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Dumpshock Forums _ Shadowrun _ Is Shadowrun Science Fiction?
Posted by: Geekkake Jun 15 2006, 07:01 PM
I figured I might try to save http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=13406, as much as I hate the new trend of ridiculous "OMG THIS IS MY CHAR LOLZ DEDICATED" threads.
Nevertheless, to address the topic being discussed there, science fiction does not require social commentary to be science fiction. It's right in the goddamned name of the genre. Fiction, with a scientific or pseudo-scientific slant. This has expanded, over the years, to include other things, such as social commentary and futurist masturbation, but the sciency slant is still there. It's not "Social Commentary Fiction". It ranges from pulp to highbrow intellectual literature.
Consequently, Shadowrun is science fiction.
In short, I think UndeadPoet is being an elitist cunt in this particular instance.
Posted by: X-Kalibur Jun 15 2006, 07:03 PM
| QUOTE (Geekkake) |
| I figured I might try to save http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=13406, as much as I hate the new trend of ridiculous "OMG THIS IS MY CHAR LOLZ DEDICATED" threads. Nevertheless, to address the topic being discussed there, science fiction does not require social commentary to be science fiction. It's right in the goddamned name of the genre. Fiction, with a scientific or pseudo-scientific slant. This has expanded, over the years, to include other things, such as social commentary and futurist masturbation, but the sciency slant is still there. It's not "Social Commentary Fiction". It ranges from pulp to highbrow intellectual literature. Consequently, Shadowrun is science fiction. In short, I think UndeadPoet is being an elitist cunt in this particular instance. |
No comment on the final part, however, I'd say it qualifies to some extent as Sci-Fi (cyberware, bioware, cyberzombies), some extent fantasy (magic, dragons, etc), and entirely Cyberpunk. Thats right, the genre is Cyberpunk.
Personally, I also feel it qualifies as Dystopian Future.
Posted by: Glayvin34 Jun 15 2006, 07:15 PM
I took a Science Fiction writing class in college. We spent the first few days defining exactly what SciFi is, is the Hunt for Red October SciFi? How about the GI Joe Movie?
In any case, the instructor had a pre-defined definition for SciFi, she was under the impression that anything that contained a novum was SciFi. A novum is a literary concept referring to any phenomenon that cannot not exist in real life and that the plot cannot exist without. This is still a fuzzy definition, because it blurs SciFi and Fantasy, SciFi typically deals with a novum that is related to real-world physics, while Fantasy deals with a novum that is typically unexplained or removed from the concept of physics.
In the case of Shadowrun, the extant nova (plural) are the presence of Astral Space (the source of Magic) and the presence of advanced technology. So, purposefully, it is both SciFi and Fantasy. In my opinion it errs on the side of SciFi, because while Magic does exist, it is readily explained by physics, and seems to obey the laws of Thermodynamics and the conservation of energy, if you assume that the earth is an open system with the astral.
And I'm just diving into this discussion with reckless abandon, so feel free to attack my points.
Posted by: Platinum Jun 15 2006, 07:27 PM
Future Fantasy.
Posted by: Witness Jun 15 2006, 07:30 PM
Yeah I couldn't agree with UndeadPoet on this one either.
It's got cyberware, nanotech, space stations... dude, it's sci-fi.
Posted by: Glayvin34 Jun 15 2006, 07:30 PM
This is a bit of a hobby of mine (defining what SF is), so here a great quote from Darko Suvin, a leader in SF literary thought:
"SF is distinguished by the narrative dominance of a fictional novelty (novum, innovation) validated both by being continuous with a body of already existing cognitions and by being a "mental experiment" based on cognitive logic.
This is not only nor even primarily a matter of scientific facts or hypotheses, and critics who protest against such narrow conceptions of SF as the Verne-to-Gernsback orthodoxy are quite right to do so. But such critics are not right when they throw out the baby with the bath by denying that what differentiates SF from the "supernatural" genres or fictional fantasy in the wider sense (including mythical tales, fairy tales, etc., as well as horror and/or heroic fantasy in the narrower sense) is the presence of scientific cognition as the sign or correlative of a method (way, approach, atmosphere, world-view, sensibility) identical to that of a modern philosophy of science."
He's got a great article at http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/backissues/14/suvin14art.htm
The above quote is taken from this article.
Posted by: Teulisch Jun 15 2006, 07:57 PM
I would say that SR is indeed science fiction. We take an idea, defined in this case as magic returning in a specific way and science advancing to a specific point, all in a specific timeframe. we then have a great many stories built on this very finite basis of assumptions. I think its the finite changes that make it SF.
