What makes a good Sci Fi story?

[psikeyhackr]

A really good science fiction story contains IDEAS. Often they are relevant to things going on in reality and may motivate rethinking about society. The future is affected by what LOTS of people think today especially if they change behavior because of it.

Rite of Passage by Alexei Panshin raises the question of who owns knowledge and whether or not some have the right to keep others ignorant.

The Ethical Engineer by Harry Harrison raises the same question in a different way.

Would this or any other country be very different today if a National Recommended Reading List had been created 50 years ago? Is that too difficult a concept for our so called "educators"?

But now we have tablet computers which can easily hold 10,000 books. The issue is not technology, the issue is CONTENT.

Omnilingual by H. Beam PIPER (1904 - 1964)
https://librivox.org/omnilingual-by-h-beam-piper-2/

psik

 

[Cli-Fi]

I look for scenarios that explore the "what if" with future technology. Sometimes linking it to moral issues and applied in a setting that brings in aspects of the currnt political climate.

What elements do you think make a good sci fi story?

That is exactly me! Battlestar Galactica comes to mind here. That is the ultimate scifi show in my book. I also enjoy Cli-Fi hence the user name. What I call Climate Fiction in sci-fi movies.

 

[ShotokanXL]

That is exactly me! Battlestar Galactica comes to mind here. That is the ultimate scifi show in my book. I also enjoy Cli-Fi hence the user name. What I call Climate Fiction in sci-fi movies.

Agree about BSG.

 

[K.S. Crooks]

I tend to like Sci-Fi stories that either...
Warn us of impending dangers if we don't 'look before we leap'- Frankenstein, Terminator, Jurassic Park
Pose societal problems or social commentary in the disguise of Sci-Fi- The Day the Earth Stood Still, Star Trek,
Or are mindless action and fun- Star Wars, Predator, Starship Troopers

 

[Bowler1]

Good characters and plot are needed in any story you want to tell and the basis of any good writing. For good Scifi, I like the technology and ideas to be based in scientific theory (we'll ignore faster than light travel, energy consumption and other silly constraints that are strait jackets on any good SciFi writing) to challenge the readers intelligence. After that, as others have said, the universe is your oyster limited by your imagination only. With that in mind, I really like creating fantastic aliens with their own motivations and spaceships, and wormholes, and space elevators, and of course - RAY GUNS. It's always good to shoot something with a good RAY GUN, just remember to charge your batteries or you could find yourself caught short, and that's just embarrassing - a little dangerous too, having to run and hide and stuff. Anyway, as I said, your imagination is the only constraint and that shouldn't slow you down, even on a bad day.

 

[Avid Scifi Fan]

Good characters. That's poped up a few times. Sounds like a topic for another thread if it doesn't exist already.

I don't know if I would call Star Wars, Predator, Starship Troopers mindless action and fun. I liked them for different reasons. I like the star wars setting and aliens (the force was cool, but was a bit mystical for sci-fi), predator had some cool action (bit too much testosterone at times), Star ship troopers seemed more comic book like (I think its turning into a cult classic as an unintentional comedy).

 

[Hex]

I'm like PM, and tend to like things based on Earth or somewhere Earth-like rather than things in space. I really liked Unwind and Skinned and I loved Never Let Me Go. Oh and horrible as it was, Under the Skin was really engaging. I read it years ago and I can't forget it. All of them reflect current social concerns back at the reader and take the ideas further -- so Unwind looked at the idea of abortion and a world where it wasn't permitted (but 'unwinding' teenagers was).

I liked dystopian for a long time too (although right now I've kind of had enough), especially The Handmaid's Tale and -- you know -- BNW, 1984 and We.

On the other hand, and totally contradicting everything I just said, I loved Iain M Banks' novels about The Culture.

 

[scientia]

Frankenstein is regarded by many people as THE FIRST science fiction story.

The earliest I'm aware of would be Johannes Kepler's Somnium from 1634, Francis Godwin's The Man In The Moon from 1638, and Cyrano de Begerac's The Other World: Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon written some time before he died in 1655. The claims vary but this seems to be the time period where it started. In Wikipedia it is claimed that Asimov said that Somnia was the first. However, this story involves a demon so that's pushing closer to fantasy. And, I recall one of Asimov's articles where he specifically mentioned de Begerac as the earliest use of speculative science in a story. Frankenstein contains almost no science. The description is quite simplistic with the statement that he studied death and decay until he found out how to reverse it.

