I came across this interesting post on how to get women more interested in sci-fi writing and film. I’m probably not the best chick to ask about this – all my favourite films are sci-fi films, as well as most of my favourite television series. I also have a large sci-fi/fantasy book collection. I think a love of sci-fi is in part hereditary, but also starts at a young age.
I think my obsession with sci-fi/fantasy started when I was 6, when my father read The Hobbit to me. When I was 7, we read Lord of the Rings together, and my aunt bought me various children’s books written by Isaac Asimov and Arthur C Clarke (among others). All of my family loves sci-fi, and so I could dip into Mum and Dad’s book collection whenever I wanted. My sister and I have a shared book collection which might not be the best idea (“custody disputes” eventuated when we both moved out of home).
The reason I love sci-fi is because it asks two fundamental and fascinating questions:
- What does it mean to be human?
- What is reality?
The question of what it means to be human can be explored in a number of ways. Humans can be contrasted with “made-humans” (robots, replicants, androids, cyborgs etc). Or humans can be contrasted with inhabitants of other planets. The question of what is reality is posed by contrasting real life with an alternate reality which is computer generated or artificial.
Another common thread in sci-fi writing is to try and predict which way society will go in the future. When I was a teenager, I had a penchant for dystopias such as Brave New World, 1984 and Farenheit 451, as well as The Handmaid’s Tale. I think such books explore divisions in society which are already present in our time now. Indeed, I have always believed the central point of Brave New World to be a commentary about the evils of the English class system rather than the evils of genetic engineering. My observation of living in Britain in the 90s is that people are born in a particular class, and they don’t ever seem to be able to get out of it. Unless, of course, like me, their ancestors were transported to Australia as convicts and they come back 7 generations later, having had education and opportunity. No one knows how to pigeonhole you then.
I can tell you what I don’t like in sci-fi writing, which might winnow out some authors.
I don’t like sci-fi which doesn’t have any character development, or in which all the female characters are gorgeous sulky bitches with jutting bosoms. I just want to slap those women with the jutting bosoms. They don’t seem believable to me at all, and plus they are very irritating.
I don’t like sci-fi which is unbelievable. This latter might seem strange to non-sci-fi fans, but it is actually essential that the premise of a book, movie or television series be believable, no matter how outlandish that premise is. It takes a skillful writer to make you believe a really strange premise.
I don’t like sci-fi which is unscientific. Because both my parents are scientists, I have a reasonable scientific background, having taken it in with my mother’s milk (so to speak). Indeed, the only reason I didn’t go into science was because of a notorious GCSE Chemistry prac exam, in which I had to falsify the results (anomalous result and all). I knew exactly what the pH was supposed to be. When I handed it in, the teacher said, “But you haven’t actually done the experiment!”
I said, “I know what to do, I just can’t do it because I’m a klutz. I’ve broken two burettes and a pipette filler in five minutes and flooded my desk with concentrated hydrochloric acid. Would you like me to continue?” She just looked at me and took the paper without a word.
Anyway, I retain a strong interest in science and like to read scientific non-fiction books too. Just don’t ask me to titrate anything.
I have been trying to think of good sci-fi authors to suggest for anyone who wants to get into sci-fi. Of course, there’s always Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke. Also: Ray Bradbury (beautiful writing style), Dan Simmons (sci-fi/horror cross over), John Wyndham (an early pioneer), William Gibson (cyberpunk guy), Ursula Le Guin (about whom I’ve posted before), Philip K. Dick (generator of ideas for many a great sci-fi movie). I’m sure there’s others, but unfortunately and very sadly half my sci-fi collection is presently in a packing box in the cupboard behind me, so I can’t consult the shelf to help my pregnancy-hormone-inflicted memory.
And if you have any good suggestions for me: please do share!
(Via The Volokh Conspiracy)
Update
It has been pointed out that I missed the first Dune. I remembered this at 4am in the morning when my daughter woke up. I do love that first Dune so much…it’s such a pity he had to keep on going. I never bothered to read any Dune book after No. 3 in the series – it just got really silly.
Another interesting (but very violent and adult-themed) book is Liegekiller by Christopher Hinz, but it’s another one where I wouldn’t bother going on to read the rest of the series.
I have also read lots of H.G. Wells (early proto-sci-fi). Also, my Dad had a record of War of the Worlds which I loved, and I was fascinated by Dad’s description of people actually believing that aliens were invading.
Update 2
Mild Colonial Boy Esq. has alerted me to John C Wright’s definitive guide to Science Fiction, and in particular, this excerpt:
Aha! The first and most obvious of the elements of science fiction is evident from this cover of SPICY PLANET INCREDIBLE WEIRD WONDER ALL-STORY. Science Fiction is primarily about speculation! In this case, the reader is invited to speculate:
- What if I were soaring along in space with a rocket belt and a space helmet?
- What if I were blasting aliens with my space ray gun?
- What if a really glamorous brunette Space-Babe with plenty of va-Voom were soaring along in space in my arms?
This last element is the most speculative, because we science fiction geeks do not know, and have rarely seen, any real-life glamorous brunettes.
