Re: Coming on cranky
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Anyway, before I get into the whole finding a job thing, I thought I'd pop in and say a few cranky, no-fun words.
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Well, I'll grant you that you've accomplished that much.
[Urm, thanks, I guess. (getting a bit chilly in here . . .)]
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Not knowing how or why the whole Boskone thing started, nor how it ended, it's a bit difficult to attribute motives and what-not to the sides. At any rate, ever since Napoleon or thereabouts, Total War has been the name of the game. Granted, we haven't had a full-scale nuclear exchange on Earth yet, but that doesn't mean that it wouldn't happen.
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"Total war" as a concept postdates Napoleon by almost 75 years. The first serious example of what we'd call total warfare was the American Civil War, and even then the concept didn't catch on for another fifty years until the meat grinder we call the First World War. Also, the last instance of total war - serious, actual everything-goes-to-the-war-effort total war - was the Second World War. There've been some interesting situations since then, but nothing that could be rightly called total war.
[Total War as turning all state output to war production, which was done in Napoleonic France (well, in theory and rhetoric, anyway) to destroy the enemy's ability to make war. (Also, interesting idea, if Palestine were considered a state, could it be said that its entire material output goes into total war? bit off topic). Now, as to completely destroying your enemy, this has been done . . . since forever, I guess. Earliest example I can think of is a reference from, of all places, the Cartoon History of the Universe Part II where it describes the first . . . Han Emperor killing/deporting the entire population of a rebellious province and then sowing the earth with salt to make sure it couldn't grow anything. Which is something.]
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The only reason why this hasn't happend is editorial fiat. Which really isn't that good of a reason.
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Because as we all know, human beings are scum.
[Um, yes?]
That is the thesis, right? That we're basically awful to everything and thus can't have nice things without destroying the world. It certainly seems to be the point you're driving at here.
[Pretty much.]
Yes, it's editorial fiat. No, I'm not going to change it without a serious, honest to god majority of the writers wanting a change.
[You don't really have to change it. Just give both Boskonians and their adversaries very good reasons WHY they didn't just go "You know, we're not winning this war fast enough. Handwavium just isn't letting us make cool weapons. I think that I'll just remote control pilot a few ships with fusion reactors going at really damn high speeds and ram them into cities, worlds and what-not. Blow em up real good. It wouldn't take all that many to render the entire solar system uninhabitable." I mean, there must be a reason. Say somebody early in the war dropped a colony on australia on something and that made them make a treaty in antarctica or something and agreed to not do that. Or something. I dunno.]
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Well, no, not really. It's a great anime/light novel series. She's a great character. However, what really takes you out of this shared universe thing is the idea of a single god-like character out there laughing it up while handing out handwavium goodies.
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*sigh*
For the record, I'm really sorry that I ever thought of bringing Haruhi Suzumiya into Fenspace. It was a spur of the moment thought back in the original plotbunny thread, I thought it was cute and decided to roll with it... and now it's become this huge monster that's devouring everything in its path.
Ah well, we're stuck with it for the moment. Moving on.
[This is where the power of editorial fiat comes in handy. Just issue an ex cathedra ruling that the haruhi here is not the actual character or something. Or just render all mentions of her non-canon. Have a reboot, a re-imagining, a crisis or what have you. Fnordican II, to continue the papal metaphor.]
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It also goes against the, for lack of a better term, feel of the shared universe. What is the point of being semi-hard science fiction if it's the product of a god-like being? Doesn't that undermine everything?
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I don't know. Tell me the truth; do you feel like Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise, or Accelerando and Glasshouse are undermined because godlike beings are the root causes of those stories? If not, why not?
[You know, I think accelerando kind of was undermined by the matrioska brains. I mean, I can kind of understand where he was going with it, kind of . . .
Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise worked worked with the idea of a god-like being who only interfered via covert agents. It was an FTL-lampshade hanging that generated a great plot. Consider the Fall Revolution series by Macleod. the middle two books work in the shadow of the singularity.
Anyway, to be even more geeky about it, it's like how most Q episodes from TNG just don't work. He can do EVERYTHING so why does he never win? (and i know that i'm going to get arguments about this. but think about it: he never does convince picard et al. that they're loser scum does he?)]
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Look at how this world was set up, regurgitating the ideas and dreams of dead men like ideological necrophiliac cannibals.
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Don't hold back, mate. Tell us how you really feel.
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Where's the new, the outbreaks of future, in having your fictional avatar live in a world that people born in the ass-end of the last century would have found comfortable and explicable?