SF is about how society reacts to changes. sure the cool super-science toys are fun, but thats simply a part of the setting, not the plot or characters. the plot is about how the characters deal with a problem that the change creates.
what we change is not important. If i have a setting with geneticly augmented mutants, psionics, and technology, that is a basis for a lot of science fiction. but if i replace 'psionics' with 'magic' and 'genetic mutant' with 'Orks and Trolls', then we have people making arguments because they see classical Fantasy elements in a SF series. because people like labels, and hate it when things go across several labels they feel should stay seperate, regardless of how good the fiction is.
Some SF is based on the idea that some basic part of how we understand the universe is just wrong. that what we assume is universal law is in fact just a localized effect of a much more complex system. The SR cycles of magic is such a thing. Having latent genetics that re-activate when the enviroment changes is very SF. It brings about questions of what happened 10,000 years ago that we dont know about?not all SF has to be in the future- some very good SF is set in alternate history timelines
Posted by: eidolon Jun 15 2006, 08:40 PM
Some people just never can accept that language is fluid, and that regardless of the fact that a term or phrase had only one, narrow meaning in the past, the meaning that it holds to a majority of users today is the only meaning that matters (from a general use standpoint; anything else is etymology).
In that light, SR is most assuredly SF.
Posted by: Nim Jun 15 2006, 08:54 PM
In my lit classes along this line, the accepted expansion of 'SF' was 'speculative fiction', incorporating hard sci-fi, fantasy, horror, alternative history, etc etc etc.
Posted by: stevebugge Jun 15 2006, 09:09 PM
In my experience Speculative Fiction should also include most corporate training and policy manuals too.
Posted by: Geekkake Jun 15 2006, 09:13 PM
| QUOTE (stevebugge) |
| In my experience Speculative Fiction should also include most corporate training and policy manuals too. |
Hahahahaha. Having a fair stack of these from various companies, I'm inclined to agree.
Posted by: Dudukain Jun 15 2006, 09:16 PM
I was about to start a thread like this, But I was going to call it "people screaming about shadowrun genres"
Er...I guess it's Sci-Fi. In the same way star trek, Larry Niven novels, and a bunch of other stuff is sci-fi.
Posted by: Shadow Jun 15 2006, 09:54 PM
Sci-Fi has been around a long time. I don't know when the first Sci-Fi book was published, I know it was in the 19th century though. Lots of 'serial-science-fiction' came out in the late 19th, early 20th century. It wasn't until the 50's and 60's that Sci-Fi authors started making a lot of social commentary in their books. I think Heinlein is probably responsible for that trend.
Not sure where UP gets the idea that Social Commentary makes Science Fiction. SF is a genre, and like all genre's it can really be about anything. It has something critical in it that defines it as Science Fiction though.
Websters defines it thusly,
| QUOTE |
science fiction n. A literary or cinematic genre in which fantasy, typically based on speculative scientific discoveries or developments, environmental changes, space travel, or life on other planets, forms part of the plot or background. |
Now if your saying "all the great works of Sci-Fi have Social commentary in them" then that is your opinion. Don't get mad at other people for not sharing them.
As for Star Trek, and Star Wars, I hate to tell you this, but they are the corner stone of modern Sci-Fi. Without them there would probably be a lot less Sci-Fi both in books, t.v., and film. (Imho) It is important to respect the past of something, even if you don't like it. For instance I love Jules Verne, 20,000 Leagues under the Sea, was about a Nuclear Submarine, in 1860! Some people however do not like his work, that is their right, but it doesn't change the fact that he helped define what Sci-Fi is, and continues to be.
Posted by: coolgrafix Jun 15 2006, 09:55 PM
From the thread Geekkake valiantly saved from near obfuscation...
Wikipedia offers some good reading on this topic:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science-fiction
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_fiction/Hard_science_fiction
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_fiction/Soft_science_fiction
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_trek
Posted by: Glayvin34 Jun 15 2006, 10:14 PM
| QUOTE (Shadow) | ||
| Sci-Fi has been around a long time. I don't know when the first Sci-Fi book was published, I know it was in the 19th century though. Lots of 'serial-science-fiction' came out in the late 19th, early 20th century. It wasn't until the 50's and 60's that Sci-Fi authors started making a lot of social commentary in their books. I think Heinlein is probably responsible for that trend. Not sure where UP gets the idea that Social Commentary makes Science Fiction. SF is a genre, and like all genre's it can really be about anything. It has something critical in it that defines it as Science Fiction though. Websters defines it thusly,
Now if your saying "all the great works of Sci-Fi have Social commentary in them" then that is your opinion. Don't get mad at other people for not sharing them. As for Star Trek, and Star Wars, I hate to tell you this, but they are the corner stone of modern Sci-Fi. Without them there would probably be a lot less Sci-Fi both in books, t.v., and film. (Imho) It is important to respect the past of something, even if you don't like it. For instance I love Jules Verne, 20,000 Leagues under the Sea, was about a Nuclear Submarine, in 1860! Some people however do not like his work, that is their right, but it doesn't change the fact that he helped define what Sci-Fi is, and continues to be. |
Yep. That link I posted above details a lot of Victorian-era books and whether or not Suvin considers them SciFi. I've always considered Edgar Allan Poe to have written the first SciFi. Around 1830 he wrote a story (can't remember the name) about this guy that goes up in a hot air ballon to heights no man has gone. Poe extrapolates about the effects of pressure and whatnot in the upper stratosphere.