To recap: Science Fiction is that genre of cognitive estrangement in a post-Gothic mode, utilizing a willing suspension of disbelief, transcending anthropocentricism and temporal provincialism, where a spaceman, raygun in fist, soars through outer space with a glamorous brunette Space-Babe in his brawny arms.
Ah ha, those women with the jutting bosom. They are definitely more acceptable to male sci-fi readers than female sci-fi readers (for obvious reasons, pointed out by Wright). Indeed, I can think of one series of sci-fi books where my mother and I gave up half way through Book 1 because of the jutting bosom ladies, but my father enjoyed the series to the end, and got rather offended by my mother’s and my pejorative remarks about the female characters.
I believe some women may be put off sci-fi because they think that jutting bosom ladies are essential to the genre, but I don’t believe that they are. They belong to a species of sci-fi which is designed to appeal to the male sci-fi geeks who dream of a brunette Space Babe. Just as those romance novels with square-jawed heroes are designed to appeal to ladies who dream of a hunky man who will sweep her off her feet. So they are actually a kind of romance novel for men.
Perhaps those jutting bosom ladies irritate female sci-fi geeks because we think the male sci-fi geeks should be admiring us, not brunette Space Babes! 
93 Comments
Have you ever read Lois McMaster Bujold? Excellent futuristic sci-fi (space travel et al), but with a particular interest (or so I think) in potential social aspects of genetic manipulation and reproductive technology.
I think that the scientific aspects are well researched (though this is coming from the few remaining gobules of knowledge from my far-off undergraduate days), but the main drawcard of her books (for me) is the excellent writing and the quirky characters.
Then again, I learnt a long time ago to let small things in fiction slide, around the time that I realised that I was getting irrationally upset because an author I otherwise quite liked had committed the unpardonable sin of serving potatoes at a dinner in one of her very early books. Which was set in twelfth century Normandy. From then on in, so long as things weren’t too jarring (though I still maintain that potatoes at a medieval feast are), I tended to gloss over factual quibbles, though I still do find them very distracting ….
A E Van Vogt
Harry Turtledove
Greg Egan
Iain Banks.
By the way, I recently read a bio on Phillip K. Dick. What a nutcase.
I don’t know whether this will be of much help for a beginner but I enjoyed these authors:
Jack Vance : If you like baroque & quirky SF, SF/Fantasy, or Fantasy. I particularly enjoyed his Demon Princes series.
Douglas Hill. Last Legionary series (Galactic Warlord, Deathwing Over Veynaa, Day of the Starwind, Planet of the Warlord). I loved these when I was a teenager.
Gene Wolfe. The book of the New Sun. Also very baroque and allusive.
Also Frank Herbert’s Dune. The rest of the series went downhill from this one.
Michael Moorcock’s A Nomad of the Time Streams – if you want a very steampunky experience.
The first Dune is amazing, MCB. It’s almost as though he’d actually told all the story worth telling in the first book, though – which is probably why it went downhill thereafter.
Stanislaw Lem
- Excellent sci-fi / speculative fiction (I love his reviews and summaries of books that have never been written …) and also generator of many an excellent sci-fi film (Tarkovsky’s Solaris and Stalker).
Octavia Butler
- Have you read any OB? If not, you must, you really *really* must. She has an excellent post-apocalyptic novel about a young woman surviving (Cormac McCarthy did something similar with The Road, which got accolades but when I read it, I could not help comparing it negatively to Parable of the Sower) and also a thoroughly excellent collection of short stories – Blood Child. My favourite in that collection was actually the non- sci-fi one in which OB meets/becomes god. There is also one very disturbing story about a worm-type creature and human co-dependence.
I’m going to have to find me some Lois McMaster Bujold – have never heard of her!
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In a high-school science class, in excitement and surprise, I dropped a beaker full of sulphuric acid when an interesting looking bird flew across the window. Lucky I had also leapt to catch a better sight of the bird and somehow managed to leap beyond the ensuing yellow splash on the floor…
Second Greg Egan (great Aussie fiction with background in computing and good grasp of science) but start with his short stories [Luminous/Axiomatic] , he’s still learning to write well at novel length.
Never have been able to get into Ian Banks’ sci fi, though his other stuff is fine – writes wonderful descriptive prose but I haven’t found an actual plot yet!
Jack Finney’s “Time and again” is a wonderful time travel tale that should not be ignored by any SF fan and the way that he used contemporary images from the 1890s in the story is just a great device.
Richard Matherson is too often ignored these days but his ‘incredible shrinking man’ is very much worth the effort in seeking it out.
I also consider Gulliver’s Travels to be a proto-SF novel, particularly the later voyages.
LE,
I forgot one of the pioneers – H.G. Wells. Try his early SF novels/novellas such as The Time Machine, War of the Worlds, Island of Dr Moreau etc. Avoid like the Plague his later novels.
SL,
I loved the first Dune book. So many elements to love: the Mentats, the syncretism (Zensunni & Orange Catholic Bible), the Litany against Fear (I must not fear./ Fear is the mind-killer./ Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration./ I will face my fear./ I will permit it to pass over me and through me./ And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path./ Where the fear has gone there will be nothing./ Only I will remain.).