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I would think creating a functional society on a shifting foundation of pop culture would make for some entertaining new, even if it's low-gadgetry. But that's just me.
Okay, here's my end point. If you want hardcore, well-designed near term hard or semihard science fiction, go read Stross, or Doctrow, or MacLeod or Banks or Brin or Bear or Benford or Robert Charles Wilson or Warren Ellis. All those people are paid to write science fiction, and they do it very well. We - and by "we" I mean the Fenspace writers - are here to have a little fun in the sandbox, kick around some ideas and hopefully get a couple of good stories out of our efforts. We are not here to pretend to be revolutionary, we're taking an idea ("If the only people who want to colonize space are science fiction fans, what happens when they go and do it?") and running with it until we trip, fall & stab ourselves.
If that doesn't appeal, then you ought to stop reading Fenspace, because you're not going to enjoy our output.
[It's not that I don't enjoy the stories, I do. (and thanks for the book recommendations. I've read all but Benford and Wilson. I read Mars and about half of its sequel, but man was his protagonist whiny. Any books in particular by Benford?)
I think my biggest problem with this is that there is a feeling of malaise for and in science fiction fandom, of which this project is a direct reflection of. This is supposed to be about our dreams as fans and so far it's been the same dream over and over again. We should expect more from the field. If we do expect more, then we get more. If our perspective is just the same as it was for the last half decade, then science fiction is not longer about future. It's actually genuinely frightening when smart people, really smart people of whom everyone in this message board is, seem so afraid of the future. The sense of wonder seems gone from a lot of science fiction, replaced by an urge to dress up like space marines and shoot some alien terrorist commies.
If this is supposed to be about escape, what does what we escape to say about us? Shouldn't we be revolutionary in our dreams and fantasies? It's not about not having fun but shouldn't we also be asking ourselves why this is fun for us? Just once? Deconstruct the motifs we're playing with?
Maybe this is taking all of this too seriously. No, probably. But creative output is telling and we should listen to what it tells us. For. . . for . . . uh, various reasons which we are all cognizant of . . . and, um which don't need explicating at this moment. Yeah.]
-murmur
I actually have a post wherein I heap praise upon praise for fenspace, but that's for later.
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Anyway, before I get into the whole finding a job thing, I thought I'd pop in and say a few cranky, no-fun words.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well, I'll grant you that you've accomplished that much.
[Urm, thanks, I guess. (getting a bit chilly in here . . .)]
Quote:
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Not knowing how or why the whole Boskone thing started, nor how it ended, it's a bit difficult to attribute motives and what-not to the sides. At any rate, ever since Napoleon or thereabouts, Total War has been the name of the game. Granted, we haven't had a full-scale nuclear exchange on Earth yet, but that doesn't mean that it wouldn't happen.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Total war" as a concept postdates Napoleon by almost 75 years. The first serious example of what we'd call total warfare was the American Civil War, and even then the concept didn't catch on for another fifty years until the meat grinder we call the First World War. Also, the last instance of total war - serious, actual everything-goes-to-the-war-effort total war - was the Second World War. There've been some interesting situations since then, but nothing that could be rightly called total war.
[Total War as turning all state output to war production, which was done in Napoleonic France (well, in theory and rhetoric, anyway) to destroy the enemy's ability to make war. (Also, interesting idea, if Palestine were considered a state, could it be said that its entire material output goes into total war? bit off topic). Now, as to completely destroying your enemy, this has been done . . . since forever, I guess. Earliest example I can think of is a reference from, of all places, the Cartoon History of the Universe Part II where it describes the first . . . Han Emperor killing/deporting the entire population of a rebellious province and then sowing the earth with salt to make sure it couldn't grow anything. Which is something.]
Quote:
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The only reason why this hasn't happend is editorial fiat. Which really isn't that good of a reason.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Because as we all know, human beings are scum.
[Um, yes?]
That is the thesis, right? That we're basically awful to everything and thus can't have nice things without destroying the world. It certainly seems to be the point you're driving at here.
[Pretty much.]
Yes, it's editorial fiat. No, I'm not going to change it without a serious, honest to god majority of the writers wanting a change.
[You don't really have to change it. Just give both Boskonians and their adversaries very good reasons WHY they didn't just go "You know, we're not winning this war fast enough. Handwavium just isn't letting us make cool weapons. I think that I'll just remote control pilot a few ships with fusion reactors going at really damn high speeds and ram them into cities, worlds and what-not. Blow em up real good. It wouldn't take all that many to render the entire solar system uninhabitable." I mean, there must be a reason. Say somebody early in the war dropped a colony on australia on something and that made them make a treaty in antarctica or something and agreed to not do that. Or something. I dunno.]
