but there’s also the Force, which is more fantasy than Science Fiction, and the laws of physics are violated egregiously in space such as having things slide off space ships in outer space as if it were an airplane in the Earth’s atmosphere.  What are some Science Fiction movies that you’ve seen, and what would you classify them as–sci-fi or SF?  Some other examples of sci-fi include Plan 9 From Outer Sapce, Back to the Future, Cloverfield, and Red Planet.  Other examples of SF include A.I. Artificial Intelligence, A Scanner Darkly, WALL-E, The Dark Knight, and Mission to Mars.

For most of the world it's probably silly semantics, but for hard core science fiction readers it's a valid distinction.  I fall in the latter category but I don't get religious about it.

[saint]

Heh. SciFi is bug eyed monsters and bad television. SF is real science fiction. For what the OP wanted, you can call it SF or Science Fiction, but not Sci Fi. It's almost a religious argument in the making.

Wat?  Explain the difference.  What is 'real' science fiction?

You have to be a hard core science fiction fan to grok the difference, to the rest of the world it's a silly distinction.

The movie "Mission to Mars" was science fiction.  "Star Wars" was Sci-Fi (technically space-opera but I digress...).  There's a decent take on the difference here:

http://dynamicsubspace.net/2008/08/20/ontap-5-minute-teaching-session-sci-fi-or-sf/

So, what are some examples of SF and sci-fi?  A recent example of SF film would be The Matrix.  It extrapolates from our world to create a reasonably plausible future based around computer simulation, autonomous robot beings, and a planet devastated by war.  An example of sci-fi would be George Lucas’ Star Wars movies.  Sure, there are space ships, ray guns, and aliens, but there’s also the Force, which is more fantasy than Science Fiction, and the laws of physics are violated egregiously in space such as having things slide off space ships in outer space as if it were an airplane in the Earth’s atmosphere.  What are some Science Fiction movies that you’ve seen, and what would you classify them as–sci-fi or SF?  Some other examples of sci-fi include Plan 9 From Outer Sapce, Back to the Future, Cloverfield, and Red Planet.  Other examples of SF include A.I. Artificial Intelligence, A Scanner Darkly, WALL-E, The Dark Knight, and Mission to Mars.

For most of the world it's probably silly semantics, but for hard core science fiction readers it's a valid distinction.  I fall in the latter category but I don't get religious about it.

By the way - my comparison of Mission to Mars vs Star Wars was made before I read the quoted article, but he and I both had the same opinion if that helps to illustrate the mindset.

[Ed_McCarron]

Gotcha.

Plausible future scenario - SF.

So, are bug-eyed green aliens plausible future?   HHGG, for example.  Tech, aliens, and beer.  Would you label it SF if it wasn't for that damn babel fish?

[saint]

Entirely Sci-Fi.

[Cakemeister]

Battlefield Earth is an awesome book, which I have read multiple times.

Just don't see the movie.

Also, don't look at who wrote it.

Has anyone mentioned David Brin's Startide Rising? I don't think the science in it is plausible, but it's a great story.

[saint]

Battlefield Earth is an awesome book, which I have read multiple times.

Just don't see the movie.

Also, don't look at who wrote it.

Has anyone mentioned David Brin's Startide Rising? I don't think the science in it is plausible, but it's a great story.

Startide Rising and the entire Uplift series is excellent work.

[Singapura]

Battlefield Earth, i.m.h.o. is an awful book full of one dimensional characters. It tries to be epic but utterly fails to be convincing. If you really want epic SF literature, read Dick or Asimov. I wonder if the first authors name gets through the auto censor?

[Ummon]

Given this is 'Everything Else', Street Fighter wouldn't make sense, no?

I love Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison.  Make Room Make Room is another.

Alan Dean Foster Spellsinger and Hour Of The Gate.

And while I'm on a SF kick - L.Ron Hubbard - The Invaders Plan (well the whole series too). 

No, none of those really quaify. Scifi, fantasy, scifi, respectively.

I gotta admit when I saw the title I thought it was Street Fighter too.  I like Sci Fi much better.

I edited the main thread title.  Hopefully there won't be any more confusion.

I edited it better.

For what the OP wanted, you can call it SF or Science Fiction, but not Sci Fi. It's almost a religious argument in the making.

Heh. I'm not zealous about it, just particular. Which means I don't say 'science fiction', either. But your description distinguishing scifi and science fiction is adequate. Of course, it does somewhat blur the line that even with only 'SF' as a label is only fairly distinct, and often case-dependent. The Matrix I wouldn't consider SF or even science fiction. At best, it's an almost two-decades-old rip-off of the cyberpunk genre.

jim's posted a decent one above, though it could perhaps be articulated a little better.


Steve: I dunno. You may have to do some extra-curricular study.


So what is everyone reading?

[Mamed for life]

I'm not really sure if I have the distinction right, but I recently read The Algebraist by Iain M Banks: bit of a slow starter but excellent once it gets moving. Crow Road (as Iain Banks) is brilliant as well: thats his fiction writing, as opposed to SF.

I've been working through Peter F. Hamilton's catalogue as well. The Commonwealth Saga and the Night's Dawn trilogy are some of the best books I've ever read, never mind SF (or Sci-fi, whatever).

 Getting the second part of the Void Trilogy in the next week or two, first part (Dreaming Void) I really enjoyed.

