When I was 8 I found a stack of old boxes in my grandfather's basement. He had two separate subscriptions in the 70's and 80's, Playboy and Asimov's Science Fiction. The boxes were packed with over a decade of both.
While I appreciated the Playboy's with a certain wide-eyed wonderment, Asimov's Science Fiction changed my life. From my finding of the boxes to college days I always had a copy of Asimov's shoved in my pocket. It stirred in my nascent personality a love of language and literature that would follow me through the rest of my life. It was one of the foundational moments of my life. I spent my teenage years completely lost in philosophy and fantasy sparked by those stories and by the novels of the authors I discovered within, and when I decided to become a writer, I did so with the hope that I could repay an invisible debt to those great authors. I wanted to create works that inspired as I had been inspired, great philosophical works that spark the imagination.
I was 30 before I picked up a more recent copy of Asimov's. I was 30 before I began to read "modern" science fiction. To my astonishment, it had become vapid and lazy, focused almost purely on social issues and "progressive" narratives. I never bought into the SJW boogeyman(why would I? I'd rarely encountered them in my professional life.), but it was heart breaking when I learned of the Hugo Awards fiasco, and of the tide of SJW interns reading through the slush piles of every science fiction and fantasy publication, shaping the future of the genres.
Am I alone, /lit/? I feel like I've stepped out of an alternate world, like I've become completely out of touch. Am I the fault, or is it the mechanism? I feel my childhood dream has been tainted.
Ah yes, Isaac Asimov and his great philosophical works, quote unquote. Because when I think philosophy, I think Asimov.
In truth, your nonstop drive for escapism has been replaced with issues that make you feel something other than meaningless bliss.
The horror! The horror!
>>7743129
>In truth, your nonstop drive for escapism has been replaced with issues that make you feel something other than meaningless bliss.
Actually, it's more that traditional science fiction had philosophy at its core. Take Asimov's robot works for example. In those works the philosophy concerns the nature of humanity(the most popular and over explored area by now). We ask ourself if we are merely flesh machines or something more, yet we know that robots are simply machines. The question then becomes how much a machine can "feel" and if it can be alive. If it can, then what does that mean for a human?
Modern science fiction is more concerned with smaller questions(if they bother with philosophy at all) like racism, sexism, or social imbalance("cleverly" hidden behind aliens/cyborgs/mutants which are exposed to transparent analogies of said issues), and a surprising number feature a female protagonist devoid of flawed humanity, almost as a fetish(not in terms of sexual fetishism but rather as a strange form of objectified perfection and popular-rebellion) for the author's desires and personal view of the world.
The issue is that traditional Science Fiction either makes you think, OR functions as self-indulgent escapism. Whereas modern Science Fiction is so heavy-handed and transparent that it reads as almost self-congratulatory, and the pure escapism is out of fashion(which is ironic considering how self-indulgent the fetishistic "thoughtful" stuff has become).
>We ask oursel[ves] if we are merely flesh machines or something more, yet we know that robots are simply machines. The question then becomes how much a machine can "feel" and if it can be alive
>Modern science fiction is more concerned with smaller questions(if they bother with philosophy at all) like racism, sexism, or social imbalance
And which of these is more "relevant" to today's society? That is the very basis of escapism; we know that, for instance, strong AI is a fantasy and, at the same time, that major barriers to progress like cultural, social, and economic differences are ongoing and very real.
"But what does relevance have to do with anything?" you say. And there you fall for your own trap: Your "philosophical" considerations of strong AI, and rocket ships, and colonizing Mars, and all the things Asimov writes about, are a conflictless fantasy that has no, zero, bearing on today's world except for the most hardcore futurist.
If you want easy, predictable stories that will pander to your worldview and ideology, just say so. Don't beat around the bush by indicting SJWs.
>>7743113
>it was heart breaking when I learned of the Hugo Awards fiasco, and of the tide of SJW interns reading through the slush piles of every science fiction and fantasy publication, shaping the future of the genes.
I can relate. I had a similar experience. Welcome to Cultural Marxism.