My favourite Dune epigram wasn’t from the first book however :
“Here lies a toppled god./ His fall was not a small one./ We did but build his pedestal./ A narrow and a tall one. (Tleilaxu Epigram DM 96)”.
LE,
In light of statements you made regarding SF you hate – you might appreciate John C. Wright’s Definition of Science Fiction.
Here’s an excerpt:
Aha! The first and most obvious of the elements of science fiction is evident from this cover of SPICY PLANET INCREDIBLE WEIRD WONDER ALL-STORY. Science Fiction is primarily about speculation! In this case, the reader is invited to speculate:
* What if I were soaring along in space with a rocket belt and a space helmet?
* What if I were blasting aliens with my space ray gun?
* What if a really glamorous brunette Space-Babe with plenty of va-Voom were soaring along in space in my arms?
This last element is the most speculative, because we science fiction geeks do not know, and have rarely seen, any real-life glamorous brunettes.
To recap: Science Fiction is that genre of cognitive estrangement in a post-Gothic mode, utilizing a willing suspension of disbelief, transcending anthropocentricism and temporal provincialism, where a spaceman, raygun in fist, soars through outer space with a glamorous brunette Space-Babe in his brawny arms.
I am also going to have to endorse Lois McMaster Bujold, in particular any story which takes place anywhere near Miles Vorkosigan and his wonderful universe, although the fantasy she has been writing recently is also excellent.
Harry Turtledove is another personal favorite already mentioned. A historian with a deep understanding of people, he does paratime better than anybody else. My favorite series from him starts off with the Balance story (in 4 volumes, Tilting the Balance, In the Balance, etc.), where World War II is just getting well underway when an armada of aliens invades the Earth. I don’t know which was more unnerving; that he had the ability to make it totally believable, or that he made you love, hate, sneer at, root for, or otherwise get emotionally involved with every character in the story. And there were a lot of them, and even the non-humans were fully fleshed out to the point you felt as if you had grown up with them.
Some authors not mentioned here yet that I have to recommend are Charles Stross, John Scalzi, Ken MacLeod, Elizabeth Bear, and Neal Asher. No, that’s not in order of importance. That’s the order the pile was in when I brought it from my recently-read shelf over to the computer.
Oooh thank you all. I am going to have to go shopping. Well, it’s my birthday soon.
I have updated the post to include the first Dune – I’m glad the consensus is that the rest of the series sucks because that is my opinion too. But the first book is just marvellous. After reading it, I tried to walk with no rhythm (so the sand worms didn’t get me) but it’s amazingly hard to walk without rhythm.
Never been able to get into Iain Banks, although my Dad likes him. I have read a bit of Gene Wolfe – the problem was that I borrowed it from a friend and felt I had to return it before I had finished it, because said friend was moving to Canberra.
Oanh, I’m glad I’m not alone in my scientific klutziness.
Actually, another friend of mine set her GCSE biology prac exam paper on fire in the bunsen burner – at least I wasn’t quite that bad.
John, it doesn’t surprise me that Philip K Dick was an absolute freakdog. I think you’d have to be a freak to have a brain capable of coming up with those marvellous ideas. Or you’d have to take copious psychotropic drugs.
Now I am going to have to restrain myself from jumping in the car and going to a large bookstore…I really do need to finish my conference paper (it will be a week late at this rate).
Dick took lots of drugs, it was during a time when the “drug store” mentality arose and many were abusing all sorts of drugs. That, plus numerous accounts of food poisoning and quackery, gave rise to the FDA.
Ah ha, there you go. I always suspected he must have taken lots of drugs.
I’m guessing it was written by Robert Heinlein.
This reminds me that I have about 18 months before I can’t use the facilities of UWA’s Science Fiction Association. They boast of having the largest open collection of SF in the southern hemisphere.
JC, I can’t remember the author because my brain is cactus at the moment, but it may well have been Heinlein. I must make use of my Uni’s fiction library in that regard…it’s just that my department is so far away from the fiction library that I’ve been too lazy to use it.
I would also add Lois McMaster Bujold, although her fantasy is a bit more run of the mill than her science fiction (for any feminist, a what if universe which considers the impact of the “uterine replicator” so that there is no need for women to get pregnant to have babies is worth the price of admission).
I also love Peter Hamilton (UK current writer), and will pay over the odds as soon as each book comes out.
More in the cyberpunk genre, Neal Stephenson is also excellent, although his latest books are historical fiction (set around the scientists of the 17th century – still pretty interesting if you’re interested in science).
I also immediately guessed Heinlein for your author that doesn’t appeal to women, although EE Doc Smith and Harry Harrison are much worse (but don’t have as much redeeming merit from their ideas – Heinlein, for all his faults, did have some really interesting ideas about the future).
By Klono’s brazen hoofs and diamond-tipped horns! I’ll not hear a word said against the Good Doctor (EE Smith). Who can forget his mastery of the subtle interplay between the Sexes:
This example from “Galactic Patrol”:
“Beautiful, but dumb!” the Lensman growled. “Can’t you and those cockeyed croakers realize that I’ll never get any strength back if you keep me in bed all the rest of my life? And don’t talk baby-talk at me, either. I’m well enough at least so you can wipe that professional smile off your pan and cut that soothing bedside manner of yours.”
