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Is it really science fiction if the author gives direct explanation of how the knew technology works? I'm thinking primarily of stuff like Michael Crichton's books. Most of his stuff really seems like sf, but some of it is highly plausable because he goes through such lengths to explain the technology in real-world terms. I rarely, if ever, find him listed among sf writers, or his novels in the sf section of the bookstore. I'm curious because a novel I'm just starting falls somewhat in this category, and I'm not entirely sure if it's science fiction or not.
Posts: 292 | Registered: Feb 2004
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Michael Crichton is definitely a SF writer. He's just not labeled that way. Don't worry about it. As Survivor said on another thread, just tell your story. Worry about what it is during discussions with the publisher.
Posts: 932 | Registered: Jul 2001
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Yeah, Crighton's books aren't usually considered SF because they're marketed to the neo-Luddite crowd rather than the SF crowd. Which is funny because "mad scientist" stories are perfectly respectable within the SF community...so they could easily be marketed as SF.
But the neo-Luddite crowd is more "respectable" with the non-SF literary world. And Crighton himself tends towards neo-Ludditism anyway.
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Kurt Vonnegut doesn't like to be labeled as an SF writer either, and his books are rarely in the SF section at your bookstore. Yet the masses consider many of his books and stories SF classics.
Personally, I consider Crichton and Vonnegut to be SF writers, even though bookstores do not. At the same time I've come to consider Saberhagen and Bradbury to be fantasy writers, despite bookstores shelving them with the SF. Their stuff is just so darned soft.
In my eyes a story becomes fantasy the moment it violates the laws of physics or probability. An example of the former is mental telepathy. Of the latter, aliens whose technology is within forty millions years of ours.
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You mean within forty million years in advance of ours, right? Because we only have a few thousand years of technology in the other direction. If we meet intelligent aliens more primitive than ourselves, then probably they'll have developed sticks and rocks and stuff. Heck, we've met other species on our own planet that have figured those things out, and we don't even bother to call them intelligent.
Posts: 8322 | Registered: Aug 1999
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I mean if all the elements of a near-future story are integral but could be swapped out for current, or even past scenarios, does that invalidate the story?
I feel like it doesn't. For instance, in the last issue of Asimov's there was a story with rebels set on a pioneer world. It would be fairly easy to recast the story in the US during the Revolutionary War. Substitute aliens with indians, tree houses with log cabins, shags with pack horses...
On the other hand if you look at Nightfall, there's no way that story could be converted to anything on earth. But they are both SF.
In my eyes a story becomes fantasy the moment it violates the laws of physics or probability. An example of the former is mental telepathy. Of the latter, aliens whose technology is within forty millions years of ours.
I think you're on track with the first sentence in the above quote. What you're describing sounds more like the difference between hard and soft SF rather than SF and fantasy.
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