What SF to recommend to non-genre readers?

[psikeyhackr]

How do you guys feel when someone doesn't enjoy your recommendations as much as you do?

I recommended Adrian Tchaikovsky's Dogs of War to a guy in work, recently and he was a little underwhelmed. He disappointed me that day.

I liked Dogs of War but not the sequel Bear Head nearly as much.

I interpret responses of different people as having different emotional buttons, both positive and negative. This results in reactions that are often quite unpredictable. Some people may be turned off by foul language or explicit sex scenes while other people ignore it in relation to plot. I don't care about "good writing" while a lot of readers seem to make a big deal about it.

I think the serious and underutilized point of science fiction is providing ideas for how society should cope with how technology affects the future.

 

[Swank]

I think the serious and underutilized point of science fiction is providing ideas for how society should cope with how technology affects the future.

I think you're pretty alone in that because SF has yet to actually cause change in society, and most of it is either too fantastic or based on stuff actual scientists are already promoting. With a relatively small readership and no new practical ideas, SF can do little more than preach to the converted.


On topic, Player of Games gets a lot of traction with non-genre types, as does Pattern Recognition.

 

[hitmouse]

I think you're pretty alone in that because SF has yet to actually cause change in society, and most of it is either too fantastic or based on stuff actual scientists are already promoting. With a relatively small readership and no new practical ideas, SF can do little more than preach to the converted.

Interesting question:
Has any literature changed society, and is any of it sf?

I am not sure, but I would not dismiss it out of hand.

Nineteen Eighty Four has certainly had a profound influence.

 

[Swank]

Interesting question:
Has any literature changed society, and is any of it sf?

I am not sure, but I would not dismiss it out of hand.

Nineteen Eighty Four has certainly had a profound influence.

Any literature? Probably. Has 1984 prevented English speaking countries from becoming communist? I kind of doubt that, as the communist countries have largely failed to stay communist.

You could probably make a better case for the broader reach of film and TV allowing 2001, Star Trek and Star Wars to generally encourage public interest in space, allowing the construction of the shuttle and ISS.

 

[psikeyhackr]

Interesting question:
Has any literature changed society, and is any of it sf?

I am not sure, but I would not dismiss it out of hand.

Nineteen Eighty Four has certainly had a profound influence.

Leo Zillard said Wells' The World Set Free inspired his thinking about the atomic bomb.

Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land influenced a lot of young people in the 60s.

Ender's Game is being used by military organisations.

 

[Swank]

Leo Zillard said Wells' The World Set Free inspired his thinking about the atomic bomb.

Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land influenced a lot of young people in the 60s.

Ender's Game is being used by military organisations.

But were the SF elements of any of those the influence, or was it the humanist aspects?

An inspiring novel is inspiring regardless of which genre it dwells in.

 

[hitmouse]

Any literature? Probably. Has 1984 prevented English speaking countries from becoming communist? I kind of doubt that, as the communist countries have largely failed to stay communist.

I dont think that means the novel has failed to change society. It is more subtle than that. It has greatly shaped Western conversation and perceptions of totalitarianism, media influence, etc during the cold war period and continues to be relevant today.

By extension, how do we judge whether general literature changes society? It clearly does. The consciousness of society is changed by Shakespeare, Dickens, Austen, etc whether we personally like these writers or not. The same could be said for other popular art e.g the Beatles, or Bob Marley.

 

[Swank]

I dont think that means the novel has failed to change society. It is more subtle than that. It has greatly shaped Western conversation and perceptions of totalitarianism, media influence, etc during the cold war period and continues to be relevant today.

By extension, how do we judge whether general literature changes society? It clearly does. The consciousness of society is changed by Shakespeare, Dickens, Austen, etc whether we personally like these writers or not. The same could be said for other popular art e.g the Beatles, or Bob Marley.

I agree that literature influences society, 1984 included. I'm more skeptical that the SF elements in 1984 or other SF literature causes positive change. 1984 is SF, but only because Orwell used that form to more realistically package his message, and that message wasn't really about the way technology or science may play a role. In the same way, Animal Farm isn't about talking animals or agriculture, and there is nothing about thise topics to take away from the work.

I love SF, I just don't believe it has the reach or focus to inculcate emerging ideas into the real world.

 

[BAYLOR]

I agree that literature influences society, 1984 included. I'm more skeptical that the SF elements in 1984 or other SF literature causes positive change. 1984 is SF, but only because Orwell used that form to more realistically package his message, and that message wasn't really about the way technology or science may play a role. In the same way, Animal Farm isn't about talking animals or agriculture, and there is nothing about thise topics to take away from the work.

I love SF, I just don't believe it has the reach or focus to inculcate emerging ideas into the real world.

Have you read In Caverns Below by Stanton Coblentz? Essentially , It's a science fiction satire.

 

[Swank]

Another book for non-genre readers is arguably Dune, which now has a decent movie version and has always been widely read outside the genre fans.

