Space Opera Fans discussion
Reader Discussions
>
Is Space Adventure on the brink of a renaissance?
The problem with Sci-Fi (and the use of that term was at one time, and maybe still is, a political statement) is that various fans approach it from various directions/attitudes/etc. I recall getting into a discussion back in the seventies with some fellow enthusiasts. I was of the opinion that a good SF story required plot, characterization and all that other stuff. They were of the opinion that as longs as the science was good that was all that mattered.
John, that's why, as a writer, I took a 15-year detour into crime fiction. If I read one more story that was a thinly veiled rehash of something the author heard Bill Nye (who was transitioning from standup comedy at the time) said, I'd throw the damn book across the room.
IMO books without good characterization and plot are not worth reading. If a book has both it doesn't matter what it's about really, it's probably going to be good.
Abby wrote: "R., I agree. Some of the strengths of Sci-Fi over Fantasy are:
- Higher stakes possible
- The rules of science/tech allow the reader a chance to solve problems before or along with the character..."
I take your point about consistent invented magic. Holly Lisle does this extremely well in "Secret Texts", she's one of the few "Magic System" writers I can tolerate. However I don't agree on power imbalances. I've always had different societies at different levels of technology in mine. This is mainly because the more advanced ones keep stuff secret so that they can make shedloads of money selling the products. There is a passage in the WIP where Jane describes a restaurant as "Almost next door". To Luke this means the next village. To Jane, with access to a spaceship, 14 lightyears is almost next door.
Actually a lot depends on how you use the magic. Jack Vance came up with the idea that a magic user could only remember a certain number of spells at a time, and once he or she used that spell it was wiped from their memory and couldn't be used again until they memorized it again.
[...] I don't agree on power imbalances. This is mainly because the more advanced ones keep stuff secret so that they can make shedloads of money selling the products.What's to stop spies from learning the secrets? What's to stop enemies from stealing the technology and reverse-engineering it? Even high level security can only work for so long. Eventually, any enemy with sufficient motivation and intelligence will figure out how to crack the codes and create their own nuclear weapons, or what have you.
Only inherent/intrinsic power (like magic) can't be overcome with spies and reverse engineering. If magic users are a ruling class, you can make them as dumb and decadent as you want. They don't need safeguards against enemies. I think that makes for a more dramatic power imbalance.
John wrote: "Actually a lot depends on how you use the magic. Jack Vance came up with the idea that a magic user could only remember a certain number of spells at a time, and once he or she used that spell it w..."I don't know who Jack Vance is but that solution just seems so dumb. Could you see the same thing being said of any other form of intelligence or skill? What if a doctor could only remember so many cures at a time. He helps one patient overcome her breast cancer but now he cannot help another breast cancer patient until he goes to medical school again and relearns what must be done all over again.
It makes no sense for any other person practicing any other vocation, and it makes no sense for magic users either.
The spells weren't so much memorized as they were loaded into your brain, like loading a gun. The runes of the spells themselves were magical and tried to force themselves into the mage's mind. More powerful wizards could use more powerful spells, or a larger number of weaker ones.So, it explicitly was not like any other vocation.
For those who wish to learn more about Jack Vance here is a link to the Wikipedia entry on him. Probably the best place to start. As far as books go I suggest "The Dying Earth".https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Vance
The Dying Earth/Mazirian the Magician, which is the same book, was super impressive to me. Not many fantasy writers inspired an entire sub-genre or had their ideas "borrowed" as often as Vance has.
Abby wrote: "[...] I don't agree on power imbalances. This is mainly because the more advanced ones keep stuff secret so that they can make shedloads of money selling the products.What's to stop spies from le..."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murano_...
The quick answer is that this is where Space Opera could and should be different. It's only too easy to take an Earthside spy story and move it into space without realising that the differences in scale completely change the rules.
In my SF the killer tension is that five "slowboat" colony ships leave Earth with the colonists in suspended animation, but one colony develops FTL and becomes an interstellar trading empire (The Arcturian Confederation).
