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've noticed a curious phenomenon lately. There is a great cry about what is science fiction and what isn't. For example, Star Wars and Star Trek have been referred to widely as science fiction. Firefly/Serenity and Cowboy Bebop have been decried as "NOT!" science fiction. Some people call John Carter of Mars science fiction, but I don't think anyone can make a serious case for that. So where does this leave us in the world of SF, fantasy and speculative fiction in general?
I guess my first question is, "When did the definition of science fiction narrow to that which is speculatively possible in light of current given facts about the universe?" "We can't include ESP in a science fiction work—that's not SF!" goes the cry. But then that eliminates Asimov's wonderful and groundbreaking Foundation trilogy—which has at its heart a pseudo-math that can predict future developments and a mind-controlling mutant—from our works of classic science fiction. So, is it SF or is it speculative fiction? More accurately, is it science fantasy?
My second question is, "Why does it matter what you call it as long as it is good entertainment?" All entertainment begs you to suspend belief to some degree. You have to accept that everyone agrees it is a good idea to split up and explore the house wherein individuals are being picked off while alone. We accept that a creature can survive in normal Earth atmosphere and live off human flesh even though it has acidic blood. There is probably no end to scientific arguments that the latter is silly and the former is foolish, but each advances the plot and deepens mood, and helps tell a (hopefully) compelling story about the people in that situation.
If you don't like something because it offends your highly discerning scientific knowledge base, and it disgusts you that others are too stupid to realize the inherent fallacies of the fiction's premise, then please, don't feel a need to educate us on how stupid we are for enjoying it anyway. Being bitten by a radioactive/genetically modified spider isn't going to result in cool powers and the ability to do neat things like swing through the skyscrapers of New York on a thin web, but it doesn't make the idea any less fun for a great number of us.
Recently a group of scientists managed to put a group of atoms into a "Cat State" [NY Times link, requires registration. —Ed.] the state of being two diametrically opposed things at one time—in this case spinning clockwise and counter-clockwise simultaneously. This is very cool, very edgy science that has gone from theory to fact. However, it is important to remember that not all theory goes on to become fact. In this way Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars series (based on some scientific thinking at the time) was "science fiction"; now it is science fantasy. Nearly every novel and movie depicting space travel has large spacious rooms with "Earth-normal" gravity as they tool through space at speeds we can't approach now (and have many differing theories on how that can or can't be accomplished). This is the equivalent of a New York coffeehouse waiter living in a 3,000 square-foot loft. All of our current ideas on creating portable gravity fields are rooted in theory that requires impractical, at best, and likely impossibly scaled equipment to make it feasible. In short, it is fantasy to imagine a ship with normal gravity in which to walk. Does knowing this "ruin" the story? I somehow doubt it.
Ultimately science fiction can't be about gadgets and hard-core science; it must be about people. Fantasy can't be about dragons and magic, it must be about people. We write fiction not about things, but about that which makes us human. I so often feel I'm beating this horse to death, but no matter how many times I say it, there's always someone caught up in the stuff and not the people in a story. Sometimes examining things in an impossible venue can help us see more clearly that which is "real" and "human" and to some extent engage and enlighten us about ourselves as a culture and a people.
What is science fiction? What is fantasy? What is science fantasy and speculative fiction? They are attempts to examine the human race from a unique and hopefully visionary perspective. They are not any attempt to create a world that might one day be possible to experience or where we might go technologically as a culture (though some are more probable and possible than others). They are about who we are as a culture and as a people. They are about being human in extraordinary circumstances (even if we are aliens, elves or sentient robots).
Dirk Griffin
dirk.griffin(at)insightbb.com
n "Character Matters Most of All", Sean Doyle wrote:
Firefly is not crap because of this. Whedon, like all good writers, is out to create worlds and living, breathing people to fill them, not rubbish conversations about crystal matrixes or warp coils. Those things do not matter in the end; they are merely tropes to be applied, set dressing on a world you wish to look different from the real one. You speak of there needing to be S in the F, sir, but to overlook the dreadful importance of the F is utter foolishness.
Character matters.
And to that I have to roll my eyes. The genre is not called "science" fiction for nothing. The basics by science fiction is the following: We take a science, or create a new one but still linked to present-day science, then project it forward. The world we create in such follows certain rules of logic, partially created by science. Now comes the important part: The story shows what effect this science and technology has on characters.
If you're not capable of creating this basic science; if, as Joss Whedon says, the writer has no idea about science, it fails at its most fundamental part; especially such a writer unversed in science create a world that contradicts itself totally. At that point, you can put in any and all lovely characters inside it, but anyone who has a little intelligence and scientific understanding will only laugh out loud at it. This is where science fiction is elevated above fantasy; where it is a little more than just any old story about characters, and anything can be solved with the wave of a wand, without needing to know how it works. (Not that fantasy doesn't produce great stories.) It requires a bit more thought of the writer, a little more intelligence to produce a world that is logically and scientifically coherent. You can create the greatest characters in any world, but if the underlying world contradicts itself, or just isn't there, your world is fake, doesn't make any sense, and any characters running around in that nonexistent world will seem just as empty and fake because of it.
