Space Opera Fans discussion
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When did sci-fi start living up to today's standards?
The answer to that is never or since forever, as it is 100% subjective. If you don't like sci-fi, then authors have never gotten their crap together. If you do like sci-fi, authors got their crap together when you began enjoying sci-fi. My favorite books are all of Neal Asher's and all of Alistair Reynolds.
Where were they crappy? People that don't like science fiction generally haven't read science fiction.I agree with Jonathan's comments. (I like Alistair Reynolds, too.)
I'm asking because I generally like new sci-fi, but the really old stuff feels really old and dated. But for people who feel that you either like or don't like sci-fi and every sci-fi book is wonderful per definition, this discussion may not be very meaningful...I'm just fishing for people's opinon on when they subjectively felt that sci-fi went from 'old and dated' to 'up to today's standards' (and the transition period in between).
I tried to make it easier by asking about the three parameters: interesting ideas, action and character development, because in my view, because neither of them can dominate without ruining the other two, and the reader's ability to immerse himself in the book.
It seems to me that the oldest sci-fi is generally weak on character development, with the more philosophical sci-fi often lacking sufficient action and progress to really keep you interested.
One early author I personally like is Ursula Le Guin, because she is exploring some interesting subtle humanistic questions and generally have good character development, on the other hand she seem a bit weak on the action side, because not much is actually happening in the books I've read:
"Roccanon's World" (1966) was basically a boring fantasy story, "the Dispossessed" (1974) is interesting but still weak on action, and "The Word for the World is Forest" (1976) was quite good imo.
Edit: I just changed the title of the discussion from "When did sci-fi stop being crappy and start living up to today's standards?" to the current one and changed some stuff in the original post in an attempt to avoid provoking more fights ;)
Maybe it always lived up to the day's standards. I think one thing is that science fiction is limited by what the current science is. Therefore, the older stuff may feel dated if technology has already proved it wrong. Also, it seems to me that science fiction also reflects the societal worries of the time (i.e., the cold arm, the nuclear arms race, cyberwar...)
Since you changed it, sci-fi has always been what the modern reader enjoys. Every genre changes over time to reflect the tastes of the majority.
Since there are lots of "modern" SF that I don't like, and many old ones that I do, I can't see making a sensible answer to your question. Your expectations and mine are probably, and very logically, not the same.
Again, I'm not reading sci-fi to get a historical perspective on what 'current science' was fifty years ago, not what the standard of books or the taste of the majority was at that time.I'm looking for opinions on when sci-fi matured to something people would consider an entertaining read today, by today's standards.
There are plenty of books in the world, and once you're out highschool mandatory readings, there is no reason to get bogged down with something that you don't really enjoy.
I think you need to take a historical perspective. Books written today are to today's standards. Books written 20 - 30 - 40 years ago are written to those standards. You could ask the same question tomorrow or 1,000,000 years from now and the answer would be the same.
It is going to be very subjective. I would say that the 1980s and onward are when sci-fi books became very similar to the style that is written today. That is about when the preferred sci-fi story format was predominantly the novel instead of the magazine. There are definitely standout stories before then dating back to Wells, but the worth of those stories today is going to vary by person.Which modern sci-fi do you really like? We might be able to help identify books from the past that are similar enough in their character development, action, and cool ideas to still be enjoyable today.
Also, have you exhausted the modern crop of sci-fi already? There are a ton of books published each month in the genre (see SF Signal's list posts for proof). No matter how high someone's standards are, the quantity of output is high enough that they will probably never lack for things to read that they will like. This is no guarantee that some lemons will not slip through the filter criteria, of course.
It was when Scifi authors starting getting paid big money. When Scifi became big box office.I would estimate the mid 1970's.
Brandon wrote: "Which modern sci-fi do you really like? We might be able to help identify books from the past that are similar enough in their character development, action, and cool ideas to still be enjoyable today."I'm still pretty open to suggestions. Generally, I'm not that picky if the idea/action/character combination works.
Brandon wrote: "have you exhausted the modern crop of sci-fi already? There are a ton of books published each month in the genre"
No, but I'm not buying books either, so my choice in books is limited to bestsellers or classics that have been around for long enough to be picked up by libraries... For instance, I'm not participating in the october read, because none of the books were available :(
That's the reason for my interest in later classics: Finding stuff that is old enough to have spread sufficiently, without being too old to be boring.
