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Science Fiction Is Dying. Long Live Post Sci-Fi?

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Re: Science Fiction Is Dying. Long Live Post Sci-Fi?

#71

Post by mancerayder »

One recent phenomenon for me was falling in love with Tchaikovsky's Children of Time trilogy, which explores very long-term colony ships sent out with thousands of cryogenically sleeping people of various skillsets, and planets seeded with a virus that artificially causes non-human beings to develop a certain kind of intelligence of being able to transmit complex ideas to each other, leading to technological evolution. There's so much depth to this series it's breaktaking.

So when I finished the books and explored his fantasy series (City of Lost Chances?), I had to check three times that I in fact had the same author. It's full of regurgitated fantasy tropes, the writing and characters seem simple, and there's a forced world building with what feels like an infinite and boring back story, with no movement to justify it.

Maybe the author was trying to capitalize on the fantasy popularity? His sci-fi is otherwise genius.

Re: Science Fiction Is Dying. Long Live Post Sci-Fi?

#72

Post by bigstrat2003 »

crooked-v wrote: post #42
readthenotes1 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You've just described a substantial part of Star Trek, before even considering the rest of the genre.

Actually no, he hasn't. Star Trek (back when it was good) worked because the writers were smart enough to trust the viewers to draw their own conclusions. They would set up a dilemma, let the characters give arguments on both sides, and then not openly take a side. Even when you could guess which side the writers were on, it almost never felt like they were lecturing you like a child.

I am perfectly happy for science fiction to offer commentary on social issues. That's one of the strengths of the genre! But to do that, you need to be subtle and lots of modern authors don't even try to be subtle any more. And as a result, their attempts at social commentary are absolutely insufferable to sit through.

Re: Science Fiction Is Dying. Long Live Post Sci-Fi?

#73

Post by bigstrat2003 »

komali2 wrote: post #57
throwpoaster wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially with Trek.

Do we need to keep reminding people that Star Trek depicted the first interracial kiss on television? Star Trek was always woke, over corporatization has just been sanding all political and social messages down to a corporate approved interpretation, aka boring, stupid, and not nearly inflammatory enough.

No, Star Trek was never "woke" like it was today. The writers actually were willing to depict moral dilemmas and let the audience members draw their own conclusions. These days they openly preach at the audience and then wonder why nobody wants to watch their stories any more.

Re: Science Fiction Is Dying. Long Live Post Sci-Fi?

#74

Post by Frotag »

mancerayder wrote: post #71

One recent phenomenon for me was falling in love with Tchaikovsky's Children of Time trilogy, which explores very long-term colony ships sent out with thousands of cryogenically sleeping people of various skillsets, and planets seeded with a virus that artificially causes non-human beings to develop a certain kind of intelligence of being able to transmit complex ideas to each other, leading to technological evolutio…

> It's full of regurgitated fantasy tropes, the writing and characters seem simple, and there's a forced world building with what feels like an infinite and boring back story, with no movement to justify it.

Maybe it's because he published 7 books that year (2021). Maybe it's also a coincidence that I remember not liking Children of Memory and he published 6 books that year, compared to Children of Time which was 2015 / 2 books.

Also just checked and looks like the fourth book (Children of Strife) is releasing in 2 weeks!

Re: Science Fiction Is Dying. Long Live Post Sci-Fi?

#75

Post by crooked-v »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #72
crooked-v wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've just described a substantial part of Star Trek, before even considering the rest of the genre.

Actually no, he hasn't. Star Trek (back when it was good) worked because the writers were smart enough to trust the viewers to draw their own conclusions. They would set up a dilemma, let the characters give arguments on both sides, and then not openly take a side . Even when you could guess which side the writers were on, it almost never felt like they were lecturing you like a child. I am perfectly happy for scienc…

Star Trek openly took sides from the start, unless you think the episode with the people who are half-black-half-white and the people who are half-white-half-black counts as "subtle".

Re: Science Fiction Is Dying. Long Live Post Sci-Fi?

#76

Post by ivraatiems »

api wrote: post #49
ivraatiems wrote: post #34

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…

The prevailing narrative is that the optimism collapsed because the real future didn't turn out like we hoped, but I don't think that's it. A lot of very optimistic sci-fi was written right after two world wars. I think it's more of a stylistic conceit. If it's not dark and edgy, it's not profound . Personally I think dark and edgy (or variants like pessimistic and bleak, or depressing and fatalistic) is the cheap ea…

> If it's not dark and edgy, it's not profound.

I think this is exactly it, and it's frustrating, because some of the most profound works of science fiction are things like Star Trek, which are idealistic and hopeful. They still raise questions about humanity and morality and philosophy that are deeply interesting and worth engaging with.

Re: Science Fiction Is Dying. Long Live Post Sci-Fi?

#77

Post by firegodjr »

mosura wrote: post #22
arcticfox wrote: post #8

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.

Yeah, with who is doing space exploration being right up there. If it is us it isn’t going to be in our organic bodies, and this renders so much of it irrelevant. Wider society will likely pigeon hole their thinking on that next to concerns about the heat death of the universe, but for a lot of us it is disappointing. I did wonder about what it would be like embodied as a space probe encountering an alien that had al…

I'd be very interested in any recommendations in that vein. I've been really enjoying the themes of embodiment in the new Marathon, where your body is disposable, woven silk with unfamiliar organs, while your consciousness is totally owned by a corporation.

Re: Science Fiction Is Dying. Long Live Post Sci-Fi?

#78

Post by dj_rock »

btown wrote: post #65

I don't know what sales numbers look like, but from my perspective as a casual reader who's been trying to keep up with Hugo Award nominees of recent years... science fiction may not be trendy on BookTok, but it's far from dead. Sure, fantasy has "corrupted" the Hugos, but there's plenty of hard science fiction, and science fiction that grapples with societal questions at large. Arkady Martine's Memory Called Empire…

Project Hail Mary is getting a major movie release in a couple weeks.

Re: Science Fiction Is Dying. Long Live Post Sci-Fi?

#79

Post by frm88 »

mancerayder wrote: post #71

One recent phenomenon for me was falling in love with Tchaikovsky's Children of Time trilogy, which explores very long-term colony ships sent out with thousands of cryogenically sleeping people of various skillsets, and planets seeded with a virus that artificially causes non-human beings to develop a certain kind of intelligence of being able to transmit complex ideas to each other, leading to technological evolutio…

I completely agree. Tchaikovsky's at his best in the standalone novels, sci-fi or otherwise - I feel that his series are written with an eye to generate a long lasting income whereas his standalones are where he explores new ideas,which makes the vastly more interesting to me. Cage of Souls, Alien Clay and Service Model are some of his finest.

Re: Science Fiction Is Dying. Long Live Post Sci-Fi?

#80

Post by frm88 »

Frotag wrote: post #61

Funny timing, I was just thinking about this over dinner while scrolling the wiki list on [clarke / seiun / nebula] awards for the thousandth time. > [Post-sci-fi is] free to allow the science fictional elements of their stories develop slowly, to emerge only in the latter half of the text, or to remain an isolated thread in a larger tapestry, all of which are anathema to genre-machine publishing, which generally wan…

Never Let Me Go and Klara and the Sun are both fantastic. The first is exploring the life's of humans that are only bred to be organ donors to the rich and the second the life of a robot after it was deemed unuseful. In the same vein as Klara, a superb book is Sea of Rust by C. Robert Cargill.
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