Science Fiction is Obsolete?

POSTED BY: cljohnston108
UPDATED: Thursday, August 2, 2007 22:56
VIEWED: 7663
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FIZZIX

Tuesday, July 24, 2007 11:32 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
Quote:
Originally posted by SigmaNunki:

Probably has something to do with the average Sci-Fi person has /much/ higher standards than the average "other" person. Costs time and money to produce something worth while ya know

Ah, the elitist rantings of a true SF person.....

I agree Chrisisall

Very true. However, it's a mite disturbing that Discover is putting this out. I might have to go yell at them.

/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\
May not be smart, and it may not please you, but you're definitely gonna see what I have to say.
Put this in your sig if you had a favorite show that may have been named Firefly and was canceled by FOX.

JONGSSTRAW

Wednesday, July 25, 2007 12:22 AM

The recent "new" Outer Limits had a 7 year run, some produced with Showtime & some with Sci-Fi. 150+ episodes of usually great and imaginative sci-fi. Each week, a new exploration of sci fi, either out there in space somewhere, or right here on ole Earth...great stuff utilizing a wide spectrum of sci-fi themes...time travel, space travel, aliens, robots, mutants, war, ...and dozens of great, original stories. You may not like them all, but I would guess that most FFFs would like at least 2/3 of them. So why can't there be something like that now? A weekly trip to un-imagined realms with un-imagined concepts of life, to take me away from the little nasty world we have to live in every day.

CORNCOBB

Wednesday, July 25, 2007 2:09 AM

Radio Times ( a British Tv guide) recently ran an article about the new surge of unreality TV, about how sci fi fantasy property is now hot stuff. I couldn't agree more. Lost, Heroes, Dr Who, stargate - these shows are hugely popular. Several old sci fi series are being ressurected. Bab 5 soon and I'm sure Firefly won't be far behind All the big Hollywood money-spinners are now fantastical to some degree. Even in literature all the really famous authors are fantasy/ sci fi/ horror writers. Sci Fi / fantasy is in its prime. People are sick of being spoon fed moronic dumbed-down rubbish. The backlash has begun.

"Gorramit Mal... I've forgotten my line."

SIGMANUNKI

Wednesday, July 25, 2007 2:18 AM

@chrisisall:

LOL

But, IMO it'll only be elitist to those that can't make the distinction between pointing out a fact and being snob-y (e.g. the majority of people). Which I find quite sad.

Perhaps if we get really drunk and act like idiots (a la The Real World) before we say it, we'd have more "cred" and we wouldn't be snobs.

----
I am on The List. We are The Forsaken and we aim to burn!
"We don't fear the reaper"

ODDSBODSKINS

Wednesday, July 25, 2007 7:39 AM

I'm a terrible snob, and frequently spend my time too drunk to recognise my face in the bathroom mirror, so I'm pretty sure they aren't mutually exclusive at least ^^

They may think their sins are original, but for the most part they are petty and repetitive.

HUGHFF

Wednesday, July 25, 2007 11:00 AM

I can't say for certain who Bruno Maddox is, but I'm going to guess that he's a journalist who knows bugger all about sf. Let's look at some of his points and see how poor they are:

And with the exception, obviously, of this correspondent, we’re a fairly drab and subdued sort of bunch.
Arrogant git. How many sf writers has he met? I don't like him already. I'm particularly turned off by his pseudo-objective "this correspondent" bollux - tried his hand at Irony 101, failed.

I wasn’t hoping for Naomi Campbell in Vera Wang, just a few people dressed as Klingons, perhaps, or painted green, even very faintly, or even just in a nice houndstooth jacket or something, wildly gesticulating with the stem of an unlit pipe.
These aren't fans, obssessed with the worlds they inhabit; these are filthy pros. It's their job and, fantastic as their work may appear to us, for them to succeed they pretty quickly have to reduce it to the mundane of business or starve.

the towering French figure of Jules Gabriel Verne, a man with a better claim to being the Father of Science Fiction than anyone else
Verne's first sf was Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1864) followed by From the Earth to the Moon (1865) Mary Shelley is the true Father of science fiction (and yes, obviously she's the Mother; sf has no father and is a bastard) publishing Frankenstein in 1818 and The Last Man in 1826. Both are pure sf (one hard, one soft) and both were published before Verne's birth.

When he (Verne) wanted to send protagonists From the Earth to the Moon, he first had to figure out how to get them there. It was rocket science, literally, but the poor sap muddled through, eventually dispatching a three-man crew from a space center in Florida riding a rocket made of newly discovered aluminum at a speed of 12,000 yards per second.
Verne did not send them in a rocket ship, as anyone who has read him, or knows anything at all about sf, knows. Verne stuck them in a capsule fired out of a thumping great gun. His three man crew would have been smeared to a sticky red paste across the bottom of their drawing room vessel. How "that correspondent" can bring up Verne's spat with Wells over his unscientific ideas and not point out that Verne was immediately crucified by scientists for that very error shows he's a very poor correspondent, or at least a very lazy one.