From then on Arcturus is trying to hang on to the FTL monopoly, various other people are trying to pinch it or duplicate it.
So how can you pinch the technology off the confederation? Attack a parked spaceship. It doesn't work, because the ship is designed not to let it happen. Get to the St Barbara spaceyards and pinch the drawings? You can't even get to the right solar system without the technology you are trying to steal.
It's not like organising a WW2 commando raid to steal something off the Nazis. The distances are so great, and the mechanics of interstellar navigation so difficult you can't do it.
This leaves independent development and unfortunate leaks, or as Jane puts it:
'Don't flatter yourself that this is a new situation—from time to time someone does invent the orthodynamic drive, quite independently of us, and we always get them.’ And they're usually a half light year from home, with an imploded drive kernel—handling an improvised drive is a very tricky business. As they've no way of fixing it they're only too happy to be picked up. Particularly as the next thing that happens to them is the “starchase protocol”, which involves a lot of congratulatory back slapping, champagne and smoked salmon in the day cabin, and a really good offer of a job at St. Barbara. Nobody ever seems to turn it down.
As to leaks:
‘The whole story. You must know how she talked Peter into lending her the handbooks for his ship-’
‘Peter?’ interrupted Spence. ‘You mean Peter Dean, the deserter?’
‘That's him. Peter was really nasty, and thought she wouldn't understand a word of it, being a girl, but she did, she memorised all the wiring diagrams for the oh, what's the word, you know, the faster-than-light thing.’
‘Orthodynamic drive.’
‘That's it. I told him how she rewired it so that it blew up and they had to come back for the other ship, then she wrecked that one as well. He said she must be one amazing girl, and I said she was.’
Of course most of it is taken care of by the "Protocol of Interstellar Law" to which every colony is a signatory. Basically this gives the colony access to interstellar travel- Arcturus will run scheduled services in return for the colony not permitting anyone to work on developing a rival system.
It is of course a totally outrageous stunt by the Confederation. But from their point of view it is a nice little earner, it's lasted centuries even if it can't last much longer, and it has one really good side effect. Jane again:
Jane giggled. ‘But of course, that's the point. On the one hand the confederation is entirely self appointed and has no legitimacy for any of its actions whatsoever. On the other it's the organisation that's put a complete stop to warfare for five centuries. Which way would you like to look at it?’
That's what I've done and it seems to make sense.
John wrote: "Actually a lot depends on how you use the magic. Jack Vance came up with the idea that a magic user could only remember a certain number of spells at a time, and once he or she used that spell it w..."So is that where the idea came from for D&D magic users? Or was it the other way around?
AndrewP wrote: "So is that where the idea came from for D&D magic users? Or was it the other way around? "Yup! Dying Earth was published in 1949. Magic systems that work like this are called Vancian Magic after Vance.
Regarding the possibility of espionage and reverse engineering:Unless you have some sort of ansible-technology like in the Enderverse allowing instant communication, it simply isn't possible to hack someone or easily monitor their development, because you simply don't have an interstellar internet, because you'd have to carry information via courier-ships.
Unless you have extremely fast and cheap FTL, most systems would gradually develop into little self-contained islands of technology, and given enough time, economic differences and possibly access to alien technology, science could quickly become indistinguisable from magic.
Regarding defectors:
Even if you got away with a spaceship, it is not certain that the one's paying you for it woud be able to understand or produce a copy if they're too far behind technologically. Furthermore, companies generally have many trade-secrets hidden in their production processes, so you'd have to steal the full specs of every component from mulitple organisations, and propabaly also descriptions of the production process.
You may steal a cake, but you need higher technology to measure what ingredients went inside it and even higher technology to figure out how the ingredients was handled. So if the recipe is already beyond you, they will probably move on to something significantly more advanced while you're puzzling over their weird alien technology.
The bulletin-board communication in Vernor Vinge's Zones of thought-universe may seem quaint, but I think he really pulling some interesting plot elements out of limited communication and different technological levels.
