Cowboys in Space or not?

Higgins · Jan 14, 2008

I'm still looking into my obsession with the intersection between fantasy and SF. I'm writing fantasy, but lots of my story gear (aka topoi) is/are
very sci-fi. I know that part of the difference between the genres as I experience them is that in fantasy, character motivation is pretty arbitrary while in Sci Fi there are megatons of psycho-social-militaristic bundles of crap to explain every last inexplicable thing. So I dumped the sci fi pseudo-historical-militaristic framework of pseudo-explanations and just took the gear.

But what does it mean to be "in space" if you remove "space" as the vast pseudo-region in which human pseudo-history repeats its pseudo-self?

Shadow_Ferret · Jan 14, 2008

What do you mean character motivation is pretty arbitrary in fantasy? Character motivation in fantasy is the same as in any other genre-- essential to it being an interesting story.

Z. W. Van Kleeck · Jan 14, 2008

in science fiction, i find that travel through space from planet to planet is as traveling on earth from continent to continent. If you are at all familiar with tolkein, they you boat travel as a largely uncommon thing in great distances, this is why froto, bilbo, and sam going with the elves was such a big deal. They might as well have been going to another planet.

In space, however, when you get to another planet, as you see on starwars and startrek, the planets typically only have a very few places, save tatooine and endor (which had reasons to be developed farther). other than that the planets served as brand new geographies for single cities.

You say something about Cow boys in space, and honestly i love that idea. I love serenity and firefly. if you put cowboys in space, you will catch some flak, but fellow, you get a thumbs up from me. hah.

Higgins · Jan 14, 2008

Shadow_Ferret said:
What do you mean character motivation is pretty arbitrary in fantasy? Character motivation in fantasy is the same as in any other genre-- essential to it being an interesting story.

It's arbitrary in that it can be related to any psycho-social or militaristic scheme you pick while in Sci-fi you get nazis, corporate-nazis, space marine nazis, martian nazis and mercenaries, corporate mercenaries, space marine mercenaries and so on. You could build a nice conceptual cube and graph the schemes within works and over time.

I don't think that's quite so true for fantasy...which for me is one of its attractions. For example in my current work corporate space nazi mercenaries accidently save an evil world from destruction and so do a lot of good since the evil world has accidently been made into a nexus of goodness via the intervention of a few good fantasy creatures who use the corporate space nazi mercenaries creatively in a more complex plot than your basic Sci fi schemes can manage to encompass. Thus fantasy saves the world from Sci fi...again.

Higgins · Jan 14, 2008

Z. W. Van Kleeck said:
in science fiction, i find that travel through space from planet to planet is as traveling on earth from continent to continent. If you are at all familiar with tolkein, they you boat travel as a largely uncommon thing in great distances, this is why froto, bilbo, and sam going with the elves was such a big deal.

I wonder if Frodo's name is related to Fronto ie Frontius..I mean Frontinus.

http://www.bookrags.com/biography/frontius-dlb/

FennelGiraffe · Jan 14, 2008

Z. W. Van Kleeck said:
In space, however, when you get to another planet, as you see on starwars and startrek, the planets typically only have a very few places, save tatooine and endor (which had reasons to be developed farther). other than that the planets served as brand new geographies for single cities.

You say something about Cow boys in space, and honestly i love that idea. I love serenity and firefly. if you put cowboys in space, you will catch some flak, but fellow, you get a thumbs up from me. hah.

You might want to try reading some science fiction, instead of just watching movies. The difference is significant. This list would be a good place to start.

Z. W. Van Kleeck · Jan 14, 2008

i've read many science fiction and fantasy books.

Dune is my favorite to list one.

Perhaps you misundestood what i was saying. I was referencing largely populated sci-fi and fantasy. it was something that would assuredly be understood by another reader, and still make the point i was trying to make. It is very seldom that a planet is explored beyond four or so different locations. in sci-fi.
I havent even seen all of the LOTR movies, they sort of lost their flavor by about half way through the second one.

FennelGiraffe · Jan 14, 2008

Z. W. Van Kleeck said:
Perhaps you misundestood what i was saying. I was referencing largely populated sci-fi and fantasy. it was something that would assuredly be understood by another reader, and still make the point i was trying to make.

Unfortunately, it's all too common for kiddies who've never opened the covers of any book beyond Harry Potter to come bouncing in here. Your reference to only movies and TV gave me the impression you were one of those.

If you are widely read in SF, then I did indeed misunderstand and I apologize.

This is the Science Fiction & Fantasy area of AW. Most of the regulars here are widely read in the genre as well. There's no need to limit your examples to pop culture.