It is also a book with a strong message about the power of collective ecology, which seems to have had zero influence.

 

[Guttersnipe]

The Shrinking Man by Richard Matheson

 

[worldofmutes]

You know what?
I just thought of THE SF series that first hit me like a brick wall. That one is Wayward Pines, Blake Crouch. (No relation)

That first book was a trip. Read it about 2017 and was a favorite for a while, because I myself have always envisioned SF where suddenly you wake up and nobody knows who you are and everything is unfamiliar.

That series was cool. Wasn’t totally a big fan of his stand-alones

 

[psikeyhackr]

But were the SF elements of any of those the influence, or was it the humanist aspects?

An inspiring novel is inspiring regardless of which genre it dwells in.

You don't think Wells inventing the term "atomic bomb" 15 years before the neutron was discovered was an SF element?

 

[worldofmutes]

You’re all too smart for me.
But isn’t it in the very soul of the medium of art to change how we think about the world?

An english degree isn’t “liberal arts” for nothing.
Art as protest. Art as conscience expanding.

Maybe our leaders don’t care about art, literature, whatever. But the people whom they govern really make the rules, at least in a democracy, coin the terms, change the world.

Not everyone has a literature degree, I don’t know the statistics but probably more people don’t read for fun than otherwise. Yet, literature influences our music, films, artwork. You might surmise that the world of literature is conpartmentalized or contained within itself (Milton and Blake took inspirational from the most influential literature of all, did they not?) But hey, Literature is a political medium.

Bleh. I may not use big words, but maybe I can get my point across.

 

[BAYLOR]

You’re all too smart for me.
But isn’t it in the very soul of the medium of art to change how we think about the world?

An english degree isn’t “liberal arts” for nothing.
Art as protest. Art as conscience expanding.

Maybe our leaders don’t care about art, literature, whatever. But the people whom they govern really make the rules, at least in a democracy, coin the terms, change the world.

Not everyone has a literature degree, I don’t know the statistics but probably more people don’t read for fun than otherwise. Yet, literature influences our music, films, artwork. You might surmise that the world of literature is conpartmentalized or contained within itself (Milton and Blake took inspirational from the most influential literature of all, did they not?) But hey, Literature is a political medium.

Bleh. I may not use big words, but maybe I can get my point across.

Yes , Art does serve a higher purpose. To elevate, and that's what it does

.

 

[psikeyhackr]

Not everyone has a literature degree, I don’t know the statistics but probably more people don’t read for fun than otherwise. Yet, literature influences our music, films, artwork. You might surmise that the world of literature is conpartmentalized or contained within itself (Milton and Blake took inspirational from the most influential literature of all, did they not?) But hey, Literature is a political medium.

The literary people turned reading into work and selected mostly boring stuff to read.

Kurt Vonnegut said that being classified as a science fiction writer was like being put into a drawer being used as a urinal. C P Snow described The Two Cultures in the 1950s.

 

[worldofmutes]

The literary people turned reading into work and selected mostly boring stuff to read.

Hehe. True.
I wouldn’t call it boring, but sometimes a bit much to process.

What to follow up with? Well, there are a lot of people reading these days, actually. There is as much of a pop fiction crowd as a post-modern uh… what’s the word? Snobbish? No… pretentious! crowd that do a lot of thinking.

My dad gave me an Eckhart Tolle book last week. “A New Earth, Awakening to your Life’s Purpose.” I read some of it. Basically it’s about how people who live in the realm of the mind are egotrips and can not relinquish their conscious. How, por ejemplo, “Complete identification with thought and emotion, that is to say, ego.” Is the root of insanity. “The voice of the ego, no more than a conditioned mind-pattern; a thought.”

So what does that have to do with literature’s influence? Heck if I know.

 

[Swank]

You don't think Wells inventing the term "atomic bomb" 15 years before the neutron was discovered was an SF element?

I don't think Wells inventing a term had anything to do with actual invention of atomic anything. Just as Gibson coining "cyberspace" didn't create the internet. Or Verne describing something like a nuclear submarine. Or Clarke describing a geosynchronous satellite. Or Shelley describing organ transplants. Or the Old Testament twice inventing space elevators.

Having a vague idea or coining a phrase is not at all the same as creating or even inspiring an actual science or technology. See "robot".

 

[Randy M.]

I'm astonished.

You shouldn't be. The setting and tech changed, but in tone and texture and character Gibson didn't do anything that hadn't already been used by Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Cornell Woolrich, and, for that matter, Leigh Brackett and Fred Brown. Cyberpunk could just have easily been named Cybernoir.

 

[Swank]

You shouldn't be. The setting and tech changed, but in tone and texture and character Gibson didn't do anything that hadn't already been used by Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Cornell Woolrich, and, for that matter, Leigh Brackett and Fred Brown. Cyberpunk could just have easily been named Cybernoir.

One could give that setting a lot of credit for originality.