Joss Whedon's Firefly is the perfect example. Hundreds of worlds in a single solar system; hopelessly backward technology, using cattle that will only decrease the colonist's chances of survival—it just makes no sense, and therefore the characters are just as empty, if you judge it by a science-fiction meter, that is. As a bit of fantasy, you just turn your
brain off and watch. Possibly nice, but I'd like to keep my brain on when I watch science fiction—I'd like [it] to challenge me, not just put forth any dumb story.
Do notice that this science fiction does not mean flashy lights and the particle-of-the-week technobabble episode; that's just about as bad Firefly as the other side of the spectrum's extreme. Real science fiction is very much character-driven but has an added worth because of the science, and not just a fantasy story with nothing but character, or nothing but blinking lights and who cares about character? It has both science and character.
Star Wars, in that mold, unlike some people's claims as an example of great "character-driven science fiction," is not bad science fiction like Firefly; it's not even science fiction at all. Star Wars is fantasy; the Force (aka wave your magic wand) clearly places it in the fantasy column. Just because it's set on spaceships, with lasers and laser blasters, doesn't matter. It's fantasy.
J.G. te Molder
jg.temolder1(at)chello.nl
have followed this debate with some interest over the last couple of issues, and can no longer sit back on the sidelines and let the letters from Andrew Liptak ("Sci-Fi Can Survive Without Science"), Sean Doyle ("Character Matters Most of All") and Steven Parsons ("Some Good SF Dies Much Too Young") go by without comment.
I can agree with them to a great extent ... it is certainly true that good SF does not need (and should not have) science as the point of the stories, or even the premise of the show. Likewise, it must take (at best) third place behind character and story. However, what of the
worlds the writers are seeking to create? Science, and physics in particular, govern the way the universe works; it is not an optional extra. This makes Joss Whedon's acknowledgment that he has essentially given zero thought to how his universe works very disappointing indeed.
Interestingly, both Sean Doyle and Steven Parsons cite Babylon 5 as an example of previous shows that succeeded by putting character and story ahead of science. Whilst this is undoubtedly true, any cursory reading of the background behind that show shows that a great deal of thought and effort was expended in understanding space science and applying that to the universe in which the story takes place—the rotation of the station itself to create gravity, the zero-G environment within other ships and the flight mechanics of the Starfuries in space, to name just a few. For me, all these things added depth to the show without jumping up and down screaming "look at me ... I'm science," or needing to be explained in minute detail.
Where SF is concerned, science should take a back seat to story and characters, but in creating a fictional universe I believe the writers have a responsibility to make sure that, at the very least, it demonstrates an understanding of how the universe works and, ideally, builds on that understanding to create a plausible environment for the show to take place in.
I have no objections to shows ignoring all of these things if they wish, and it would not impair my enjoyment of the good ones (although I reserve the right to be irritated every time they get something blatantly wrong), but surely these shows should be classified as space fantasy, rather than SF, which, as the name implies, requires at least a modicum of scientific understanding and acknowledgement in its creation.
David Cooper
david(at)thatfatalkiss.com
here is no doubt in my mind that the writing and terrible character development in Enterprise was the reason for its demise. Scott Bakula was a much better actor when they explored his humanity in Quantum Leap and some of the other productions he's been in. The storylines [in Enterprise] were contrived and old. Get into trouble, get out of trouble, and somehow, in mankind's infancy, we manage to triumph over superior technology and overwhelming odds.
[Warning: Spoiler ahead.]
The best character developed on that show was Connor Trinneer. Of course kill him off. The Vulcan backstory was not bad, either. I don't think the Star Trek universe is done yet. There are many stories never revisited, stories left untold, smaller characters that have come and gone, in all of the Star Trek series. Find them, dig them up, write a series called Federation, continue where Enterprise leaves off, jump forward or backward in time, but don't make it about one ship, make it about multiple storylines and characters, ships, outposts, multiple species. Take the human view, the Vulcan view, the Trills, Klingons, whomever it may be that develops into the Federation, or whoever becomes its enemy. There doesn't always have to be a happy ending and a feel-good hero. Just as each culture has history, growth and
downfalls in our "real world." Go back to the roots when Star Trek was half-based in that reality. That's the kind of writing we need again. When did Earth become the center of the universe and the dominant species of the Federation humans? How about shaking up the universe a bit, like DS9 did to some degree? I hope you writers and producers are reading this! There's even a game called Birth of the Federation ... hmmm ... someone was thinking even back then!