>>7743113
It means you just aren't looking hard enough
See: Egan, Peter Watts, Chiang, Stephenson
For that matter Stanislaw Lem dissed EVERYONE in American SF after Stapledon and HG Wells. Speaking of that, you should also read Lem.
>>7743113
This thread was shit when you posted it the first time and it's still shit now.
>>7743274
Stephenson is trash, even if he makes fun of sjw.
>>7743229
You still misunderstand. I'm not sure where my mistake lies, but I'll try again.
>And which of these is more "relevant" to today's society?
Humanity and the soul are always relevant.
>That is the very basis of escapism; we know that, for instance, strong AI is a fantasy
Actually, we don't. YOU assume because that fits with your current understanding of you world, which you can not deviate from. IF strong AI is possible, the outcome will fundamentally alter our perception of our own "free will". It's actually poetic that you're arguing from fallacy.
> and, at the same time, that major barriers to progress like cultural, social, and economic differences are ongoing and very real.
At the same time technology is bringing "fantasy" issues like AI and the future home of humanity closer and closer. Social and economic issues are very real(I'm not all sure what you mean by "cultural issues". If you mean culture clash or colonization then you're referring to a consequence of humanity's collective intelligence and its tendency to form groups, which often RESULTS in "issues" but is itself something separate), but there is more to be explored than well tread ground. If the goal is introspection and careful examination then the work would be better served by finding the root philosophy BEHIND these perceived social issues, since the issues themselves are surface level manifestations of deeper human tendencies.
THAT'S the difference. Modern work seems to focus on the surface level while presenting itself as something more.
>>7743274
I will absolutely look into these authors. Thank you.
>>7743113
you should read Wolfe, apparently he's attained the heights of Joyce
>>7743229
Fuck you're dense. I wish you could see your own bias. Good SciFi will always be relevant because people are the same no matter what decade it is.
>>7743334
Joyce has always been a lot like climbing a mountain to me. It takes a lot from you, and it can take a lot of effort, but when you finally understand all of the symbolism/get the to the top you're rewarded with a breathtaking view.
>>7743229
>we know that, for instance, strong AI is a fantasy
I'm amazed people believe something so transparently retarded. Evolution created strong general intelligence, and it's a really shitty optimization method that doesn't even optimize for intelligence. Even in the absolute worst case scenario, all we have to do is use evolution-style optimization. Of course when can do a million orders of magnitude better than that.
>>7743349
well, just you wait. Gene Wolfe is all that, and a bag of chips, my friend. I suggest you read fifth head, it's incredibly simular to Proust, Utterly genius.
>>7743355
In that case, I'll seek out his work. Thank you again.
>>7743274
I was gonna recommend Lem, my man, woman or robot. I guess Solaris is his most famous work. I was a bit disappointed in that one after reading many of his short stories, Fiasco and the Invincible (my personal favorite).
The Strugazkis are worth reading too although knowing the political context is often necessary.
I recently started reading some of Tiptree's short stories after reading the Screwfly Solution and would recommend them too.
I haven't really looked at modern scifi because most of it seemed to concerned with cyber worlds and hackers and shit like that. So thanks for the recommendations
>>7743435
>*ahemexceptfornonwhitesahem*
I am argentinian and your post offend me.
>>7743435
>*ahemexceptfornonwhitesahem*
You seem insecure
>>7743435
Whether it happens in the near future or not is irrelevant. On serious timescales it's inevitable. As Musk said, we are the biological boot loader for machine intelligence.
>>7743229
>we know that, for instance, strong AI is a fantasy.
Why exactly? If you say you know, surely you can argue why it is impossible.
>>7743401
>hard-to-be-a-god.gif
Wow, they made a movie? That was a depressing book.
>>7743113
>boo hoo, political correctness has ruined science fiction
2 true statements:
(1) there are no bad politically correct books that would have been good if they weren't politically correct. You can pull off a deviation from PC culture's strictures in your novel if it comes off as justified. If it comes off as unjustified, you're a bad author, and exactly the kind of person that PC culture's guidelines were designed to help.
