I remember weeks ago finding a post on L.E. Mullin’s Notes about why science fiction is supposedly so bad, and just being totally offended by it at the time.
Strangely enough, I've come to this conclusion a while back (though I just didn't realize it). I thought I liked sci-fi. But it's more that like I like Halo (which is the War on Terror shot off to outer space), Star Wars (medieval knights and a bit of WW2 shot off to outer space), and Star Trek (Age of Exploration shot off to outer space). There's also Mass Effect, which is geopolitics/international relations shot off to outer space. Basically, I like things being shot off to outer space.
Sure, I do write "sci-fi", and that's what I tell people. But that's just marketing. Personally, I'm much more comfortable saying that I write "adventure" or "action" or even "romance". Anything but "science fiction".
At the risk of you absolutely hating it, I would love for you to review my first book sometime! I mix existential stuff with crass humour. People like it, and I've been a few people's first completed SciFi book.
I get where you're coming from with Stapledon. I read them more as surrealist / sci-fantasy. I find a lot of modern science fiction has a stunted imagination, which might be why I think I am somewhere in the middle.
Anyway if you want some mechanical crabs chewing on weekends whilst sentient crystals laser blast old ladies, you know where I am
Thanks. I've read lots of SciFi books, but you didn't say it'd be mine in particular. I just haven't read many by Asimov, Heinlein, or Clarke in particular, though I read two by Heinlein (Door into Summer and Tunnel in the Sky) and one by Clarke (Childhood's End.) I've read a lot of things that I think would be cleanly considered part of modern science fiction like Ray Bradbury, Alfred Bester, John Wyndham, etc. as well as the stuff that I think would be considered not so clearly in that genre like Lovecraft or the C. S. Lewis Space Trilogy. I decided I should read Stapledon because it's influential and, geez, these books are totally demented in my opinion, but on the bright side I can see where all the bad science fiction tropes come from and why there's so much random humor in Douglas Adams.
Everything in Stapledon basically just comes off as a random non sequitur and not particularly believable, and what's worse is he didn't mean it as surrealism at all even if he said he wasn't trying to actually prognosticate the future. He very much thought that was actually how the world worked in general even if he would get a lot of the details wrong. The key is that it's based on Hegelianism and Hegelianism is demented. To paraphrase all the memes, don't do Hegel, kids. Olaf Stapledon wants humanity to evolve into bug-eyed creatures with elongated foreheads and slimy skin and have orgies with their 18 genders, commit genocide against all the people on Venus, project their minds back in time to possess him so he can join in because apparently that's what he thinks is hot, and then the Sun destroys everyone and they are unified into a giant hivemind of "Man" somehow over the course of two billion years. That has the same general vibe as a cube made of congealed blood that probably has AIDS and definitely has syphilis in it and which has been sitting out contaminating everything, so yes, let's not do Hegel, kids. I should probably write an article on that soonish.
Orgies with 18 genders... if only he saw the poetry open mics, he might think he was right. Though they'd probably cancel him for being phobic about the other 78 genders which have been 'discovered' in the meantime...
It's very interesting as an author to think about how it feels to get comparisons. I've been compared to Douglas Adams and I don't think I am really anything like him. I think that rather, readers have very limited choice for Sci-Fi comedy, and he's the big shining light from which all comparisons must be drawn. I like to hope that I am most like myself, and that I am not talking deranged nonsense when I get metaphorical with the time crabs. But that's not up to me, it's up to the readers.
I plan to read Olaf's STAR MAKER soon enough. That one was widely praised for kicking off a change in magazine style of sorts towards bigger scopes, though some have said it reads like a tour of a universe, rather than a story itself.
I read your article and I'm left feeling confused. Are you trying to say sci-fi bad for society or science? Or is this just a personal taste kind of thing?
You mention that you've run across science fiction writers with big egos, thinking they are 'sciencey'. There are plenty of writers in all genres with big egos and big mouths, thinking they are smarter than anyone else. I'm not sure this makes sci-fi 'bad'.
You also seem to imply that 'soft' science fiction, the kind full of monsters and aliens, that is so far removed from real science is somehow okay?
Then you throw in a religious quote, implying maybe you are taking a very conservative, religious stance...which has historically taken a negative view on sci fi / fantasy books.
I'm a bit lost. I'm left wondering why you think science fiction is 'bad'?
