Science Fiction Novels

[AKKuya]

Because this is a thread about SciFi. As a fantasy fan I HATE being lumped in with SciFi and horror. While sometimes there's some overlap and blurring between them, (IE, the Star Wars films are more appropriately considered Sci-Fantasy, if not a fantasy OUTRIGHT) it's two ENTIRELY different genres and should be treated as such.

Star Wars is should be considered hardcore science fiction.  The reasons why are simple.
1) Spaceflight capability with lightspeed velocity
2) Phased energy weapons (handheld blasters and turbo lasers)
3) Space Stations
4) Holographic communications
5) Artificial Intelligence (droids)
6) Multitude of various species


The debate of science fiction or fantasy rests on two essential Star Wars cannons.
1) The Force
2) Lightsabers

To quote Carl Sagan roughly, "Any advanced civilization utilizing technolgy in front of a lesser advanced civilization will appear 'magical' to the lesser advanced civilization"

That being said, lightsabers are a given due to the technology of focusing crystals and immensely powerful energy sources in a compact form.  This technology is way beyond our capabilities right now.

The "Force" falls under a different category.  Evolution.  The human brain only employs roughly 10 to 15 percent of it's capability.  This is much greater than humans say 50,000 years ago where brain usage was lower around 7 to 10 percent.  As the human body evolves generation after another, the brain usage will increase.  Who's to say where that usage will be?  Telepathy, Telekinesis, Levitation, Pyrokinesis, Clairovoyance, and of course energy release through fingers.

Only now in the 21st century we can forsee the future of mankind coupled with tecnology and evolution.  Two hundred years ago, modern man still living with supstitious beliefs created fear and paranoia over things he didn't understand.  The average person back then was illiterate and had to soley believe what the leaders of the time said about life in general.  Now, the average person is literate and can make thier own decisions on thier own.

To me, the fanatsy books filled with dragons and wizards are really another facet of science fiction due to the "magic" as nothing more than advanced science not understood by the majority.

I've spent 30 years reading books on the matter and this is the best explanation I can give between science fiction and fantasy.  They are the same, just different outlooks.

[moot]

The Force as evolution - No number of neurons will beat the laws of physics.  It's fantasy.

[wrag]

Starship Troopers.......would you like to know more?

The first movie was great, kept to the book plot line and all. Second 1 suxed, 3rd one was so/so.

I average a book a day and sci-fi, along with supernatural fantasy are my favorites.

I have a movie i've been waiting to watch, Underworld, rise of the lycans, saving it for a slow day/night.

I'd like to see Anne McCaffrey's "Dragonriders of Pern" turned into a movie, but i suspect they'd ruin it. I mean look what they did to Andre Nortons "The beast master", no where near what the book was about.

Trying to figure out if you read the same Starship Trooper I did?????

Look more carefully?

I found myself thinking what the heck is with the uniforms.... and the attitudes displayed by tge troopers themselves.... even found myself wondering if they were trying to discredit Heinlein or what?

IMHO not even close to the book.

[wrag]

"Footfall" by Larry Niven.

I'm almost certain elements of this book were ripped off in the movies "Independence Day" AND "The Postman" though. 

Did Hammerfall come before of after Footfall?

[wrag]

Let's see here ...

Jerry Pournelle & S. M. Sterling the Falkenberg series is entertaining.

Jerry Pournelle and the War Worlds series  same.

Ann McCaffrey has done lots of good stuff

H. Beam Piper ....  Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen is a fair read.  Also his Space Vikings was entertaining and not what you would expect from the title.

David Drake Yes

C. J Cherryh has some interesting stuff....

Heinlein YES!

L. Neil Smith has some interesting stories with a decidedly different slant.

Azimov, Clark, could go on and on and on 

[Saxman]

Star Wars is should be considered hardcore science fiction.  The reasons why are simple.
1) Spaceflight capability with lightspeed velocity
2) Phased energy weapons (handheld blasters and turbo lasers)
3) Space Stations
4) Holographic communications
5) Artificial Intelligence (droids)
6) Multitude of various species


The debate of science fiction or fantasy rests on two essential Star Wars cannons.
1) The Force
2) Lightsabers

To quote Carl Sagan roughly, "Any advanced civilization utilizing technolgy in front of a lesser advanced civilization will appear 'magical' to the lesser advanced civilization"

That being said, lightsabers are a given due to the technology of focusing crystals and immensely powerful energy sources in a compact form.  This technology is way beyond our capabilities right now.