“Very well—I think so too!” she snapped, patience at long last gone. “Somebody should tell you the truth. I always supposed that Lensmen had to have brains, but you’ve been a perfect brat ever since you’ve been here. First you wanted to eat yourself sick, and now you want to get up, with bones half-knit and burns half-healed, and undo everything that has been done for you. Why don’t you snap out of it and act your age for a change?”
Not sure if you’re branching into television/cinema, but I have to say I really enjoyed Serenity/Firefly, partly because it drew the characters very well, and partly because it was an excellent disquisition on government cock-ups.
My sister has the whole series on DVD – keep meaning to borrow it. Now that I have a small child, I find it very hard to keep track of television series (just can’t be sure that someone will go to bed easily on the night a series is shown).
I’m doing the domestic thing for the school holidays and hope to watch Firefly/Serenity in that time (and finish BSG season III).
If you enjoy Firefly/Serenity – Tim Minear (executive producer & writer) has a free download of a unproduced movie adaptation of Robert A. Heinlein’s 1966 science fiction novel in .PDF format here
I’m waiting for my sister to get back from honeymoon so that she can lend BSG to me! All the rest of my family are raving about it…
I should add that I have read pretty much everything EE Doc Smith wrote, despite his less than complete understanding of the female half of the human race – his adventures are still lots of good fun. Not sure if I could manage to read one now, though – definitely a romance novel for the (male) geek.
I don’t know about the first dislike, the jutty bosom ladies; perhaps I have been fortunate in not encountering them. But the other two smelled suspiciously like hard sci-fi to me. Which isn’t exactly my thing, but Alastair Reynolds has been suggested to me.
Otherwise, Vernor Vinge, Charlie Stross and Cory Doctorow.
I read quite a few of the Stainless Steel Rat books at school. At the time I read them as satire, and didn’t notice the portrayal of women at all. Likewise Heinlein – Starship Troopers is still one of my favourite books.
I also liked the film version of the latter, although it irritates many of my friends. I saw it as a sort of ‘anti-Star-Trek‘; far less hopeful, and a clever play on the possibility of an advanced society that just happens to be rather fascist.
One of the things I try to do when assessing fiction of any sort is work out whether it allows me to engage in the Coleridgian ‘willing suspension of disbelief’. I don’t care if a given author is sexist, but whether his characters have internal coherence and development.
One of the least legitimate forms of criticism (imho) is that which upbraids an author for failing to write the sort of book that the critic would have written. I’ve had it done to me (the perils of having engaged in such a low occupation as novel-writing, natch) and I found it enormously irritating.
Authors have to succeed on their own terms, and – in my view – when they fail to do that, then it is fair to say that they have failed as a novelist.
I don’t mind jutting bosom ladies as long as they have a personality, but if they just pout all the time, I don’t wanna know ‘em. Just a personal thing.
I would agree with you, SL, that it is not a valid criticism to say “the author should have written the book like this“. If so, the critic should go off and write his/her own book. One can say that one dislikes a certain way in which something is portrayed – but it’s a very personal thing.
I enjoyed the Starship Troopers film too, although my sister and I hate Denise Richards, but other than that, I thought it was a very clever satire.
I should have mentioned Richard Morgan as well.
Exactly it, LE. There’s a difference between telling someone how to do their job (especially when you haven’t ever done it yourself) and making a good case for your preferences. To my mind there is only one critic in Australia who does this consistently – Kerryn Goldsworthy, aka our very own Pavlov’s Cat.
Compared to her, Peter Craven is an illiterate ninny who really does think he knows how to do writers’ jobs better than they do.
I also enjoyed the movie “Starship Troopers”. I remember seeing David Stratten complain about how the movie glorified fascism. The satire just completely eluded him.
I don’t recall jutting bosom females in Heinlein.
Alistair Reynolds is fantastic, but Richard Morgan has come off a bit. His last two books are been ordinary (the concepts were great but execution I thought not as good as before). The Honor Harrington series by David Weber is great (have to read the books in order and also have to read the short stories and spin-offs in order too – that is a bit annoying).
In answer to Sinclair Davidson, here is part of a review of Heinlein’s The Number of the Beast by Dave Langford:
The book’s vulgarity has many ramifications. An obvious starting point is the treatment of sex, eg. in this subtle description of a kiss from the lady’s viewpoint: “Our teeth grated and my nipples went spung.” The usual, and not indefensible, coyness below the waist is balanced by every character’s gross and grotesque obsession with breasts. Of the four lead players, one woman has vast breasts to which constant allusions are made and which she insists on calling teats (the OED is invoked to support this archaism: Heinlein insists that “teat” is pronounced “tit”, possibly to avoid writing the latter word). The other woman has small breasts to which constant allusions are made (she’s the one who goes spung). One man spends most of his waking hours watching or thinking about the large breasts mentioned above, while the other consoles himself with the reflection that even small-breasted women can be ever so good in bed. Sometimes the men switch roles by way of variety, and the women meditate on the same pervading subject too: “They do stick out, don’t they?” “I’d be an idiot to risk competing with Deety’s teats,” etc. Finally, every character but our lady of the 95cm bust becomes accustomed to keep a weather eye on the nipples associated with said bust, since these “pretty pink spigots” go “up” and “down” with her emotions like — this simile is used — a barometer. Gorblimey.