Here is a metric ton of free Kindle books:http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Ki...
They can be read on any tablet, media phone, your PC or laptop.
I'm gonna say the 1980s, with the popularization of "Ender's Game," "Andromeda Strain," "Jurassic Park," and the establishment of some more popular female authors, such as Octavia Butler, Catherine Asaro, and Lois McMaster Bujold. Personally, I have trouble with the values dissonance of Golden Age sci-fi, written in the 1930s - 1970s.
Sci-fi written before the 1930s doesn't bother me that way. I think that in some ways, the Victorian era had less of a sexist attitude than the 1950s--because men weren't threatened by the possibility of women and minorities gaining equal rights. It just wasn't on the table. Therefore, in some ways, authors like H.G. Wells treated female characters with more respect than authors like Edgar Rice Burroughs.
I have to be in the right mood to enjoy something from another era, though.
I'm not sure what is meant by "today's standards" (or, for that matter, the prior title of "not crappy"). If you mean 'not outdated science', you'd probably have to limit yourself to stuff released this decade. Though, even then, 'events' could outrace book publication. And a book 'just published' or in the publication queue could end up being outdated upon publication or before publication.
I don't think there's a good point in time. There are boring, dated novels mixed in with good ones from every period. For example, I'd recommend Frankenstein and H.G. Wells but not say Burroughs or EE Doc Smith.So, it is a case-by-case basis. I would highly recommend:
Earth Abides, George Stewart
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley (if you haven't already read it)
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Robert Heinlein
I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
War of the Worlds, HG Wells
However, there are plenty of Heinlein and Asimov books that I would say you can skip due to reasons you explained above.
I have trouble with a lot of books and short stories from turn of the century up until the 40s, but that is just my bias. I tend to prefer reading classics after 1945, with the above exceptions.
[popcorn time]The very question presupposes an answer based on your own subjective view of what is acceptable to modern readers...i.e., what's acceptable to YOU. You're the only one who can answer that.
Also, the question can be interpreted as pretty arrogant, presuming only today's books are any good or of any literary worth. That, only now, can science fiction be treated with respect. I have to say that is pretty offensive to me.
The Golden Age obviously heralded this shift, but in my humble opinion it was the refinement of the New Age in 1970s (as Martin also said) that truly made sci-fi into a genre of timeless and thought-provoking literature. On the shoulders of giants, of course.
Micah wrote: "The very question presupposes an answer based on your own subjective view of what is acceptable to modern readers...i.e., what's acceptable to YOU. You're the only one who can answer that"No, I'm actually asking what you, and everybody else in the group, as modern readers individually and subjectively feel works for YOU, right now. Not which books were good fifty years ago or will remain good a million years in the future (somebody else can create a similar thread at that point and get some answers that are relevant to that time period).
Btw. thanks to Jonathan, Brenden, Brandon, Martin, Abby and Wesley for getting into the spirit of the topic, suggesting books and dates :)
Kirsten *Dogs Welcome - People Tolerated" wrote: "Also, the question can be interpreted as pretty arrogant, presuming only today's books are any good or of any literary worth."
I'm not saying they have no literary worth, but they are different from what you would expect today, and as abby wrote above, you "have to be in the right mood to enjoy something from another era."
When I'm NOT in that mood, I want to avoid those books because they really don't deserve me getting annoyed at them.
Yes, but books written in 1942 were written for the people living THEN. This whole question is ridiculous. If you want to read a book that is written per today's standards, you have to be living TODAY!A better question is something like: "I really liked The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin, can you nominate a book like that?"
It's not when did sci-fi authors start writing books like that? That's easy! Check the publication date!
I think there's such a thing as "the zeitgeist of an era." IMO, novels written in 2005 to 2015 will have more or less the same appeal to today's readers, with no chance of dissonance due to being written in a different era.
But novels written in 1895 to 1905 will be much harder for today's readers to relate to.
I think Neils is asking something like: "At what point do you think the switch happened?"