Where on Earth did I say I was opposed to science fiction or fantasy books? I simply said I think the main problem with science fiction is mostly people having big egos and that that probably largely extends to real science as well since there’s always one crisis in science or another. My religious objection to much of science fiction, well, haven’t you seen it’s all based on Hegel and Alfred North Whitehead? It’s literally all about how you should be as evil as possible because the Hegel/Whitehead God is indifferent to you, its nature changes with the cosmos, and the most meaningful thing anyone can do is to aestheticize suffering so they should suffer as much as possible and torture others as much as possible. There’s even a part of one of Olaf Stapledon’s books that describes one of his races of Men as torturing other beings because they think it’s aesthetic for them to suffer. That’s just Hegel for you. You say I must only approve of the Bible due to “being conservative” but that’s not true. The message of the Bible is basically just to be nice to people like Jesus. “I was hungry and you fed me, I was naked and you clothed me,” etc. Also look up the real history of science and religion, it should be kind of obvious that Galileo, Newton, and others weren’t atheists. The law is literally just a stumbling block, people don’t know how to be nice so they come up with a bunch of rules to follow instead. The history of science is basically moving away from all the Aristotelian nonsense to saying hey maybe the Earth goes around the Sun, maybe there are people living on the other side of it (antipodism,) maybe it’s billions of years old, and know what? Literally none of that contradicts the message of Jesus at all which is literally just to care for one another. I think if you really read what I was saying you would understand why I supposedly implied “soft” science fiction full of monsters and aliens is OK and that’s just back to the ego thing. Aren’t there lots of people who just think monsters and aliens are real and if they were how would that change the Golden Rule or any of the teachings of Jesus? You can find talks on the Internet where Sabine Hossenfelder and Rupert Sheldrake are sitting across from each other talking about how FTL travel and telepathy are probably real and maybe the Sun is conscious, and Graham Hancock gets a series on Netflix about Atlantis. Who decided that that’s not real science, people who sat down with evidence and found out telepathy, FTL travel, and Atlantis are definitely fake and the Sun is definitely not a giant brain? No one found that they were real but no one found that they were fake either. That’s the problem, no one is really doing science anymore or writing science fiction anymore, they’re just doing Hegelian philosophy under the influence of a bunch of Marxists, Whiteheadites, and Hegelian university professors. Some of those people I listed are even Whiteheadites and Hegelians. It’s an extremely common ideology largely because it proliferates through culture via people finding Space Odyssey and what have you. That’s not to say no one should be allowed to watch it but I already wrote that I’m puzzled as to how anyone would think “people kill each other until the last person alive becomes the new God since they are the only consciousness” is how evolution works unless their brain has been scrambled by Hegel.
Strangely enough, I've come to this conclusion a while back (though I just didn't realize it). I thought I liked sci-fi. But it's more that like I like Halo (which is the War on Terror shot off to outer space), Star Wars (medieval knights and a bit of WW2 shot off to outer space), and Star Trek (Age of Exploration shot off to outer space). There's also Mass Effect, which is geopolitics/international relations shot off to outer space. Basically, I like things being shot off to outer space.
Sure, I do write "sci-fi", and that's what I tell people. But that's just marketing. Personally, I'm much more comfortable saying that I write "adventure" or "action" or even "romance". Anything but "science fiction".
This is a great post
At the risk of you absolutely hating it, I would love for you to review my first book sometime! I mix existential stuff with crass humour. People like it, and I've been a few people's first completed SciFi book.
I get where you're coming from with Stapledon. I read them more as surrealist / sci-fantasy. I find a lot of modern science fiction has a stunted imagination, which might be why I think I am somewhere in the middle.
Anyway if you want some mechanical crabs chewing on weekends whilst sentient crystals laser blast old ladies, you know where I am
Thanks. I've read lots of SciFi books, but you didn't say it'd be mine in particular. I just haven't read many by Asimov, Heinlein, or Clarke in particular, though I read two by Heinlein (Door into Summer and Tunnel in the Sky) and one by Clarke (Childhood's End.) I've read a lot of things that I think would be cleanly considered part of modern science fiction like Ray Bradbury, Alfred Bester, John Wyndham, etc. as well as the stuff that I think would be considered not so clearly in that genre like Lovecraft or the C. S. Lewis Space Trilogy. I decided I should read Stapledon because it's influential and, geez, these books are totally demented in my opinion, but on the bright side I can see where all the bad science fiction tropes come from and why there's so much random humor in Douglas Adams.
Everything in Stapledon basically just comes off as a random non sequitur and not particularly believable, and what's worse is he didn't mean it as surrealism at all even if he said he wasn't trying to actually prognosticate the future. He very much thought that was actually how the world worked in general even if he would get a lot of the details wrong. The key is that it's based on Hegelianism and Hegelianism is demented. To paraphrase all the memes, don't do Hegel, kids. Olaf Stapledon wants humanity to evolve into bug-eyed creatures with elongated foreheads and slimy skin and have orgies with their 18 genders, commit genocide against all the people on Venus, project their minds back in time to possess him so he can join in because apparently that's what he thinks is hot, and then the Sun destroys everyone and they are unified into a giant hivemind of "Man" somehow over the course of two billion years. That has the same general vibe as a cube made of congealed blood that probably has AIDS and definitely has syphilis in it and which has been sitting out contaminating everything, so yes, let's not do Hegel, kids. I should probably write an article on that soonish.
