BF2S Forums Let's talk about the Sopranos

ah, yes, science fiction. a genre noted for only representing 'fine and upstanding citizens' doing their best. it's not like dystopian sci-fi is a thing, is it?

don't many sci-fi books and movies (like fantasy) also revolve around sociopaths, the family unit, complex anti-heroes? have you not seen battlestar galactica? lmao.

didn't you also say in D&ST that my ex-professor and acclaimed sci-fi writer doesn't 'have a real job'? lmao. clearly you hold it in high-regard.

Battlestar Galactica is a space-soap.

Sci-fi revolves around concepts, not so much the people.

Dune is more alternate universe fantasy than sci-fi really.

Sci-fi also isn't really super-hero fantasy or even hero fantasy, the characters really are just vehicles.
Most real writers had new characters for each story.

If you're the expert in what makes for a good read I'm sure your novels are selling like hot cakes, let us know when they overtake Harry Potter.

The Dune series is a landmark of soft science fiction. Herbert deliberately suppressed technology in his Dune universe so he could address the politics of humanity, rather than the future of humanity's technology. Dune considers the way humans and their institutions might change over time.

Director John Harrison, who adapted Dune for Syfy's 2000 miniseries, called the novel a universal and timeless reflection of "the human condition and its moral dilemmas", and said:

"A lot of people refer to Dune as science fiction. I never do. I consider it an epic adventure in the classic storytelling tradition, a story of myth and legend not unlike the Morte d'Arthur or any messiah story. It just happens to be set in the future"

And there was me thinking books were your thing.

also LMAO at relying upon the statement of the 'director of the Syfi tv miniseries' and not, er, the author of the fucking book? the judges of the hugo and nebula awards, the most prestigious sci-fi awards?

Soon, Herbert’s research into dunes became research into deserts and desert cultures. It overpowered his article about the heroism of the men of the USDA (proposed title “They Stopped the Moving Sands”) and became two short SF novels, serialised in Analog Science Fact & Fiction, one of the more prestigious genre magazines. Unsatisfied, Herbert industriously reworked his two stories into a single, giant epic. The prevailing publishing wisdom of the time had it that SF readers liked their stories short.

[...]

Though Dune won the Nebula and Hugo awards, the two most prestigious science fiction prizes, it was not an overnight commercial success. Its fanbase built through the 60s and 70s, circulating in squats, communes, labs and studios, anywhere where the idea of global transformation seemed attractive. Fifty years later it is considered by many to be the greatest novel in the SF canon, and has sold in millions around the world.

imagine arguing that dune isn't sci-fi, just because you can't back-track on your laughable comments that 'writing about what is known or what has happened is talentless'. your arrogance literally knows no bounds. twerp.

you're also missing the entire context and thrust of what the director is saying. he's trying to elevate Dune from 'mere' genre fiction, like sci-fi or fantasy, which has traditionally occupied a 'lower' rung in the rarefied artistic hierarchy, into 'the classic storytelling tradition', e.g. mallory or homer or whatever else hipsters study on classics degrees. he's not literally maintaining, against the obvious, that Dune is not a sci-fi book. he's trying to say that he's always considered it something more than 'just' genre fiction. which, AGAIN, reinforces my points about what makes for truly good writing. jesus fucking christ.

Last edited by uziq (2021-07-29 04:46:58)

yes, judges of the most prestigious sci-fi awards, common readers, editors of sci-fi periodicals, the entire sci-fi writing community ... i'd say that 'many' is a rather weighty judgment.

posed against ... you? a crank who can't even cherrypick a quote properly from a fucking hack daytime TV miniseries director? LMAO. get a grip.

https://www.wired.com/2020/06/geeks-gui … influence/

it's a book written by an ecologist about fucking ecology and systems thinking ffs ... oh my god.

Last edited by uziq (2021-07-29 04:51:27)

the sheer obstinacy of you is beyond belief. get help.

‘soft science fiction’ isn’t ‘science fiction’? oh my god stop wasting everyone’s time.

Dilbert_X wrote:

Dune is more alternate universe fantasy than sci-fi really.

Didn't say "it wasn't science fiction"

I've been waiting for that movie for a goddamn year

both h.g. wells and PKD are taken from your link above, dipshit. they are filed under the wikipedia for 'soft sci-fi'.

dilbert
knows
best

How in the heck did this thread become "Dune isn't sci-fi," wt actual f.

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

How in the heck did this thread become "Dune isn't sci-fi," wt actual f.

dilbert is so severely autistic and hence so glommed by the thought of fictional writing about human beings, human relations, human families, or human power dynamics, that he will insist that THE MOST ACCLAIMED SCI-FI BOOK OF ALL TIME is 'not really sci-fi' and 'more a space adventure fantasy thing'.

then he will link to wikipedia articles on soft sci-fi, a category which contains basically half of all the greatest sci-fi tales ever written, and which are explicitly defined as 'sci-fi books with more of a concern on humanity, humanism, human motivations, psychology/sociology, politics, and the future of the human race, etc', and try to redefine them as 'not really sci-fi though' (according, that is, to his own idiosyncratic measure; too bad wells! too bad PKD! too bad heinlein! real sci-fi is only about engineering and spends pages detailing the physics of space travel).

SO, because the sopranos MUST be bad according to his ridiculous and priggish attitude, therefore we must invent arbitrary distinctions between george r.r. martin's fantasy or frank herbert's sci-fi, which clearly continues in the tradition of 'complex anti-heroes' and 'examinations of humanity'.

his ideal book is one where ideas tesselate together on a page like chess pieces. he knows what makes a good book: he has read 20-30 of them in 45 years. so he'll lecture endlessly: every tv critic to ever say the sopranos was, in fact good; every fantasy reader who enjoyed game of thrones; all sci-fi fans, sci-fi magazines, sci-fi awards, and sci-fi wikipedia editors who persist in publishing 'adventure space soap-opera fantasy stuff' that isn't really interested in the serious matter of opto-electronic sighting systems. lol.

full steam ahead on the dilbert monomania rail!

my point that, to even write fiction, one needs to expend a whole lot of effort on fictional stuff that isn't strictly concerned with ideas/concepts, has gone way over his head. to him, writing stuff about character or psychology or human relations is 'bad writing', somehow passé, the stuff of yesteryear and minor talents. my point is that good and convincing fiction writing requires oodles of effort to be spent on dramatic conceits like ... plot, pacing, events/scenarios, complications, resolutions; to describe aptly and convincingly; to write in an appropriate style; to recreate plausible characters with believable motivations which animate said plot. all of this is STRICTLY surplus to books about 'ideas and concepts': those are called philosophy or history books, and belong in the nonfiction section. a book which just personifies an idea into a one-note or puddle-deep character will, in fact, be a very bad example of fiction. (and surely the fact that some of the most highly acclaimed sci-fi and fantasy of all time, like dune, spend so much time and succeed at this 'surplus' drama stuff, whilst some of the most mocked and pilloried novels of all time, like ayn rand's shallow rants, use characters as mouthpieces for ideas, only confirms my basic point.)

WHOOOOOSH! DKB: dilbert knows best.

Last edited by uziq (2021-07-29 18:44:32)