41–50 of 116 posts
Scifi, like most literature, was supposed to give us dreams about what we could do with what we found, or even dream about what is there to be found (IMO), so its demise leads us to a point where we're no longer dreaming?
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>scifi >I don't want to hear about politics or sexuality How actually familiar are you with the genre?
Perhaps instead, the complaint should be that the reader should not be lectured about politics or sexuality in a ham-handed self-righteous insertion completely irrelevant to the rest of the story.
I stopped reading Sci-Fi, it's just all dystopia and even when it's about a Utopia it's mostly about how it crumbles like with the Terra Ignota Series. We live in a dystopia, we need some utopian ideas, enough of the gloom and doom that ends up being a self-fulfilling prophecy..
The problem is, tales of the land of the happy nice people doesn't make for much of a story, or “. . . the newspapers of Utopia, he had long ago decided, would be terribly dull.” ― Arthur C. Clarke, _2001: A Space Odyssey_
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It's fun to talk to an LLM yourself, but when I come upon someone else's output my eyes glaze over. I'm fine if an author uses AI to help them outline the book, brainstorm ideas, but I want the actual book to be written by a person.
How will you know?
I stopped reading Sci-Fi, it's just all dystopia and even when it's about a Utopia it's mostly about how it crumbles like with the Terra Ignota Series. We live in a dystopia, we need some utopian ideas, enough of the gloom and doom that ends up being a self-fulfilling prophecy..
The problem is, tales of the land of the happy nice people doesn't make for much of a story, or “. . . the newspapers of Utopia, he had long ago decided, would be terribly dull.” ― Arthur C. Clarke, _2001: A Space Odyssey_
> Agent Smith tells Morpheus that the first, "perfect" Matrix failed because humanity requires suffering, leading them to create a simulation based on the "peak of your civilization"—1999. Smith highlights that the machines actually took over during this era, making it their civilization rather than humanity's. The choice of 1999 provided a stable,, yet inherently flawed, era characterized by 90s technology, post-Cold War optimism, and, crucially, the necessary amount of human misery to prevent the simulation from failing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>scifi >I don't want to hear about politics or sexuality How actually familiar are you with the genre?
Perhaps instead, the complaint should be that the reader should not be lectured about politics or sexuality in a ham-handed self-righteous insertion completely irrelevant to the rest of the story.
The politics and sexuality were always in these stories. They were just more familiar, so they don't seem as self righteous. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is a classic example of a story with sexuality and politics in old timey sci fi.
I have a hard time reading sci-fi these days because the rapid advances of AI have altered or closed off entirely a lot of the futures that I would find most interesting. I have a hard time seeing much other than computers in the future. Maybe stories like the Hyperion Cantos with the AIs in the TechnoCore largely fighting amongst themselves over the future of humanity are still intersting to me.
The passage about audio books that works by having a camera above your book and someone remotely reading it to your headphone, is entertaining.
And 3d tv was a success.
Nevertheless, still a great story.
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How will you know?
If my eyes glaze over! For now output has a very programatic feel. Maybe not later, who knows?
I'd really enjoy a return to classic space opera. I think a world where technologies like AI actually work out okay to some extent is a) closer to fiction than the alternative, and b) more interesting than another dystopia. I'd enjoy a swashbuckling noblebright adventures-in-space thing way more than yet another treatise on Technology Bad right about now. That said, I don't know that I think sci-fi as a genre is dyin…
Personally I think dark and edgy (or variants like pessimistic and bleak, or depressing and fatalistic) is the cheap easy way to look profound.
I think that works because humans have a negativity bias. Bad news feels important. Mockery and drama and calling people out gets social attention. Conflict is thrilling even if the reasons behind it are ridiculous or cliche.
Optimistic works don't get free bonus points from the amygdala, so they have to stand on their own. An uninteresting optimistic work is incredibly dull, even cringey. But a very mediocre boring pessimistic work can still seem deep.
Edit: I'm not saying dark works can't be good. Lots of them are. I'm just saying it's much easier to sell (aesthetically or commercially) a mediocre work if it's dark and pessimistic than if it's bright and optimistic. In brighter settings the flaws show more easily.
Good sci-fi has always been few and far between. I love sci-fi, but I also dislike a lot of it because a lot of it's not well written from a prose craft or character depth point of view. When it is, it's probably my favorite genre. I feel like we're lucky to get one outstanding sci-fi book or series per decade. I'll rattle off some notable books and films/TV (or in some cases both) from the last 20 years. Some of the…
99 percent of everything is crap. SF is no worse than anything else?