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Fantastika!: SF & The Weird: [Closed] what's this sf thing anyway?

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    • CommentAuthorraff i el
    • CommentTimeAug 11th 2008
     (3286.1)
    So I’ve been looking through an old copy of Bruce Sterling’s MIRRORSHADES anthology, and it feels a lot like archaeology. The book itself seems as old as I am: 1986 publication date or so. I’ve always been happy to think of the 80s as a decade in which nothing useful happened, just hair bands having huge coke parties and Wall Street reinventing conspicuous consumption. Of course, even I’ve needed to selectively ignore what I know about the beginnings of cyberpunk to think that—Neuromancer, Rudy Rucker and Sterling himself. It’s made me think of some questions I have about sf as a genre and what’s becoming of it.
    In his introduction, Sterling opposes cyberpunk to hard sf and to what he calls “literary” sf, saying that cyberpunk occupies a middle ground. Specifically, he identifies it as a new kind of merger between science and the humanities, which uses “decentralization” as its motivating force. And that’s a pretty accurate definition, but we’re starting to see real decentralization, and it’s hitting sf itself, not just the technologies sf fetishizes. Increasingly, authors coming out of the cyberpunk tradition pick a specific vision of the world and wrap their stories around it without seeming to worry too much about whether it’s internally consistent. The “speculation” of early sf seems to be giving way to exercises in branding the future—everyone trying to be the first author to coin the next buzzword. I know it’s dangerous to call this stuff out—it comes close to biting the hand that feeds—but there’s an implicit question in it too, which is “can it be any different?” We’re at a point where the old sf standards (say, humanoid robots, or spaceships) can’t provide the same kind of fix they once could, the feeling of really exploring the unknown. And for me, that’s the crux of the issue; because it seems like “exploring the unknown” has changed significantly since sf started. Where before sf was about juxtaposing humanity and tech, now it’s putting humanity under the knife and watching what happens when we cut bits away to make it consistent with the kinds of advances we expect to make. My question is, are we doing that in service of speculation about the future, or because none of our other escapist tricks work anymore? I can’t imagine there’s a correct answer, but it’s keeping me awake.
    • CommentAuthorStefanJ
    • CommentTimeAug 11th 2008 edited
     (3286.2)
    Homework: "Cyberpunk in the Nineties" by Bruce Sterling.

    We're just not much good any more at refusing things because
    they don't seem proper. As a society, we can't even manage to turn
    our backs on abysmal threats like heroin and the hydrogen bomb. As
    a culture, we love to play with fire, just for the sake of its allure; and if
    there happens to be money in it, there are no holds barred.
    Jumpstarting Mary Shelley's corpses is the least of our problems;
    something much along that line happens in intensive-care wards every
    day.

    Human thought itself, in its unprecedented guise as computer
    software, is becoming something to be crystallized, replicated, made a
    commodity. Even the insides of our brains aren't sacred; on the
    contrary, the human brain is a primary target of increasingly
    successful research, ontological and spiritual questions be damned.
    The idea that, under these circumstances, Human Nature is somehow
    destined to prevail against the Great Machine, is simply silly; it seems
    weirdly beside the point. It's as if a rodent philosopher in a lab-cage,
    about to have his brain bored and wired for the edification of Big
    Science, were to piously declare that in the end Rodent Nature must
    triumph.

    Anything that can be done to a rat can be done to a human
    being. And we can do most anything to rats. This is a hard thing to
    think about, but it's the truth. It won't go away because we cover our
    eyes.
  3.  (3286.3)
    Where before sf was about juxtaposing humanity and tech, now it’s putting humanity under the knife and watching what happens when we cut bits away to make it consistent with the kinds of advances we expect to make.

    You've read FRANKENSTEIN, right? THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME? It always was.
  4.  (3286.4)
    It always was.

    Agreed... what are Sci-fi and Fantasy but tools to reimagine the human condition in the absence of rules/restrictions/physics/technology we're familiar with, or the presence of ones we're unfamiliar with? Since the human condition has been augmented by technology since we first started to use tools, Juxtaposition of humanity and different levels of technology is exactly analogous to biological progression/regression, since the two have acted interdependently throughout the later stages of human evolution.