Verne, whom IMHO popularized SciFi, took heavily from Poe and even wrote a sequel to one of Poe's stories, the The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. Which is an extrapolation about Antarctica before anyone had really been there. AND interestingly enough, Arthrur Gordon Pym was also Lovecraft's inspiration for At the Mountains of Madness.
Posted by: Shadow Jun 15 2006, 10:18 PM
You know I went over there and read what they had to say, and found it HORRIBLY inaccurate. So I would take what Wikepedia says with a grain of salt. I did my best to ajust it to make it right, hopefully it sticks.
Posted by: Witness Jun 15 2006, 10:41 PM
| QUOTE (Shadow) |
| It wasn't until the 50's and 60's that Sci-Fi authors started making a lot of social commentary in their books. |
HG Wells was pretty into the old social commentary.
Posted by: Lagomorph Jun 15 2006, 11:30 PM
I had never really considered SR to be SF, but I think that it fits well into the several definitions that have been presented. The world that SR creates is based in scientific reality, and is also fictional.
As for Social Commentary, thats probably an exersize best left to the reader. I think you can find social commentary in any media, especially in a setting where an idea or ideal is extrapolated out into an extreme. That happens just about everywhere. I think my point is that it's hard to make media with out it meaning anything.
Posted by: -X- Jun 16 2006, 01:59 AM
To paraphrase a character from a novel/movie that could easily be argued to be sci-fi yet most people don't think of it that way, "Sci-Fi is as Sci-Fi does."
To put it another way sci-fi is that stuff that feels sci-fi-ey to you. Star Wars has plenty of fantasy elements in it, but it also has laser guns and spaceships so it is sci-fi.
Lord of the Rings has a lot of science in it (at least naturalism) yet it has Orksies and Trollsies in it.
Shadowrun is a serious genre sprainer. I'd say its extremely practical approach to magic puts Shadowrun in the Sci-Fi camp... but you can tell just by looking at the poor guy that he isn't happy there and he keeps gazing over at all the kids playing across the wall in Fantasyland. (Fantasy Island? Wait.., nevermind.)
Finally, I feel I must respond to something said (because I'm a pedantic loser who can't let stuff go.) in the other thread about the sci-fi label and how 95 percent of folks were 'wrong' about the definition of the label. It is linguistically impossible for 95 percent of people to be wrong about what a word or phrase means. As soon as a new definition for something becomes the one most understood it becomes the primary definition.
As far as dictionaries go there is admittedly some linguistic inertia where they won't actually change the definitions, but with the advent of the Internet and easily updated dictionary databases, definitions have been much better at keeping up with practical usage. (Ironically this might actually effect language in that slang that might have died out could potentially be extended long enough to become standard usage.)
Really there is no right or wrong in language, there is only communicating and not communicating.
Posted by: mfb Jun 16 2006, 04:58 AM
by UndeadPoet's definition, no, SR is not SF. but, then, UndeadPoet is the only person i'm aware of who's using that definition.
in other news, i have decided that the word "aardvark" refers to clothing designed to be worn on, and protect, the feet.
Posted by: BookWyrm Jun 16 2006, 07:10 AM
Let us not forget http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk in Wikipedia too.
But SR is a combination of Science Fiction & Fantasy, so it falls into that category.
Posted by: UndeadPoet Jun 16 2006, 07:56 AM
| QUOTE (eidolon) |
| Some people just never can accept that language is fluid, and that regardless of the fact that a term or phrase had only one, narrow meaning in the past, the meaning that it holds to a majority of users today is the only meaning that matters (from a general use standpoint; anything else is etymology). In that light, SR is most assuredly SF. |
eidolon has understood the problem perfectly. I am too narrow minded to accept the new sci-fi-genre, this is the case. I don't like it. The old spirit is lost.