Niels wrote: "Regarding the possibility of espionage and reverse engineering:Unless you have some sort of ansible-technology like in the Enderverse allowing instant communication, it simply isn't possible to ha..."
My thoughts exactly. In my universe the only person who got away with copying a spaceship was a renegade space pilot who'd been flying them for years and stole a full set of Technical Reference Manuals.
One of the reasons YA Fantasy took off was because [*blech*] Twilight played upon tween girl's first great love in all the angsty obsessiveness typical of that age group. We might hate the sparkly vampires, peeps! But when your kids start picking their own books, they want to read about a central character who looks and thinks and acts like them. And then of course, they read all the books in the series. Then they find the next closest book that is similar to it in genre and read all THOSE books. And then they keep reading that genre on and on and on.We might not think MUCH of pre-adolescent hormones, but I think they had a lot to do with the current success of certain genres of YA Fantasy, and I think Sci-Fi can capture some of that market share if they cater to that 'Tween' girl market.
And they -ARE- doing that. :-) Fifth Wave movie is coming out and they're catering to that demographic big-time in preparation for the release. Maybe we'll start getting some young women in this community? That would be nice. It would give my 13-year-old a book buddy.
My 12 year old son is heavily into Rick Riordan's fantasy novels. In fact he's even gotten me into reading them. From them he has branched out into other similar novels.
I think Sci-Fi can capture some of that market share if they cater to that 'Tween' girl market.I hope so.
Personally, I don't believe I would have liked "Twilight" even when I was a 13-year-old girl. At that age, I was a fan of Stephen King and Anne Rice, and I disdained SFF because none of it seemed to speak to me. This was in the 1990s. Tolkien, Heinlein, and Edgar Rice Burroughs struck me as sexist. LeGuin and L'Engle seemed vague. I saw kids my age reading R.A. Salvatore and David Eddings, but since they were 100% boys who wouldn't invite me to their "Magic: The Gathering" tournaments, I figured I wasn't the audience.
That all changed when I discovered "The Wheel of Time" and "Game of Thrones." I've been a major SFF fan ever since.
I think there's a lot of room for epic SFF adventures that appeal to girls and boys alike, a la "The Wheel of Time." Look at anime.
Getting back to "Twilight": A comparison might be V.C. Andrews, who was popular with girl readers when I was growing up. If that had been all there was, I might have stopped reading altogether. I've always wanted depth in fiction.
So there were the girls who loved V.C. Andrews, and the girls who loved Anne Rice. To counter-balance Stephanie Meyers and E.L. James, we need another Anne Rice. Preferably not an off-kilter one.
John wrote: "My 12 year old son is heavily into Rick Riordan's fantasy novels. In fact he's even gotten me into reading them. From them he has branched out into other similar novels."My 11-year-old reluctant reader got into those and I was like 'yee-hah!' She's devoured all the Percy Jackson novels and also the graphic novels.
Abby wrote: "Personally, I don't believe I would have liked "Twilight" even when I was a 13-year-old..."I don't think I'd have been all that into it, either, though I probably would have read the first book because everybody else was. But the problem is that book is a 'gateway drug' for a lot of kids who like to read, but not so much as to dive into a complicated world their first foray into a brand new genre.
I'm hoping the Fifth Wave movie will be the next great gateway drug for girls and boys as it's a stepping stone into both science fiction and also fantasy. They are already reaching out to the fanfiction community to spark the interest of teenage girls by encouraging fanfiction novelizations within their universe, so I'm hoping a lot of kids will pick up the two books that are already out.
Guardians of the Galaxy and Star Wars are also potential gateway drugs, but GotG doesn't really have a novelized extended universe, while Disney just threw a lot of the non-cannon novels out the window (so they say) with their reboot. Disney/MGM is pretty savvy, though, so hopefully they'll get some novels at various age-groups going simultaneously?
I don't think the fact the Star Wars novels are no longer canonical should make that much difference. Remember that with Star Trek the only things canonical happen in the television shows and the movies. In fact the animated television show isn't even canonical. The novels and comics have never been considered to be canonical.
