Talk to the Goat
Try Nora Roberts writing as JD Robb. Yes, it is science fiction in the fact that it is set in the future, including off planet travel, but that is more of the background to the plot,which is always murder mystery. Very popular fiction, not as much literature, but entertaining.
Ah, you crack me up! Eventhough I know you're being serious I can't take you seriously and can only laugh as I know that there is so much sci fi out there that defies the descriptions that you give.
I wish you could pick up and read The Sagan Diary by John Scalzi but unfortunately you would have no good reference for it. It might still be interesting. It is actually a short (less than 100 page) novella on the character Jane Sagan from the author's trilogy (Old Man's War, The Ghost Brigades, and the forthcoming The Last Colony). The character is a very interesting woman and it is much more of an existential, philisophical take on her life. Interesting stuff, as are the other books.
Lots of sci fi is exactly how you describe it but for those who are fans some of that is the appeal.
Older sci fi with dated references can actually be quite fun and nostalgic. It is entertaining to see what authors were seeing when they were looking into the future from their time period.
The very best sci fi stories (to me) though are stories that could really be told in any setting but use science fiction as a background. I am still a kid who believes that one day in the future man will travel among the stars and its fun to be a dreamer.
You should check out this link, I think you'd find it really interesting:
http://www.scalzi.com/whatever/0...ver/
003914.html
Thanks for the good laugh to start the day! 
All Science Fiction is written by a 40-year old manchild who still lives in his mom's wood-panelled basement and has never seen the opposite sex naked.
I knew I loved you for a reason...I love Handmaid. Other than that, (for me) Science Fiction bites the big one.
Amen!
I love Nora Roberts, good stuff. how do you keep up with all these blogs?
I don't like science fiction either...though I do ride to work on my hover horse while wearing a kickass pair of moon boots and silver parachute pants (the hoop skirt is not so good for flying).
Thank heavens there are still sane people like you and I on this planet! Not only can I not stand science fiction, but apparently cannot get the definition correct. To me, science fiction is any nerdy movie that has anything to do with things that I think are stupid. Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Aliens... whatever... it's all science fiction to me, and it's all crap.
*sigh*
I always suspected women hated Sci-Fi.
Whereas mens' main criteria for buying a tooth brush is how much it resembles a space ship.
...which is not to say that I condone shoddy work...or Bridget Jones for that matter. 
thanks for the laugh- now I'll join the chorus of people offering up the exception that proves your rule. Try Tanith Lee's book, Silver Metal Lover. This was recommended to me by a dear friend who was, at that time, my literature teacher in college (circa 1970). I've reread it several times, something I do with very few books. To your point - it's about psychology, what gives life meaning, what does it mean to be human, how the world might be structured politically and economically and what the consequences of that might be. Big thoughts in a slendar novel. If it's out of print, I'll send you a copy - I have several. (I've read several of Tanith Lee's others, in hopes of finding another gem, but - no. )
in this alien world e before i except after c! boo spooky spooky!
I had this really clever comment ready to go, but then I read Beefcake Almighty's. So, uh, what they said.
I know...you'd think these authors would come up with more...what with all the free time they have as a result of NEVER getting laid.
When did disco die?
I totally thought it would make a comback in the future!
YOU SHATTERED MY DREAMS, JAY!
heh, wonder if you've read the orson scott cardhives/ hegemen lot - enders game is fab.. mind you, i don't hate sci-fi, i just prefer fantasy..
the handmaids tale though - classic book, perhaps I should just bow to your superior taste and knowledge..
I know what you mean. I have to be careful in chosing what to read in the Sci-fi department. I like Asmov too, but mostly b/c he develops his charactors more than emphasizing the silly sterio-type future.
You should try "The Snow Queen" by Joan D. Vinge. I suspect you'd like that one a lot.
Have you ever read "Mistress is a Harsh mistress"?
I do prefer fantasy. Less boundaries and rules and calculations. Not AS predictable.
Ok. Sorry, I didn't know I was drunk... I meant the book's called "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress".
It's sci-fi - but I like it. Probably the only science fiction that I like enough to name. It's strange out of this world.