Z. W. Van Kleeck · Jan 14, 2008

I dont know if you could say WIDELY read, but i can carry a conversation ^^. My father read a lot of old sci-fi to me when i was very young. It got me quite interested in it's mystery. Probably in the last four years i've really started picking up reading sci-fi and less fantasty. sci-fi (to me) tends to be a bit more dark, and I like that.

JoNightshade · Jan 14, 2008

Sokal, I've been keeping an eye on your recent threads about sci fi, and I just have to wonder why you're trying to define it so much. You're making some very broad generalizations about a very diverse genre. It seems like you have a lot of negative opinions about sci fi, and yet it seems like you might be wanting to write in it? If I have you correctly here, why does it even matter what everyone else does or what the broad trends are? Why not just write what you want and go with it?

Stormhawk · Jan 14, 2008

Z. W. Van Kleeck said:
in science fiction, i find that travel through space from planet to planet is as traveling on earth from continent to continent. If you are at all familiar with Tolkien, they you boat travel as a largely uncommon thing in great distances, this is why Frodo, Bilbo, and Sam going with the elves was such a big deal. They might as well have been going to another planet.

In space, however, when you get to another planet, as you see on Star Wars and Star Trek, the planets typically only have a very few places, save Tatooine and Endor (which had reasons to be developed farther). other than that the planets served as brand new geographies for single cities.

You say something about cowboys in space, and honestly i love that idea. I love Serenity and Firefly. if you put cowboys in space, you will catch some flak, but fellow, you get a thumbs up from me. hah.

Ok...now I can breathe again.

Higgins · Jan 15, 2008

JoNightshade said:
Sokal, I've been keeping an eye on your recent threads about sci fi, and I just have to wonder why you're trying to define it so much. You're making some very broad generalizations about a very diverse genre. It seems like you have a lot of negative opinions about sci fi, and yet it seems like you might be wanting to write in it? If I have you correctly here, why does it even matter what everyone else does or what the broad trends are? Why not just write what you want and go with it?

I'm not trying to define things so much as bring up some relatively odd and perhaps peripheral things that worry me about some of the deep imagery and implications in Sci fi. I think, as I've said elsewhere, Sci Fi is a very 20th century phenomenon and a lot of what is buried in its assumptions reflects the multiple shocks of highly technological warfare, genocide and the rather mysterious "Cold War" that followed. I'm sure all those potential horrors are still with us, but I think the time has come to get a bit more sophisticated in our responses to organized human nastiness.

At the moment my little contribution to the attempt to get a bit more sophisticated is to wonder why fascist imagery proliferates so abundantly in Sci Fi, almost as if it reflected a basic genetic component in the cellular mechanisms of Sci Fi's (rapidly decreasing) plausibility.

Also...I've written a lot of Bad Sci Fi in my day and...well...I'm beginning to see why.

Albedo · Jan 15, 2008

Sokal said:
It's arbitrary in that it can be related to any psycho-social or militaristic scheme you pick while in Sci-fi you get nazis, corporate-nazis, space marine nazis, martian nazis and mercenaries, corporate mercenaries, space marine mercenaries and so on. You could build a nice conceptual cube and graph the schemes within works and over time.

Elves, dark elves, half-elves, half-orcs, half-dwarves, dark dwarves, elf-dwarves...if SF is all clumsy militarism, then all fantasy is hamfisted racial allegory.

Neither is actually either.

Deleted member 42 · Jan 15, 2008

Sokal said:
I know that part of the difference between the genres as I experience them is that in fantasy, character motivation is pretty arbitrary while in Sci Fi there are megatons of psycho-social-militaristic bundles of crap to explain every last inexplicable thing.

Sokal, dude, you really oughta try reading some of the stuff you write about; it'd make waaayyyy more sense then.

blacbird · Jan 15, 2008

Medievalist said:
Sokal, dude, you really oughta try reading some of the stuff you write about; it'd make waaayyyy more sense then.

Ditto this. Read some Philip K. Dick, for starters.

caw

Straka · Jan 15, 2008

I second Philip K. Dick. (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Man in the High Castle, & A Scanner Darkly) for starters.

Asimov is good too. Such as the foundation series. Its very different style of sci-fi than what is published currently as it generally has no action (as far as I've read anyway).

Niel Stephenson's Diamond Age is a good one as well, though he gets a little wordy when he turned on the Victorian mode.

Higgins · Jan 16, 2008

Albedo said:
Elves, dark elves, half-elves, half-orcs, half-dwarves, dark dwarves, elf-dwarves...if SF is all clumsy militarism, then all fantasy is hamfisted racial allegory.

Neither is actually either.

