The Old Solar System

[Ray McCarthy]

Bradbury said that Fahrenheit 451 was his only SF novel. But many people regard Martian Chronicles as SF

I'd agree. sort of, who am I to argue with the Author? Some of the Martian Chronicles stories look more like SF than Fahrenheit 451.
I've read (and have) most of his short stories. Many are absolutely not SF. Some definitely are, in a generally accepted sense. Most are cracking brilliant!

 

[Zendexor]

We disagree about the importance of the literary aspect of SF. Science fiction is literature since it is written, but is it about being "Literary" or appealing to "Literary People"? How much did Heinlein, Clarke and Asimov care about it? I don't know how many people I have heard say that Asimov could not write. ROFL

My point is what did the author know at the time he wrote the work, and what could he possibly have known? Are you saying that does not influence what authors write?

To use H. G. Wells again, what about the "atomic bomb" in The World Set Free (1914). Now that is truly amazing! Wells was a real science enthusiast. He hung out with scientists. "Experts" he talked to at the time didn't think much of the atom bomb concept. The bomb that Wells' describes is hardly like the real thing. But a real atomic bomb requires knowledge of the neutron and that was not discovered until 1931. And Leo Szilard admits having read Wells' book.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leó_Szilárd

It is the entanglement of science with science fiction that makes it important and not merely literature. Though I admit that not all works deserving of the name science fiction are significantly scientific. But usually even those imply that science and technology are important.

There is also:

http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/students/envs_5110/snow_1959.pdf

psik

I agree that "It is the entanglement of science with science fiction that makes it important". I particularly like your use of the word "entanglement". From that point, I develop the argument in a different direction, I think, from yours. I am thinking it through as I go along, with my partiality for way-out scientific analogies. Now for instance I recall what I have heard of palaeomagnetism, atoms in out-of-date alignments due to past directions of old lines of force, giving geophysicists info re changes of Earth's magnetosphere over geologic time. A metaphor only, for the way I think about past scientific beliefs "frozen" into sf's literary traditions. But my main point remains that the no matter the author's motives, the work can only be assessed and categorised by its text alone, not its chronoligical context (date of publication) or psychological context (whether or not the author knew that such and such a statement has been disproved scientifically). This principle leaves retro sf open to being included in sf proper. The important thing is the spirit of sf, and that is a far huger challenge to define.
The crucial distinction could be the difference between science which affirms that reality underlies symbol, and magic which allows symbol to have a feedback effect upon reality. But even this can become a blurred distinction in some cases. I recall that in Doc Smith's "Skylard DuQuesne" there was an interesting bit where the principle "the map is not the territory" was deliberately flouted; yet somehow the spirit of the passage remained sf, due to the way the idea was presented. I'm wandering now from the OSS...

 

[psikeyhackr]

I'd agree. sort of, who am I to argue with the Author? Some of the Martian Chronicles stories look more like SF than Fahrenheit 451.
I've read (and have) most of his short stories. Many are absolutely not SF. Some definitely are, in a generally accepted sense. Most are cracking brilliant!

For me it is "There Will Come Soft Rains" that is his most moving work.

I just bought a Beaglebone micro-controller board a couple of weeks ago. That technology is what would make that house possible. But of course the unrealistic part is that the real technology would be designed to detect the presence of people and function differently if they were absent.

http://beagleboard.org/BLACK

But of course the nukes are still out their waiting with the patience and indifference of technology.

psik

 

[Zendexor]

Here is a point from a famous sci-fi writer. He wrote the "Amok Time" episode of Star Trek and consequently inspired many later incidents in other episodes and movies.

The Greatest Advice For Science Fiction Writers: "Ask The Next Question"

http://io9.com/the-greatest-advice-...tm_source=plus.google.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Once upon a time the question was, "What is the surface of Venus like and what could we do once we got there?"

But now we have sent probes. It is no longer a NEXT QUESTION. If some people want to be nostalgic for the past that is fine. That is their business. It can be great literature. But it AIN'T SCIENCE FICTION. Call it retro-science fiction if you want. I have not read Next of Kin but is it Old Solar System stuff?

This says it is a COMIC novel:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_of_Kin_(novel)

I read this one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasp_(novel)

psik

No, admittedly, Next of Kin is not OSS stuff. It was just the first example I could think of just then, of an author not caring about certain facts - and of this not mattering. Re the OSS, C S Lewis' Mars might be a better example, especially as he is on record as admitting that he already knew the "canals" version of Mars was outdated when he wrote Out of the Silent Planet.

 

[Zendexor]

Before the Space Age the planets, moons and asterioids of our solar system were largely abodes of mystery. A few things were known, or thought to be known. From that scanty body of knowledge arose a rich sf literature in which these mysterious bodies acquired personalities, characters, which in some cases transcended the particular stories in which they figured. That is to say, conventional depictions became established, a kind of common stock for writers. The Burroughs Mars and the Brackett Mars - for example - though very different from one another, can both be seen as variations on one huge theme. Then came the real-life discoveries of the Space Age and I suggest that in literature a big mistake sprang from this. It was almost always decided that no more stories could or should be set in the old, disproved Solar System. I suggest that the Old Solar System (OSS) has acquired enough literary reality to persist. For example, those publishers who told Leigh Brackett that it was no good her writing any more Low Canal Mars stories were, I think, wrong. And what about the good old Twilight Belt of Mercury? Pity to let that go. Any reactions? Other themes for the thread: the extent of the OSS in literature. Anyone know of tales set on Uranus? (I am trying to write some myself and would do well to know.) Any tales set on the Moon in an ancient past, when it was inhabited? - (apart from Jack Williamson's classic, "The Moon Era").