I've never cared for Sci-Fi, although unable to communicate WHY. You have done so brilliantly.
And I'll second your "Amen!" on Sci-Fi sucking!
3T
I think Handmaids Tale would be better slotted in 'speculative fiction' than sci-fi.
But I think that spec. fiction is a relatively new genre (don't quote me on this) and so Ms. Atwood's book just got stuck in sci-fi.
This reminds me of my attempt to watch the entire Buck Rogers in the 25th century DVD's. It was really really bad.
Though that's on of the good things about Star Trek, the moral messages. The new Battlestar Galatica is like that as well. It's more about relationships and morality.
The story telling should be about that, not the gadgets.
No, I'm sorry, The Handmaids Tale IS science fiction, so there. (Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter most definately are not). Sci Fi isn't necessarily to do with robots or space ships (kept typing space whips there) or aliens. If you like this Atwood and Asimov and Neal Stephenson, then you DO LIKE (some) SF - its not all cowboys in space. Its a very varied genre with lots of dross and lots of good stuff too.
I like Ursula le Guin. And you might enjoy Tricia Sullivan - Maul, for example.
Just like ALL fiction, there is good and bad scifi. Not all of it deals with aliens and technical crap. It does take a certain leap of faith (that the world inevitably changes) to enjoy. But if there were no scifi of any kind and all we had were books about how crappy life is now and in years past, I think many people would go a little postal from the lack of imagination. Even bad imagination.
i don't read many sci-fi novels but take guilty pleasure in sci-fi tv and movies.
Jeffee is a Star Wars aficionado and it just floors me that I fuck him.
I agree with Tai - Handmaid's is better described as "speculative fiction" than sci-fi (I mean, doesn't "science" fiction require some "science"?)... another better category for it is "futuristic dystopian literature"... of course, I just like the word "dystopian" because my high school English teacher told me it wasn't really a word when I wrote it in an essay on Handmaid's Tale, but how can it not be a real word when my ex-husband is writing his Master's thesis in English on dystopian literature? Take that, high school English teacher!
Wow. What a limited view point. There is stuff much like Asimov being published still, and Variable Star is one of the best works I've read in a long time, just as much as Robert Charles Wilson's Darwinia and Spin. You can't judge a genre on crap. Hell, I'd say there's no point to writing romance, and all romance books are written (and read) by lonely women who can't deal with men as they are so they have to fantasize an ideal mate. I don't say that because I don't know the genre.
Just because you don't like something, doesn't mean it sucks.
And Atwood HATES being called a science fiction writer.
"doesn't "science" fiction require some "science""
In a word, no. The problem with the term 'science fiction', as illustrated in these comments, is the word 'science'. When seeing this, certain things are assumed to be in a story. The field of science fiction encompasses a lot more stories than you'd think, and I believe that 'speculative fiction' is actually a better term. But 'science fiction' is what we have and 'The Handmaid's Tale' and 'Oryx and Crake' ARE science fiction, even if Atwood doesn't like it. Same thing for Vonnegut's 'Slaughterhouse Five'. For examples of science fiction without so much science in it, see just about anything written by Heinlein, including 'Stranger In A Strange Land' and, as mentioned earlier, 'The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress'.
If 'Stranger' were written today, it would probably be perceived as being in the same 'category' as 'The Handmaid's Tale'.
I also loved The Handmaid's Tale. For me to suspend any disbelief while reading science fiction, I like it to seem remotely possible, resembling something closer to Cormac McCarthy's The Road. You know, doom & gloom sticks-for-weapons, all animals are exinct, dressed-in-rags, cheerful stuff like that. So, more dystopian, I guess. (Kind of like some older episodes of The Twilight Zone, too.)
Lady, you are ace! But you forgot the worst of all (although I don't read much sci-fi), Ron L. Hubbard (yes, that same one). If you ever have anything in your stomach you want to get rid of, I highly recommend it. Otherwise, have a good schnaps and feel much better... without the bad after taste... Unless you drink too much of it, of course
All Science Fiction is written by a 40-year old manchild who still lives in his mom's wood-panelled basement and has never seen the opposite sex naked.