(2) Science fiction was always shitty. It's just shitty now in a way that feels much more immediate to you. SJW dominance is an excuse.
p.s. don't become a writer, at least not of science fiction. whenever a real, active career author pops up on this site, they write science fiction, and it's always awful. clearly it's easy to do, and the bar is apparently quite low.
>>7744257
>p.s. don't become a writer, at least not of science fiction. whenever a real, active career author pops up on this site, they write science fiction, and it's always awful. clearly it's easy to do, and the bar is apparently quite low.
On the flip side, doesn't that mean you can thinly veil a literary book as sci-fi just to get it published more easily?
>>7743229
>And which of these is more "relevant" to today's society?
Should they not strive for a work that is timeless instead of relevant to only today.
>>7744315
Hardly, because as has always been the case, any degree of subtlety will earn you a rejection. I suspect you could write a standard flashy, boorish scifi book, and if it were enough of a nerdgasmic spectacle you could potentially work some hidden meanings into it, but there's no way you'd get a good, challenging, innovative piece of work put out by that means.
>>7744381
Have you actually tried it though, or is that just what you're assuming would happen?
>>7744443
it just doesn't make sense
a good novel can't disguise itself as a cheap novel. the two are mutually exclusive. and the kind of scifi that isn't cheap is just as hard to publish as other novels (but also virtually doesn't exist)
>>7743113
Postmodernism happened. Sorry bro.
>>7744479
You have to transcend common sense to make things like that work anyway, so that's not an issue.
>>7743229
>strong AI is a fantasy
>actually a robot
mein cuff-links
>>7744534
there's a difference between sense and common sense, and I know what it is. What I was saying, in grander words, was that it's logically inconsistent.
you can't write a bad book that's secretly a good book any more than you can cook a meal that has all of the qualities of a bad meal but is somehow magically a good meal by some transcendent property. I'm saying the attributes a scifi novel needs to have in order to be published via the typical scifi-specific channels cannot possibly exist within good literature.
At best, the product of trying to do something like that would be a trashy scifi book that scifi fans ooze over for allegedly being "deep"; the same thing that John Green fans do, btw.
I'll also add that just saying "You have to transcend common sense to make things like that work" is not actually a point. In fact, in my view, it's 100% tautology.
>>7743113
y'know, Gene Wolfe is better than Joyce.
>>7744571
I''m very close to that idea that John Hawkes > GW
at least marginally, both are god tier
>No mention of the Culture series or Banks in general
I just finished Consider Phlebas and am currently reading this. They're not BIG THREE level by any standards, but I would give them a thumbs up.
>>7743113
>It stirred in my nascent personality a love of language and literature
I don't usually edit other posts, but pardon my intrusion this once. Moving 'nascent' over to "a nascent love" seem more appropriate to me - feel free to share reasons why you disagree. "It stirred within" might also be nice to add some more linguistic liquidity.
>>7743187
>The question then becomes how much a machine can "feel" and if it can be alive. If it can, then what does that mean for a human?
Has that theme not been done to death by now? Even Hollywood's done it a whole load of times.
>>7743113
>it was heart breaking when I learned of the Hugo Awards fiasco
I got the impression that the writers trying to game that were 'robots shooting each other in space' sci-fi, and all the remotely thoughtful ones were against them. Is that wrong?
>>7744866
>Downton abbey's retarded cousin... IN SPACE
>remotely thoughtful
>>7744653
Banks is so fucking stereotypically a "Scottish Socialist" and it his lazy setting development shows it "lol communism is tots possible if we remove all autonomy and let robotic mao rule us"
>>7744915
Eh, you can tell me I'm wrong if you like. So were there
actual writers of thoughtful/philosophical sci-fi complaining about how left-wing the awards were? I thought part of their argument was that they wanted 'entertaining' books.
>>7744927
Pretty amusing that you post this in a thread that starts with OP praising Asimov.
>>7744945
It's much more simpler than that
Writers that didn't include several genderfluid transexual otherkin characters in their books would get passed over while authors that did include said characters would win even if the audiences response was "literally who?"
tdlr: Redshirts won.