I should like to revive this thread now because the new website www.solarsystemheritage.com (author: yours truly) has been created to enlarge upon its ideas. Any feedback on the site most welcome, but also in particular any information about retro authors.

 

[Bick]

Nice one, Zendexor. I love how in the wonderful image of the Frank Paul picture of Venus, is states at the bottom, "...draws upon scientific facts..."; Splendid! This does make me want to read more of these charming anachronistic novels. I've read very little Brackett or ERB in truth.

 

[tinkerdan]

I wouldn't mind finding copies of these stories::

Quoted from Wikipedia

Cyrano de Bergerac's works L'Autre Monde: ou les États et Empires de la Lune (Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon) (published posthumously, 1657) and Les États et Empires du Soleil (The States and Empires of the Sun) (1662) are classics of early modern science fiction. In the former, Cyrano travels to the moon using rockets powered by firecrackers (it may be the earliest description of a space flight by use of a vessel that has rockets attached) and meets the inhabitants. The moon-men have four legs, firearms that shoot game and cook it, and talking earrings used to educate children.

The Man in the Moone is a book by the English divine and Church of England bishop Francis Godwin (1562–1633), describing a "voyage of utopian discovery".[1] Initially considered to be one of his early works, it is now generally thought to have been written in the late 1620s. It was first published posthumously in 1638 under the pseudonym of Domingo Gonsales

Somnium (Latin for "The Dream") was a science fiction novel written in 1608, in Latin, by Johannes Kepler. The narrative would not be published until 1634 by Kepler's son, Ludwig Kepler. In the narrative, an Icelandic boy and his witch mother learn of an island named Levania (our Moon) from a daemon (demon). Somnium presents a detailed imaginative description of how the Earth might look when viewed from the Moon, and is considered the first serious scientific treatise on lunar astronomy.

 

[Zendexor]

I wouldn't mind finding copies of these stories::

Quoted from Wikipedia

I wouldn't mind finding them either. The Cyrano was I think published in English translation in the Corgi SF Masters series once upon a time. And I remember reading somewhere that C S Lewis was going to edit Kepler's Somnium in the same series, but became too ill to do so.

Nice one, Zendexor. I love how in the wonderful image of the Frank Paul picture of Venus, is states at the bottom, "...draws upon scientific facts..."; Splendid! This does make me want to read more of these charming anachronistic novels. I've read very little Brackett or ERB in truth.

Nice one, Zendexor. I love how in the wonderful image of the Frank Paul picture of Venus, is states at the bottom, "...draws upon scientific facts..."; Splendid! This does make me want to read more of these charming anachronistic novels. I've read very little Brackett or ERB in truth.

Nice one, Zendexor. I love how in the wonderful image of the Frank Paul picture of Venus, is states at the bottom, "...draws upon scientific facts..."; Splendid! This does make me want to read more of these charming anachronistic novels. I've read very little Brackett or ERB in truth.

Nice one, Zendexor. I love how in the wonderful image of the Frank Paul picture of Venus, is states at the bottom, "...draws upon scientific facts..."; Splendid! This does make me want to read more of these charming anachronistic novels. I've read very little Brackett or ERB in truth.

Nice one, Zendexor. I love how in the wonderful image of the Frank Paul picture of Venus, is states at the bottom, "...draws upon scientific facts..."; Splendid! This does make me want to read more of these charming anachronistic novels. I've read very little Brackett or ERB in truth.

Nice one, Zendexor. I love how in the wonderful image of the Frank Paul picture of Venus, is states at the bottom, "...draws upon scientific facts..."; Splendid! This does make me want to read more of these charming anachronistic novels. I've read very little Brackett or ERB in truth.

Thanks. It has just occurred to me that I may have mde my request for info on retro authors in the wrong place, because of the 1975 cut-off date. For example I should like to know whether there have been any other resurrections of Twilight Belt Mercury apart from Valeddom by Robert Gibson, but if there have, they are likely (like that novel) to have been published post-1975. Though in spirit of course they'd be earlier - that being the whole point. (Except that Valeddom does see fit to give a modern "excuse" for its apparent defiance of scientific knowledge.)

 

[galanx]

Going back to the original question, how would we define "Old Solar System"? I'm assuming Cyrano de Bergerac etc are not included, so

Mars: ancient, drying, canals built by intelligent race to solve the problem.
Though this could be expanded to include Lewis's Malacandra, where the landscape results from a war (substitute Niven's "Wunderland Treatymaker" if you want to avoid the spiritual aspects) or the sequel to John Cross's juvenilia "The Angry Red Planet" called "The Red Journey Back", where the 'canals' are revealed to be long living trails stretching across the surface in an unending search for food and water.