Beefcake Almighty
:Cough: Elizabeth Bear :cough: Liz Williams :cough: Martha Wells :cough:
And that's just female SF authors that I know to varying degrees.
Wow. Somebody's spoiling for a flame war.
You're entitled to your own opinion and so on and so forth and I agree that most science fiction sucks, but so do the vast majority of novels released every year. As for your Snow Crash comment, I wonder if the corsets in Jane Austen novels also wreck your (obviously fragile) suspension of disbelief.
Furthermore, The Handmaid's Tale, Oryx and Crake, The Road, The Time Travelers Wife, and most novels by Haruki Murakami, Italo Calvino, Edgar Allen Poe, ad nauseum would be at home in the Barnes and Noble fantasy and science fiction section. By your criteria, shouldn't they also fall in the suck category?
I am so still cracking up reading all the comments. Being an unabashed lover of science fiction (and fantasy, and classic literature, and just plain READING for that matter) I don't feel the need to stick up for the genre. There are more great books than I could read in a lifetime that do that just fine.
Did you know that you are causing a stir? Check it out:
http://www.sfsignal.com/archives...ves/
004812.html
I love sci fi. Asimov's Foundation series is a fav. Anne McCaffery's Petaybee and Tower (The Rowan, Damia etc) series are also very good. the Star Wars and Star Trek stuff is pretty good too.
I do take issue with anything invovling time travel. There are just too many possibilities and inconsistencies too make it believable in a book or movie.
I also love fantasy and just a smidgen more than I love sci fi.
There are good books and bad books in every genre, just like there's good music and bad music in every genre. While you're thoroughly entitled to your opinion of science fiction as a genre, your argument holds very little weight, largely due to your 'everything in this box sucks...oh, except *these* things, because *I* like them' attitude. The cherry(picking) blog theme makes sense, I guess.
Though one question still remains - if you don't like reading science fiction, why do you bother? Just a thought, y'know.
i would go a different direction on the novel/film thing. i can watch movies, but not read the books for the most part. it just lends itself to visuals and visual storytelling.
and i would have to disagree on the summation of sci-fi lover. my house is pretty clean and i regularly rotate clean toothbrushes. and no posters ... but maybe that's because my wife won't allow them.
e+
My husband is a mild science fiction fan. I thought he was going to pass out when, after dating a while, I told him I had never seen any of the Star Wars movies. He keeps trying to force me to watch them but I haven't given in yet. I married a comic book/science ficiton nerd and he married a literary nerd. It balances itself out.
I just want my flying cars!!!
i can't read scifi-i've tried, i don't get it.
Jamie, I totally agree with you. Now. I'm amazed that I was once entertained by some of that shit. But that was a LONG time ago. I grew out of it quickly. But not as quickly as you. I too am entertained only if the author is exploring the societal changes, the moral conflicts and that sort of thing. The dopey names and dopier gadgets and lame ass attempts to depict what art will be like, is just stupid. I also outgrew sports and commercial TV. And keeping pets. Life is far more exciting without that stuff.
I agree, I agree, I agree!!! The Handmaid's Tale is one of my all-time favourite books. But I hate science fiction. I've tried; I just can't do it.
I'm going to have to disagree with some people here:
to me, "speculative fiction" (and to some extent, even "fantasy") is just redundant. they both just mean you're making shit up. i mean, any author of ficition sits down, and imagines characters living lives that don't acutally exist. They're all speculating. Some of them just aren't very spectacular.
Oh my god, woman. You dropped some goddamn SCIENCE with this funky shit. I'm everything a sci-fi IS... pale, balding, with a neck beard and cantelevered acne and paint peeling halitosis... but I just can't get past how SUCKASS science fiction is. Fucking Arthur C. Clarke is A FUCKING ASSHOLE.
The above Anonymous was me. The bastard with the neck beard.
I hate to ruin a perfect 42 comments, but someone has to do it. I really liked the Handmaid's Tale, though I barely recall any of it now. I also love the Dune series (which I think is bereft of most of the lame things you mentioned) and Douglas Adams's books (NOT to be confused with Douglas Copeland's!!)