Interesting thing about sf – while for a long time SciFi authors grumped about being overlooked by mainstream literature, these days, almost the reverse thing happens – SciFi authors will sometimes overlook those writing in the genre who have entered into mainstream literature, or experimented sufficiently with the rules and conventions of the genre to turn it completely to their own ends.
So you don’t hear a lot about writers like Brian Aldiss, Michael Moorcock, Italo Calvino, or Primo Levi (yes, he wrote some SciFi, and very good it was, too), and C S Lewis. They all developed very interesting, expressive individual styles and, IMO, are worth reading.
Haven’t read that one – will have to get it.
But that’s just one book – I don’t recall a pattern of buxom females in those Heinleins that I have read (I did abandon Fear no evil). LE speaks of a series of books (Angelina in the Stainless Steel Rat was buxom – especially in the 2000AD graphic novels).
MCB and Sinclair, I shall have to ask my mother if she can recall which books they were. I have totally forgotten.
TimT, very true. My Dad is a big fan of C S Lewis’ sci-fi – I will have to procure some. I like Italo Calvino’s writing in general, so I’d be fascinated to read sci-fi by him. And Primo Levi! A man of so many talents…I was not aware that he wrote sci-fi too. I was thinking that Margaret Atwood has dallied quite a bit in SF too – not only The Handmaid’s Tale, but also Oryx and Crake. Also The Blind Assassin has a parallel story of a Lovecraft-esque style.
Lewis only really wrote three straight SF books, his ‘Out of the Silent Planet’ trilogy. Aside from that, there are a few short stories, and a number of books with a strong fantasy/sf element to them, the Narnia books being the most obvious example. Calvino was another crossover talent who is impossible to categorise, but whether you think his Cosmicomics are comic science fiction with a strong fantasy/folk-tale element to them, or folk-tales with a comic scientific twist to them, they make fabulous reading. As for Primo, look out for ‘The Sixth Day’ (short stories), or even ‘The Mirror Maker’, which has a number of sf tales in it, as well as criticism and essays.
I keep on meaning to read those (and other) stories by Atwood!
Oh, and Doris Lessing is another cross-over mainstream writer who has written a number of SF tales.
There was a small piece of sci-fi in the Fin Review this week (no link). The problem, I think, is that sci-fi doesn’t have respectability amongst the ‘cultural’ gatekeepers.
To succeed with the cultural gatekeepers, the best way is probably to class your science fiction as ‘magic realism’ or ‘speculative fiction’. That should – usually – do the trick.
Sci Fi has never had respect with the literary community, that is a longstanding historical reality. I don’t think it has anything to do with “cultural gatekeepers” but I am not sure I understand what group you are referring too with such a statement.
The group of people who select books for review, and school teachers. I was often told that reading sci-fi ‘didn’t count’ as having read a book. How often do people sniff when you talk about reading sci-fi? Although, a lot of it is crap, there is a fair amount that is very good literature.
I think LaTrobe have included China Mieville’s Perdido Street Station (an awesome classic) in their English lit syllabus and one of my collegues did a masters in sci-fi literature at LaTrobe. But you’d be hard-pressed I think to find it being taken seriously at uni level or high school.
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LE – I wouldn’t too much about identifying the series involving buxom females – I don’t doubt such a series exists – I doubt Heinlein quote such a series (so I’m challenging Jacques not you or Colonial Boy).
Thanks Sinclair, that “classical literature” crap they carry on with. I recall the coalition do a bit of a song and dance about the need for “classic literature” to be taught. Yet how many scifi writers have even been nominated for a Nobel let alone win one. Surely Wyndham, Asimov, Heinlein, Bradbury, and even Moorcock were worthy of at least a nomination?
I vividly remember my Year 8 English teacher telling me to stop reading sci-fi and start reading “real literature”.
The fact of the matter is that some sci-fi is the best writing I’ve ever read. Other sci-fi can be trashy, like any area of literature. But hey, as long as the ideas are good and thought-provoking, I love it. I’m a bit like SL really – the important thing is that a particular universe has “internal coherence”.
At UQ there was a course called “Rhetoric of Popular Fiction” which taught the Earthsea Trilogy, Lord of the Rings, short stories by HG Wells & Ridley Walker. One of the lecturers and my tutor was Dr David Lake, who apart from being an Elizabethean Literature scholar was the author of SF novels – The Man who Loved Morlocks and Gods of Xuma. I’d already read 3/4 of the set texts before I’d even started the course.
I’m glad Greg Egan got a mention, and you’re right – his short stories are superior, but I’m still impressed by his novels – I ended up buying every single one
And why has no-one mentioned Larry Niven? He’s a giant of the genre, and another one whose entire body of work I am slowly accumulating.
Like Legal Eagle, it was the Hobbit (and then LOTR) that got me started on fantasy which then swiftly transmogrified into an obsession with sci-fi. Easily 80% of my fiction is science fiction of varying quality.
Oh, and if you like Herbert’s Dune (easily my favourite sci-fi novel of all time), then you should check out his excellent but arcane philosophy-heavy Whipping Star and Godmakers.