I'm not looking for one definitive answer or one clear-cut date, because a) the quality of author's work will vary during their career (like Ursula Le Guin's early Rocannon's World I mentioned not liking above), because as Wesley points out "There are boring, dated novels mixed in with good ones from every period.", and
b) their productive years will naturally overlap (Asimov and Clarke were still winning Hugo Awards in the '70ties and as late as 1983 for a Foundation novel no less, two years before Neuromancer and Ender's Game).
What I'm fishing for is a kind of zeitgeist: When did things start to change into what it is now, who were the (new) interesting authors, how long did it take etc. and I find the discussion and people's suggestions interesting in themselves.
EDIT: Yes, precisely Abby, zeitgeist and switches :)
Kirsten *Dogs Welcome - People Tolerated" wrote: "This whole question is ridiculous. If you want to read a book that is written per today's standards, you have to be living TODAY!"Since I am in fact living today, your statement makes absolutely no sense!
Conversely, it makes perfect sense for me to ask when books began resembling something like the kind of sci-fi books published today, because I maybe want to read one of those tomorrow (not fifty years ago, and I'm not asking people to compare them to whatever books may be published in a million years, today).
This is often one of the major drivers of historians and archaeologists - to understand where we are coming from - and at which point in time stuff changed significantly. So where's the harm in having such discussions?
Niels wrote: "Kirsten *Dogs Welcome - People Tolerated" wrote: "This whole question is ridiculous. If you want to read a book that is written per today's standards, you have to be living TODAY!"Since I am in f..."
It doesn't make "perfect sense" because only you can know the set of parameters you are using to define a "modern" SF book. The language/slang/idioms, the technology, the political/social outlook, the fashions, etc.
When you take in books written today that are set in an earlier period and where the author has taken the effort to recreate the details of that period, it becomes nearly an impossible task unless you are more specific in regards to what the important differences are *to you*, thereby setting common parameters for the "study" that everybody can agree upon.
Kirsten *Dogs Welcome - People Tolerated" wrote: "A better question is something like: "I really liked The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin, can you nominate a book like that?"This may be a simpler question to answer, but also a bit boring... And since I haven't read The Three-Body Problem, the answer wouldn't be very useful for me.
Similarly, I consider reading Ringworld (1971) and Rendevouz with Rama (1974) - they are newish by Martin's standard (1970ties "when Scifi authors starting getting paid big money"), on the other hand, judging by the authors, reviews I've read, as well as Brandon and Abby saying the change didn't really happen until the 1980ties, they will probably not suit my taste.
I know I'm mixing a lot of elements here, but still, there must be a zeitgeist hidden somewhere within it.
Niels wrote: "No, I'm actually asking what you, and everybody else in the group, as modern readers individually and subjectively feel works for YOU, right now. Not which books were good fifty years ago or will remain good a million years in the future (somebody else can create a similar thread at that point and get some answers that are relevant to that time period)."I really have no idea what you are asking.
I rather liked 1984, and feel it "works" today. And that book is from 1949. Asimov's Galactic Empire books seem to "work" today. They are from the early 1950s. Flowers for Algernon was pretty damn impressive, and it's from 1958. And 'works' today.
V.W. wrote: "it becomes nearly an impossible task unless you are more specific in regards to what the important differences are *to you*, thereby setting common parameters for the "study" that everybody can agree upon."For a group of people who presumably enjoy sci-fi for its openminded approach to playing around with novel ideas, I'm surprised at how rigid and narrow people feel this discussion ought to be... But if you want parameters, I've actually defined mine a couple of times now as a proper balance between "the components interesting ideas, exciting action and engaging character development, in a way today's readers has come to expect"
But I think it is interesting that you propose a whole different set of parameters that I normally don't really notice, unless they're too jarring (like the annoying future-slang in Cloud Atlas).
V.W. wrote: " The language/slang/idioms, the technology, the political/social outlook, the fashions, etc."
Maybe people have more suggestions as to which parameters define "modern" sci-fi?
I agree! Maybe it's time to move on to another topic!
Wow...I've never seen so many people on a discussion board try to actively kill discussion. Give the guy a break! Maybe next time politely ask him what he means by "modern" rather than leave all these unnecessarily rude answers.