>>7743274
I'd like to add this list by reccomending Roger Zelazny, Jack Vance, and R.A. Lafferty(very hard to find however)
Not current, of course, but if you're reccomending Lem, might as well mention the other god-tier writers.
>>7744134
It's an even more depressing movie.
>>7744970
I'm really hoping this type cancer doesn't swallow the entire genre. It's just so sad. It's happening in videogames too now, what the fuck am I supposed to do with my time if SJW water it all down to nothing.
>>7745028
Read older books, play older games. There's lots of good stuff I'm betting you haven't tried. Endure the bullshit trends of today and hope they'll go away.
>>7745033
It's the truth mang, but some of this shit makes me wanna pick another hobby. Do you think SJW's will infiltrate brewing beer?
>>7745037
you already let the SJW meme invade your brain s it dosent matter where you go
stop worrying about bullshit and just enjoy things
>>7743302
Well OP was asking more idea oriented like Asimov. Stephensons writing skills are questionable but he has the ideas
An outline of the Hugo controversy, for posterity:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/08/30/mutiny_at_the_hugo_awards_127934.html
>>7745040
Perhaps you're right anon, it's easy to be concerned like this on the internet. I should go outside.
>>7743340
>Good SciFi will always be relevant because people are the same no matter what decade it is.
foundation doesnt even name a single woman
Asimov is plebeian garbage
>>7744257
>there are no bad politically correct books that would have been good if they weren't politically correct.
The Clockwork Rocket. Half the book is about incredibly interesting alternate physics and the primitive scientists who are discovering the rules of their world. The other half is thinly disguised identity politics whining with preposterous mustache-twirling villains. Simply excising the PC half would greatly improve it.
Simple explanation Anon.
In the Golden Age of sci-fi's case the felt WW2 was the last war ever fought and now man would work hand in hand towards some future technological development where space exploration would be a thing.
>50s and 60s were filled with wonderment at a potential future in colonizing space.
70s and 80s and you have grittier sci fi novels with sexual overtones and political commentaries.
>70s were filled with a growing depression in hollow american values, we were lied to about the future, it wasn't about space at all but beating the Russians and another war.
>80s were filled with a backlash to the free love nonsense of the 60s and 70s, now we have consumerism and a new type of future we create ourselves, the computer.
90s cyberpunk is a thing and creeping just around the corner is 2000 and the fears of some impending doom.
>90s is about depression, fuck we were fooled again and the empty consumerism of the 80s didn't bring us closer to happiness, life sucks dress like a lesbian lumberjack.
00s sci fi is now about identity and personal security, are you a slave to some invisible system? end of the world blargh apocalypse!
>00s is the rise of social media and social networking. The internet is no longer for nerds and social misfits, its for your mom and grandma too. Look I sent an email! Ha-ha! But... is all of this technology bad for us? Also terrorism.
10s The space opera returns, vast glorious epics where a multicultural human race works towards exploring the cosmos and deals with issues of gender and purpose.
>10s Economic disasters looming, what is China doing, what will my job me.
Books tend to reflect the era and country of origin. What's the issue here? Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke, Dick, Pohl, Simak and their contemporaries happened to be particularly imaginative and talented authors. The most talented contemporary authors are writing high fantasy because that's what sells. Sci fi is what sold in the 50s and 60s, for reasons explained above.
>>7745692
This is a solid breakdown of the evolution of the genre.
>Books tend to reflect the era and country of origin. What's the issue here? Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke, Dick, Pohl, Simak and their contemporaries happened to be particularly imaginative and talented authors. The most talented contemporary authors are writing high fantasy because that's what sells. Sci fi is what sold in the 50s and 60s, for reasons explained above.
So the issue is that the people who have gravitated toward positions of power in scifi publishing are less skilled in general and so fail to recognize quality writing? That is wholly depressing.
>>7744134
they actually made 2 movies (i've only seen the old one)
>>7745660
I said books that would have been good, not books that would have been less terrible
>>7743113
You defined a genre by one guy. That's your problem.