Cool! I did Medievalism and Contemporary Culture at Melbourne Uni, and I’d already read most of the texts as well. It included The Dark is Rising and The Mists of Avalon. It was lots of fun.
I read The Man who Loved Morlocks at school. It was a pretty impressive re-write of Wells that gave the Morlock ‘side of the story’ so to speak.
It is so cool to be among a bunch of sf readers. Judging by the length of this thread (and over the weekend, too), there are quite a few of us!
I know, it’s awesome!
And a few of my friends have contacted me to say they have books or movies they think I’d enjoy as a result of this post.
How do women respond to Star Trek? I once read an interesting story about Roddenberry. He was a socialist but knew he couldn’t proclaim his ideas directly so went the scifi route. In Star Trek no money, loss of social hierarchies, achievement is more important than status or wealth, and tolerance is the order of the day. Sounds all warm and fuzzy. I know a lot of people are repelled by that but its better than the alternative.
For as long as I can remember the first Star Trek series initiated in my head a mind game: how could you have a world without money? When I mention this mind game to people they just roll their eyes as if I’m some crazy dude. But I have neither time or inclination to investigate the anthropology, sociology, and psychology of such a potential society.
“..a world without money?”
I recently finished Hamilton’s Night’s Dawn trilogy, where the alien Kiint have a money-free society (among themselves anyway). This is due to a technological standard that has eliminated scarcity in everything except knowledge and wisdom and enlightenment, which not surprisingly are the only things still strived for.
The possibility exists for humans to move beyond scarcity economics, should nanotechnology really take off. I hope I live long enough to see it!
Firefly is great, but maybe more of a Western.
JH, Ludwig von Mises did it for you decades ago. Probably Roddenberry did not read his book, maybe you should.
Night’s Dawn trilogy is awesome! I started on Hamilton’s latest ‘The dreaming void’ but not sure about it. Has anyone read it? Is it worth persisting?
A society without money is easy to do, once you have a Cornucopia machine. I am not referring to the 3D printers already in development at MIT and the University of Bath, although they are one research path that will eventually converge to make them. I am speaking of the alchemist’s stone of nanotechnology, and John von Neumann’s dream: a machine that builds, from the atomic level up, anything you give it a sufficiently accurate description of, including a copy of itself. For the fictional referent’s, see the post-singularity stories of Charlie Stross and Ken MacLeod, like Singularity Sky, Iron Sunrise, Cosmonaut Keep, or The Star Fraction. Once you have a Cornucopia Machine, there are no more economics of scarcity, since nothing physical is scarce. This means things of true value are new ideas, new stories, new ways of seeing the world; new ways, in short, of creating new things for the Cornucopia Machines to build to improve the human condition.
On the topic of “classical literature”, one name says it all for me: Roger Zelazny. His stories were built from cultural platforms that included Greek mythology, Geek mythology, Native American mythology, Hindu mythology, Egyptian mythology, and even Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythology (where Mythology means other peoples core beliefs). He wrote in every classical and modern style ever developed, and would often have a conversation between characters with one speaking all Shakespeare quotes, one quoting from Sun Tzu, and one talking New York Street. The amazing part was, it all worked, even if it did tie your brain into a knot while you read it. Every book or story he ever wrote was world class, on more levels than most authors ever knew there were. To me, he is not only classic science fiction and fantasy, he is the very definition of classical literature.
Thank you for letting me post in your sandbox. I am not in AU (US for me), I have no legal background, and I am not currently part of any university environment (although I did attend one, and later worked as the computer geek at the library for another). But ever since one of my standing Google Search’s gave me the link to this thread on Friday, I have enjoyed reading all the entries, and felt comfortable enough that I thought perhaps my own contributions might add something to the discussion. If only one person here found one new author to check out based on my comments, then I have at least started to pay back a bit for the new info I have learned from you.
Can you provide me with a specific reference for Von Mises? If his argument is basically about the elimination of scarcity though he is dreaming, it is going to be much more complex than that. As for von Neumann machines, there are some intriguing problems with nanotechnology, one of those being that the atoms can become rather “fuzzy” at times.
You know, I never realised Star Trek doesn’t have money? How weird.
In some ways, scarcity could be said to be productive – it encourages people to strive for things. That’s a commonly held justification for property law, in fact. If you don’t have to strive for things, you don’t appreciate them. If I could create a lobster whenever I wanted one, it wouldn’t be such a treat. (Mmmm. Lobster.)
On the other hand, it is terrible if people can’t get the basic necessities in life required for survival: food, oxygen, water, shelter. Thus I can see why writers want to play with the idea of eliminating scarcity.
I will definitely have to check out all these books – it’s great to have a discussion like this going on. I’ve felt in a bit of a “rut” with books lately, but I think I’m going to have enough ideas of books to read to keep me going for years through this thread!
LE,
Lobster is actually a bl**dy interesting case study in scarcity – strange you should choose it. In Maine and most of New England in the immediate post-colonial period lobster was so common only the poor ate it. There was a lot of labour (or is that labor) unrest when it was fed to workers too often.
Now it is scarce it is well appreciated.