I like my beer cold and my science-fiction classical.
Surely SR is science fiction, but not classical science fiction. I don't like the same term being used, either, but that's not mine to decide.
To understand how I feel, imagine you like reggae and hate metal. Then suddenly a new form of metal comes up and people call it "reggae", while forgetting what reggae was back in those days.
While eidolon has understood the problem, geekkake has not, insulting me eventually as an "elitist cunt" and taking the discussion to a personal level.
May I leave this thread now and suggest that obviously he feels too elite to have the need to discuss in a mannered way?
Thanks. Have a nice day, even you, geekkake.
Posted by: eidolon Jun 16 2006, 10:10 AM
| QUOTE (X-) |
| Really there is no right or wrong in language, there is only communicating and not communicating. |
Well said. This is the first concept that's taught in any good language class. (By language I mean "learning a language that you don't know already", not "a class on language"; although I'd be wary of any class "on language" that didn't include this basic thought in some form, and early.)
It doesn't matter if my Chinese is good enough that I know how to say "I'm sorry, but I'm terribly lost and I was wondering if you would be so kind as to show me how to get to the Three Gorges." If I need to get there, all I truly need to know is "How go Three Gorges?" Granted it isn't pretty, but it's communication. (And actually, I'm pretty sure I can say it the first way. I don't think I've lost quite that much of it.
)
Posted by: booklord Jun 16 2006, 01:16 PM
With Shadowrun I have actually gotten into debates about the physics of "magic".
IMHO, that is the Sci-fi in its purest sense.
Posted by: mfb Jun 16 2006, 06:03 PM
| QUOTE (UndeadPoet) |
| I am too narrow minded to accept the new sci-fi-genre, this is the case. |
it is still wholly unclear to me what you're talking about, when you say that pre-Star Wars/Trek sci-fi was reserved, even in minor part, for social commentary. there was never a time when the majority of sci-fi wasn't cheap, lurid crap being printed out for the masses with no thought given to its social relevance, with the exception of those times when there wasn't any sci-fi being printed at all.
i mean, help me out, here. in the other thread, i linked to http://www.ospreydesign.com/foreword/archives/001462.html in order to make my point. i'm not sure you got it, then, so i'll spell it out now: what differentiates Sin in Space from SR? why is Sin in Space considered sci-fi, but SR isn't? or, if Sin in Space is too recent for you, we can talk about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Tomorrow or, as i said in the other thread, http://www.buck-rogers.com/. classical sci-fi was no more meaningful than any other era of sci-fi. within classical sci-fi, of course, there were some who used it for social commentary, just as some do today.
Posted by: bigdrewp Jun 16 2006, 06:46 PM
I think a lot of the misunderstanding in this discussion is from the fact that, in my opinion there are two different genres being called one. The way I look at it you have Sci-Fi and you have Science Fiction. Sci Fi would be stuff like Buck Rogers, and Star Wars, no basis in science, basically fantasy in space. Science Fiction would be stuff like Heinlien, based on science fact and theory. Science Fiction does not have to be set in space or even the future, it just have to have a bit of tech that we don't have, but is an extension of existing science.
Maybe I am wrong, but this is the way I like to view it. At least it makes me feel smart when I read Science Fiction.
Posted by: X-Kalibur Jun 16 2006, 06:56 PM
I think some of you aren't giving Star Wars enough credit as real science fiction, in that regards I'd urge you to read some of the better works written by Timothy Zahn and Michael A. Stackpole.
Anyway, SR is just as SF as "Dune", "Bladerunner", "I, Robot"(the book, hell, even the movie). Just because it has magic and oversized lizards doesn't change the genre. Look at that old show "Sliders" where they move through Parallel universes. Was it Sci-Fi? Absolutely. Did every episode involve the future? nope, they were all the same point in time approximately and in space for that matter. Did they all have high technology? Most of them no, a few expections exsist.
Posted by: mfb Jun 17 2006, 06:45 AM
i prefer to simply say that there is thought-provoking sci-fi, and pulp sci-fi. trying to name one "sci-fi" and the other "science fiction" seems a bit confusing, to me, especially since it doesn't allow for works which ride the line between them. to me, for instance, Heinlein would fit into that in-between area. that way, you also don't have to discount certain works because of their lack of basis in 'real' science, such as Henry Kuttner. sci-fi can be good without necessarily having any solid basis in real science.
