/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.19527101]

I cannot understand how science fiction is such a lame genre literarily talking but some of the best movies ever (Stalker, Blade runner, 2001) are adaptations of science fiction books. How is that? Why can't science fiction writers stop writing Reddit but filmmakers can do such great masterpieces?

[Anonymous No.19527110]

>>19527101
Because Sci-fi authors were/are INTP/INTJ virgin auttists who love "science" but don't understand it, while filmmakers are ISTP/ISFP chads who understand story structure and character arcs

[Anonymous No.19527170]

>>19527101
>>19527110
This incel cope is too much. Crack a spine, please.

[Anonymous No.19527182]

>>19527170
Cope? cope of what? of science fiction writers being lame? can you dare to compare your best science fiction writer to Dante or Tolstoy?

[Anonymous No.19527191]

Wolfe Time

[Anonymous No.19527195]

>>19527101
You're reading the wrong scifi

[Anonymous No.19527201]

>>19527195
and what's the good scifi ah?

[Anonymous No.19527203]

>>19527195
This
The canons of sci-fi literature and sci-go film are both great.
Read Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Lovecraft, Phillip K. Dick, Heinlein, Clarke, Asimov and Gibson OP, with a side dish of Lem to complement your meal.

[Anonymous No.19527208]

>>19527101
2001 the book was based on the movie retard.

[Anonymous No.19527215]

Science fiction as a genre because its entire premise is just "what if?"
It is ephemeral and once that "what if?" question gets resolved or we make it past the year depicted in the book and its predictions didn't happen, the book literally has no reason for existing.

[Anonymous No.19527216]

>>19527201
Silverberg - Dying Inside
Zelazny - ...and Call Me Conrad
Delany - Triton
Sturgeon - More Than Human
Sheckley - Mindswap
Malzberg - Beyond Apollo
Stapledon - Star Maker
Effinger - What Entropy Means to Me
Honorable mention for Crowley if you like fantasy

Yes there are a lot of jewish people in this list, I can't help the fact that they wrote the good scifi.

[Anonymous No.19527221]

>>19527191
>wolfe
I sleep
>alastair reynolds
I wake

[Anonymous No.19527234]

>>19527208
>2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 science fiction novel by British writer Arthur C. Clarke. It was developed concurrently with Stanley Kubrick's film version and published after the release of the film. Clarke and Kubrick worked on the book together, but eventually only Clarke ended up as the official author. The story is based in part on various short stories by Clarke, including "The Sentinel" (written in 1948 for a BBC competition, but first published in 1951 under the title "Sentinel of Eternity").
based retard

[Anonymous No.19527237]

For me it's Arthur C. Clarke, H.G. Wells, Philip K. Dick, Harlan Ellison, and Stanislaw Lem.

[Anonymous No.19527240]

>>19527110
It's the other way around, faggot.

[Anonymous No.19527241]

>>19527237
none of them can be comparable to any of the greats. I think the best science fiction writer is kafka.

[Anonymous No.19527249]

>>19527101
Read some Greg Egan

[Anonymous No.19527250]

>>19527110
>story structure
>character arcs
related to N, T

>INTP/INTJ virgin auttists who love "science" but don't understand it
NT types are usually the most adept at science

read Jung and then socionics

[Anonymous No.19527257]

>>19527101
In my experience, writers of science fiction are driven to write because they're interested in a certain science fictional concepts, so their writings serve as explorations of those concepts first and as stories second. Even Dune is like this: the universe that it depicts is original and detailed, but other aspects of the novel like plot, character, style, etc. are obviously secondary concerns.

[Anonymous No.19527444]

>>19527201
I got recommended a series called The Foundation today by a PhD physicist I work with. He loves it

[Anonymous No.19527450]

>>19527444
Don't read it!

[Anonymous No.19527458]

>>19527450
I probably won't. He told me the entire synopsis of the book trilogy

[Anonymous No.19527462]

>>19527241
Wells is great and has a better prose than many so-called literary writers.

[Anonymous No.19527491]

>>19527458
Good!

[Anonymous No.19527495]

You're a poor reader most likely

[Anonymous No.19527520]

>>19527101
>t brainlet
Which sci fi books have you actually read?

[Anonymous No.19527528]

>>19527444
Read it! It's good

[Anonymous No.19527530]

>>19527101
I enjoyed Hyperion

[Anonymous No.19527539]

>>19527528
No don't do it!

[Anonymous No.19527541]

>>19527530
Based

[Anonymous No.19527545]

Sci fi is a dead genre, just like the ghost story. Move on.

[Anonymous No.19527549]

>>19527539
But he must!

[Anonymous No.19527564]

>>19527545
Science fiction is dead! Long live Science fiction!

[Anonymous No.19527576]

>>19527495
>>19527520
lmfaoo admit it. There is nothing great about science fiction. The great questions of life are indifferent to time paradoxes and interstellar travels.

[Anonymous No.19527583]

>>19527576
You completely fault to understand what sci-fi is about.
Read philosophy of you want answers to the great questions of life.

[Anonymous No.19527587]

Because film is the medium intrinsically suited to science fiction: flickering lights, screens, high tech cameras, visual effects, etc. Film and science fiction both arose at the same time and under the same conditions. Even the best and most contemporary science fiction literature, in this older and more expansive medium, will seem old fashioned and insufficient as "science fiction" in the abstract.