I am tending to agree with the two of you. I am not sure that Niels' question can be answered. If I were to list my favourite authors the only contemporary one in the list would be Turtledove. If I had to state a date then I would say the 50s, when the slick magazines with their higher standards and also their higher pay rates began to accept SF (Playboy published a lot of SF and it paid at least twice what the pulps paid). This was also the decade in which The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction began publication and it's submission standard was fairly higher than most of the pulps (Astounding probably being the exception, and possibly Weird Tales, but it was run on a shoestring usually so it couldn't be too picky).
Wesley wrote: "Wow...I've never seen so many people on a discussion board try to actively kill discussion. Give the guy a break! Maybe next time politely ask him what he means by "modern" rather than leave all ..."
Probably would have helped if he hadn't started the conversation with basically "everything before a certain date is crap that I don't want to read. Please help me figure out what that date is when "things turned around"."
Then never defined what "turned around" means, or "works for you" or anything really. "which books and which authors are worth checking out" is too broad of a question.
Technically? All of them, if you are just going to leave it broad. All of them are worth checking out. Worth reading? Well, you didn't ask that. But checking to see if a specific book peeks your interest? All of them.
I'm not trying to crap all over the discussion. The question is decidedly closed-ended. A good question is: Do you like any works published decades before you began reading sci-fi? Do the earlier works measure up to what you began with?
"Do the earlier works measure up to what you began with?" - the first things I read were the early stuff.
The thing is I don't think there is a point at which one can say this is the precise moment when things "turned around" and got better. SF like most cultural forms has evolved. Somebody does something, the someone else comes along and builds upon that and so on ad infinitum.
The way I see it, I belong to the group that prefer newer sci-fi compared to old sci-fi. I was curious to hear similar people's opinion on when they feel the change happened.Initially, around 5-6 people tried to be constructive once they got the idea behind starting the topic and actually suggested some time-periods and/or interesting authors.
Then a bunch of people came in and messed things up by lecturing me with some variations on:
"Your question does not make sense" (making me fall into the trap of trying explain my question)
"There is no clear boundary" (gee wiz, I knew that, if I could just look the date up on wikipedia, it wouldn't be interesting to ask people about their OPINIONS is on when it happened).
"You are an infidel for liking some sci-fi better than other because all sci-fi should be appreciated by it's own merit" (I don't want to read all sci-fi, background reading about the history of sci-fi from 1823 onwards - I'm not a historian, so I'm not obliged to slog through all of it)
"Just read all the sci-fi from the beginning and form your own opinion" (that's what I'm trying to avoid)
"This thread is going nowhere"
I'm sick and tired of explaining the question and defending my right to ask it.
I didn't want to exclude anyone, because I honestly thought people here would be willing to engage in a constructive debate, but maybe I should have posted a big fat disclaimer in the first post:
If you don't feel that the question is makes sense, is possible to answer, or relevant to you in particular, DON'T waste everybody's time by coming in here and start a fight over it.
I don't know what interesting things we could have learned from discussing this topic, but right now it's out for the count because the people that took the question (semi?) serious have left while the haters are just hanging around a bit to give it a good kicking while it's down and bleeding.
Niels I understand your question (and possibly where you are coming from) but as I have said I just don't think the answer you want exists. SF has changed as the years/decades have gone on. There is no one point in time when it changed from being this to being that. For instance the fact that the science in science fiction should be more in tune with reality really started when John W. Campbell took over the editing of Astounding Science Fiction. Campbell wanted the science to be believable (with certain exceptions such as FTL flight) and with less of the bombastic. So that is one change. And it goes on to the point of where we are today.I am not saying you don't have a right to ask the question, I just am not sure anyone can give you the answers you want.
I think it was said much earlier in this thread. The question can't be accurately answered because of the answers relativism. For example, what he seems to consider "crap" I consider classic Sci-fi. I don't read Sci-Fi from the 1800's because what little I read just was not that interesting to me. OTOH, authors like Heinlein, Asimov and Clark are among my favorites. He would apparently see their works as "crap." The answer to his question is, "It started gettin good when you discovered that you liked it." And that makes it relative.
I don't think it was so much the old sci-fi was 'crap' as it's now hopelessly outdated because technology has advanced so much in the past century. A few classics, such as The Time Machine, has aged well because we haven't figure that out yet, but I'll read pretty much anything.
