This question was posed by the Guardian Book Blog today at http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblo...

You'll want to read the posting in full, but the final paragraph of the piece reads as follows: The walls that defined speculative fiction as a genre are quickly tumbling down. They are being demolished from within by writers such as China Miéville and Jon Courtney Grimwood, and scaled from the outside by the likes of Michael Chabon and Lev Grossman. And they are being ignored altogether by a growing number of writers with the ambition to create great fiction, and the vision to draw equally on genre and literary tradition to achieve that goal.

I thought this group might have some potential for response.

For decades now the walls have been mostly in the minds of critics, and those are disappearing because the old critics are disappearing. The newer critics have grown up including SF in their mix of reading. In the Chicago Tribune, the lead book critic, Julia Keller, and the lead movie critic, Michael Phillips, frequently and casually reference written SF accurately, fondly, and critically.

Not exactly on topic, but my grandfather used to make fun of Dick Tracy's watch when I loved the comic back in the 60's. He said it was a ridiculous idea & it would never happen. Now you can get one that's even better than DT's for $200. Kind of post SF to me.

http://www.itworld.com/mobile-amp-wirele...

Saw the article, thought it could only have been written by someone inside the genre. We can see the boundaries blurring, but to the world at large we're still a little ghetto of nuts and weirdos. And no amount of protestation by us is going to change that. We've had quality writers working in the genre for decades - some have been ignored (Aldiss), some have decamped to the dark side (Ballard), and some no has ever been able to figure out what they are (Moorcock). Kingsley Amis and William Golding were both fans. And it's not made a jot of difference. Any literary writer who uses a sf device is not writing sf - as they are more than keen to point out. Sf is not "cult", as that stupid programme the other night on television had it. It has not been a fringe mode of fiction since the 1980s.

Message edited by its author, Oct 14, 2009, 4:37am.

Given the technological realities, both in terms of the state of tech and its pace of change, we're now in a sci-fi world. So the idea of a separate sci-fi genre is otiose. It's like literature written by fish having a "water" genre.

A Post SF world represents a failure of the imagination, an endemic problem here in US and apparently, with regard to the shape of the future, in other countries as well. We no longer believe in a positive future. Our futures are now made of dystopia and fantasy. Sort of like the Bush years. We have competing visions of the future being worse than the past.

Maybe one of the problems SF has is its inability to see a positive future. We humans make up stories about the future to try it out. Maybe we should start trying out more positive futures rather than negative ones. What's wrong with some travel into the higher zones of the universe? Is the ultimate positiveness of Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy the reason it remains a favorite after all the childhood works wear thin? We don't have to invent dark, gloomy futures. Let's invent some futures that let in the light.

BTW, we do NOT live in an SF world.

"So the idea of a separate sci-fi genre is otiose." As I said, SF is an amoeba swallowing everything in its path.

Of course, Carny, that explains your economics. It's all Science Fiction. Economics that attempt to grapple with real issues of everyday life are just plain otiose, what with every day occurring in a Science Fiction world.

Once you've drunk the Kool-Aid of relativism anything can be made to conform to our Science Fictiony world.

Message edited by its author, Oct 14, 2009, 12:56pm.

6: You could say the same about every decade since the 1960s with respect to dystopia and fantasy. The last (and perhaps only) truly optimistic period of genre fiction was the 1950s.

Maybe that's part of our problem?

9: I don't know. I think it might simply be part and parcel of science fiction. I think Arthur C. Clarke said something like, "fantasy is what I hope will happen, science fiction is what I fear might actually happen".

As to whether we are living in a science fiction world, I remember an exchange between Zoe and Wash on Firefly. When discussing the implications of River being modified in an attempt to create telepathy, Wash is incredulous and an exchange something like this follows:

Wash: Telepathy? That's some real science fiction stuff.
Zoe: Dear, we live on a space ship.
Wash: So?

The point is, people never live in a "science fiction world". To them, their surroundings are normal, and thus not science fiction. On the other hand, my hand held Blackberry probably has more computing power than all of NASA had in 1969, so the bounds of "normal" surely have shifted.

Message edited by its author, Oct 14, 2009, 1:08pm.

>7 Gene, I'd love to disagree with you...If I had the faintest idea what you're talking about.