Like music the young girls drive the majority of the SF/Fantasy genre. I spent some time in Forks Wa a couple of years after Twilight and the crowds of girls was still impressive.I haven't written anything directly for YA Fantasy/SF market but I have written with messages that I think can relate. I've stayed away from the sex and swearing (hopefully that won't limit me too much) and I've focused on honor, loyalty, love, compassion etc.
I think the YA Fantasy/SF genre has to go heavy into the unfulfilled love direction. Let's face it, at that age, we want it, although we don't know what it is or how to get it and if we do we don't what to do with it.
I've got one piece in work that might be a short story or maybe a novella that might fit in that category. We'll see. I think it's a great genro because there are so many pure passions.
I agree, there needs to be more SF/F "gateway drug" books. I hope I've written one.
To be hypercritical for a moment here ... I don't believe that Guardians of the Galaxy is enough of one, because it relies heavily on 1980s references, which aren't appealing to the younger generations. Star Wars is likely also past its heyday. Maybe The 5th Wave will do what publishers hope, and open floodgates for epic sci-fi, but I have doubts. I've read Yancey's The Monstrumologist. He's a stellar writer, with a wonderful knack for suspense and dialogue and characters. But, IMHO, not so much in the plot department.
I think that a new gateway drug book will need to knock the ball out of the ballpark on every level. It can't have weaknesses.
Also, at a glance, The 5th Wave looks like standard post-apocalyptic fare. It might have a fresh new twist, but if so, they're not showing it in the teaser blurb or the trailer, which implies that it's not strong enough to play up. Instead, they're focusing on the spunky teenage girl character, hoping that girls are going to attach to yet another Katniss Everdeen or Tally Youngblood. I think a story needs more than a spunky teenage girl to resonate with YA readers. The Hunger Games and the Uglies each presented a twisted world with some resonance to the world teens perceive themselves to be in.
That's my hypercritical take on things.
Wait, the 5th Wave has a girl central to the plot? I thought it was a boy. Weird. I only read the first chapter. Maybe I missed the description of the unisex person talking. I'm going to call the box office results right now for The 5th Wave:
On par with Jumper and I Am Number 4. Well enough to get a DVD/Blu-Ray sequel, and forgotten in the minds of every person who watches it.
Especially as I think people will confuse it with the TV show 'The First Wave', which was totally forgettable.
The central protagonist in The 5th Wave is a teenage girl who has survived the first four 'waves' of an alien invasion by not trusting anybody and now the 5th wave comes. I couldn't call it so much dystopia as 'oh, crap, they're trying to wipe us out.'
I've written a trilogy of YA science fiction. It isn't heavy on the romance, but it is heavy on glow-in-the-dark 100kg cats... The third one's currently in editing, but the other two are out. So far looking reasonable, but certainly not viral :)I'll be interested to see the 5th wave, as 'Oh crap, they're trying to wipe us out' sounds quite interesting if done well. I'll have to go and read it now!
AndrewP wrote: "Especially as I think people will confuse it with the TV show 'The First Wave', which was totally forgettable."So forgettable I've never heard of it.
The last alien invasion movie to do well was Independence Day, because it was unique (nobody had seen starships and aliens done so well when that movie came out) and stared Will Smith.
The 5th Wave is just another alien invasion movie, movies that SyFy have beat to death.
Plus it seems books based off YA novels is a passing fad, that is ending with the last Hunger Games movie. Look at that Divergent series and Maze Runner. Both have bombed in the box office, along with a lot more.
Jonathan wrote: "AndrewP wrote: "Especially as I think people will confuse it with the TV show 'The First Wave', which was totally forgettable."So forgettable I've never heard of it.
The last alien invasion movi..."
I've read both The Hunger Games and Divergent, and Divergent wasn't in the same league as The Hunger Games in my opinion as books, let alone the movies. (I watched the Divergent movie, but can't be bothered with Insurgent.)
Add to that the problematic nature of Allegiant as a third book. I'm sure others will disagree with me, but I really didn't like it at all, and reception was mixed.