This covers it briefly.
I’ve had some Maine lobster when I was a teenager – very yummy. I would have happily been a poor person in early New England.
Apparently when the First Fleet came to Australia, they were starving and eating weevilly biscuits and bully beef. Meanwhile, the crayfish and fish offshore were so plentiful that you could put your hand in the water and pick them up. The local Aborigines thought the new arrivals were crazy…
Let’s face it – they probably were. I can imagine the job description of any of the (freeish) people in there if it were put into modern employment law.
Crazy times breed crazy people, I think. One of my forebears was an officer on the Second Fleet. I was slightly nervous when Mum found this out, but he seems to have been the one and only humane member of the Rum Corps, and thus didn’t end up rich or famous.
In addition, both he and Macarthur brought merinos out to Australia, but my forebear ate his, whereas Macarthur sheared his…much cleverer decision. Although a friend who was brought up on a farm tells me merinos are really good eating.
Great post LE & a deservedly prolific comment-box to go with it. I love sci-fi. There were so many superficially trashy movies in the 50s that used SF allegorically: It Came From Outer Space; I Married An Alien; Earth vs The Flying Saucers; Creature From The Black Lagoon et al. Any film inspired by Philip K Dick is always worth a look. A film based on his life would be sensational!
I’m going to make the same admission as LE – I never noticed Star Trek had no money! Christ in a sidecar, that shoots holes in my powers of observation. I think Jerry is right – it would need to be a ‘post scarcity’ society, one where one of the great economic drivers has been put to one side.
You could still have incentives, though (the other great driver), but they would be for non-material things, I suspect. This is the basis of Iain M Bank’s ‘Culture’ novels, although it does make the society in question a bit less interesting.
It was Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson which featured the jutting bosom lady! My sister has reminded me (she just got back from honeymoon).
Poor old Heinlein is off the hook (although maybe he deserves to be on the hook from the review quoted by MCB ).
Red Mars? I’ve read it twice! (Never finished the series though). Don’t remember any of that.
Star Trek doesn’t need money – they have replicators. James Kirk admits to not having any money (or the need) in the fourth movie (The Voyage home – absolute shocker). They do re-introduce scarcity in Voyager due to the energy shortage replicator credits are rationed (although as the series progressed that bit got neglected).
(I also seem to recall that they find eating ‘real’ meat disgusting too – they use replicators so they don’t have to exploit animals).
Star Trek is not just about the absence of money, it proposes a different set of motivations for the characters. This is something I have great difficulty with, excepting that human beings are incredibly adaptable so it is dangerous to presume that such a society could not exist.
An interesting aspect arises with Star Trek: Enterprise. Next Generation I could not tolerate too well because they were all so bloody warm and fuzzy, in Enterprise you see a return to more contemporary like behavior and motivations. Makes sense in terms of the timelines, the idea being that with each succeeding “epoch” humans developed more “evolved sensibilities” to use a phrase by Picard.
SD, I don’t think the jutting bosom was that prominent – but once I’d noticed it, it just really gave me the pip. And the character was an absolute bitch but naturally all the men fancied her. I don’t recall much about the book other than that – well, I didn’t even recall the name! – it must have been at least 10 years since I read it? Possibly more.
LL, my parents remember trashy Japanese horror-SF shows like “Mothra” with great nostalgia.
And old Dr Who – special effects are so bad, but it’s so awesome anyway.
In some ways, I think special effects in shows have meant it’s easier to portray certain things, but films and TV series are therefore less interesting and creative. About the only movie I know which used special effects in the way which they should be used is the LOTR series.
For all the special effects, some of the best programs on TV are cheap animations: South Park, Family guy, American Dad.
BTW, there is a great movie on a Phillip K. Dick novel. Robert Downey plays the lead. Can’t remember the bloody name, … Scanner Darkly.
I think many theses can and probably have been written about the special effects in sf films and telly shows. There’s obviously a difference in American-style effects, (which are intended to inspire simple belief and appeal to the primal emotions), and British-style effects (Dr Who era, which are more rooted in a stage and costume tradition).
I always liked the old Dr Who effects because they always communicate something – even if that message is, for instance, ‘here’s a green glowing piece of jelly slithering down the wall, it is obviously a scary alien species about to destroy the world.’
No one ever really criticised Hitchock for bad costumes and special effects, even though he draws on exactly the same traditions as Dr Who and many of the scenes – especially the murder scenes – are astonishingly hammy and melodramatic. Why is science fiction supposed to have ‘perfect’ special effects when other genres don’t have the same responsibility?
I have to say that as a kid, Dr Who terrified me, even though Dad would point out that the green seaweed beast emerging from the sea had a visible aqualung shape on its back. Sometimes just hinting at things, or showing an expression of horror on the actor’s face as he looks at the alien, is far scarier and more effective than showing a detailed CGI alien in all its glory.
I don’t know why people expect SF to have perfect special effects – it’s not necessary, and sometimes, it’s much better without them.
Here you go JH:
http://www.amazon.com/SOCIALISM-LUDWIG-VON-MISES/dp/0913966630/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1214882213&sr=1-2
Great read
Ludwig von Mises’ stuff can be downloaded from here. Other authors are there too – no scifi though.