Medievalist said:
Sokal, dude, you really oughta try reading some of the stuff you write about; it'd make waaayyyy more sense then.

blacbird said:
Ditto this. Read some Philip K. Dick, for starters.

caw

Straka said:
I second Philip K. Dick. (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Man in the High Castle, & A Scanner Darkly) for starters.

Asimov is good too. Such as the foundation series. Its very different style of sci-fi than what is published currently as it generally has no action (as far as I've read anyway).

Niel Stephenson's Diamond Age is a good one as well, though he gets a little wordy when he turned on the Victorian mode.

I've read some good Sci Fi. I think it essentially dodged the issues with stylistic tricks. Only Iain Banks seems to have faced the fascist imagery at the heart of Sci fi and even he in a sense gave up by leaving the erradication of the fascist imagery up to the AIs that inhabit his works.

Gray Rose · Jan 16, 2008

Have you ever read Ursula Le Guin?

Albedo · Jan 16, 2008

Or, to take the first handful of authors on my shelf, Ken McLeod (socialism), Alfred Bester (anarchism), Arthur C Clarke (scientific rationalism), John Varley (social libertarianism), Eleanor Arnason (feminism), John Wyndham (British middle-class stiff upper lippism), Walter M. Miller Jr. (Catholicism), Douglas Adams (absurdism)? Sokal, your assertion that burbling away behind science fiction there's some kind of awe for or overriding focus on fascism just points to limited reading.

Albedo · Jan 16, 2008

Anyhow, peculiar to me is the idea that having dragons come in to vanquish your evil fascists is an improvement on what would happen in science fiction: revolutionaries would band together and fight totalitarianism with the force of their own actions and beliefs. I'm not SF needs that particular kind of saving from its country cousin F.

Higgins · Jan 16, 2008

Gray Rose said:
Have you ever read Ursula Le Guin?

She tends toward the anti-fascist or fantasy side of SF.

Higgins · Jan 16, 2008

Albedo said:
Or, to take the first handful of authors on my shelf, Ken McLeod (socialism), Alfred Bester (anarchism), Arthur C Clarke (scientific rationalism), John Varley (social libertarianism), Eleanor Arnason (feminism), John Wyndham (British middle-class stiff upper lippism), Walter M. Miller Jr. (Catholicism), Douglas Adams (absurdism)? Sokal, your assertion that burbling away behind science fiction there's some kind of awe for or overriding focus on fascism just points to limited reading.

I'm not talking about what particular mental philosophy one writer or another likes to claim (and wasn't Wyndham a fascist? not that it matters)...I'm talking about assumptions about what makes human behavior plausible in Sci Fi and I think only Iain Banks has taken that problem head on in his Sci fi.

Higgins · Jan 16, 2008

Albedo said:
Anyhow, peculiar to me is the idea that having dragons come in to vanquish your evil fascists is an improvement on what would happen in science fiction: revolutionaries would band together and fight totalitarianism with the force of their own actions and beliefs. I'm not SF needs that particular kind of saving from its country cousin F.

That's my point in a nut shell: in Sci fi there is some fascisto-centric theory of human motivation: thus ya gotta have those "revolutionaries"...why? What makes a revolutionary more plausible than
one of Bank's machine minds?

Straka · Jan 16, 2008

Sokal, how do you define fascism?

Gray Rose · Jan 16, 2008

I have two jokes for you.

Re: Ursula le Guin.
Cold war. Someone is being arrested.
"What for?" He asks.
"Communism!"
"But I am not a communist! In fact, I'm ANTI-communist!"
"That's right. We take all kinds of communists."

Re: Fascism. This is a Russian joke.

A corporal is questioning rookies. "What do you think about when you see this pile of bricks?"
One soldier answers, "A new big house I could build".
Another: "the road to communism."
Finally the corporal comes to Ivan. "What do you think about when you see this pile of bricks?"
"Sex."
"What?? Why??"
"Well, I always think about it."

Good luck with the rest of your reading, Sokal.

Cowboys in Space or not?

Higgins

Shadow_Ferret

Court Jester

Z. W. Van Kleeck

Higgins

Higgins

FennelGiraffe

It's green they say

Z. W. Van Kleeck

FennelGiraffe

It's green they say

Z. W. Van Kleeck

JoNightshade

has finally arrived

Stormhawk

Angry Bunny Girl

Higgins

Albedo

Alex

Deleted member 42

blacbird

Straka

Bored Fanatic

Higgins

Gray Rose

Beware of the Thorns!

Albedo

Alex

Albedo

Alex

Higgins

Higgins

Higgins

Straka

Bored Fanatic

Gray Rose

Beware of the Thorns!