/lit/ - Literature

aliens, sex, and alien sex

>>934596

and

-Futuristic OPERATORS operating
-Dogfights
-Explosions
-Capital Ship battles
-Exploration
-Discoveries
-Gunfights
-Drama for good measure

>>934603
>Futuristic OPERATORS operating
As in surgery?

>>934621

No, as in Special Operations soldiers being deployed on-site. Read Starfist for the definite sci-fi OPERATOR.

Not overindulgence on description, but no lack of it either.

Original.

Interesting setting.

No gimmick.

No goddamn SPACE WURZ or SPAYCE ADVENTHURR

>>934636

>No goddamn SPACE WURZ

Heinlein looks disapprovingly in your direction.

>>934635
Alright thanks, I still have quite a bit of learning ahead of me.

The kind written by people who actually understand the science they're writing about, so I pretty much dislike all sci-fi.

>>934656

Yours is a colorless and dull world.

>>934590
good sci-fi is about people trying to cope with advanced technologies and the way these technologies affect them

gratutious space battles

hot alien sex

hippie colony

would be better if you make the book play like a movee.
fuck yea?

>>934659

Sci-Fi is no great loss for me, I get along just fine with other kinds of fiction, in which the authors don't pretend to understand something they clearly don't.

>>934640
Fuck Heinlein.

>>934673
making up entire human beings with supposedly realistic personalities and feelings is somehow better than saying "hey in the far future these guys created a way to transport matter instantaneously to any point in the universe"

>>934695

It's not the ideas in sci-fi I take issue with, it's the explanations.

>>934698
then don't read shitty sci-fi, read good sci-fi

Hyperion doesn't try and explain why or how the Farcasters work, they just do.

>>934702

If there are no explanations, it's not sci-fi. It's fantasy in space.

>>934707
So false explanation are better than none?

>>934716

That's the exact opposite of what I've been saying.

I don't know, lengthy descriptions on how a certain technology works doesn't seem like it would aid the narrative at all. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy had the Heart of Gold, and Adams' explanation on how it functioned was a few sentences long at most. It was bullshit, but it sounded plausible.

>>934733

>I don't know, lengthy descriptions on how a certain technology works doesn't seem like it would aid the narrative at all.

I live for that shit. /lit/ hated on Neal Stephenson for it, but I ate it up.

>>934733

improbability fields are the wave of the future, probably.

>>934742
To be blunt...
WHY?

>>934751

I probably have Asperger's.

No, but seriously, it increases my immersion in the story. Makes me feel like I'm actually in the situation, that the object being proselytized about in detail is something I could actually see, feel, and touch.

>>934733

Plausible? I always assumed it was parodical, because of how ridiculous it was. If I were to poke fun at serious sci-fi writers, that's what I would do.

>>934748
Hey, throwing yourself at the ground and getting distracted at the last possible second sounds like a pretty plausible way to fly after a while.

>>934756
Keep in mind I wrote fantasy for quite some time/still do. What I think sounds plausible is totally different from what someone who enjoys sci fi/writes it does.

>>934603
>futuristic operators operating
<---/k/

Millitaria sci-fi does not constitute a good plot, contrary to what this guy just said.

Most good sci-fi I can see uses a hypothetical environment to explore and critique faucets if society and people in general in ways fiction simply cannot.Good examples are the oft-quoted Brave New world/1984 combo, less known would be Player-Piano and the like

The more money-mongering science-fiction novels (commonly space opera) will have gigantic environments with a shit ton of societies and races, etc... The adventure of Star Trek crossed with high fantasy scale is what usually happens.

you should note the difference between soft/hard sci-fi. Soft is much more about people and issues, basically fiction with a lego set to build dramatic situations out of. Hard sci-fi is much more about machines,data,SCIENCE RULES. 2001 is a sterling example, but the so-called "big dumb object" genre is dead right bullshit that should have disappeared years ago and you know it.

