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 Is Shadowrun Science Fiction?, What is science fiction, anyway? |
 Jun 16 2006, 06:46 PM
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#26
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Target  Group: Members Posts: 46 Joined: 4-June 06 From: Kansas City Member No.: 8,644  |
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. |
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Jun 16 2006, 06:56 PM
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#27
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,579 Joined: 30-May 06 From: SoCal Member No.: 8,626 |
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. |
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Jun 17 2006, 06:45 AM
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#28
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
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.
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Jun 17 2006, 09:34 AM
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#29
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Midnight Toker Group: Members Posts: 7,686 Joined: 4-July 04 From: Zombie Drop Bear Santa's Workshop Member No.: 6,456 |
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.
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. |
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Jun 17 2006, 09:40 AM
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#30
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
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.
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Jun 18 2006, 04:00 AM
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#31
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Target Group: Members Posts: 46 Joined: 4-June 06 From: Kansas City Member No.: 8,644 |
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. |
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Jun 22 2006, 04:53 PM
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#32
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 681 Joined: 28-February 06 From: UK Member No.: 8,319 |
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) |
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Jun 30 2006, 02:10 PM
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#33
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 360 Joined: 18-March 02 From: Plymouth UK. Member No.: 2,408 |
Shadowrun is Dark Future is Cyberpunk is SciFi.
Done. |
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