That’d be an example of making the error I’m trying to point out here. “Science fiction” is not “fiction about science”; the term has a long and varied history and in point of fact, no single, well-defined rigorous use has predominated. Indeed, there are so many currents, subgenres and subsubgenres contained within the umbrella term that it’s simply not very specific. Here are a bunch of big names in the field offering different ideas about what constitutes science fiction; when you read it, keep in mind it’s a small slice of the pie.
I’m not sure whether you’re agreeing with me or not. I was bringing up the lack of science in science fiction as an example of the sort of thing you were talking about.
I read a lot of discussion of “what is science fiction?” on usenet. [1] There were two results for me: a theory that people base their prototypes on strong emotional experiences, but don’t recognize that it’s their internal process, so they think their idea of “real science fiction” is an objective fact. They get very upset when someone else makes a strong claim that real science fiction is something else.
Actually, I do the same thing. I know someone who believes that science fiction is optimistic. How can he say that Kornbluth and Dick weren’t writing science fiction?
The other thing I learned from those discussions on usenet was that I want to avoid discussions of “who’s a Jew?”. I have successfully avoided them.
Oddly enough, there was one successful definitional discussion—it was settled that milsf is science fiction about people in a chain of command. This explains why I don’t like milsf generally, but do like Bujold’s Miles stories.
[1] Is Pern science fiction? It has dragons! On another planet! The dragons are telepathic and can teleport, but (perhaps as a mercy) people tended not to get into the question of whether psi should count as fantasy.
That’d be an example of making the error I’m trying to point out here. “Science fiction” is not “fiction about science”; the term has a long and varied history and in point of fact, no single, well-defined rigorous use has predominated. Indeed, there are so many currents, subgenres and subsubgenres contained within the umbrella term that it’s simply not very specific. Here are a bunch of big names in the field offering different ideas about what constitutes science fiction; when you read it, keep in mind it’s a small slice of the pie.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_science_fiction
Here’s a map of the history of the genre. Take note of its variety:
http://www.wardshelley.com/paintings/pages/jpegs/histSciFi-mid1smweb.jpg
I’m not sure whether you’re agreeing with me or not. I was bringing up the lack of science in science fiction as an example of the sort of thing you were talking about.
Possible incorrect pattern-match, then—I’ve heard been party to a few too many genre-definition squabbles.
I read a lot of discussion of “what is science fiction?” on usenet. [1] There were two results for me: a theory that people base their prototypes on strong emotional experiences, but don’t recognize that it’s their internal process, so they think their idea of “real science fiction” is an objective fact. They get very upset when someone else makes a strong claim that real science fiction is something else.
Actually, I do the same thing. I know someone who believes that science fiction is optimistic. How can he say that Kornbluth and Dick weren’t writing science fiction?
The other thing I learned from those discussions on usenet was that I want to avoid discussions of “who’s a Jew?”. I have successfully avoided them.
Oddly enough, there was one successful definitional discussion—it was settled that milsf is science fiction about people in a chain of command. This explains why I don’t like milsf generally, but do like Bujold’s Miles stories.
[1] Is Pern science fiction? It has dragons! On another planet! The dragons are telepathic and can teleport, but (perhaps as a mercy) people tended not to get into the question of whether psi should count as fantasy.