 

[psikeyhackr]

Frankenstein contains almost no science.

Electricity is used to reanimate a corpse. This is from Galvani's experiments with frog legs.

Since then we have people's hearts restated with electric current and organ transplants.

https://readmorebooks.wordpress.com/2009/12/29/frankenstein-the-first-science-fiction-novel/

http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/Galvani_and_the_Frankenstein_Story

psik

 

[Venusian Broon]

The earliest I'm aware of would be Johannes Kepler's Somnium from 1634, Francis Godwin's The Man In The Moon from 1638, and Cyrano de Begerac's The Other World: Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon written some time before he died in 1655. The claims vary but this seems to be the time period where it started. In Wikipedia it is claimed that Asimov said that Somnia was the first. However, this story involves a demon so that's pushing closer to fantasy. And, I recall one of Asimov's articles where he specifically mentioned de Begerac as the earliest use of speculative science in a story. Frankenstein contains almost no science. The description is quite simplistic with the statement that he studied death and decay until he found out how to reverse it.

Tales and works that involve travel from the Earth to the moon have ancient roots. Lucian's True History involves his characters travelling to the moon and that was written in the Second century AD. And was, I believe, written in response to earlier works with similar premises. Who knows, there may be a Sumerian tablet sitting in the earth somewhere with a tale of heroes travelling to the moon...

For the books that you mention, yes they have elements that one could define as SF, but does that make them SF?

....however, I shouldn't get the thread into a 'what is SF'* debate but IMHO I'd say Frankenstein is indeed the first modern work of literature that we can easily and comfortably call science fiction, and thus it earns it's place as the great Grandmother of SF today.

------------------------------


* Although I love the short definition by Brian Aldiss - 'Hubris clobbered by Nemesis'. Oh and his other comment (from Trillion Year Spree): '...we can recognise SF fairly easily, although it is rarely found in a pure isolated state. Just like oxygen.'

 

[Toby Frost]

Someone (was it Theodore Sturgeon?) once said that good SF was good writing, and I think that's largely true. I think a good science fiction story needs to have everything that a good novel of any sort needs: good plot, good characters, and so on. There's no getting off the hook just because it's SF, which is why a lot of Golden Age writing feels flat to me. SF also needs, for me, an aspect that can't be provided without fantastical elements. This doesn't mean that it needs advanced tech, even less credible advanced tech, but the fantastical aspect needs to add something that it couldn't have otherwise. By being set in the future, 1984 allows Orwell to talk about all dictatorships and compare them, without needing to specify. But the lines are very fine: you could probably set The Road in the aftermath of one of the more bitter African wars, and it would work just as well.

 

[scientia]

Electricity is used to reanimate a corpse. This is from Galvani's experiments with frog legs.

I have no idea what you are talking about. I'll quote the relevant passages:

Chapter 4
To examine the causes of life, we must first have recourse to death. I became acquainted with the science of anatomy, but this was not sufficient; I must also observe the natural decay and corruption of the human body. In my education my father had taken the greatest precautions that my mind should be impressed with no supernatural horrors. I do not ever remember to have trembled at a tale of superstition or to have feared the apparition of a spirit. Darkness had no effect upon my fancy, and a churchyard was to me merely the receptacle of bodies deprived of life, which, from being the seat of beauty and strength, had become food for the worm. Now I was led to examine the cause and progress of this decay and forced to spend days and nights in vaults and charnel-houses. My attention was fixed upon every object the most insupportable to the delicacy of the human feelings. I saw how the fine form of man was degraded and wasted; I beheld the corruption of death succeed to the blooming cheek of life; I saw how the worm inherited the wonders of the eye and brain. I paused, examining and analysing all the minutiae of causation, as exemplified in the change from life to death, and death to life, until from the midst of this darkness a sudden light broke in upon me --a light so brilliant and wondrous, yet so simple, that while I became dizzy with the immensity of the prospect which it illustrated, I was surprised that among so many men of genius who had directed their inquiries towards the same science, that I alone should be reserved to discover so astonishing a secret.
Remember, I am not recording the vision of a madman. The sun does not more certainly shine in the heavens than that which I now affirm is true. Some miracle might have produced it, yet the stages of the discovery were distinct and probable. After days and nights of incredible labour and fatigue, I succeeded in discovering the cause of generation and life; nay, more, I became myself capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter.

Chapter 5
With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet.