Mary Shelley’s 1818 soft SF classic
He actually knows about this one having previously ignored it - he must have classic movies in his cable package. Trouble is, he's never read it or he doesn't have a clue about the state of science in 1818. The novel was HARD SF, inspired by Volta's experiments that demonstrated how electrical impulses could stimulate muscle contraction in excised frogs' legs. The conclusions drawn from this (that electricity could be used to re-animate dead tissue, returning the dead to life) while reasonable from the experiment are now ignored. None the less, this was state of the art science, reflecting the interest that Mary's husband Percy and his contemporary Romantic poets had in science. Ironically, The Last Man is softer sf, with the 21st Century apocalypse largely undefined.

Nor were SF’s gifts to humanity confined to the world of ideas. Space precludes a full listing here of every real-world marvel lifted straight from a work of futuristic fiction, but suffice it to say that an artificial Earth-orbiting satellite was depicted in the sci-fi short story “Brick Moon” by Edward Everett Hale in 1869.
The most damning proof that he's out of his depth. Anyone who's made any effort to examine sf knows that it predicts the future about as well as a bad fairground psychic, if you'll excuse the tautology. I have a suspicion it was Frederik Pohl who said that sf is as useful for predicting the future as a broken watch is for telling the time - for 1 minute every 12 hours, it's bang on. Honestly, how many dumb ideas have you seen in sf?

Why are the heirs to such a grand tradition dipping

SIGMANUNKI

Wednesday, July 25, 2007 3:30 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Oddsbodskins:

I'm a terrible snob, and frequently spend my time too drunk to recognise my face in the bathroom mirror, so I'm pretty sure they aren't mutually exclusive at least ^^

Ah, but "they" don't know that

----
I am on The List. We are The Forsaken and we aim to burn!
"We don't fear the reaper"

IMNOTHERE

Wednesday, July 25, 2007 11:09 PM

Quote:

The most damning proof that he's out of his depth. Anyone who's made any effort to examine sf knows that it predicts the future about as well as a bad fairground psychic, if you'll excuse the tautology.

What? How can you say that, when SF authors have given us the communications satellite (Clarke), the "star wars" Strategic Defense Initiative (Niven, Heinlein & Pournelle, allegedly), the water bed (Heinlein, kinda sorta) and ready-mixed donuts (E.E. "Doc" Smith)! I assume that Star Trek can take credit for the flip-top mobile phone, too.

I mean, OK, there's all sorts of stuff about electronics, quantum mechanics, flying Pan Am to the moon in 1999 and such that they got wrong, but who cares in the face of such glorious successes and an ample supply of reasonably priced deep-fried cakes!

Come on - the real space program only managed non-stick frying pans and million dollar ballpoint pens (and even those claims, after 10 seconds of research on teh interweb, turn out to be more wobbly than Heinlein's water bed)

Maybe SF has peaked. We just went from first powered flight to landing on the moon within a single lifetime, while also discovering the first really practical ways of wiping out the entire race. It would not be particularly surprising if the 20th century turned out to be the heyday of SF. Progress may not have stopped - but its getting a bit incremental. "Hey, now you can get your entire record collection in your pocket instead of a suitcase!" doesn't have quite the same shock and awe as "Gadzooks, mister Edison - some sorcerer has trapped a miniature orchestra in your commode!" If someone does invent the matter transmitter or warp drive we'll be like "whatever".

Mind you, three years ago I wouldn't have believed that the sport-nature-and-jane-austin obsessed British Broadcasting Corporation's flagship Saturday night and Christmas Special show would be Doctor Who... but then that is a 40 year old show.

GREYSTOKE

Wednesday, July 25, 2007 11:43 PM

What? Have you been living under a rock? Get out and read some modern Sci-Fi not some stupid tripe by H.G Fkn Wells. That cunt lived in the steam age! Read some Alistair Reynolds or Stephen Baxter to name but two. Kim Stanley Robinson is also an excellent read if only for his Mars series. With all the breakthroughs in technology these day's only an idiot would say Sci-fi's dead. Nanotech, Genetics, The Hubble? Quantum Mechanics? Get a Clue......And stay Shiny! Cheers.....

It's All Gravy Baby!

JONGSSTRAW

Wednesday, July 25, 2007 11:48 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Greystoke:
Have you been living under a rock? Get out and read some modern Sci-Fi not some stupid tripe by H.G Fkn Wells. That cunt lived in the steam age! ......And stay Shiny! Cheers.....

Nice mouth
Nice respect to a sci-fi icon
And stay shiny of course....Browncoat?..I think not by a long shot.

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