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In Science Fiction, some awards have become almost meaningless as they came to be dominated by interests other than the pure enjoyment of a truly good story. The Hugo Awards, for example, have descended into a left/right catfight. They have become as meaningless as a Nobel Peace Prize.
Some, like yours truly, have entirely stopped reading about awards after getting burned once too many times and rely almost entirely on word of mouth or serendipity to find new authors and worthwhile books.
Our recent discussion of "The winners of the 2018 Hugo Awards" brought the idea (from bzipitidoo) that perhaps Soylent News could do a better job of pointing out new works of Science Fiction that could be of interest to soylentils and janrinok supported the idea, going so far as offering a kidney to the best author. (I think he's British, so he might have meant a kidney pie. [Not true, but funny])
Mind you, we would need to separate Science Fiction from Sci-Fi, Fantasy and other genres that have been mishmashed into one by most publishers and awards organizations.
So what do you think? What is the best new author/book in Science Fiction?
(Score: 3, Disagree) by qzm on Friday August 24 2018, @01:25AM (7 children)
No, sorry you are wrong and history clearly shows that - you seem to be WAY too focused on semantics.
I suspect you also have not read much space opera..
Space opera is a common form of Science fiction - and many of the Science Fiction greats have written it..
As in Hard Science fiction - another common sub-genre, and probably closer to what you seem to be focusing on.
There are quite a few perfectly valid sub-genres.
Dragons flying around carrying princesses who are rescued by knights with magic swords 'in the future' is not Science Fiction.
Of course this will all end badly because certain groups cannot accept that they do not CONTROL.
(Score: 2) by sgleysti on Friday August 24 2018, @02:48AM
Apropos of nothing, I will seize this opportunity to drop the opening lines of the Operating Thetan Level III materials from Scientology:
Very space opera indeed.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by jmorris on Friday August 24 2018, @05:35AM (5 children)
Yes, many of the greats indulged in it, especially in the pulp days, for one very good reason: It pays. Many of the old masters were pure mercenaries like that. Some apparently enjoyed doing it, and why not? There should be an audience for a variety of stories, including space opera. A lot of stories though have space stuff and futuristic looking things and still can't really be called science fiction. Unless you are one of those weirdos who insist Star Wars is Science Fiction.
I'll go farther and really get a fight started. A lot of Star Trek isn't either. Hell, half of the scripts for ST:TOS are thinly rehashed plots from other genres crudely shoe horned into space and the structure of Star Trek. But another huge tranch of episodes and a lot of other so called "science fiction" isn't for another basic reason. Science fiction is about "what if", speculation about the future, consequences of new tech, ideas, etc. When a story uses a futuristic setting as a vehicle for social commentary about the present, nope, out of bounds. And there goes another huge tranche of Star Trek episodes.
Another example would be Futurama. Not Science Fiction. It might be set a thousand years in the future but every episode, every regular trope, every gag is a commentary about now and the science fiction genre, fandom, etc. of the time it was made. It is a meta commentary / satire / comedy or something else hard to classify.
To be clear, political commentary IS in bounds, the intersection of the future, technology and the social and political ramifications are entirely in bounds and drive a good chunk of indisputably good hard science fiction. But it must be forward looking, asking "What if", whether as either a positive possibility or a cautionary tale of a possible future to avoid, it must always be about a "what if" at the core of the story. If it is preaching a message for political change today it is not science fiction.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @09:00AM (1 child)
You just took away all the meaningful scifi, including all dystopias. What use is there imagining the future if not to play scenarios of "what happens if...?"
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Friday August 24 2018, @05:04PM
If it is just projecting political trends for the "what if" it isn't Science Fiction, it is Political Fiction. or just a drop the pretense and call it a political tract packaged as fiction. Atlas Shrugged comes to mind.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Friday August 24 2018, @07:04PM (2 children)
There goes H.G. Wells' The Time Machine.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Friday August 24 2018, @08:33PM (1 child)
Pretty much. Although the idea of time travel in it was the seed for a lot of other authors, and it is certainly a pivotal literary work, it is not itself Science Fiction. It was entirely a vehicle for social commentary on the time of the author. Science Fiction as such really hadn't been invented yet, literature was just beginning to explore "speculative fiction" and getting the ground rules established. Some of Well's other works qualify. If judged on the time it was written I'd even give Frankenstein the nod as Science Fiction, the science just didn't hold up well. Turned out we were a LOT farther from creating life than it was plausible to believe at the time she wrote the book.
And to be honest, the number of times a time travel story has been even close to logically consistent is a very low one, even within the constraints of the particular fictional universe's concept of how time travel 'works.' Many try, almost all fail badly. Time travel in the synopsis is a huge red warning sign of major suckage to come.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday September 03 2018, @11:35PM
Verily, the rare time travel stories that get it consistent -- with whatever rules they use -- are true marvels.