You're right, though. There are distinctly different genres within sci-fi: those that have a great plot and just happen to be set in a fictional universe, and those that have a sucky (or no) plot, and rely solely on the gadgets and "wonderful inventions" to drag their sorry asses along.
Another good one, Jay. I think I went through my SF phase in `77 with Star Wars. I'd like to say I then discovered girls...the problem was having girls discover me.
You visited my blog, I feel like I've met a rock star. Thank You : - )
Matilda - I have to admit, I largely agree with you. Lately, science fiction has just been a catch-all phrase for all the yucky things that I don't like.
CS, thanks for reminding me about Ron. Can you believe that someone actually brought me to see Battlefiend Earth on a date?!?!?
Carl, thanks for the link. You know I love you
e - you know you're lucky. Many a good man has been saved by an even better wife. Just ask Kim, who is making sacrifices every night
Candace - I really liked the Hitchhiker's Guide too, though probably because I appreciate the humour and the satire - I mean, the book itself is laughing at the genre.
Greg - thanks for making me laugh, buddy.
Coupland is hilarious. Well, "Girlfriend in a Coma" was total shit...but I can forgive him, I think.
Kurt Vonnegut, Ray Bradbury...both decent science fiction writers.
Ever heard of the Cobra Event by Richard Preston...science fiction...though, scarily reality based.
Usually I don't like "science fiction" but there are some good writers out there that don't buy into that style.
I'm not a fan of science fiction either...but I DID like all The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books...very funny, have you read them?
I couldn't agree more! I eventually stopped reading science fiction because I could watch it on TV and it would be the same thing over and over. Little green men.
The only thing worse than published sci-fi is seeking to be published sci-fi. Why do writers think that 900 years in the future we'll still be using torches? The Handmaids is one of my favorites too, chilling.
You're a better person than me, I don't know that I could've been dragged to see Battlefield Earth if I was offered the chance to view it with Kate Beckinsale sitting on my lap. Weeeeellll...maybe that would do it, if a bag of dark chocolate M&Ms was thrown in.
And I know, I think this is really funny, especially because it doesn't change me being me. Sorry on behalf of all the science fiction fans, the rational and uber-dorks alike, for some of the insensitive comments you've received on the other link.
Evidently a sense of humor isn't a prerequisite for human existence.
Oh Carl, you know my skin is pretty thick, and you pretty accurately assessed that I would get a kick out of it.
Though Jason has just pointed this out to me:
"I notice that the Feb 14 entry (on the sfsignal site) doesn't mention women. I guess it's just another day in science fiction land."
There's also the hover cars and 'ray' guns. I admire that the future will only contain tin and aluminum, apparently.
I read Handmaid's Tale for no other reason than part of the movie was filmed here in Raleigh. I ended up liking it a great deal.
I love SF Signal, one of the best places for a geek like me to use as a hub for links to all kinds of stuff. Really thrilled me that they linked to your post.
You tell it sister! Never understood it and it couldn't hold my interest.
Well, I'm not sure if we've learned anything so much as confirmed a few hunches we already had:
1. That sci-fi geeks are born without a sense of humour.
2. That they do indeed hide inside their dark homes, even ordering groceries over the internet so that they forget the difference between apples and cherries.
A few more examples of SF books you've read would make this more credible.. I'm left with the impression you've not dug particuarly deep in the genre and have just got the mass-market crap that no genre can be best represented by.
Well, here's the thing: I'm not trying to be credible. This is my blog. B-l-o-g. This is where I say things like: I have a headache, the flowers are droopy, barbecue is good, science fiction sucks. Got that? And for the record, although I am probably the most prolific reader you've ever met, no, I have no interest in digging further into a genre that bores me senseless.
Have a nice day.
LMAO - Jay m'love, I think you've struck a chord on here - obviously sci-fi is the marmite of the book world, you either love it or hate it, and I now what what my next blog post will be about *grin* this si the second time you've had me thinking this week - good on ya missus *kiss*
Thank you, doll.
One word to describe you?
Lame. You have no idea what you're talking about.
There is nothing wrong with snobbery, but ignorant snobbery is offensive. Most people who say they hate science fiction are basing that opinion on sci-fi movies and television, which is rather like saying you hate Shakespearean comedies because TV sitcoms are stupid.