David [last name withheld]
david(at)ecaworldfitness.com
his is in response to David Kaan's letter ("Whedon's Wine Is More Like Ripple"): To him science fiction must have all the technobabble it can in it so as to confuse the viewers so they don't know which end is up and has to be a hit right off the bat or it is deemed a "piece of crap." If there's too much tech-talk in the show then the viewers get bored and turn to something else that they can actually understand. That's why any of the Star Trek shows didn't last; they confused people so much that it was much simpler to watch a show that they could actually understand. That's why Stargate has been going on for 10 years; they dumb all the science stuff down so that we, the audience, can actually have some grasp of what's going on. No one thought that Stargate would last more than two seasons, and look at it; it's heading into its 10th season and is strong as ever. And if the movie Serenity was so horrible, then why did the DVD debut in third place in total sales for the week (ended Dec. 25, according to preliminary figures reported by Variety)? Every time I walked into a movie store all the copies were out, and Firefly is being shown on the SCI FI Channel.
Elizabeth Bartlett
[address withheld by request]
agree with Stephen Lafevers ("New Trek Should Go Back to Roots"). In order to do this several things should be done! First: Get rid of Rick Berman. He has proven over the past 20 years or so that he has not been able to produce a clear-cut hit in the Star Trek universe. Second: It's time to recast the original charters from Star Trek that we love so much. Sadly, with the passing of James Doohan last year and DeForest Kelley several years ago and the age of the rest of the cast, it's time to recast, instead of basing it on new characters. That would be one sure way of reviving the Star Trek franchise. Third: If you could get Harve Bennett, great. He [wrote] the story for Star Trek 2 with Jack B. Sowards, and Bennett also executive-produced. But what about Leonard Nimoy? He directed ST3. He also co-wrote ST4 and directed it. Both did well in the box office and were considered, along with ST2, the three best ST movies in the series.
If Paramount wants to make Star Trek great again, serious steps must be taken. If not, they're wasting their time and money and in the long run more than they realize.
Tyrone P. Norwood
norwoodtp(at)hotmail.com
s the new year opens, finally, many of the so-called classic TV series are appearing on DVD, hopefully to the delight of many, but most likely to the dismay of many.
Dismay, you ask?
I nod my head in dejection.
As 2006 opens, Irwin Allen's Time Tunnel and the first season of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea finally make their appearances on DVD after many years' anticipation. Seaquest DSV has been released as well. As I start looking through the available sets, I see that the entire original series of The Twilight Zone is now available, as well as Earth 2 and The Complete Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.
Digging deeper, you can even find the first season of War of the Worlds. Or didn't you know they made that into a series?
I'm as guilty as anyone, so I'll take my share of the blame. At this writing, only a few sci-fi series from 1960 on, such as The Invaders and Galactica 1980, have not yet been released. That terrible thing is that, after spending many hundreds of dollars on what are essentially memories, the memories of many of those shows are far superior to the show itself.
Now, in some cases, such as The Time Tunnel, I know what to expect. It's Irwin Allen. Irwin did the best that he could in what could be described at best as an unfriendly environment and brought us some tall tales with excellent special effects (for the 1960s). Are they good stories? Come on! It's Irwin Allen! There's lots of action ... but there was lots of action in Armageddon.
Season one of Voyage was different, though. VTTBOTS was a down-and-dirty (for 1964) action series with only a hint of science fiction, and it featured some great stories and again, for 1964, some great special effects. It wasn't until later seasons that it degenerated into a "monster-of-the-week" mishmash of children's horror stories.
There has been a lot of outcry over the demise of Threshold and Night Stalker over the past weeks, and I've added my own two cents, but the truth is that by the time the shows appear on DVD and you've had a chance to watch the shows several times, the DVDs will most likely end up on a back shelf somewhere for an indeterminate time, only to get pulled out, pushed into the player and you'll likely ask yourself the question, "What did I see in this?"
I recently saw several episodes of Seaquest DSV on the SCI FI Channel for the first time in at least three or four years. When it was on NBC during its first run, I enjoyed it, but it wasn't one of my top favorites. I considered it a nice diversion, despite the scathing reviews, and was disappointed that it was canceled midway through its third season (also known as Seaquest 2032). Going back and seeing it again gave birth to the question "What did I see in this?" It was good to see Roy Scheider as Nathan Bridger, and I had to laugh as I saw a pre-Joxer Ted Raimi at the helm and felt sad as I realized that the actor who played Lucas had tragically taken his own life, but that's it. ...
Some shows are immortal, and perhaps it's in the eye of the beholder as to which are which. Some series beget wonder, terror and amusement nearly 50 years later, while others merely show the excess of a generation, and others are merely lame attempts to cash in on trends of the time.
The DVD shows it all in digital glory. To steal a phrase: the good, the bad and the ugly.
Just remember when you buy: It's your own memory you're fiddling with, and your memory may be better than the show you're shelling out good money for.
Keith Kitchen
boyoklaatu1(at)aol.com
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