/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.6963730]

/lit/, is it possible to have a good sci-fi book where the differences between the sci-fi setting and the real world aren’t the focus of the book?

For example, can there be a good sci-fi book that focuses on a single complex robot rather than focusing on the implications of what complex robots existing would do to the world?

[Anonymous No.6963734]

no

[Anonymous No.6963738]

>>6963730

>Good
>Sci-Fi

[Anonymous No.6963746]

So if I understand you correctly, you don't like info-dumps about the world, you just want a story set in the world?

Then Hannu Rajaniemi's Quantum Thief series may be something for you - it's set in a far future world but doesn't explain the world itself to you at all, you have to piece it together yourself, if that's even possible. It just concentrates on the story of the thief itself (heavily taking hints from the Arsene Lupin books). Especially the beginning is a bit hard to get through since you're figuratively dropped in the deep end, no intro with an info-dump, no narrator taking the time to explain every little gadget.

[Anonymous No.6963764]

>>6963746
>So if I understand you correctly, you don't like info-dumps about the world, you just want a story set in the world?

Yes, that's exactly what I was thinking.

It's just that the more I read Heinlein, the less and less I like how often he breaks narration to go on alt-history and technology rants.

[Anonymous No.6963787]

>>6963764
Personally, I don't like Heinlein at all - his SF novels are just vehicles for his muddled mix of reactionary (Starship Troopers) and horny thought with a bit of ancap thrown in, he doesn't bother to flesh out the book itself

[Anonymous No.6963933]

>>6963787

Starship Troopers was my favorite so far of his, precisely because it wasn't so much about the spaceships or the power armor, but the characters. Johnny Rico's story was the focus, not the suit he piloted.

I'm in the middle of Stranger in a Strange Land and I'm just having trouble keeping interest going when it takes so long for things to actually happen because Heinlein spends so much time discussing things related to the story, but aren't actually the story itself.

[Anonymous No.6964144]

>>6963738

[Anonymous No.6964148]

>>6963730
Star Wars? Advanced technology is simply taken as a given and they focus on the plot.

[Anonymous No.6964262]

>>6964148

Yeah

The story of Star Wars can easily be adapted to different time periods (Lightsabers into swords, planets into lands, spaceships into oceanships) and the story can stay practically the same.

[Anonymous No.6964274]

>>6964262
Star Wars has always been a traditional heroes journey fantasy story superimposed upon science fiction aesthetics. It's the story of a young orphan farm boy becoming a knight and saving a princess from the fortress of an evil tyrant.

[Anonymous No.6964283]

>>6963730

You could have a good book that does that, but it would break the boundaries of the science fiction genre.

[Anonymous No.6964290]

Absolutely. Essentially all of Philip K Dicks books are like this, where the exposition explaining the world is reduced to advertisements and new reports on the peripherals of the protagonists story. I've always found his world building very natural and interwoven into the story in a meaningful way. He's good at including characters that are in a position of importance in the structure of the world to include information about how things operate in a way that doesn't feel out of place

[Anonymous No.6964374]

>>6963933

>Johnny Rico's story was the focus, not the suit he piloted.

The way you write reminds me of myself from the past. It's like you're writing to impress your english sic teacher.

But, uhh, I was thinking of the movie so I guess I'm not qualified to have much of an opinion.

>>6963730
>>6963764

What you're saying I think of in terms of target audience. Seems like you don't like books written to some jackass from forty years in the past, and the author somehow knows how you think better than the characters in his own setting. If that makes sense.

[Anonymous No.6964384]

>>6963730
The Cyberiad

[Anonymous No.6964434]

>>6964374

Why would one not write they're trying to impress their English teacher?

Do you purposefully attempt to spite your English teacher when you write?

[Anonymous No.6964475]

>>6964374
>Seems like you don't like books written to some jackass from forty years in the past, and the author somehow knows how you think better than the characters in his own setting.
>If that makes sense.

Nope, it doesn't. Do you mean that info-dump sci-fi is written as if the audience is some time-traveller who needs a primer to the setting?

[Anonymous No.6964865]

>>6964148
>>6964262
>>6964274

Films lend themselves much more readily to "infodump-less" Sci-fi than novels because it's easier for them.

Things make much more sense when you don't have to describe a robot or spaceship, you can just show it.