And we DO live in a SF universe, from the standpoint of a couple of decades ago.

There are universes of meaning in #7. Just think of my favorite themes and all will come clear.

> 11

Sure, but the question is from the standpoint of today. Going post-sci fi seems to indicate that there's no more technological progress left to be had. After seeing how much the world has changed in just my lifetime (and I ain't that old), I think that's just plain silly.

Is being post SF the same as being at the end of history? That's a pretty narcissistic view, isn't it? When I was a child I used to believe that science would come to the ends of some of their threads, such as biology and physics. Hah! Every answer drags with it fifty more questions. SF, like history will continue, the issue is will we have the imagination to pursue it. I suspect the post SF position says no, we don't have the imagination. What a shame.

A failure of imagination does not equal the end of SF. It just signals a failure of imagination.

Going post-sci fi seems to indicate that there's no more technological progress left to be had.

That wasn't what I meant.

Is being post SF the same as being at the end of history?

That wasn't what I meant.

Cf. comments re: fish, water.

Well I am not deep or anything like that, I refuse to ponder on the imponderable, to me it is all too easy to figure out. I can't see the difficulty in defining what is what.

In a nutshell - science fiction is in space or on earth in the future which may or may not be technologically advanced and may or may not have robots and super computers. An element of truth prehaps? It may happen so is science fiction.

Fantasy has mythical creatures in it. A world full of elves, fairies and trolls is less likely to happen, probably won't.

So if an Elf is in a spaceship? Fantasy. A robot wandering through a forest? Science Fiction!!

Anything that goes bump in the night and is not a robot or elf - is paranormal.

No Walls - no problem - its either one or t'other :)

I've heard people argue that SF which includes an FTL drive is Fantasy. (I don't really care.)

I do think there is a tone difference in SF from previous decades. Some of that has to do with sophistication. The genre has grown up. Writers have to make more of a point than a shoot 'em up on an alien planet or boy rescues girl from a BEM that wants to eat her.

A lot has to do with our rapid growth in technology. Our sense of wonder is constantly being pounded by real world innovation. The Dick Tracy watch I mentioned is a perfect example. It was unthinkable to me as a kid that I'd ever see a real one. I'm only 50 & could easily afford to buy one now! My grandmother went from no electric or water in the house to playing DVD's before she died. It's pretty tough for SF to compete with that.

The last big waves of SF that made an impression on me were computer/virtual worlds & nanobots. Well, Gibson's cyberspace doesn't seem too far out any more & nanobots have been done a lot - too much. New frontiers in science are very technical & are getting tough to put into form that captures the public's imagination.

#2 "For decades now the walls have been mostly in the minds of critics"

Yep, I think that nails it IMOHO after only reading the excerpt posted in #1. Of course there is a lot of filigree you could add to it as evidenced here at LT.

BTW for those of you who think "otiose" is pronounced "o toose", it is not!! It is pronounced : ˈō-shē-ˌōs. Not that I had to look that up myself!!! { I have always known that...really!!}, my avuncular side just came out and I would not want anyone mispronounce the word and embarrass themselves. ;-)

We can't be in a Post Sci-Fi world, nor can we ever be. Science fiction is about what can be, what could have been and wasn't, and what never was nor could have been. Science fiction is not the here and now.

19: rojse - i have to agree with this.

and for those who say we live in a post sci-fi world from the view point of a couple decades ago, well, that is true for every decade.

No. Consider the year 4,000 BC compared to the year 3,900 BC.

Science Fiction IS the mainstream now. The late Michael Crichton proved this. It makes me sad. I fondly remember the days when SF was a cosy little genre.

#22

I'd like to see SF become more widely accepted, myself. I'd like to see more well-renowned authors attempt their own works informed by SF ideas and themes. I'd like to see our current crop of SF authors get more widely read, reviewed, and published. I'd like SF authors to be less stigmatised for being SF authors. I think a wider acceptance of the SF genre could well be a good thing for the genre itself.

And back when SF was a "cosy little genre", much of what was published was, to be honest, shit. Certainly, some of my favourite books come from the golden era, but weigh that against stereotyped characers, major inconsistencies in plot and setting, and cliched plot ideas.