Quote:
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Well, no, not really. It's a great anime/light novel series. She's a great character. However, what really takes you out of this shared universe thing is the idea of a single god-like character out there laughing it up while handing out handwavium goodies.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*sigh*
For the record, I'm really sorry that I ever thought of bringing Haruhi Suzumiya into Fenspace. It was a spur of the moment thought back in the original plotbunny thread, I thought it was cute and decided to roll with it... and now it's become this huge monster that's devouring everything in its path.
Ah well, we're stuck with it for the moment. Moving on.
[This is where the power of editorial fiat comes in handy. Just issue an ex cathedra ruling that the haruhi here is not the actual character or something. Or just render all mentions of her non-canon. Have a reboot, a re-imagining, a crisis or what have you. Fnordican II, to continue the papal metaphor.]
Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It also goes against the, for lack of a better term, feel of the shared universe. What is the point of being semi-hard science fiction if it's the product of a god-like being? Doesn't that undermine everything?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I don't know. Tell me the truth; do you feel like Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise, or Accelerando and Glasshouse are undermined because godlike beings are the root causes of those stories? If not, why not?
[You know, I think accelerando kind of was undermined by the matrioska brains. I mean, I can kind of understand where he was going with it, kind of . . .
Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise worked worked with the idea of a god-like being who only interfered via covert agents. It was an FTL-lampshade hanging that generated a great plot. Consider the Fall Revolution series by Macleod. the middle two books work in the shadow of the singularity.
Anyway, to be even more geeky about it, it's like how most Q episodes from TNG just don't work. He can do EVERYTHING so why does he never win? (and i know that i'm going to get arguments about this. but think about it: he never does convince picard et al. that they're loser scum does he?)]
Quote:
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Look at how this world was set up, regurgitating the ideas and dreams of dead men like ideological necrophiliac cannibals.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Don't hold back, mate. Tell us how you really feel.
Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Where's the new, the outbreaks of future, in having your fictional avatar live in a world that people born in the ass-end of the last century would have found comfortable and explicable?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I would think creating a functional society on a shifting foundation of pop culture would make for some entertaining new, even if it's low-gadgetry. But that's just me.
Okay, here's my end point. If you want hardcore, well-designed near term hard or semihard science fiction, go read Stross, or Doctrow, or MacLeod or Banks or Brin or Bear or Benford or Robert Charles Wilson or Warren Ellis. All those people are paid to write science fiction, and they do it very well. We - and by "we" I mean the Fenspace writers - are here to have a little fun in the sandbox, kick around some ideas and hopefully get a couple of good stories out of our efforts. We are not here to pretend to be revolutionary, we're taking an idea ("If the only people who want to colonize space are science fiction fans, what happens when they go and do it?") and running with it until we trip, fall & stab ourselves.
If that doesn't appeal, then you ought to stop reading Fenspace, because you're not going to enjoy our output.
[It's not that I don't enjoy the stories, I do. (and thanks for the book recommendations. I've read all but Benford and Wilson. I read Mars and about half of its sequel, but man was his protagonist whiny. Any books in particular by Benford?)
I think my biggest problem with this is that there is a feeling of malaise for and in science fiction fandom, of which this project is a direct reflection of. This is supposed to be about our dreams as fans and so far it's been the same dream over and over again. We should expect more from the field. If we do expect more, then we get more. If our perspective is just the same as it was for the last half decade, then science fiction is not longer about future. It's actually genuinely frightening when smart people, really smart people of whom everyone in this message board is, seem so afraid of the future. The sense of wonder seems gone from a lot of science fiction, replaced by an urge to dress up like space marines and shoot some alien terrorist commies.
If this is supposed to be about escape, what does what we escape to say about us? Shouldn't we be revolutionary in our dreams and fantasies? It's not about not having fun but shouldn't we also be asking ourselves why this is fun for us? Just once? Deconstruct the motifs we're playing with?
Maybe this is taking all of this too seriously. No, probably. But creative output is telling and we should listen to what it tells us. For. . . for . . . uh, various reasons which we are all cognizant of . . . and, um which don't need explicating at this moment. Yeah.]
-murmur
I actually have a post wherein I heap praise upon praise for fenspace, but that's for later.