"Instruments" is not distinguished from surgical instruments. There is also no mention of electricity. The phrase "spark of being" has the same connotation as striking sparks using flint and steel to light a fire. This comes directly from the title of Shelley's book, The modern Prometheus, since in Greek mythology, Prometheus brought fire to humans.

The first mention of galvanism was in the introduction of her 1831 edition which was 13 years after the first edition. She also used the phrase "endued with vital warmth" which again gives no suggestion of electricity.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Although of course Frankenstein does not tell us what his secret of reanimating a dead body is, I do think that there are very strong hints that electricity is somehow involved.

Electricity and Galvanism are mentioned at the end of chapter 2 and Frankenstein tells us after witnessing a tree being destroyed by lightning that: " Before this I was not unacquainted with the more obvious laws of electricity. On this occasion a man of great research in natural philosophy was with us, and excited by this catastrophe, he entered on the explanation of a theory which he had formed on the subject of electricity and galvanism, which was at once new and astonishing to me. All that he said threw greatly into the shade Cornelius Agrippa, Albertus Magnus, and Paracelsus, the lords of my imagination; but by some fatality the overthrow of these men disinclined me to pursue my accustomed studies. It seemed to me as if nothing would or could ever be known. All that had so long engaged my attention suddenly grew despicable. By one of those caprices of the mind which we are perhaps most subject to in early youth, I at once gave up my former occupations, set down natural history and all its progeny as a deformed and abortive creation, and entertained the greatest disdain for a would-be science which could never even step within the threshold of real knowledge. In this mood of mind I betook myself to the mathematics and the branches of study appertaining to that science as being built upon secure foundations, and so worthy of my consideration. "

So Frankenstein's main scientific area at the core of his learning were the laws of electricity and 'Galvanism' (and learned people - such as Mary Shelly and her readers at the time - surely would have known about the experiments of Luigi Galvani in making dissected animals body parts move using eletro-simulation. In fact in Wikipedia I see that his nephew tried the experiment on an executed criminal in 1803...)

Thus one could connect the 'spark of life' phrase with the lightning strike and electricity. More so in the subtitle: The Modern Prometheus does hint of course at deep resonances with the old Greek and Latin myths of Prometheus making man out of clay and water, and (in another myth) bringing fire to man, before in both eternally suffering, but Immanuel Kant had quite famously called Benjamin Franklin 'The Prometheus of modern times' for his work in understanding electricity - again something I'd expect Shelly and most learned people to have heard. Thus Mary Shelly echoes this phrase in the subtitle which suggests that the 'fire' that the 'modern Prometheus' brings is in fact electricity.

I admit it's a little woolly and subtle, but I think it's there. Feel free to disagree

 

[scientia]

Electricity and Galvanism are mentioned at the end of chapter 2 and Frankenstein tells us after witnessing a tree being destroyed by lightning that: " Before this I was not unacquainted with the more obvious laws of electricity. On this occasion a man of great research in natural philosophy was with us, and excited by this catastrophe, he entered on the explanation of a theory which he had formed on the subject of electricity and galvanism, which was at once new and astonishing to me. All that he said threw greatly into the shade Cornelius Agrippa, Albertus Magnus, and Paracelsus, the lords of my imagination; but by some fatality the overthrow of these men disinclined me to pursue my accustomed studies. It seemed to me as if nothing would or could ever be known.

That is true, except that is when the main character is 15 years old. There is no further mention of this. And, when he actually goes to college, at the beginning of chapter 4, it says:

From this day natural philosophy, and particularly chemistry, in the most comprehensive sense of the term, became nearly my sole occupation.

I suppose what bothers me is the claim of selective expertise. You are claiming that she was familiar with Galvani. Yet, she is seemingly ignorant of the fact that batteries had been in use for generations in telegraph service. She is apparently ignorant of the fact that every Bell telephone had a generator to activate the ringer. And, is apparently ignorant of the work of Westinghouse, Tesla, and Edison. You can't really have it both ways; either she is interested in science or (as her writing suggests) she is not.

There is no mention of electricity, batteries, generators, or wires in any sense or suggestion. It simply isn't in the story. You can speculate about whether Shelley ever saw a demonstration of muscle reaction with electric stimulation. However, if she had, surely she could not possibly have missed the actual equipment involved. Shelley isn't Marie Curie and trying to get science out of her writing is like trying to get water from a stone. Shelley's background is in literature. This becomes painfully obvious in chapter 15 when the creature says, "Fortunately the books were written in the language, the elements of which I had acquired at the cottage; they consisted of Paradise Lost, a volume of Plutarch's Lives, and the Sorrows of Werter." She spends a lot of time talking about "The Sorrows of Werter" which was popular at that time.