Venus: young, hot, wet-(no, not a description of a great Saturday night).

Mercury: darkside/sunside/twilight zone

Asteroid Belt: Exploded planet (not necessarily?)

Pluto still a planet, of course, but anything else?

 

[tylenol4000]

With the increase in knowledge about our universe came an increase in science and technobabble in our sci-fi novels. It's fine and has resulted in some great stories, but it has also resulted in a lack of classic style sci-fi. Authors like AE Van Vogt may not have had the greatest and most realistic science in their stories, but they were entertaining as hell. And there's nothing wrong with that. Star Wars is awesome and I don't care that it's more fantasy than SF. But there are a lot of science-fiction fans that do see this as a problem and look down on stuff like Star Wars.

 

[psikeyhackr]

Going back to the original question, how would we define "Old Solar System"?

The jungles of Venus. LOL

Reality has given us a totally useless Venus. No fun! No intelligent dragons or disgusting frogs. What a bore!

psik

 

[BAYLOR]

In House on the Borderland , the Solar system had only eight planets but then again it was written in 1908 and pluto wasn't discovered till 1930.

 

[Zendexor]

Going back to the original question, how would we define "Old Solar System"? I'm assuming Cyrano de Bergerac etc are not included, so

Mars: ancient, drying, canals built by intelligent race to solve the problem.
Though this could be expanded to include Lewis's Malacandra, where the landscape results from a war (substitute Niven's "Wunderland Treatymaker" if you want to avoid the spiritual aspects) or the sequel to John Cross's juvenilia "The Angry Red Planet" called "The Red Journey Back", where the 'canals' are revealed to be long living trails stretching across the surface in an unending search for food and water.

Venus: young, hot, wet-(no, not a description of a great Saturday night).

Mercury: darkside/sunside/twilight zone

Asteroid Belt: Exploded planet (not necessarily?)

Pluto still a planet, of course, but anything else?

The other side of the Moon? As in That Hideous Strength. Also, the theme of an ancient inhabited moon - briefly mentioned in Heinlein's Blowups Happe, surprisingly, but also explored at proper length in Jack Williamson's The Moon Era. See the "ancient inhabited moon" page in my Old Solar System website www.solarsystemheritage.com - which also mentions one of the C L Moore "Northwest Smith" stories.

 

[Zendexor]

The other side of the Moon? As in That Hideous Strength. Also, the theme of an ancient inhabited moon - briefly mentioned in Heinlein's Blowups Happe, surprisingly, but also explored at proper length in Jack Williamson's The Moon Era. See the "ancient inhabited moon" page in my Old Solar System website www.solarsystemheritage.com - which also mentions one of the C L Moore "Northwest Smith" stories.

Sorry for the type - Blowups Happen it should have read.

 

[Zendexor]

Sorry for the type - Blowups Happen it should have read.

For type read typo. This is not my day.

 

[Mirannan]

Regarding disappointments about Mars: I think Heinlein in Number of the Beast came up with an excellent idea; that of two extra dimensions of time (which we wouldn't normally perceive, because we live in only one time dimension) combined with the idea that anything that has ever been imagined in fiction exists out there somewhere. (Combined with the idea that the minds of a vehicle's passengers control where you end up, as it turns out.)

It appears that Barsoom is in fact possible with minor and believable tweaks to Mars's orbital eccentricity, axial tilt etc. So Barsoom is one of the places his characters reach - along with an alternate Earth with minor changes, along with a few less palatable ones such as a post-apocalyptic Earth. Also some downright impossible (by our universe's physics) ones. And one of the places was the Lensverse; they got out of there in a hurry. The stated reason was that space-opera universes are fun to read about but GD dangerous to visit; people who weaponise stars are a tad dangerous to be around!

(Fun thought, regarding differing power levels in different SF 'verses: Imagine that the Borg find not the ST 24th century Earth, but the Earth of the Children era of the Lensverse. "Moths in a blast furnace" comes to mind. )

 

[psikeyhackr]

Here we have it. Colonies on Venus, 1951.

The Alien, by Raymond F. Jones
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Alien, by Raymond F. Jones.

psik

 

[Zendexor]

Here we have it. Colonies on Venus, 1951.

The Alien, by Raymond F. Jones
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Alien, by Raymond F. Jones.

psik

Thanks for this reference. I must look into it.

 

[Zendexor]

Thanks for this reference. I must look into it.

I've just read the first chapter of the book you mention and it reminds me: The theme of the asteroid progenitor planet would be worth a thread in itself. A pity that Clark Ashton Smith didn't flesh out his synopses Ascharia and The Master of Destruction - two incompatible progenitor-planet scenarios. Then there are the hints about the world called Yllednis in Colin Wilson's The Space Vampires.

 

[psikeyhackr]

The theme of the asteroid progenitor planet would be worth a thread in itself.

Gold in the Sky, by Alan Edward Nourse
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Gold In The Sky, by Alan E. Nourse.

psik