MfL

[boykster]

Obvious unmentioned:

William Gibson - any book
K W Jeter - Farewell Horizion and his other original works (haven't read his trew/starwars/etc stuff)
Heinlein - anything other than the "boyscout" bunch of books, but even some of those hold up.  JOB is my fave Heinlein novel of all time

[Ummon]

JOB is just a farce. Fun, but not SF or scifi.  I lost interest with Gibson in Pattern Recognition and put it down less than a hundred pages in.

Night's dawn is great - except the second book of The Naked God, which was sort of a let down, partly because he invoked a Deus Ex Machina sort of thing. Commonwealth was very similar. Mostly great and fun, but the ending of Judas Unchained, and the whole motivation of the 'alien', was unsatisfying. And the asian detective chick was annoying because she couldn't see her function was totally reliant on any particular social mores she happened to serve under (and arbitrary because of this).

The Algebraist was slow. But what caused me to lose interest was that it seemed the same forumula as his Culture novels without anything new. Add to that his recent Matter - the latest Culture novel - that adhered to the old formula but lacked any of the rich wit and intensely black humor common in the earlier books. Or maybe it was just me, I dunno.

[boykster]

JOB is just a farce. Fun, but not SF or scifi.  I lost interest with Gibson in Pattern Recognition and put it down less than a hundred pages in.

Night's dawn is great - except the second book of The Naked God, which was sort of a let down, partly because he invoked a Deus Ex Machina sort of thing. Commonwealth was very similar. Mostly great and fun, but the ending of Judas Unchained, and the whole motivation of the 'alien', was unsatisfying. And the asian detective chick was annoying because she couldn't see her function was totally reliant on any particular social mores she happened to serve under (and arbitrary because of this).

The Algebraist was slow. But what caused me to lose interest was that it seemed the same forumula as his Culture novels without anything new. Add to that his recent Matter - the latest Culture novel - that adhered to the old formula but lacked any of the rich wit and intensely black humor common in the earlier books. Or maybe it was just me, I dunno.

Find a copy of "The Man in the High Castle".  Thank me later.  Take that pompous, stick in the mud definition of "SF" vs Sci-Fi and read the authors who built the foundation of a legitimate branch of fiction that wouldn't exist if it wasn't for pulp novels and dime-store books. 

[CheffoJeffo]

Hmmm ... this thread seems familiar ... hmmm ... 

[Ummon]

So instead of slamming all of our definitions of what constitutes 'SF' how about you offer up some examples of your own?  (besides that one author nobody else has ever heard of)

I've read people arguing over the debate... and the soft scifi guys will cite Clarke, Heinlein, and Anderson as examples.

The hard scifi guys will also cite Clarke, Heinlein, and Anderson as examples.

 

I already mentioned Saint and you had pretty good ones, and added that it's hard to generalize much further. Especially with this kind of thing, it depends somewhat on era, though generally HardSF has a scientific problem(s) as backdrop if not the plot-driving device of the story. In that sense, very few of the early novels were Hard SF. The pulp fiction stuff doesn't really count either way.

JOB is just a farce. Fun, but not SF or scifi.  I lost interest with Gibson in Pattern Recognition and put it down less than a hundred pages in.

Night's dawn is great - except the second book of The Naked God, which was sort of a let down, partly because he invoked a Deus Ex Machina sort of thing. Commonwealth was very similar. Mostly great and fun, but the ending of Judas Unchained, and the whole motivation of the 'alien', was unsatisfying. And the asian detective chick was annoying because she couldn't see her function was totally reliant on any particular social mores she happened to serve under (and arbitrary because of this).

The Algebraist was slow. But what caused me to lose interest was that it seemed the same forumula as his Culture novels without anything new. Add to that his recent Matter - the latest Culture novel - that adhered to the old formula but lacked any of the rich wit and intensely black humor common in the earlier books. Or maybe it was just me, I dunno.

Find a copy of "The Man in the High Castle".  Thank me later.  Take that pompous, stick in the mud definition of "SF" vs Sci-Fi and read the authors who built the foundation of a legitimate branch of fiction that wouldn't exist if it wasn't for pulp novels and dime-store books. 

I don't know about that. Verne and Wells were - and another American author, I want to say Hawthorne, as well as a French novelist in the late 1900s, I forget his name - were writing SF and it wasn't of the pulp style to come, though the pulp authors would surely rip from them.

[boykster]

I guess I'm confused about your definition of SF - I was under the impression that you were looking for recommendations of serious authors writing in the field of science fiction (SF).  Not bug-eyed monsters and laser guns, but real fiction.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick_Award

 

[Ummon]

I guess I'm confused about your definition of SF - I was under the impression that you were looking for recommendations of serious authors writing in the field of science fiction (SF).  Not bug-eyed monsters and laser guns, but real fiction.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick_Award

 

I explained that abofe. Also, I think you may be confusing The War of the Worlds with The Time Machine, though the former was still to some degree for the time SF. Like I said, I don't call it science fiction, but science fiction is different than sci-fi. And Verne was more literarily-endowed than Wells. In any case, there's no argument here. We're all just comparing notes. Some of them are the same or similar. Some not. The real point of the thread is to talk about the stories themselves, of which no on else really has.

[Ummon]

Hahahah. I've read that his stuff is pretty heady. I haven't decided to try him out yet. I've seen a lot of stuff online saying Snow Crash is phenomenal, but the premise didn't grab me. Granted, it was written in '92 when VR was becoming a mainstream buzzword and all, but the 'what is reality?' thing was already old hat to me. Maybe I'll have to go back and look again.

In the other thread, you said Canticle was difficult reading. How so?