I think with some subsets of sci-fi - space opera is a prime example - there was a point when new writers (for space opera, Alastair Reynolds, Peter Hamilton, Iain M Banks and others) came along and refreshed the archtype from something that had become rather stale. Where technology is key to the story, sci-fi tends to date very quickly. Sci-fi that looks at the social side - Ursula le Guin has already been mentioned - stays relevant longer.
I am guessing that the Danish library system works a lot differently from the US system. Here, we get books in the libraries close to the time of publication, and they disappear from shelves as people use and abuse the copies over time. The most popular and classic books are reprinted and purchased by the libraries again.I glanced at your book ratings, and it appears we have pretty dissimilar tastes, so trying to recommend books and authors may be futile.
One good resource to try would be bestsciencefictionbooks.com. They have lists of the best science fiction by era. They tell you the reasoning behind each choice, and there are also crowd-sourced lists that cover the same periods. This may give you a better idea of when the types of books you prefer started being published.
Thinking about the question some more, it was in the 1980s and 1990s that we started getting cyberpunk (Neuromancer=1984) and the internet/cell phones in most households (mid-1990s). Besides writing becoming more modern, new real-world technology and genres transformed the science fiction landscape considerably.
I am pretty sure the US is similiar to our library system in Canada. Over here there is no one national library system because the country is too big. Rather each community or region has its own system. Each system does order its own books. Books usually arrive a few weeks after going on sale.Libraries order books based on what they know people are wanting to read (for instance an author whose books have a couple of hundred holds on them get ordered automatically). The Vancouver Island Regional Library (the system I use) also allows people to suggest items to order. Less books get lost and damaged (our librarian said at one meeting a book is usually good for 100 borrowings). As well our library has CDs and DVDs to borrow. If the Library doesn't have a book in its catalogue (which covers all the branches) then we can place an Inter-Library Loan request for an item and they will see if there is another library in the country that has the item and will loan it to our system for a period of time. I have used the ILL system several times myself. Including the URL for the home page for the system in case you aren't sure of my ramblings and would like to see for yourself
http://virl.bc.ca/
Brandon mentioned a website in his post. I checked it out and it does look really interesting (in fact I bookmarked it in my books and magazines folder). For anyone who doesn't know about it and would like to check it out here is the link to make it easier for you.http://bestsciencefictionbooks.com/be...
Background info for clarification:I'm actually a trained archaeologist, and within archaeology you have these prehistoric periods with transitionary periods in between where things gradually change, perhaps over 50-500 or more years, and then everything is different.
So when I asked when things changed, I wasn't expecting something like "the date of the Battle of Waterloo"-kind of an answer, but more like "when did you begin to notice the change and when was it complete".
One of the reasons why things changed so slowly was usually that one generation had to die and pots and utensils had to get worn out before the newer versions took over completely, so of course I was also expecting major overlaps (because sci-fi authors from different time periods have quite a lot of overlap, for instance Ursula Le Guin started writing decent stuff in the 70'ties while Asimov was apparently still active in the 80'ties).
Btw. I think it's interesting that some of the classic sci-fi fans now start discussing sci-fi from the 19th century, because that indicate more interesting periods (and transitionary periods) in the sci-fi literature development.
Suggestion: when people mentions books, can you please mention some tentative dates? I'd love to hear when people feel space opera was refreshed for instance.(Archaeological typology is all about establishing relative dates, so this refreshment may be coninciding with cyperpunk, the emergence of certain authors, and then you start seeing a pattern)
>> I'd love to hear when people feel space opera was refreshed for instance. Personally, I don't think it's refreshed, yet. I think (well, hope) that's coming within the next 20 years!
Space Opera Fans
Books mentioned in this topic
1984 (other topics)Flowers for Algernon (other topics)
The Three-Body Problem (other topics)
So when do you guys think that sci-fi developed into something a modern reader would appreciate (wihtout having to constantly excuse it's shortcomings with its historical significance or simple nostalgia)?
When did the sci-fi authors get their stuff together and start writing decent stuff that properly balanced the components interesting ideas, exciting action and engaging character development, in a way today's readers has come to expect?
Is there a particular decade where things turned around
And which books and authors are worth checking out in your opinion?