The "Force" falls under a different category.  Evolution.  The human brain only employs roughly 10 to 15 percent of it's capability.  This is much greater than humans say 50,000 years ago where brain usage was lower around 7 to 10 percent.  As the human body evolves generation after another, the brain usage will increase.  Who's to say where that usage will be?  Telepathy, Telekinesis, Levitation, Pyrokinesis, Clairovoyance, and of course energy release through fingers.

Only now in the 21st century we can forsee the future of mankind coupled with tecnology and evolution.  Two hundred years ago, modern man still living with supstitious beliefs created fear and paranoia over things he didn't understand.  The average person back then was illiterate and had to soley believe what the leaders of the time said about life in general.  Now, the average person is literate and can make thier own decisions on thier own.

To me, the fanatsy books filled with dragons and wizards are really another facet of science fiction due to the "magic" as nothing more than advanced science not understood by the majority.

I've spent 30 years reading books on the matter and this is the best explanation I can give between science fiction and fantasy.  They are the same, just different outlooks.

If you can take the "Science" out of the fiction and the story still makes sense, then it's NOT "Hardcore" Science Fiction. The presentation of Star Wars owes FAR more to fantasy than it does hard scifi. Star Trek, especially the technobabble plots of the week of the latter series, is far closer to being hard scifi than Star Wars will EVER be. It was only after secondary sources like the West End Games RPG's came out that you started to see this infused into the Star Wars franchise. The two Trilogies weren't concerned how their technology worked. It just WORKED. Science was practically immaterial to the narrative.

Also, the modern concept of fantasy has roots dating back far, FAR earlier than SciFi, and CERTAINLY before Carl Sagan. Gandalf traces his origins most closely to Odin's wanderer form, and even the Elves and Dwarves of Tolkien's mythology trace their origins to the Icelandic sagas and Germanic/Norse mythology (which itself is VERY ancient, tracing its own origins to well before the birth of Christ). People have been telling "faerie stories" that would be indistinguishable from modern fantasy since LONG before what we would recognize as SciFi. It's more correct to say that SciFi is a facet of FANTASY than the other way around.

[Kazan_HB]

1. "Dune" (all) Frank Herbert
2. "Nonstop" Brian Aldiss
3. "Limes Inferior" J. Zajdel
4. "Damnation Alley" Roger Zelazny
5. "Ender's Game" Orson Scott Card

[PanosGR]

OK I m really fan of science fiction novels so let me tell you about my own  science fiction book that I finished six months ago. Its called “The last earth” and has to do mostly about time and transuniverse travel. Story in brief starts in a Greek Aegean island in 1994, where the protagonist of the story a guy named Achilles that does his time in the Army meets a girl that she wants something from him concerning a top secret document. Girl gets killed by the bud guys. In the next Ch. story goes to 211 BC in Bactria (Afghanistan) where two monks of a secret  religion called Asirtanism, search a papyrus that has a map of the true position of Alexander the Great Tomb.  In the next Ch. time is present where Achilles is hunted by the bud people –a secret cult- called the transitionists  but in  the last time he get saved by the same girl who thought she was dead.  Next Ch. is in Athens on December 1941, 3 days before Germany declares war in USA, where Achilles is told by the same girl who is with him and has the time machine, that he has to travel to Alexandria in Egypt with a fake identity as Frank Zavakos.  

(Zavakos was in fact a real person. Greek American that served in 71st Eagle SQ and KIA in 1942 over the channel. He was flying a spitfire Mk V).

After Alexandria Achilles with another fake identity as a cooperator of Axis forces and the code name Swordfish is embark in an Italian submarine “Dagabur” trying to reach Gibraltar. But the submarine is sunk by an allied destroyer during the operation Pedestal, and the only survivor is Achilles. Allied ships take him to Malta as a prisoner of war. In Malta he explains that he was prisoner of the Italians and his name is Zavakos and he is pilot in the Eagle Squadrons. English authorities believe him and he joins RAF to fly Spitfire Mk V. After Malta he moves to Habaniya an RAF base in Iraq and then he transfer to 74 sq which that time was stationed in Tehran Persia. His mission, as the mysterious girl –practically orders him to do-  is to intercept with his Hurricane Mk I  three FW condors that they are about to take off from Stalino, a Luftwaffe base near Stalingrad. The Condors takes off just before the collapse of the Paulus six Army that followed the big offensive “Uranus” of the Red Army. They make a long and dangerous journey from Stalingrad through Caspian Sea to Persepolis the ancient capital in the hurt of Persia. The passengers inside Condors are some German party members and some Transionists time travelers that they search for the same thing. Alexander's Tomb. Eventually they discover the lost Tomb but the Tomb is inside a really huge tholos (dome) witch in turn is a gigantic travel -from other dimensions- machine that can transfer thousands of people from one universe to another. The invasion of Transionists is imminent