Brilliant, thanks Sinclair, bookmarked.
I enjoy both the new and old series of Doctor Who, but the original had a special attraction for science fiction fans. Admitted, the special effects budget was around five pounds per episode, but the writers kept churning out complex stories and cultures. To my mind, this was the reason the Companion was so important. Since they couldn’t afford to show you everything that was going on, they needed someone to say What Is It, Doctor, so the Doctor could explain the bits you didn’t see. Which brought it a lot closer to books, in that your inner eye had to be the screen for a lot of what was going on. They even alluded to this process in a Troughton episode, with Jamie and Zoe as the companions, called The Mind Robbers, where what your inner eye saw from book sources changed the nature of the world. I kind of thought the recent episode Silence in the Library was at least partially a homage to that classic tale.
Turns out the Mars Trilogy has a wiki. Sasha Blumen is huge fan of the series – so I should let him know.
Pedro,
Don’t send me on wild goose chases.
Just finished Peter Hamilton’s “The Dreaming Void” and really enjoyed it. Started very slow and it almost got abandoned – but about a third of the way in it got interesting. There is a bit of ‘jutting bosoms” and naughtiness that is part of the story and delicate souls might be annoyed.
I’m a bit curious. Why is it that eliminating scarcity via replicators in science fiction is seen as a good thing that will promote non-material values, but when the Greens promote a Citizen’s Income in real life (giving all citizens a basic income regardless of status) it is assumed that this couldn’t work because people would NOT be inspired to work?
I’m a bit curious. Why is it that eliminating scarcity via replicators in science fiction is seen as a good thing that will promote non-material values, but when the Greens promote a Citizen’s Income in real life (giving all citizens a basic income regardless of status) it is assumed that this couldn’t work because people would NOT be inspired to work?
Mark Twain:
If work were so great the rich would have hogged it long ago.
Freud,
“The great majority of people only work under the stress of necessity, and this most natural aversion to work raises most difficult social problems.”
“Civilisation and its Discontents”, W.W. Norton, New York, 1961
Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals
John Gray
171
Humans are ill suited to the incessant labour and recurrent migration that go with farming. Cities were created from the yearning for a settled existence.
195
Nothing is more alient to the present age than idleness. If we think of resting from our labours, it is only in order to return to them.
In thinking so highly of work we are aberrant. Few other cultures have ever done so. For nealry all of history and all prehistory, work was an indignity.
196
For the ancients, unending labour was the mark of a slave. the labours of Sisyphus are a punishment. In working for progress we submit to a labour no less servile.
Well who says this is a good thing?
In any event, the Star Trek world where replicators have eliminated scarcity are unrealistic, the people there still work because of an academic curiosity about the world. This is somewhat different to how the majority of people might behave. Sililarly in Iain Banks Culture novels, scarcity is eliminated, but it is not clear what the majority of the population do or why they do it. The stories are always about the misfits encountering non-culture civilisations or artifacts.
Hey Sinclair,
The elimination of scarcity will not eliminate the need for status. Perhaps that will be the drive for most.
Maybe. Unproductive competition for status is likely to lead to some anti-social behaviour (I suspect). Think Judge Dredd and Mega-City One.
Damn right it will Sinclair, always has! Now you’re raising the possibility that the elimination of scarcity will do the exact opposite of what some think. Evil man … .
Not just evil, m’boy. Those enlightened progressive souls at the ABC called me ‘an evil bald fascist gnome’.
Also think first Matrix movie (please don’t think of the sequels). Agent Smith tells the Laurence Fishburn character about the previous Matrix that was a ‘golden era’ etc. etc.
I remember that ‘evil bald fascist gnome’ comment! What show was that on? Someone was clearly losing badly and decided to go through ad-hom and out the other side.
The comment came after the show on the discussion board. I was on “A difference of opinion’, specifically asked to talk about tax cuts in the context of ‘What to do with the budget surplus?’ Obviously we got into discussing spending the money on more welfare or the environment or spending on infrastructure. I stuck to my brief – and got roundly abused during and after the show
I also got heaps of emails congratulating me on my stance and at a function recently someone came up and thanked me for what I had said. So all good – and I love the comment ‘evil, bald, fascist gnome’. Ahh the impotent anger that lies behind all that hatred warms the soul.
Tolkien meets Wild Wild West, obviously. BTW have you been watching the ‘MichaelF’ meltdown over at the Cat?
I just saw it yesterday (I hadn’t paid attention to that thread) and Tim Blair has a post on it too. Quite extraordinary.
Back OT. The portrayal of women in comics usually involves a lot of jutting bosems – how well I recall my teenage crushes on Dream Girl and Princess Projecta of the Legion of Superheros etc. but yesterday I managed to pick up the graphic novel ‘America‘ – perhaps the finest Judge Dredd ever (I have lost – would you believe – the original versions). For Judge Dredd fans a must see and good portrayal of a female character.
LOST them? The originals would be worth a packet these days, surely?
Yes. Very annoying. When I came to Australia I left a lot of my comics (and books) at my parents house and on my return have found large gaps in the collection.
Another 2000AD female character worth reading is Halo Jones – awesome.
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