I've heard the same about Divergent, that it wasn't in the same league as The Hunger Games. And I've read and watched The Maze Runner, and same dealio there. It didn't have a plot. It actually lacked an ending entirely. No satisfaction at the end of that one. The movie added a bit of plot, but not enough. I saw the movie with a friend who loves sci-fi shows and movies (but never reads), and during the credits, she just sat there and said, "Really?" I said, "At least they made a vague attempt to offer some explanation for the maze. The book didn't." She said, "Wow. Hollywood is desperate." Anyway, all this is to say that I disagree that YA book sensations are a passing fad. There just haven't been many that lived up to their own hype. I suspect The 5th Wave won't live up to its hype, either. But that doesn't preclude the possibility of another, future book doing so.
Wow, considering the fact that I dumped the Hunger Games series after the second book turned out to be an even more boring version of #1, and the cliffhanger to #3 promised more of the same, I guess I should stay clear of both Divergent and Maze runner.
These are the books that we hope will entice kids into sci-fi as a genre. No gateway drugs, no kids, no future for sci-fi as a literary genre. It will shrivel up and die. So if y'all want better? I suggest you get out your Brother typewriters and start writing YA sci-fi :-) Otherwise, it's sparkly vampire time 3:-)I've got a hungry 13-year-old who's a voracious reader, waiting for the next big thing. So give me something besides Dr. Who to spark her imagination.
if she is willing to read older stuff try her with Edgar Rice Burroughs. Will Murray has written a new Tarzan novel that takes him back to Paul-U-Don and I believe also brings out his savage side. It may only be available as an Ebook though. I know that is the only way it is available from Chapters, so I am now thinking of downloading Kobo to my computer (and maybe getting a Kobo reader as well)
Anna wrote: " ... So if y'all want better? I suggest you get out your Brother typewriters and start writing YA sci-fi :-) Otherwise, it's sparkly vampire time 3:-)"Oh, I'm doing it. It's on.
Would your 13-year-old be willing to try my unpublished novel, by any chance? I'm planning to make a big debut next year, with a fully written six book series (five of the six are complete, and I'm editing the crap out of them right now.)
John wrote: "if she is willing to read older stuff try her with Edgar Rice Burroughs. Will Murray has written a new Tarzan novel that takes him back to Paul-U-Don and I believe also brings out his savage side. ..."Alas, most of the older stuff has too much of a big fat infodump to retain a modern teen's interest. But if there was a NEW Tarzan out written in the newer YA style, she'd probably love it.
Abby wrote: "Would your 13-year-old be willing to try my unpublished novel, by any chance?..."I could ask her? She's kinda fickle. Sometimes a book captures her interest and she voraciously reads the entire series. Other times she's like 'meh' and I can't get her to read stuff.
Never really noticed an infodumb in the older stuff I like. Burroughs got John Carter from Earth to Mars via some form of astral projection and didn't really bother with the details. There is some information contained in the stories, but it is usually germane to the plot (like why the black Martians consider themselves the rightful ruling race).
I wouldn't exactly consider John Carter sci-fi anymore, besides flying machines, it's freaking orcs, wizards and and go rescue the damsel set on Mars ;)
I don't recall Orcs or wizards in any of Burroughs books, and though the science may not be the same as it is these days it is still science. Besides, faster than light travel is still not possible but that doesn't stop people from using it in SF.
Anna wrote: "She's kinda fickle...."I've had really good reader responses from teenagers. No worries if she's not into it, though!
Here's a little tiny pitch:
In a universe ruled by networked telepaths, escape is impossible, popular votes become instant law, and unpopularity means death. One disabled 12-year-old from Earth might change everything in his efforts to free his enslaved foster family.
It's a multi-POV novel with some strong female teenage and adult characters, although yes, one of the main characters is a disabled boy who soaks up galactic knowledge. There's also a teenage girl with the same power.