There's still a lot of shit being published now and, sadly, that's what people think of when they think of sf. It's Star Wars novelisations and David Weber and mil sf and all that Boys In Space With Awesome Guns that is the public face of the genre. And because the furniture they use is the common identifier of sf, the genre's reputation will never change.

While the popular view is media driven, the critical view of SF is not, and it even understands the difference between Crichton and SF. A review of Prey in, as I recall The New Yorker, pointed out how the storylines in Crichton's books return things back to normal at the end, while the storyline in true SF is permanent change.

25: That's why I'd classify Crichton primarily as writing techno-thrillers, and only to a lesser extent maybe science fiction.

24: I think the primary public face of the genre is visual media, not books. In other words, the public face of science fiction is the Star Wars movies, not the novelizations. Look at the roster of science fiction (that is identified as science fiction by the public, not things we call science fiction like Flash Forward that the typical person doesn't). The remakes of Battlestar Galactica and V, The Chronicles of Riddick, the various Star Wars movies, the Alien movies, the Predator movies, and on and on and on.

Sometimes you get filmed science fiction that tries to include something other than starships blasting each other and heroes with laser guns in their narrative - witness things like Babylon 5, Farscape, and Firefly, (even the remade BSG to some extent, although I didn't like the series more and more as it went on), but even they have to make concessions to the conventions, because otherwise they aren't "science fictiony" enough without the battles and blasters.

Star Wars novelizations are the least of the problem.

24: iansales - Hey I like David Weber. Well, some David Weber. I don't really his Honor Harrington books.

This highly condescending article about Jack Vance would suggest otherwise: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/magazi...
And then there are the authors and publishers who react quite strongly to their work being described as science fiction.
Although I say good riddance, their work is usually bad (seemingly written for no one but literature critics & professors) and their knowledge and understanding of the 'genres' development is nil (which might otherwise improve their craft).
But who'd want to claim Atwood anyway?

I offer any cartoonist out there this scenario:

Heard on an alien squid chat show: "Of course my work isn't science fiction. That's just talking monkeys in space."

I an beginning to get the urge to picket Ms. Atwood's appearances in a giant squid suit and loudly accuse her of speciesism.

Only if the people who said this 10 years ago, and 20, and 30 were right, too.

Given they can't all be right, it is pretty dumb.

I would like someone to present the requirements of a "post Sci-fi world", the template we could hold up to see if it fit the present.

I can only think myself it would have to be a world without people in it.

Even if we could believe that some point might one day be reached where innovation stops because everything has been thought, invented, and even speculated, why would that be the death of Science Fiction?. I think "Science so advanced it is like unto God" is actually a trope of Sci-fi, not its death knell, and I think we have a way to go before we reach it anyway.

The linked article in the opening post seems to be saying that, simply because some of the more entertaining ideas of Sci-fi stories have popular appeal, Sci-fi is over and done with. That is like saying "Sushi restaurants are everywhere now, people will stop eating fish!".
And any article that considers China Melville a sci-fi writer, is desperately wrongheaded.

Science Fiction can never become post as things wil be invented in fifty or a hundred years or more that some science fiction writer is at this moment writing about. If the human race stops thinking of new things it will be because we as a race no longer exist.

As long as there is fiction, there will be speculative fiction because there will always be new frontiers of thought and human experience. Science and technology may continue to advance but there always be questions left to ask.

Oh, I admit, it's hypothetically possible that in some distant future we may know absolutely everything and there will be no questions left and humanity will be in some static, unchanging state but that's going to be so far in the distant future that it's a moot point.

However, I think the question raised is less about whether there are still questions left to ask and more about how society perceives science fiction.

The lines haves always been a little blurry when we consider authors like Kurt Vonnegutt or Michael Crichton, who books clearly contain science fiction elements but are usually stocked in the the general fiction section. As more recent authors blur the definitions further, it seems as if we're seeing a general fiction gentrification of the science fiction ghetto but, in reality, we're just seeing the ways in narrow delineation is never completely effective was trying to classify works of human imagination. It's simply becoming popular to play in the borderlands right now and not just in the land between science fiction and general fiction but between many, many genres. The rise of urban fantasy and vampire romance novels should make that obvious.

But this does not mean that the categories are going to disappear. Simply that trends in writing drift all around the landscape, dancing back and forth along the borders between genres, nudging those very borders as they do.