Perhaps you are not in that category, Jay, but one would never know it from this piece. Your general criticisms (space travel is all by rocketship, aliens are all humanoids, and such) apply to media sci-fi not to written SF. None of the best current hard SF writers--such as Charles Stross, Robert Charles Wilson, Iain M. Banks, Vernor Vinge, Adam Roberts, or Greg Egan--suffer the lack of imagination you describe.
Your specific criticisms are that you hate Douglas Coupland (so do I), you were unimpressed with the Shrike in Hyperion, and that Snow Crash should not have referred to videotapes (never mind that Neal Stephenson anticipated a host of real-world developments in that novel, such as the use of avatars, the market for real estate in cyberspace, etc.). This is hardly a ringing indictment of the field.
Then you allow that you enjoy Isaac Asimov and that a science fiction novel, The Handmaid's Tale, is one of your all-time favorites. Any serious SF reader you ask could name a hundred modern SF authors who are better writers than Asimov, and at least a dozen who write in a style comparable to The Handmaid's Tale.
Let me know what it is you hate about Ursula K. LeGuin, James Morrow, China Miéville, Ian McDonald, Connie Willis, Jeffrey Ford, Gene Wolfe, or Neil Gaiman, and then perhaps I can consider your essay something more than an ignorant rant.
You just need to read better science fiction. Try Iain M Banks.
my god you people are tiring and defensive. almsot as tiring as the clay aiken fans...hmm. wait a minute.
i bet you guys are one and the same. you love sci fi, you love clay aiken, and you hate anyone who dares to dislike either. now i get it.
no worries, i totally forgive you. i guess it's a sickness.
Right. We can't get laid either. There's no topping you in a serious literary discussion, huh?
all of this is so true.
especially the part about the video-tape.
How many science fiction films and books have characters using pay phones.
totally a thing of the past.
I agree. The Handmaid's Tale doesn't seem to fit the sci-fi genre to me, either. One of my favorites.
Ah, I was going to complain, but I realized...I could care less what anyone thinks
You could try our fellow Canadian Robert J. Sawyer for sci fi. I generally do not like it either - it's right up there with fantasy and vampires for me - but he puts some interesting dilemmas into his tales
So Contact and Close Encounters are out for you then? LOL... I never really got into Close Encounters but hubby likes it so I watch it once in a while with him. I have to agree though sometimes these Sci Fi movies. Well I have to go for now. Tweets.
Wow - I'm thrilled to know I'm not the only one!!! I've been in the closet for YEARS about not liking science fiction (except for Star Trek, but that's more about the unitards). As a card-carrying Dork, I was afraid my license would be revoked or something.
And it's so true how you can tell science fiction novels by decade. I love how "the Future" in the 70s is dominated by groovy LPs and the intergalactic domination of the Soviet Union. The only thing they got right was that, no matter how far into the future, "The Price is Right" will still be going on...
But my pain has been validated, so now I can move on. Thanks for sharing.
Oh, I know. Science fiction makes my ear drums bleed.
But jeez. Who do these people think they are? Are all sci-fi fans just bad people or what? Their bad show here is enough to put me off their crap if it wasn't so crappy already.
Seriously - what makes them think that they're allowed to argue your opinion?
At any rate, I love your opinion. My office mates and I love to read you every morning. You rock.
one could go on and on about what's actually sci-fi. But i won't. there's just lots of kinds. Most of which are crap. I love reading sci-fi, even if it means reading probably only a couple of dozen books that are decent. snow crash was okay, but yeah, it seemed so old for 1992. and handsmaid tale was fun, but it's dystopian sci-fi. those hats they made the women wear were lame. so was the opera by the way. live long and prosper! sounds like a chinese new year saying
So most of you "sci-fi"-haters agree that The Handmaid's Tale is a very good novel. Yet if her publisher had positioned Atwood as a science fiction writer, none of you would have read The Handmaid's Tale, yet you would all blindly insist that it is crap.
This is exactly why Atwood resists having The Handmaid's Tale and Oryx and Crake labeled as science fiction, even though Oryx and Crake is SF by any conceivable definition. She knows that there is an irrational prejudice against SF that prevents truly great writers in that genre such as Ursula LeGuin from receiving proper recognition. (This is not speculation -- Atwood has written exactly that about LeGuin.)