Hope you will not laugh with the story. It is not quite a brief  better is a synopsis brief cause they are many more things that I did not say, cause in order to do that I might need the whole page here. I already make a contact with a publishing company here in Athens but they told me that they are not interested or interesting (I've always got confused which is right). Of course the book is written in Greek but soon as finish my rewriting the purpose is to give it for translation in English. I know that is not a pure science fiction, but point is that I describe exactly my theory about time traveling, and is just the first part because there is a second part also.

Point is that I want to ask if someone knows how I can be in touch with a publishing company or an agent abroad so that I can send a copy to evaluate. Do you know any site that can ask?

[Vulcan]

IMHO not even close to the book.

Ohhh I dunno, had the same title, planet names, and character names

[MrBill]

Back in the 70's early 80's I picked up a set of 4 text books titled "The Road to Science Fiction" volumes 1 through 4.

They contained a amazing number, 100 more or less, and varieties of SF short stories from ancient to modern authors.

If you like SF and ever run across any of them they are worth the money.

I'll Never forget "The Cold Equations", by Tom Godwin or "The Machine Stops" by E.M. Forster.

[bozon]

Star Wars is should be considered hardcore science fiction.

Absolutely not.

Star wars has all the elements of a classic medieval fantasy, taken to outer space. You have knights, warrior monks and damsels in distress, an emperor, sword fights and monsters to be slain (rankors etc.). And the final an ultimate fingerprint of classic fantasy - good vs. evil. Not just any evil, but an ultimate evil just for the purpose of villainy.

The difference between fantasy and SF is the way they create and treat the world: SF sets the new rules in the beginning of the story, usually as few as possible, and sticks to them throughout the story. Fantasy always reserve the liberty to come out with new rule breaking in mid story - suddenly an invisibility cloak is found, even though the physical possibility of invisibility was never mentioned before and allows the hero to overcome an impossible situation. Normally SF will not alter human behavior. It will assume your regular human nature in a different reality - the whole idea is to have a sort of a thought experiment that will tell you something about human nature or your own world. This is why it is extremely rare to find absolutes like good and evil in SF, as in real life.

[Saxman]

I disagree on Fantasy worlds being "rule breaking." Tolkien once said that the world needs to be true to itself, so the "rules" still have to be spelled out and adhered to.

The difference is that SciFi is ABOUT the technology. Fantasy CAN have technology in it, so the presence of technology in of itself does NOT form a distinction between the two. Even though destroying the Death Star formed a plot point in the first and third movies, it was still not about the technology. The Death Star could have easily been a dragon.

[moot]

SF isn't about tech.  See Stephenson.

[RTHolmes]

"Fantasy is the impossible made probable. Science Fiction is the improbable made possible." Rod Serling

[Grayeagle]

'Lucifer's Hammer' by Niven .. would be the definitive movie of what a comet would do even if it just passed close to us.
  Great characters, pre-impact, impact, and the aftermath .. just one of those books you start reading an next thing yanno the sun is comin up.

Yes.. I heartily hope that someone does Starship Troopers 'by the book' .. Powered armor is almost here IRL for our troops for cryin out loud.

'Berzerker' novels .. excellent movie material, huge war machines the size of Death Stars that are self aware and programmed to exterminate humans  ..just that ..well .. they were created eons ago and there arent many left, they are 'legends' .. no one beleives they exist .. er .. until one finds you

Any of the David Drake future tank series of novels .. great reads. He was in that tank division that went to 'Nam, he knows the 'tracks' and what they are about

The Ship Who Sang .. Anne Mcaffrey ..excellent movie material.. the ulitimate prosthesis, a starship instead of an organic body.
So many others .. would love to see the guys that did the Ring Trilogy do the Dragon Riders of Pern.. they could do it right.

-GE