Posted by: hyzmarca Jun 17 2006, 09:34 AM
Yesterday's pulp is tomorrow's classic. Just look at Bill "The Bard" Shakespeare. Back in the day he wrote pulp plays. Crittics derided his low-brow mass-marketed work. Today he's standard reading in most schools.
| QUOTE (X-Kalibur) |
| I think some of you aren't giving Star Wars enough credit as real science fiction, in that regards I'd urge you to read some of the better works written by Timothy Zahn and Michael A. Stackpole. |
I don't read the Expanded Universe books. There's way too much fan-wanking and power creep there. While the prequels are certainly worthy of hate at least Lucas didn't have Jedi destroying entire fleets with nothing but the Force.
Science fiction is a very broad umbrella genre that covers any number od sub-genres and sub-sub-genres. It is quite impossible to pigeonhole. It includes everything from space opera[/]i to [i]ialternative history. An faux anthropology textbook detailing a fictional ethnic group in minute detail is just as much science fiction as Captain Harlock is and Captain Harlock is just s much science fiction as Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is.
Some try to seperate it into "hard" and soft" catagories. This works rather well. "soft" science fiction is defined by character driven stories with a lot of handwaving and making shit up on th etechnology end. "Hard" science fiction is usually defined by some attempt at scientific accuracy even though dramatic license is inevitable. This works well for the most part but it can become nitpicky when you wonder about what handwaves are allowed in a hard sci-fi story.
Take Guns of the South, for example. Guns of the South is an alternate history novel predicated on the idea that disgrunted supporters of South Africa's ousted apartheid regime stole a time machine and sold AK-47s to the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. The time machine itself was completely and totally handwaved. There were no pseudo-science expositions. There was not a single attempt to justify it existance. It simply was. However, despite the fact that the supporting pilliar of the story was blatently handwaved I would still consider it hard science fiction because the time machine was just a meaningless plot device. Instead of making up crap about quantum this and bla-bla that the author researched the Civil War and channeled his efforts into crafting realistic military, political, and social consequences for the introduction of modern weapons into the Confederate arsenal.
Some might consider the handwaving to be a fatal flaw that makes it purely humanistic "soft" sci-fi but I would disagree. Of course, the fact that I can reasonably disagree suggests that such catagorization is itself flawed. It is quite possible completely handwave certain sciences while being true to others.
Posted by: mfb Jun 17 2006, 09:40 AM
it's a sliding scale, yeah. i mean, if there's absolutely zero handwaving, then it's not really science fiction at all--more of a techno-thriller. for that matter, Tom Clancy makes use of technology which doesn't (yet) exist, but people don't tend to consider him a sci-fi writer. so there's not really a clear divider between hard and soft sci-fi.
Posted by: bigdrewp Jun 18 2006, 04:00 AM
First off I wasn't meaning to imply that, by my definition, sci-fi was any less enjoyable than science fiction. I am an avid reader of both, as well as a heap of other genres. I was only attempting to point out that there are different types of Science Fiction.
I also agree with hyzmarca that it is too difficult to set down a concrete definition of the genre. The "genre gurus" themselves can't agree on what makes science fiction science fiction, so I am fairly sure that we won't be able to define it here.
Overall I guess that I would say that yes, Shadowrun is science fiction, as well as, no it is not. It is cyberpunk, though there is debate on whether or not the movement, and thus genre are dead. Cyberpunk is a sub-genre of science fiction, so yes and no.
I guess.
Posted by: Witness Jun 22 2006, 04:53 PM
| QUOTE (hyzmarca @ Jun 17 2006, 04:34 AM) |
| Some try to seperate it into "hard" and soft" catagories. |
Good summary there.
I suppose SR can never really be hard sci-fi. All that magic stuff is just inherently handwavey. But it can easily be soft sci-fi: focussing on characters and situations and complex page-turner plots and the sociology of extreme capitalism and the psychology of extreme augmentation. Room for all of that and more in the SR universe. Who wants to pick that ball up and run with it (in fiction or in games) is an eternally open question.
So yes, I'm surprised that UndeadPoet dismissed SR in this regard (in the original post that led to this one). You can't judge or categorize an entire fictional-but-developing-universe-with-multiple-authors [FBDUWMA in all such future discussions
] in the same way that you can judge or categorize a single story or epic. Even Star Wars could, potentially, transcend to greater things than 'mere escapism'. I'm not aware that it has, but then I've not read any of the books, plus I'm stuck in an airport in Gibraltar, waiting for a flight home, desperately pissing money up the wall on web time because the bastards won't let me smoke in the departure lounge (unless 'that man over there says it's ok', and guess what, the man from Gib he say no. Rude word x10)
Posted by: NightHaunter Jun 30 2006, 02:10 PM
Shadowrun is Dark Future is Cyberpunk is SciFi.
Done.
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