Mundane movement in Science-Fiction?

[Dave Vicks]

No FTL Travel.No Aliens(Visitors),no outside of Solar System Travel.

Know of any Mundane movement Authors?

 

[dask]

James Michener with Space?

 

[hitmouse]

Interesting. I had never heard of the movement and had to look it up on Wikipedia (which gives a number of authors.)

Writers like JG Ballard fit the bill, though they were pre-movement.

 

[tachyon]

Never heard of this. I can think of a bunch of books that would fit the description but I don't know that they were explicitly part of the Movement as such.

 

[Extollager]

It's associated especially with Geoff Ryman. I'm supportive of the idea -- not that nobody should write stories that fail to follow the "mundane" guidelines; but it's good to be brought back to science from time to time if we're talking about science fiction.

 

[Robert Zwilling]

Richard Penn, an indie author, has written several stories that don't use ftl to get around the solar system. He sticks very close to what is possible with current technology.

 

[dask]

No FTL Travel.No Aliens(Visitors),no outside of Solar System Travel.

Know of any Mundane movement Authors?

SEVENEVES by Neal Stephenson might fall into this category.

 

[Elckerlyc]

I think many authors have written stories or novels that fall, unintentionally, in that category. Charles Stross says he won't write any novels anymore in the Iron Sunrise verse, just because of the issues around singularity. It doesn't make him a proponent of the Mundane movement per se (I have never heard saw him mention it on his blog.) His Empire Games series is about multiverse, so that would technically exclude him.

Ada Palmer's Terra Ignota series could be considered Mundane or at least fall within the boundaries, which isn't one and the same thing, I suppose.

 

[Don]

The "greater part of the works of Philip K. Dick" qualify, as does 1984. Although my own interest in PKD recently waned while Perry Rhodan waxed, Orwell remains as pertinent as ever.

Geoff Ryman, et al. – The Mundane Manifesto

I reproduce below the full text of “The Mundane Manifesto,” signed by Geoff Ryman and others from the 2004 Clarion West workshop (the complete list of workshop participants at the end o…

sfgenics.wordpress.com

 

[BAYLOR]

Three that I can think of that might fit this category .
Earth Abides by George R Stewart
Not This August by C M Kornbluth
Alas Babylon by Pat Frank

 

[dask]

On The Beach by Nevil Shute maybe?

 

[Extollager]

I think Ryman's idea (I read an interesting article years ago in the New York Review of Science Fiction) is, yeah, write unequivocal science fiction, feel free to set stories in the future and not even the near-near future necessarily -- but stick to extrapolations of the best science we have now. So no FTL travel, no time travel, no galactic empires, no science-as-magic kinda stuff. Not sure what he'd think of alternate history fiction -- he might think that's not really SF in the first place.

 

[Dave Vicks]

Is the TV show THE EXPANSE Mundane.

 

[Astro Pen]

On reflection much of Bradbury's work was like that. He was far more focused on people, their feelings and interactions than on the technology in the stories.
Humanist not modernist.

 

[hitmouse]

On reflection much of Bradbury's work was like that. He was far more focused on people, their feelings and interactions than on the technology in the stories.
Humanist not modernist.

Yes, agree with your assessment of Bradbury. But he was essentially romantic, whereas I get the impression that the Mundane manifesto is quite hard sf.

 

[Extollager]

On reflection much of Bradbury's work was like that. He was far more focused on people, their feelings and interactions than on the technology in the stories.
Humanist not modernist.

I like some of Bradbury's stories very much, but his sf stories wouldn't generally be good examples of what Ryman, at least, describes as mundane sf. For example, many of his stories involve the idea of Mars as inhabited by Martians, as habitable for humans too (just as they are -- no spacesuits needed) -- which even when the stories were written was, if I'm not mistaken, not regarded as scientifically plausible. I think Hitmouse is right about mundane sf as intended to take science seriously. Bradbury used the sf form(s) to write some fine stories, but he was quite casual about science.

 

[Rodders]

Is the TV show THE EXPANSE Mundane.

I was also thinking of Alistair Reynolds Revelation Space series, but there are elements that take it outside of the movement.

Off the top of my head, i think that colonisation and generation ship stories would be a lot more mundane. Stories such as Hull Zero Three, Passengers and the Mars Trilogy.

 

[Toby Frost]

Would William Gibson's Sprawl trilogy count? Somehow I don't think they're what's envisaged, although the scenes in space would work.

 

[Extollager]

I was also thinking of Alistair Reynolds Revelation Space series, but there are elements that take it outside of the movement.

Off the top of my head, i think that colonisation and generation ship stories would be a lot more mundane. Stories such as Hull Zero Three, Passengers and the Mars Trilogy.

I doubt that Ryman, at least -- taking him as spokesman for mundane sf -- would admit generation star ship stories. For all its familiarity, which has made it seem just something "science" hasn't quite invented yet, the concept (whether with starships like Heinlein's "Universe" or with crew in suspended animation -- and the distances involved even to the nearest star -- would be beyond the "mundane." Ryman wants science fiction stories that work with the science we have or reasonable extrapolations thereof. No "magic."

 

[Mon0Zer0]

Paolo Bacigalupi - The Water Knife and The Windup Girl.
The Martian by Andy Weir
PD James - Children of Men
Margaret Atwood - The Handmaid's tale