An article on that would be very enjoyable.
Orgies with 18 genders... if only he saw the poetry open mics, he might think he was right. Though they'd probably cancel him for being phobic about the other 78 genders which have been 'discovered' in the meantime...
It's very interesting as an author to think about how it feels to get comparisons. I've been compared to Douglas Adams and I don't think I am really anything like him. I think that rather, readers have very limited choice for Sci-Fi comedy, and he's the big shining light from which all comparisons must be drawn. I like to hope that I am most like myself, and that I am not talking deranged nonsense when I get metaphorical with the time crabs. But that's not up to me, it's up to the readers.
I plan to read Olaf's STAR MAKER soon enough. That one was widely praised for kicking off a change in magazine style of sorts towards bigger scopes, though some have said it reads like a tour of a universe, rather than a story itself.
I read your article and I'm left feeling confused. Are you trying to say sci-fi bad for society or science? Or is this just a personal taste kind of thing?
You mention that you've run across science fiction writers with big egos, thinking they are 'sciencey'. There are plenty of writers in all genres with big egos and big mouths, thinking they are smarter than anyone else. I'm not sure this makes sci-fi 'bad'.
You also seem to imply that 'soft' science fiction, the kind full of monsters and aliens, that is so far removed from real science is somehow okay?
Then you throw in a religious quote, implying maybe you are taking a very conservative, religious stance...which has historically taken a negative view on sci fi / fantasy books.
I'm a bit lost. I'm left wondering why you think science fiction is 'bad'?
Is this just a vent about one particular authour?
Where on Earth did I say I was opposed to science fiction or fantasy books? I simply said I think the main problem with science fiction is mostly people having big egos and that that probably largely extends to real science as well since there’s always one crisis in science or another. My religious objection to much of science fiction, well, haven’t you seen it’s all based on Hegel and Alfred North Whitehead? It’s literally all about how you should be as evil as possible because the Hegel/Whitehead God is indifferent to you, its nature changes with the cosmos, and the most meaningful thing anyone can do is to aestheticize suffering so they should suffer as much as possible and torture others as much as possible. There’s even a part of one of Olaf Stapledon’s books that describes one of his races of Men as torturing other beings because they think it’s aesthetic for them to suffer. That’s just Hegel for you. You say I must only approve of the Bible due to “being conservative” but that’s not true. The message of the Bible is basically just to be nice to people like Jesus. “I was hungry and you fed me, I was naked and you clothed me,” etc. Also look up the real history of science and religion, it should be kind of obvious that Galileo, Newton, and others weren’t atheists. The law is literally just a stumbling block, people don’t know how to be nice so they come up with a bunch of rules to follow instead. The history of science is basically moving away from all the Aristotelian nonsense to saying hey maybe the Earth goes around the Sun, maybe there are people living on the other side of it (antipodism,) maybe it’s billions of years old, and know what? Literally none of that contradicts the message of Jesus at all which is literally just to care for one another. I think if you really read what I was saying you would understand why I supposedly implied “soft” science fiction full of monsters and aliens is OK and that’s just back to the ego thing. Aren’t there lots of people who just think monsters and aliens are real and if they were how would that change the Golden Rule or any of the teachings of Jesus? You can find talks on the Internet where Sabine Hossenfelder and Rupert Sheldrake are sitting across from each other talking about how FTL travel and telepathy are probably real and maybe the Sun is conscious, and Graham Hancock gets a series on Netflix about Atlantis. Who decided that that’s not real science, people who sat down with evidence and found out telepathy, FTL travel, and Atlantis are definitely fake and the Sun is definitely not a giant brain? No one found that they were real but no one found that they were fake either. That’s the problem, no one is really doing science anymore or writing science fiction anymore, they’re just doing Hegelian philosophy under the influence of a bunch of Marxists, Whiteheadites, and Hegelian university professors. Some of those people I listed are even Whiteheadites and Hegelians. It’s an extremely common ideology largely because it proliferates through culture via people finding Space Odyssey and what have you. That’s not to say no one should be allowed to watch it but I already wrote that I’m puzzled as to how anyone would think “people kill each other until the last person alive becomes the new God since they are the only consciousness” is how evolution works unless their brain has been scrambled by Hegel.
Okay, I agree. It's hard to trust anything nowadays.
I still like reading science 'fiction' as a chance to use my imagination, explore strange new worlds, and ideas.