Go read the Star Wars novelizations, there's a shit ton of explaining and description that puts breaks on the narration.

[Anonymous No.6965235]

Infinite Jest

[Anonynous No.6965545]

>>6963730
>For example, can there be a good sci-fi book that focuses on a single complex robot rather than focusing on the implications of what complex robots existing would do to the world?
Seems like the movie "Robot and Frank" to me, but maybe not quite what you're looking for.

[Anonymous No.6966538]

>>6963730
The only books like that i can think of usually suck. I love imagining how science and culture will change the future. Everything i have read that is strictly in the moment is like reading Tom Clancy or Robert Ludlum. Sci-fi to them is just a setting to tell their shitty story in.

[Anonymous No.6967508]

>>6966538

Why read fiction then and not actual science books?

[Anonymous No.6967577]

>>6963730

In my opinion Asimov does a good job of balancing the two. He explores the future through the story of individuals.

Rather than have a lecture on how advanced robotics would effect society, he told stories about individual people and robots, allowing the reader to infer the larger society through the tales of these small pinpoints of focus.

Asimov didn't lecture you about the dangers of having robots so advanced they could willingly work outside their programming, he told you a story about A robot that was so advanced it willingly worked outside its programming

[Anonymous No.6967626]

>>6963730
Sci-fi is best when it doesn't focus on the differences. Exposition and info dumps are wastes of page real estate. The most literary Sci-fi is sci-fi that uses its setting to reflect some condition of the world we live in now; when the setting is a means to a thematic end.

[Anonymous No.6968191]

>>6963730

Authors who do that simply want to write sci-fi without SEEMING like they write sci-fi.

In the words of Terry Goodkind

>"I don't write fantasy novels. I write stories with important human themes."

Albeit, he's a fantasy writer, but the principle still applies. It's not enough that Goodkind thinks he writes books about important human themes, he has to specify that he does not in fact write Fantasy books (Which he does)

[Anonymous No.6968978]

>>6968191

>"I know, I know, the term all the smart people are using these days is "post-modernist" or "magical realist," but those phrases are bullshit. They're parsley on a Hot Pocket: They exist only for pretentious folk to try to fancy up something they like but think is beneath them."
>— Robert Brockwa

[Anonymous No.6970513]

>>6963730
Why concern yourself with genre fiction in the first place?

[Anonymous No.6970660]

>>6963738
SF is the only legitimate form of literature.
Books focusing on inter-personal relationships are just romance novels for those without the balls to purchase them.
Most of the rest is classroom material. Important for teaching and understanding the world, sure.
SF explores everything that makes us human.

[Anonymous No.6970671]

>ITT lit thinks that their precious boring ass books can match Dune.

Stick with reading Infinite Jest you fucking losers.

[Anonymous No.6970690]

>>6963730
Solaris, Cyberiad, His Master's Voice by Stanislaw Lem, the latter two are translated brilliantly, the former was at first badly but is more recently better translated.
Blindsight and Echopraxia by Watts.

[Anonymous No.6970718]

I'm surprised no-one has posted Wolfe yet, seeing that he's hyped constantly by the same 4 posters

It's four books set in the distant future where absolutely nothing is explained and a lot is hinted at, in an extremely eloquent language (Wolfe says he "had to" translate the "language of the future" into modern English)

I should re-read them, I only finished the first one last time

[Anonymous No.6970721]

>>6970718
Ooops, made a mistake in deleting a sentence:

>It's four books ...

>Book Of The New Sun is four books....

[Anonymous No.6970738]

>>6970660
This feel

[Anonymous No.6971805]

>>6967508
Why not read both? I'm just saying all the sci-fi i've ever read that doesn't actually get into any science or cultural possibilities has a very cheap, dime store pulp feel to it (like pretty much any Star Wars book). Some people like books like that though i'm not hating. There are exceptions of course i am sure.

[Anonymous No.6973259]

>>6970660

>Orion Project

Literally Hitler

[Anonymous No.6973270]

>>6970660
Lel, Footfall is garbage

[Anonymous No.6974593]

>>6973270

But Marsbound is a masterpiece

[Anonymous No.6975237]

>>6970660
>SF explores everything that makes us human.
I agree. Good sci-fi can really make you view things from a larger perspective beyond ephemeral interpersonal relationships.

[Anonymous No.6975582]

>>6964290
more or less what i wanted to say