I've always hated it and I have the word of...I forget who...a great great novelist Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!..that SF fiction is written by people who cannot write properly and read by those who are mere genre readers of the same ilk as Mills and Boon. Sooo soo true. Lets look at the facts. Lots of SF books have the people in the future wearing smooth one-piece jumpsuits. Why? Seems the writers had something against ties, buttons, zippers, and skirts.
Ooh, a "great novelist" said it. Must be true. As opposed to readers of what? Really? That's a "fact" is it? Or is it something you've just made up, like other "facts" of yours? Even if true, jumpsuits automatically makes for bad writing/ literature? Thanks for the pointer. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Seems someone hasn't actually read much SF.
Oh really...seems someone has neither watched TV or read any SF books. Show me a few SF films that dont have daft costumes? In terms of SF visions of the future, it's often the small details that go wrong. As for actual howlers, William Gibson notoriously kick-started the cyberpunk sub-genre with Neuromancer despite a decidedly "limited" knowlege of IT. At one point he had a character with brain implants enabling them to interact directly with the global net ask about a modem, just because he thought the word sounded cool and technical... Try engaging the brain next time..prior to putting quil to paper ..ot finger to keyboard Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!)
Philip K. Dick is probably one of the best writers of all time of any genre. Sci-fi isn't just about costumes, it's a coherent world with no limits.
Thousands. Erm: Books, you said, not films. Sf isn't about prediction. Rubbish. Gibson might have made cyberpunk "famous", but John Brunner, Vernor Vinge etc were writing cyberpunk before the term was coined. Oooh, a writer got a word wrong... as most do. Yeah? Keep trying.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Some "great novelist" has an opinion and you agree. So this proves that all SF writers have poor grammar skills, and that all SF readers are only genre readers? Define "lots", first of all. Have you given thought to the idea that depending on what age the person lives in, might influence their idea of the future? I see. So then jumpsuits = bad writing? There's more to the skill of writing a book than what clothing a character is wearing.
This is, obviously, a matter of taste. It may seem strange to me that you'd dismiss an entire genre because of a quote of "a great great novelist" and a perceived overdoses of... costumes, but if that's your position, well, let it be. I adore well-written SF stories. They paint worlds which fire my imagination. They ask questions which intrigue me. They play that string in me which wants to investigate the unknown. Some of them don't even have that many costumes either. Take e.g. Asimov's Nightfall. Listening to that on Escape pod I consider to be an hour well spent. But that's just me.
Star Trek uniforms are shirts, trousers and boots. As is Babylon 5. Stargate is present time scifi, all the clothes are what you might wear. Serenity was a future-time scifi film with clothes being scarcely different from now. In Trek et al. jumpsuits are generally used by crewmen (who are the equivalent of mechanics on Naval vessels...the jumpsuits are for comfort). Skintight outfits are plot devices for aliens or sexy humans (like Trek's Seven of Nine). (Could you imagine Dr. Smith of Lost in Space in a skintight jumpsuit? Can we say ew? No offense to the actor lol) And that is different to the small details of current-time other-fiction how? Jessica Fletcher (Murder She Wrote) and Adrian Monk (Monk) for example often discover criminals on the smallest detail that they overlook. Often how a good story starts...a great title. Have you never picked up works by classic scifi authors such as HG Wells and Isaac Asimov? Or how about decent modern authors such as Peter David, Stephen King or Terry Pratcher? Arguably too, it requires more brain activity to invent new settings/characters/technology as opposed to copying existing ones then applying the story. Could you imagine the sleepless nights George Lucas or Gene Roddenberry endured to envision whole galaxies?
Ent, your forgetting John Bermingham. He wrote the Axis of Time Trilogy. Very, very, good. Its about a near future (January 23rd, 2021) Multinatinal Taskforce being thrown back in time by a weapons experiment gone wrong. They end up in front of the Allied Naval Taskforce the night before the battle of Midway. Needless to say, the people in 1942 have the shit scared out of 'em by weapons like metal storm, the F-22 Raptor, a (God-forbid) Hillary Clinton-Class supercarrier, named after her when she became president, guided missles, anti-missle lasers, giant subs, homing torps, and sub-nuclear plasma yield missles. You also get to see Yamamoto's, Einstein's, Roosevelt's, and Hitler's reactions to a next century force composed of Asians, Germans, Italians, Russians, Koreans, Americans, and ( from a country that didn't exist back then) Indonesians. Yes, I know, its very confusing. But you do get to see a japanese invasion of Australia, Hiwaii, and Indonesia as well as nuclear attacks on Poland, Berlin, Tokyo, Hiroshima, and several other places. Alos, did I mention that Hitler dies from a stroke?
P.K. Dick would of probably blown your little astrological mind considering he was a 'Deity' among men. I'm not saying this because I look up to the man but because technically he was a 'Deity' he created vast Artificial Worlds in an Artificial Universe. In fact there were some interesting article (perhaps even audio commentary) in regards to his feat of Literary Engineering, where he suggested (not in these words) that it's easy to dream a utopian dream and suggest a future with all the problems solved, however such a cloud with a silver lining rarely makes a good story. No the stories come from when these Utopian dreams are left unmaintained, when 'Old' technology is left to rack and ruin and how people 'Survive' around that. That's where the story is. Many of the greatest scifi authors have seemingly adopted similar strategies, Building vast worlds and allowing Entropy to reign over what was once a Utopian product.
His works have some identifiable connection with reality, someone else mentioned HG Wells. Both could have - and did in Wells case - written extremely well in other genres apart from Science fiction. I'm not sure even he would have regarded himself as a 'Deity' but yes, he was more than a Scifi hack.
Science Fiction allows imagination to flow with those who are confined in their ordinary world. I love sci-fi books
Yeah..P.K. Dicks chart is very good in that regard. A strong inner-life, very creative and independent. He's got an unusually positive configuration called rather obviously 'the kite'. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! There a strong emphasis on fire signs so he's confidently egotistical. I don't really know much about his everyday life but theres a dynamism there..to quote.. "able to assert your willpower, to go forward and ride against the tide, to reach your goals and your dreams. The relative negative traits of this element results in a kind of boldness and rashness that sometimes makes it difficult for you to stand back!.
Hmm, independent, confidently egotistical, dynamism, asserting willpower, ride against the tide... You might be interested to know that Phil Dick was a borderline psychotic/ schizophrenic paranoid who could barely tell reality from fantasy - hence the main theme of most of his books.
If you think it is all bad then why isn't it you haven't written or produced anything ? Why is it also that you keep reading and watching this rubbish?
Wait - you quote some astrological new-age earth goddess woo-woo nonsense and you criticise sci-fi for being silly? And don't you like, believe in God? Now who's into bad fantasy worlds? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
this is sci-fiction thread. romance fantasy worlds...with mistresses crying "honey, just not there..." is not a topic here
