From: rmr@sgi.com (selfish meme)
Newsgroups: misc.writing
Subject: Re: New Definition of SF et al.
Date: 4 Sep 92 19:16:34 GMT
Article-I.D.: odin.1992Sep4.191634.13442
Organization: the atrocity exhibition

curtis@cs.berkeley.edu (Curtis Yarvin) writes:
>Alan_Barclay@mindlink.bc.ca (Alan Barclay) writes:

>>"Speculative Fiction is a group of genres of fiction where one or more of the
>>key problems to be faced by one or more of the protagonists only exists 
>>because one or more elements of the physical universe, metaphysical universe 
>>or the
>>culture dipicted in the story do not exist today and could not existed in the
>>past."
>
>This is serviceable; the only problem I see is that it leaves nontraditional
>fiction forms, in which it can be difficult to identify the "protagonists"
>and the "key problems," undefined.  Let me bring up this example again:
>is Calvino's _Cosmicomics_ SF?

I don't like this definition, because it excludes much of the
"New Wave" SF from the mid-seventies.  J.G. Ballard's _Crash_,
for instance, more than anything else, states an opinion about
human psychology *as is* in a culture that actually exists.

>>Soft Science Fiction
>>Science Fiction in which the primary problem develops from an element of
>>speculation about culture and social forces.

>...there's plenty of good
>soft SF around wherein the primary problem is not speculative at all;
>it develops from conflicts which are universal and human.  The speculative
>setting is not used to form a speculative debate about social ideas,
>but only to facilitate the human conflict which forms the "meat" of
>the story.

And, again, in the case of Ballard and others, the setting
is often not particularly "speculative" in the sense you
have been using (though in his case, the plot is often
psychologically "speculative").

>I'd prefer to separate Science Fiction into "idea fiction" and its
>complement; the former being that which seeks to involve the reader in an
>intellectual debate, and the latter concentrating on purely fictional
>forms.  This dichotomy corresponds very cleanly to my own taste in the
>field, but I think it is, if fuzzy, inclusive and generally applicable.

I am relatively convinced that the decision as to what is
SF&F and what is not is primarily a marketing issue.  At
one time, authors published their work as "SF" because
other publishers were not publishing work that contained
the sort of settings, characters, and plots these authors
were writing about.  Today, the SF market is much more 
homogenous, and it seems like some of the more "literary" authors
(Lewis Shiner, Ballard, Jonathan Carroll, etc.) have moved
in the opposite direction, to "mainstream" publishers.

A lot of modern literature borrows form from genres, often
several at a time, making it difficult to classify.  People 
have called Mark Leyner's _My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist_ 
cyberpunk, for example, which I think is pushing it.

Again, besides for marketing purposes, I'm not sure how
important the classification is.  Some people would claim
that "real" science fiction is always idea ficition, and
that the other sort you mention is really some other form
of literature that has borrowed some of the trappings of
the SF genre for its own purposes.  In the end it's not 
very important to me; I generally prefer this latter form, 
but I don't really care if it lies within the SF canon or 
outside it.

			Robert.
Newsgroups: misc.writing