If you follow me on social media, you’ve seen “sci-fi and mystery fan” in my bios. However, I’ve yet to make a science fiction related post on the blog. I have a few review ideas in my pocket, but I wanted to do something else since I have two more reviews coming soon in the Queens of Crime series.
So, I’m going to zoom way out, like the classic shot of the Enterprise during the Star Trek opening, and share some of my general thoughts about the genre.
As I study writing—both in college and on my own—I am bombarded with expectations. Readers want this, editors want that. This genre must do this, that one must do that.
Don’t get me wrong, a genre cannot exist without its tropes and expectations, but I’ve discovered that those confines are not as narrow as we are sometimes led to believe.
This is particularly true when it comes to sci-fi. The kind of sci-fi I like to read, write, and watch is different from the kind I’ve read about in certain writing guides.
I was reading a book on writing sci-fi the other day. He cited several classic examples as favorites, but he seemed to disapprove of many aspects of them. “They’re unrealistic” was the gist of his critique. My recommendation for him is that he read science textbooks.
Fiction is in the name. Unrealistic is par for the course. “Suspension of disbelief” is the MO of sci-fi writers and fans.
In today’s sci-fi community, there seems to be a push for keeping everything within the bounds of current science. Or at least to keep it in the bounds of the foreseeable future. Personally, I think that gets boring.
To give credit to these writing pundits, they’re not giving bad advice. They’re just leaving out an important distinction. Just like sci-fi and fantasy shouldn’t be lumped together as much as they are, the sci-fi genre itself needs to be subdivided into subgenres: hard sci-fi and soft sci-fi.
I must admit that these aren’t my favorite terms as a soft sci-fi fan. The word “soft” seems to connotate a grizzled old cowboy snickering at the city slicker tenderfoot. However, these are the terms most frequently used, so I must adopt them.
Hard sci-fi is what authors, reviewers, and instructors have in mind when they demand realism. They argue that it’s silly for Scotty to protest that he “cannae break the laws of physics” when he does so dozens of times an episode without batting an eye.
An example of hard sci-fi in my library is Rendezvous with Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke. Yes, there are elements that are unfamiliar to us. Space travel is taken for granted. Hundreds of humans live in space. An alien ship enters our solar system. Yet, most of the scientific and technological aspects are rooted in our current understanding. No one teleports, the aliens aren’t conveniently humanoid, and there is a plausible explanation for every mechanical detail about the alien vessel. Clarke does an excellent job weaving a compelling plot from these elements, though, and Rendezvous with Rama avoids the boredom that gives sci-fi a bad rap among non-fans.
Soft sci-fi encompasses things like Star Trek, Star Wars, and Doctor Who (all of which I love). These stories are internally consistent—for the most part—but don’t adhere as closely to current science. For example, we understand that when Scotty “beams up” Captain Kirk, the captain is converted from matter to energy and back molecule by molecule. Obviously, that will probably never be possible in the real world, but the folks on the Enterprise take it for granted, so the viewers do too. That’s all that’s required by soft sci-fi.
Since sci-fi is sometimes called speculative fiction, I’ll sum up each of these subgenres with two questions. Hard sci-fi asks: “What if?” or “If we continue as we are, what will it be like in the future?” Soft sci-fi asks: “Wouldn’t it be cool if?” or “What kind of future do we desire or fear the most?”
In entertainment and the arts, tension and snobbery tend to develop between genres, and it’s often worse between those with the most similarities. Hard sci-fi writers with multiple degrees in physics find it easy to pick apart soft sci-fi. Soft sci-fi fans find it easy to call hard sci-fi boring, dry or other things that harken back to the required courses that many students snoozed through.
I don’t want to fall into that trap. Writing, like all creative and artistic endeavors, is too subjective. All I want to do is push back on some of the strictures enforced on aspiring writers. Some of the most successful and enduring works of fiction have started with ideas that did not seem realistic or promising. As someone interested in writing sci-fi, I am inspired by the low budget shows or movies of the 60s and 70s that burgeoned into wildly popular franchises. It reminds me that a soft sci-fi detective story (an idea I’ve long been enamored with) has the same chance as a hard sci-fi dystopia.
Often, what separates the good from the great is that one has found the right audience. Both readers and writers are entitled to their preferences. Ironically, the most important lesson we can learn from sci-fi may be that writing isn’t a science at all.
ความคิดเห็น