In terms of rockets, Konrad Haas' book on fireworks and weapons was a century old by the time of de Bergerac's story. However, I doubt he had ever read it. Chinese fireworks became popular in Europe in the mid 17th century and this is more likely where he got his information.

 

[scientia]

I look for scenarios that explore the "what if" with future technology. Sometimes linking it to moral issues and applied in a setting that brings in aspects of the currnt political climate.

What elements do you think make a good sci fi story?

Let's see if I can stop hijacking your thread with discussions about early SF.

A science fiction story is like any other story; it needs to hold the interest of the readers.

How a story is structured depends on the length. Most SF short stories are highly speculative. What if my toaster had a bad personality? What if my cat was telepathic? What if intelligent mice turned my house into a dimensional portal? What if bicycles and paperclips reproduced? For a short story, almost nothing is too silly for SF.

To make a longer story, you generally need something that is driven more by characters and plot. That generally means that you have a character who has some desire. That desire drives the plot. The character also generally has some need that they are unaware of. This need drives the theme. Normally in the opening, there is something that happens that causes the main character to pursue this desire. If the reader becomes invested in the main character and the quest for whatever it is they are pursuing then you have what is often called a hook.

Do you have specific questions about this?

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Still, as an exercise to while away the time because it was raining while on Holiday, Mary Shelly didn't do badly. What were the other stories written by the "house party" at the same time?

Lots of people even today write SF that gets published and seem to be ignorant of most of current maths, technology and science. Many have only a background in literature. Some who are (or were 1930s to 1960s writers) science or technology background seem to ignore it in their stories for dramatic impact?

 

[Ray McCarthy]

A science fiction story is like any other story; it needs to hold the interest of the readers.

Exactly.
The amount of Science, technology, maths and how accurate it appears to be isn't the main issue, that simply allows the publisher to categorise it.

 

[HareBrain]

Yet, she is seemingly ignorant of the fact that batteries had been in use for generations in telegraph service. She is apparently ignorant of the fact that every Bell telephone had a generator to activate the ringer. And, is apparently ignorant of the work of Westinghouse, Tesla, and Edison.

If she'd been aware of any of those things at the time of writing Frankenstein, she'd have been a true visionary.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

The first edition was published anonymously in London in 1818. Shelley's name appears on the second edition, published in France in 1823.

Volta invented or developed his "pile" in 1799 or 1800, the more practical trough battery was some years later.

Electrical Telegraph is at earliest about 1830s. About 1837 for Wheatstone's system using 4 or 5 wires. Single wire (or pair of wires) Telegraph is from 1837 in USA commercial use. Batteries are only available generally to public (for Bells) later. The Dry battery (for Flashlamps etc) about 1895.
See www.blaukatz.com

The "Discworld" Clacks or optical Telegraph doesn't need batteries. About 1792 through 1846.

Fax and "Spam" via telegraph amazingly pre-dates voice phone (AKA Bell Phone) which came in from 1870s, originally using chains of wet batteries like Telegraph. Later telephone exchanges used the 48V from 24x 2V Lead Acid cells.

 

[psikeyhackr]

I have no idea what you are talking about. I'll quote the relevant passages:

Chapter II

Before this I was not unacquainted with the more obvious laws of electricity. On this occasion a man of great research in natural philosophy was with us, and, excited by this catastrophe, he entered on the explanation of a theory which he had formed on the subject of electricity and galvanism, which was at once new and astonishing to me. All that he said threw greatly into the shade Cornelius Agrippa, Albertus Magnus, and Paracelsus, the lords of my imagination; but by some fatality the overthrow of these men disinclined me to pursue my accustomed studies. It seemed to me as if nothing would or could ever be known. All that had so long engaged my attention suddenly grew despicable. By one of those caprices of the mind, which we are perhaps most subject to in early youth, I at once gave up my former occupations; set down natural history and all its progeny as a deformed and abortive creation; and entertained the greatest disdain for a would-be science, which could never even step within the threshold of real knowledge. In this mood of mind I betook myself to the mathematics, and the branches of study appertaining to that science, as being built upon secure foundations, and so worthy of my consideration.

So you can ignore what you want.

psik