Mind-numbingly stupid things non-fans say...

[Teresa Edgerton]

There was a time -- and it still might be happening if I were getting out more and meeting more people -- when my children's teachers, and the parents of their friends, and just people I would meet in some random social setting, would ask me what I wrote, and when I'd say "fantasy novels," a lot of them would get that look in their eyes, and then say something that made it clear that they thought I was talking about writing sexual fantasies ... I don't know if they meant the more strenuous sort of bodice-ripper or outright erotica, and I wasn't inclined to ask. I simply tried to set them straight, which more often than not brought blank looks.

My point is that when these things happen, when we meet people who either don't understand what we do or what it is we like, or who hold our interests in mild contempt, we can either laugh about them, or get annoyed and/or offended. I'd say that laughing is the healthier alternative, and I think (I hope) this thread is really more about laughing things off than feeling superior, although I can see how it might seem so to some.

 

[Ursa major]

The problem is the lack of understanding of so much simple science

It isn't only scientific understanding that's missing in those Harvard graduates; there's no appreciation that it can be summer in the US and winter in Argentina at the very same time.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Most of my friends define SF&F as any book where the names trip you up. I do think names that seem as if invented by a dyslexic Khoisan language family speaker transliterated by Thai, Norwegians, Koreans Russians and Chinese using Google translate put people off. Maybe we need a thread on inventing names suitable for English readers (and perhaps workable in Germanic / Romance languages).

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I don't think anyone meant to sound superior. In fact, I know no one did, and hope I didn't offend by suggesting they did. But, from the perspective of a non-sff person looking in, the thread certainly didn't sound inclusive (imho) which only serves to further remove people from the genre. Who wants to join in if their opinions might be wrong, and a source of humour to those in the know?

 

[Ursa major]

It depends on the context, and the subject of discussion.

All of us are very ignorant, and will remain so, because there's so much to know and not enough time to know it (let alone understand it), so there should be no stigma about simple ignorance, as it's the natural state of affairs with any speciality. But, on the other hand, when people wear their ignorance as a badge of honour, they must expect some other people to react less than positively.

 

[psikeyhackr]

Fans say dumb things too. I had one "fan" get angry with me when I said I was into science fiction because he assumed I included comic books which I haven't read since early high school.

I suppose some people do regard me as a snob for not paying much attention to fantasy either.

psik

 

[Toby Frost]

I'm not sure what comics are. Some sort of fantasy, I suppose, occasionally pretending to be SF. But then quite a few don't include anything "impossible" at all. Perhaps they're just to be filed under "comics". Personally, I never really got comics. I didn't appreciate the artwork enough to justify the lack of words somehow.

On a tangent, if you think what non-SF readers say is bad, try asking a self-professed computer expert for help when you have a problem with your computer. The standard answer to "My PC broke" seems to be "Ha-ha! Should've bought a Mac, noob!" and the standard answer to "My data seems to have vanished" is "Ha-ha! Should have backed it up, noob!" And people like that wonder why they get stereotyped as socially inept.

 

[Vertigo]

Ask them to explain what causes winter and summer. They might be a Harvard graduate.

The problem is the lack of understanding of so much simple science rather than not knowing what is Hard SF. But if more people had a better understanding of science could they tolerate watching Dr. Who?

psik

Sadly I have come across that particular misunderstanding in a number of SF books including some quite highly regarded ones.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Of course if the planet has no tilt and highly elliptical orbit everyone gets summer and winter at same time. This would probably be unusual.

 

[tinkerdan]

Well I for one have not been offended nor meant to offend and I think I can sum up my feelings as confused.

Long long long long long ago I called everything I read Science Fiction until I read Tolkien then I thought ah Fantasy. So maybe at that point I got that if it has space ships sort of mentality but I might include ray guns and bug eyed monsters and little green men and for a short time scantily clad women on the covers. And somewhere in all that it sort of started to blur and blend until there was SFF Science Fiction and Fantasy. But movies and television came around and a few stiff necks heard that new term Sci Fi being bandied about and thought they didn't like it so they called it Skiffy and tried to spread it liberally upon all the tv and movie genre of such. So maybe for me Hard Science Fiction is that stuff that is hard to find hard to pin down and hard to write. But then there came the thought of Simon Pure Science Fiction and that distilled it all down to something so pure why it had nothing in it to adulterate it. I'm blissfully happy to be writing and reading SFF. And I try not to drop that last F because I did once and was accosted by someone who was certain the thing I was hawking off on them was less than Pure Science Fiction.

I'm with Robert Heinlein who long ago was hoping to just call it all speculative fiction and have it done with.[But that discussion is just another can of worms (and were talking Dune size worms here).]

 

[butterbean]

I'm not new to science fiction, but wouldn't call myself a "hardcore" fan. I have never heard the terms "hard" or "soft" science fiction, and don't understand the need to label it. If something is well-written, entertaining, thoughtful, technically detailed but not to the point of frying my brain, and fun to read or watch, I call it good and leave it at that.