"Never really noticed an infodumb in the older stuff I like. Burroughs got John Carter from Earth to Mars ..."I've never warmed to Edgar Rice Burroughs, or many of the classic Golden Age authors, although I love adventure sci-fi. They're just too, um, well, sexist. And dry. When I read A Princess of Mars and its ilk, I feel like I'm reading something by my dad. I suspect a teenager would feel like she's reading something written by her grandpa.
Could be, though I know my 12 year old reads a lot of what I read as a kid (he just discovered Prince Valiant courtesy of the Vancouver Island Regional Library system). He definitely enjoys it (he asked me to put the 5th volume on hold). Of course I grew up listening to my records and my parents so maybe it something in the genes.
What teenage girl these days doesnt dream of being an object fought over by orcs and confederate soldiers...
Brendan wrote: "What teenage girl these days doesnt dream of being an object fought over by orcs and confederate soldiers..."Hah! Or middle-aged women who get whistled at when walking by a construction site ;-)
Have you the books by Susan Kaye Quinn? She has quite a bit of YA Sci-Fi. Her latest book was jus released today.
Abby wrote: "I've heard the same about Divergent, that it wasn't in the same league as The Hunger Games. And I've read and watched The Maze Runner, and same dealio there. It didn't have a plot. It actually la..."YA book sensations are not a passing fad. Hollywood making YA books into movies is a passing fad, though they'll continue to turn the books into movies, because making no movies is worse than making bad movies.
Jonathan wrote: "YA book sensations are not a passing fad. Hollywood making YA books into movies is a passing fad, though they'll continue to turn the books into movies, because making no movies is worse than making bad movies."Hollywood mainstream filmmaking, as opposed to independent film or television, is not really known for its originality anymore. It's all about branding. It's all about taking stories from elsewhere and trying to create a franchise that can not only sell one film to a worldwide audience but multiple films over many years. This is why, for the most part, comic book adaptations have saturated mainstream cinema, and why popular YA books will continue to be adapted. So I'm not sure that it will be such a quickly passing fad as we might expect. If people are writing genuinely good stories (or at least stories with mass appeal) that have blockbuster potential, whether they be YA or graphic narratives or literary fiction, Hollywood will eat that stuff up - and so will audiences! Also, there's going to be a huge vacuum once the final Hunger Games film comes out so it'll be interesting to see what happens after that.
I hate YA novels. They just seem so smarmy, and even when they aren't talking down to the reader they are still talking down to the reader (on a psychic level if nothing else).I've also gotten really tired of bildungsroman/coming of age novels. I'm an old fart (well, middle aged gastric evacuation) and I am tired of reading about bright, shining new heros and heroines with the word before them. I want grizzled fucks who've screwed up by the numbers but still manage to find adventure, hope, and even romance.
Bujold does that better than anyone, her later vokosiverse books are good and Paladin of Souls is one of the finest books featuring a middle aged well used protagonist I've ever read.
R. Michael wrote: "I hate YA novels. They just seem so smarmy, and even when they aren't talking down to the reader they are still talking down to the reader (on a psychic level if nothing else).I've also gotten re..."
Read anything from Neal Asher. I think you'll love the books.
Space Opera Fans
Books mentioned in this topic
Trial by Fire (other topics)The Windup Girl (other topics)
The City & the City (other topics)
The Martian (other topics)
Where the Ships Die (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
William C. Dietz (other topics)Susan Kaye Quinn (other topics)
Marion Zimmer Bradley (other topics)
Good Sci-Fi needs a good story FIRST then add in the science fiction and appropriate special effects;in that order I think Jupiter Ascending had a good story, but they crammed too much into it through the special effects. If they had backed off on the effects and developed the story they would have had a better movie.
I'm tied of most of the typical Sci-Fi and I'm trying to approach my work from a different direction. I have strong female characters and other 'non-standard' characters. I focus on the story first with good characters who have good backgrounds and they are put in a situation where they have to learn change or die. I'm a positive story teller so they all tend to learn, grow and survive.
I like the older style of Sci-Fi where there is a twist in the story and the ending isn't obvious. None of my characters solve their problems with a bigger amazing weapon that kills more aliens.