    There seems to be this pervasive intellectual conceit that the human race exists somehow independently of our technology, and can be examined or conceptualised in a 'pure' state without 'unnatural' additions. It doesn't take a genius to figure out the fallacy there, yet this sort of thinking continues to influence our most basic assumptions and ideals.
    • CommentAuthorraff i el
    • CommentTimeAug 12th 2008
     (3286.5)
    fair. I suppose what I meant was that much sf has stopped treating the audience as human, instead focusing a pretty narrow range of what are essentially brand loyalties--mirrorshades, trenchcoats, etc--commodifying cyberpunk in the same way that hot topic commodified punk.
    •  
      CommentAuthorliquidcow
    • CommentTimeAug 12th 2008
     (3286.6)
    I think the thing there is that there's always been films and comic books made about stuff just because people think it's cool, not necessarily trying to dissect the human condition or whatever. I doubt every kid watching movies about alien invasion saw it as a metaphor for the cold war, and some of those kids then might have gone on to write their own UFO stories because they thought aliens were awesome. It happens in every genre, someone will come up with a story with lots of metaphorical and sociological connotations, then lots of people will take the surface stuff that was cool and cash in on that without taking any notice of the stuff underneath. Why do you think there are so many sequels and derivatives of Godzilla? Neuromancer, Ghost in the Shell, all that, they've got some pretty deep ideas floating about, but they've also got a load of stuff that's just plain aesthetically pleasing, and that's easier to commodify than deep ideas.
  7.  (3286.7)
    Seems like horror is going down the same route. Rather then writing to analyze just how far south how human nature can go, it has become all about cool looking zombies that sell well to the mall goth crowd. I never got into horror fiction because of that. I got into horror fiction because I want to see just how horrible human beings are capable of becoming.
    • CommentAuthorKradlum
    • CommentTimeAug 12th 2008
     (3286.8)
    SF is a broad church. While some authors have been looking inward for the last 20 years, there has also been the renaissance of the Space Opera (Banks, Reynolds etc). SF is much more than just cyberpunk redux.
    • CommentAuthorStefanJ
    • CommentTimeAug 12th 2008
     (3286.9)
    "It is the business of the future to be dangerous, and it is among the merits of science that it equips the future for its duties." -- Alfred North Whitehead, 1925

    Oh Yeah.
    •  
      CommentAuthoroutlawpoet
    • CommentTimeAug 12th 2008
     (3286.10)
    @StefanJ
    wow, dude, that is a classy line. Where did you find that?
  11.  (3286.11)
    Sf seems strange at times.
    Some ideas seem to have been dropped because we still don't have the technology, or the idea of it has become old hat.
    Teleportation for example. Most people will think of Star Trek, call it old news and move on. But there's still work being done, it could still be on the way and it's an excellent technology to base stories on. But I can't remember the last time I saw it being taken seriously in an Sf story.
    • CommentAuthorStefanJ
    • CommentTimeAug 12th 2008
     (3286.12)
    @outlawpoet:

    Science and the Modern World by Alfred North Whitehead

    In context:
    "Modern science has imposed upon humanity the necessity for wandering. Its progressive thought and its progressive technology make the transition through time, from generation to generation, a true migration into uncharted seas of adventure. The very benefit of wandering is that it is dangerous and needs skill to avert evils. We must expect, therefore, that the future will disclose dangers. It is the business of the future to be dangerous; and it is among the merits of science that it equips the future for its duties. The prosperous middle classes, who ruled the nineteenth century, placed an excessive value upon the placidity of existence. They refused to face the necessities for social reform imposed by the new industrial system, and they are now refusing to face the necessities for intellectual reform imposed by the new knowledge. The middle class pessimism over the future of the world comes from a confusion between civilization and security. In the immediate future there will be less security than in the immediate past, less stability. It must be admitted that there is a degree of instability which is inconsistent with civilization. But, on the whole, the great ages have been unstable ages."
  13.  (3286.13)
    Dude, Doom 3 had teleportation in it, and that was bad ass. The Doom move, not so fucking much.
  14.  (3286.14)
    Yeah, but that's what I mean. It's just teleportation of one person to another place.
    Where has the experimentation gone with it?
    Let's say do a story where teleportation has been perfected, now surgeons can do heart transplants by porting out the old one and replacing with the new one instantly.
    Then a bunch of evil-doers get hold of it and start replacing hearts, brains and other organs with bombs, foetus', notes saying "Nobody Home".
    Where the imagination - look at all the various ways mobile phones are used in stories. Then compare it to the lack of imagination in a concept that you are totally free to experiment with because there are actually no real rules for yet.
    • CommentAuthorDouglas
    • CommentTimeAug 12th 2008
     (3286.15)
    Neal Asher does a pretty awesome job writing post-cyberpunk horror space opera.
  16.  (3286.16)
    Yeah, I think it would be terrifying and awe inspiring to write a story where you could say teleport a 1 inch dildo into some unsuspecting civilians arse hole.
    Or hell, just thinking of strange teleportation sex is pretty nifty. Think about it, you could spunk through space and time!
    But, then rape would become even harder to stop!
    Man, now I kinda hope they don't advance with teleportation in real life.
  17.  (3286.17)
    After I wrote that last night and went to bed, the image that formed was of Warren sat at his desk, teleporter to one side, bucket of eels to the other, looking for people who pissed him off. "I'll give you arse-eels!"

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