Comment by patrickyeon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by patrickyeon | Hacker News Reader

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> The thing with Science Fiction is that it's hardly a genre. As Asimov shows in "The CAves of Steel", it's mor ofa set of conventions about setting and style

I respectfully disagree. Yes, a lot of writing gets lumped in as "science fiction" because it has space and robots and lasers, but you can look for science fiction as a genre. I define it as fiction that explores questions raised by developments in science and technology. "Do Androids..." was clearly sci-fi, dealing with questions about what it is to be human, but also about if we could create souls, etc. (As an aside, it's a direction of thought I really wish the new BSG would've focused more on, as opposed to mythology/political thriller)

William Gibson has been consistently good with writing what I describe as science fiction. So was Neal Stephenson (Cryptonomicon, Diamond Age, even the System of the World trilogy). Conversely, Star Wars would not be considered science fiction, just fantasy with spaceships.

"I define it as fiction that explores questions raised by developments in science and technology."

Yup. A lot of people think that SciFi is about technology - but it's not. It's about people, and how they can react to said technology.

So you would say "The Caves of Steel", "The men in the high Castle", "Flowers For Algernon", "The Right Hand of Darkness" and "Star Trek" are part of the same genre? I can't really agree with that, I can't not call any of those Science Fiction.

I have not read any of the books, and watched very little Star Trek, to be honest. Maybe I should distinguish "literary science fiction" and "pop science fiction" (without making any value judgements, I thoroughly enjoyed Star Wars 4-6)? If you want to deal with Asimov specifically, I can speak to what I remember about the Foundation books, which dealt with the outcome of being able to accurately model/simulate/predict societies, to the point of setting events in motion so as to shape a society thousands of years out from now.

I consider that 'literary' science fiction, just as I do the earlier mentioned Cryptonomicon, even though there were no futuristic technologies in it.

Well the Star Trek franchise had an episode touching on the ideas of the rest of them...Data playing Sherlock Holmes, a planet run by Nazis, temporary acquisition of special abilities and The United Federation of Planets. [Star Trek is the Kevin Bacon of SciFi]

You missed "The Right Hand of Darkness". And I admit I haven't watched too much Star Trek. But I think the point still stands that this works are clearly of different genres, and still it would seem wrong to say any of them isn't science fiction.

If you're referring to Le Guin's "The Left Hand of Darkness," I would propose that the Hainish universe's Ekumen and Star Trek's Federation share a similar flavor. Moreover, both bodies of work engage in speculative anthropology, although Le Guin's treatment has, in my opinion, considerably greater philosophical depth. This is not necessarily to dispute your contention, but just to point out that they share thematic elements beyond just the science fiction umbrella.

Why do you think The Man in the High Castle is Sci-Fi? Is it just because it's an alternate-history story?

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