I should mention cyberpunk a little, but there is really not much to say. It's a niche and cult-like subsection where everything is a combination of dystopian oppressive (Blade runner/ Phillip K. Dick slant), and punk (Gibson slant). Fans are basically die-hards in an influential but pretty damn small section

It's worth mentioning that both the classics DUNE and Enders game fall into the category of sci-fi, and that the reason why both are good is because they hinge around essentially soft rather than hard as titanium plots. "Hard" sci-fi is often a psuedonym for "hard and uninteresting reading that substitutes SCIENCE for DRAMA. Just remember this if you plan on going into thta

>>934869

Most of what is labeled 'soft' sci-fi is essentially just fantasy in space.

>>934888
I fail to see why your bird shit on my car is so important in the big scheme of things

boi

>>934869

>Millitaria sci-fi does not constitute a good plot

This is the second time I've read this on /lit/

>Re-reads Starfist. This is me giving a fuck.jpg

OP, I'm trying to find it for you, but PKD has an EXCELLENT quote talking about what makes good SF. He argues that SF is about the discovery of new ideas, and the chain reaction of ideas that result from that. He says the best thing about SF is the thrill of discovering something new while you're being entertained.

i agree with the guy saying that a lot of it is just "fantasy in space."

because he's right. sci-fi places more importance on the actual technological side of it, and how the characters interact and cope with it.

just because you have someone flying in a spaceship with lasers doesn't mean you have a sci-fi novel

>>934896

>Implying your opinions are worth more than bird shit.

>>934912

"I think Dr. Willis McNelly at the California State University at Fullerton put it best when he said that the true protagonist of an sf
story or novel is an idea and not a person. If it is *good* sf the idea is new, it is stimulating, and, probably most important of all, it sets off a chain-reaction of ramification-ideas in the mind of the
reader; it so-to-speak unlocks the reader’s mind so that the mind, like the author’s, begins to create. Thus sf is creative and it
inspires creativity, which mainstream fiction by-and-large does not do. We who read sf (I am speaking as a reader now, not a writer) read
it because we love to experience this chain-reaction of ideas being set off in our minds by something we read, something with a new idea
in it; hence the very best since fiction ultimately winds up being a collaboration between author and reader, in which both create–and enjoy doing it: joy is the essential and final ingredient of science fiction, the joy of discovery of newness."

>>934918
>implying your initial post did not agree with me and simply add on in an irrelevant way
checkmate

>>934921
Thanks for digging this up. It certainly sheds some light on things.

>>934916
I don't necessarily agree with sci fi just being 'fantasy in space'. 99% of fantasy is 'MAGIC I AINT GOTTA EXPLAIN SHIT.jpg'. Fantasy needs suspension of disbelief, sci fi seems to need that + a decent air of credulity to be successful.
But you might not want to listen to me. I still want to see if I can throw myself at the ground and miss.

>>934928

You miss my point. What I said was that your post, despite being longer, was of no greater import than mine because I sum up all of your opinions in a single sentence.

God I hate tripfags and their constant need for self aggrandizement.

>>934952
His post was a lot more interesting then yours though.

>>934952
>my face when you argue your own self-importance while blaming me
only difference is that trips actually have the balls to take flak and keep on trucking, boi

>>934951

>sci fi seems to need that + a decent air of credulity to be successful.

Star Wars completely fails to make sense, and it's enjoyable to a point.

Inevitably some people will say that SW sucks, it's for Manchildren, etc. For the sake of argument, let's pretend it was written by James Joyce, or some other dead old White male, so that you CAN talk about it in Starbucks and still retain mad hipster cred with your friends.

>>934997
But I don't WANT mad hipster cred, yo. ;_;
I just want to eventually write sci fi that isn't made of ass.

>>934978

If I wished to assert my own importance, why would I post anonymously?

>>935017
because you can act more irresponsibly douche-like. expressive value mang, look it up

Dogfights, Explosions, compelling characters with realistic motivations, realistic conflicts, an interesting setting with an expansive universe, exploration, no wall of texts explaining how the pseudo science works

Watch Star Wars.

Copy EVERYTHING.

>>935033

Noooononononononono.

No.

Read...the Star Wars books. Specifically, read a specific series of Star Wars books.

Read The X-Wing cycle by Michael "Fucking Epic' Stackpole and Aaron 'Sweet Bro' Allston.

Then read The Thrawn Trilogy by Timothy 'Rad Dude' Zahn.

ITT: people use "soft sci-fi" without knowing what it means

>>934590
Crazy ideas that start out making no sense but eventually become the only logical idea.