“The wave of sci-fi overwhelming the mass media today, while often fun, is rarely on the level of the best those genres have to offer.”
So says Damien G. Walter in this article on The Gaurdian’s website. He goes on to argue that the watered-down ideas of science fiction that make up “sci-fi” have become so familiar to modern audiences as to be played out. And so, he claims, we have moved into a “post-sci-fi era.”
Check out the article and then tell us what you think: has science fiction run out of steam or is it merely evolving?
Parker Peevyhouse
lindajoysingleton
Joni Sensel
Chris Eboch
Nick
Greg R. Fishbone
Well…not so much dead as due a change. The ideas are familiar so authors can build upon them, rather than abandon them altogether. I do think what comes next is very different from the popular view of sci-fi though. Thanks for the link.
I would love an extended example. You mentioned Mieville. Do you think The City and The City is very different than typical sci-fi fare? Because it seems to me that Mieville’s inventiveness is the heart of science fiction. New ideas don’t make for a new kind of science fiction–new ideas are what science fiction is all about.
But maybe you’re talking about the nature of his ideas. Two cities existing in the same place at once without a solid scientific definition could put The City and The City in some nebulous speculative category but not squarely in science fiction. Is that what you mean?
Thanks for humoring me.
I have been noticing in some of my recent reading of children’s fantasy that there is less sword/wand wielding (although there’s still lots of it) and more, um, magical (un)realism, for lack of a better term, where the fantasy infuses the story, rather than providing a box of useful props, and there is no Quest, or Magical Object, or Fantasy Realm (which is not to desparage the very enjoyable Fantasy Realm books still being written!)
I’m thinking of books like The Hotel Under the Sand, and The Museum of Mary Child (both of which I recommend highly). I wonder it this is akin to the wall demolition of which the Gaurdian writer speaks???
And I hear that agents are pretty tired of the same old quest stories as well.
Thanks for the recommendations!
I don’t know if we’re necessarily in a “post-sci-fi era” as much as we’re in an era where sci-fi is no longer held separately from other kinds of fiction.
I taught an undergraduate survey of children’s literature course last spring and many of my students had a hard time defining sci-fi and how it differs from fantasy. Many of them didn’t care about the distinction; they just knew which books they liked and which they didn’t (some of the books they enjoyed just happened to be sci-fi).
For a long time sci-fi and fantasy almost had to keep themselves separate as genres because people outside the genre didn’t take them seriously. Now, especially in YA fiction, I think those distinctions just aren’t as important to readers anymore.
Yes, I love genre-blending! I think it’s big right now and that’s exciting.
I’m not so inclined to carve out sci-fi’s tombstone just yet. It always seems that Hollywood treats it like any other genre: poorly.
I’m not so sure District 9 could be a marker of a post sci-fi world.
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No surprise that folks today have a hard time defining “exactly what science fiction is”. No one in the history of the genre has derived a completely satisfactory one (other than Damon Knight’s finger pointing).
And, though I see where Damien is going with his post-SF concept, I’m beginning to think that what we are actually seeing is a second ‘New Wave’ (New New Wave?).
Compare some early Moorcock, Spinrad, etc to works like Finch to see what I mean; blending (or borrowing) genres, softening of the boundaries of what is acceptable (or perhaps expanding the concepts of what science will be able to do in future: are dragons truly impossible if we take the extremes of genetic research into account? couldn’t wand waving be the expression of Clarke’s Law?) and a general expansion of what “fits” under the ill-defined umbrella of what science fiction is.
Coming here late to say I don’t think scifi is dead in literature, but I have been wondering lately why it is that there’s comparatively little YA scifi compared to fantasy. I tend to think it’s partly because Harry Potter and Twilight have really boosted fantasy/paranormal, and we haven’t seen a comparable scifi title (yet). I think if the right book hits the market at the right time, we could easily see a big surge in scifi (not just the apocalyptic stuff that seems to dominate currently).
I personally am a big fan of good old space-faring adventure, so I would love to have more good options to read!