[Anonymous No.19527682]

>>19527101
>but some of the best movies ever (Stalker, Blade runner, 2001) are adaptations of science fiction books.
watch more movies and stop being impressed by neon lights

[Anonymous No.19528057]

>>19527682
Take the Stalker pill, anon. Every other film made before or after is a mere reflection of it, anything else is a descent, no matter how slight, back into the cave…

[Anonymous No.19528065]

>>19528057
I fell asleep :/
will try again in the future

[Anonymous No.19528214]

>>19527110
back to /lgbt/

[Anonymouṡ No.19528404]

>>19527101
You've got two questions here.

>Why do so many mediocre science-fiction books make such good films?
Because they give filmmakers the opportunity for lots of interesting visual spectacle.

>Why are science-fiction books, judged as literature, generally so mediocre?
Because the people who write them are emotionally and artistically infantile.

[Anonymous No.19528428]

>>19527101
Of course when you've never warped to the sea of stars you think a terran ocean is deep.

[Anonymous No.19528452]

>>19527101
What 2001, Blade runner, stalker all have in common is that they are renowned for there visuals. I think the setting of science fiction books lends itself perfectly to visuals and images which obviously film does best, where as in a book you have to just describe everything and so the spectacle and misery is lost.

[Anonymous No.19528741]

>>19527250
edit:
typo, i meant to say don't read young and definetly not socionics. both garbage and a waste of time.

[Anonymous No.19528743]

>>19527583
You coompletely fault to understand what literature is.
Read fact book only to talk about life, story time is only cozy.

[Anonymous No.19529315]

>>19527221
>Wolfe makes him sleep

Ascian zoanthrope detected

[Anonymous No.19529360]

>>19527576
You've outed yourself so I really don't find it necessary to listen to a single thing you say. You're pathetic, and I say that with no malice

[Anonymous No.19529409]

>>19527101
2001 is an extremely overrated book because of the movies acclaim.
It is average at best. First contact stories have been done better elsewhere
>the forever war
>the mote in God's eye
>the Puppet Masters
Etc

Rarely are scifi movies better than the book. Book is typically better
See
>I, Robot/The Caves of Steel
>Second Variety (screamers)
>Starship Troopers
>jurassic park
>minority report
>Fahrenheit 451
Etc
Exceptions I will concede are not any that you have listed
>The Running Man (the best king movies are ones that don't follow his trash closely)
>Total Recall (We can remember it for you whole sale)
>The Omega Man (I am Legend)
>Onions Green
>planet of the apes
And the last 3 are only because Charlton Heston was a man

[Anonymous No.19529442]

>>19527444
I read the first book of Foundation. The concept was extremely interesting to me, but the by the end of the book I did not care one iota for it. Sadly, the entire premise of the book renders it null and pointless, and you begin to realize this as you read.

[Anonymous No.19529452]

>>19529442
The first foundation book is the worst one. Gets better from there
Robot books are better though

[Anonymous No.19529478]

>>19529452
how much does psycohistory or Seldon factor into the later books? My problem is that I stopped caring about the story because the entire premise removes any semblance of drama whatsoever. I no longer care because I know that Seldon has already predicted what's going to happen and has been 100% right so far, and characters within the story also know this. Therefore, they literally have no motivation to do anything, because no matter what they do, it's guaranteed to work because we've been told it will.
Not to mention that most of the exciting drama happens off pages (the book literally ends with some giant conflict resolved with an encyclopedia entry saying "oh yeah nothing happend the Foundation won") and most leaders turn into literal Mary Sues where they have master plans that always work and take out entire planetary kingdoms with no problem by inventing a literal reddit version of religion that sweeps through the galaxy within 50 years.

Maybe I'm a midwit though. I just would've appreciated the characters not being in on the whole predictive aspect of the story, that they didn't know they have their lives preordained and that it ends well.

[Anonymous No.19529494]

>>19529478
The next book (Foundation and Empire) deals with an anomaly Harry couldn't plan for because it is a random occurrence, called the mule. So he throws a wrench in things.

The thing I hated most about the foundation books is Harry seldon. It's why I like the last book (Foundation and Earth) the best. By that point he's not really involved. And it's why I prefer the robot books. They mention psycho history as maybe becoming a thing in the future but it does not affect those books

[Anonymous No.19529506]

>>19529494
maybe I'll pick the series up again then. Really wish he would've given some challenges to the Seldon plan in the first book though, even ending the first book with an unforseen conflict or problem would have brought me back in.

robot books are in the same universe right, like future of robot is foundation?

[Anonymous No.19529539]

>>19527101
>here are a bunch of shit novels of this genre, therefore the whole genre is shit
I enjoyed Asimov's Foundation.

[Anonymous No.19529559]

>>19529506
>robot books are in the same universe right, like future of robot is foundation?
Yep
Humans called spacers go out and colonize a bunch of places with the help of robots, later there's a second colonization wave with no robots that leads to the empire in the Foundation series.

Caves of Steel is still my favorite asimov book, mainly because it talks about over population, forced automation, etc. And Lije Bailey is a way better character than anyone in Foundation. I think he's Asimov's only one really