The Protocols Of Science Fiction

[Cia]

Okay, anyone who knows me will know I like to write a lot of different genres, but I gravitate toward science fiction the most. I love to read it too. This article, The Protocols of Science Fiction, appeals to be on both levels. For me, the mental contortions to figure out the twists to the real world or even the completely foreign future off-world, keeps me interested. To me, this essay on The Protocols of Science Fiction by James Gunn (Sci-Fi Grand Master James Gunn, not James Gunn, writer of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1 and 2) highlights a lot of the approach readers have to take when they read science fiction versus other genres. We're encouraged to think, to search out these special features of the genre and wait for the AHA moments. I try to write in the same fashion, and I have to research for believable ways to base my alterations, making it have some basis in reality rather than just 'a wizard did it!' justification (to make my point, here is a hilarious youtube video about holes in the Harry Potter movie/book 'verse). In this way, I enjoy the challenges of science fiction more than say, pure fantasy.

 

 

But can science fiction authors go too far and give into a superiority complex about what they write compared to other genres, based on just this sort of attitude?

 

As a reader, do you agree or disagree with the perceptions of how you would read other genres compared to science fiction?

[Aditus]

Speaking as an author, I don't think science fiction writers write better stories than  fantasy writers. But some of my friends had a heated discussion a few weeks ago about fantasy being unrealistic crap while science fiction is about things that will be possible some day. I personally found the discussion hilarious. The main argument was that 'beaming'  can be done soon, telekinesis never. 

I write fantasy stories and science fiction. I like to tie fantastic/futuristic things like having certain powers or  instant space travel to 'realistic' facts, because I always go from there and then start to fantasize when I write. I have a book about alternate evolution, which is a perfect source for what other life forms are possible and another with drawing from Ernst Haeckel 'Art Forms in Nature' .  Even so, writing fantasy for me is letting go of reality at some point, think about what could be without the pesky facts and put a muzzle on some part in my brain that screams 'unrealistic'. 

[JamesSavik]

One of the fun things about science fiction is deciding that you need to do something and figuring out how in a way that's realistic and consistent with known science.

 

My faster than light travel for instance. I explain it. My ships use tailored wormholes. It cost a ton of energy to do it. It misses out on all those nasty relativistic effects like time dilation.

 

But wait- it's not all fiction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wormhole

 

The writers of Star Trek lived to see flip phones and ipods. 

 

I'd like to live long enough to see humanity get it's nose out of the dirt.

[Palantir]

Hmm. I don't think Scifi has to be be based on 'real' reality. Many of the great authors played with ideas that are definitely beyond the reality we currently perceive.

I do think, however, that their story has to be developed with an internal consistency which the thoughtful reader can pick up on and then be carried along with. The well crafted scifi story can feel 'real' despite containing the most outlandish disregard for scientific fact.

 

Even the name 'science fiction' indicates that the story is fiction about science. Otherwise it would be 'science fact', and more like an adventure using known science, which I think is pretty much a specialised genre of its own

 

Can scifi be looked on as superior to other genres? Of course it can, as superiority is a subjective assessment and for some individuals  there is no doubt on this score.

With equal validity other genres have followers  who can make the same claim.

 

I absolutely agree with the idea that there are special 'protocols' for the scifi genre which readers and authors alike assimilate over time. - just as there are special protocols which apply to the other genres.

How often do we say, 'Wow, that was a great book!' and have the person we're talking to say they just, 'couldn't get into it'. I think that is the protocol preference the person has developed.

 

Is scifi better than other genres?

Not really, but having read it for over 60 years (I pinched that line from James Gunn) I'll still say -

LONG LIVE SCIFI !!!

[Daddydavek]

To me a good story needs internal consistency and doing that in a sci-fi yarn is a task. I like a good fantasy story, but a good sci-fi story is one I really appreciate.

[LeonMichaels]

Personally I very much like Isaac Asimov's take on writing fiction versus science fiction:

 

 

In serious fiction, fiction where the writer feels he’s accomplishing something besides simply amusing people — although there’s nothing wrong with simply amusing people — the writer is holding up a mirror to the human species, making it possible for you to understand people better because you’ve read the novel or story, and maybe making it possible for you to understand yourself better. That’s an important thing.

Now science fiction uses a different method. It works up an artificial society, one which doesn’t exist, or one that may possibly exist in the future, but not necessarily. And it portrays events against the background of this society in the hope that you will be able to see yourself in relation to the present society… That’s why I write science fiction — because it’s a way of writing fiction in a style that enables me to make points I can’t make otherwise.

[Riley Jericho]

Sci-Fi can be cheap and a little boring. You only have to look at Star Wars 1, 2 and 3 to see that. I say that because there can be a tendency to rely on smoke and lights, even in writing. In the end, if it all just becomes a vehicle for cute ideas, but no humanity, readers will lose interest.

 

That said, there's some outstanding stuff here on GA! I only wish I'd written it!

 

Riley

[W_L]

Well without plugging my story (Oh wait I have it in my sig ), I've written some sci-fi/modern fiction in the path of other luminaries like Philip K. Dick, questions of ethics and technology, political and social conspiracies, and issues of perception and reality. Science fiction is a wide canvas: Heinlein, Asimov, and Clarke were great in their respective themes, but there are others too like Sagan with Contact.

 

Science fiction and Fantasy co-exist pretty well, there are even writers of the Science Fantasy genre: Aliens that behave like Gods, human genetically engineered to be monsters/demons, or Techno-mages

 

As a writer of multiple genres myself, it depends on my mood; sometimes I prefer humanist plots, other times techno-sophistry.

[Dolores Esteban]

Here's an attempt at grading Science Fiction for realism:

 

http://www.kheper.net/topics/scifi/grading.html

 

It's a matter of taste, I think.