Have any of you read Octavia Butler, one of the greatest African-American authors ever? Butler was largely ignored throughout her lifetime because of prejudice, but ironically not prejudice against her as a black woman. Many of her books, such as Parable of the Sower and Kindred, are science fiction to exactly the same extent as The Handmaid's Tale. But Butler's publisher decided to sell her books in the science fiction section of the bookstore, so everyone outside the genre assumes her work is crap without bothering to read it.
I'm sorry I seem humorless about this. Jay, I realize you have that whiny Y-generation 'tude cranked up, and that’s fine. But saying "science fiction sucks" is not quite the same as bitching about your car or the pizza in Toronto. I believe that literature matters -- life should be about something more than eating, fucking, and collecting toys. So it bothers me that there are millions of intelligent people out there who might get some real satisfaction from reading SF (and also be just a bit more prepared for all the serious shit that’s going to hit our society in the next century), but don’t ever give it a try because a bunch of blowhards assured them that SF is all crap, and they falsely assume that the blowhards have a clue what they’re talking about.
Jay, you say you read an awful lot. If you can't understand why anyone might feel passionately about the books they read, I don't know why you bother.
AH - get your own blog, and keep your opinions over there. This here is MY blog, where MY opinions are the only ones that count. See over there where it says author? That's my picture, not yours. You can like any kind of crap that you want, but I do not, and I am allowed to not like it, and I am allowed to say and to write what I do and do not like. And if you're poor little genre cannot withstand my opinion, I think it says a lot about the genre (but nothing that I didn't already know).
Now who's defensive?
Jay, I'm not open-minded person or reasonable.
The bibles science fiction to! Well, it was back then I'm sure.
Oh, and don't tarnish a whole genre with one stick tar brush! Thats like saying All blondes are stupid!
I know this is very old but I could not resist commenting. First let me say that I agree with everything Aaron hughs said.
I'll add something I posted on someone elses "BLOG" Rhese blogs are in fact open forums. By posting them on the internet you invite anyone with an internet connection to react. But it sounds to me that your like so many other blogers in that you only want possitive responses to your articles and anyone who disagrees with you can just go suck it and get their own blog.
Mr. hughs made some very valid points in a very intellegent way yet you simply dismissed his observations with a very juvenile "This is MY blog"
You sound like a child whining that it's my ball and I'm going home! Only inatead of leaving you hang around and bother eberyone.
Aw, Such a shame. I feel really depressed reading this since I love the Sci Fi genre.
I think I understand where you are coming from but in a nutshell I believe that sci fi offers much more than any of the other 'boring' genres out there.
Sci fi writes its own rules and is not bound by 'normality'. It is escapism in in its best form and done right, it inspires, educated, challenges and entertains all at once. Star Trek alone has broken taboos, challenged abortion, genetics, political interference, religion and ideological conflicts.
Sigh, such a shame that so many people with limited minds cannot see the real reasons behind sci fi.
Well, aren't you whiny? You make one then. See how easy it is. God.
Make one what?
Technically the references to videotape in Snow Crash are not outdated. DVD didn't come into existence until 1995, 3 years after publication (which was probably 4 years after it was accepted for publication). There were, of course, other formats being developed in the year following the release of Snow Crash, but whether or not their development was made public prior to 1993 is unclear.
I think the problem for you isn't that you hate science fiction, you just hate a certain brand of science fiction. You enjoy Asimov and Atwood (Asimov, I presume, gets an out due to his stature and brilliant ideas for his time that transcend age; Atwood for her "literary" quality). There are a lot of SF authors who might be great for you. I wouldn't recommend reading Philip K. Dick, only because his work is intentionally pulpy in nature, despite being incredibly paranoid and psychologically twisted, but you might like Jeanette Winterson, or possibly some Ursula LeGuin, or Octavia Butler, or Samuel R. Delany. There are a LOT of writers of SF who fit your niche, you just have to look for them...you often won't find them out in the open, unfortunately.
Commenting by HaloScan
