Date: Sun, 14 Jun 1998 00:40:42 -0700 (PDT) From: Sean Eric Fagan <sef@kithrup.com> To: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: internationalization Message-ID: <199806140740.AAA08983@kithrup.com> In-Reply-To: <19980614020737.A4548.kithrup.freebsd.chat@stratos.net> References: <19980613211430.51924@follo.net>; from Eivind Eklund on Sat, Jun 13, 1998 at 09:14:30PM %2B0200
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In article <19980614020737.A4548.kithrup.freebsd.chat@stratos.net> you write: > Not all science fiction is trashy literature, but I think >Anatoly has a point. It seems to me that much of SciFi (or SF, or >whatever the hell you wanna call it) falls under one of several themes. > 1) the "sensawunda" Eivind was talking about. Nothing wrong > with that, but nothing I can get really passionate about either. > 2) cliche "woe-is-mankind-with-all-this-technology" plotlines. > 3) in the year 2345, when there are no wars, no greed, no > disease, and everybody recycles. I think you missed a heck of a lot. SF (for "speculative fiction," aka fantasy & science fiction & horror and some other genres of fiction) is my preferred genre. And, in fact, bloody nearly the *only* genre, except for technical books. (I've read, in the past 10 years, five mystery novels, and two contemporary fiction novels.) Over the past couple of years, I've found that what really draws me, mostly, is characterization -- introducing, and then developing, characters in interesting ways. The other big draw, for me, is "stories with a point." (One of my favourite novellas is "Enemy Mine," which could have, with a minor exception, been about any two warring human enemies. And one of the five best books of *any* genre that I've ever read is Terry Pratchett's _Small Gods_ -- for what it says about us, and our history, and our beliefs and ethics.) In the past 36 hours, I have started, and finished, reading two books. They were _Nameless Mage_, and _Final Diagnosis_. (I forget who wrote NM, but FD is by James White, and is a Sector General novel, if that means anything to you.) NM is a book about a young woman, who has her society destroyed by invaders, is stolen from said society, and has to make her place in a new society, in which she is virtually ostracized. Along the way, she has to decide who and what she is. FD is about a human who is inexplicably ill, and the finest doctors in the galaxy try to figure out what is wrong with him. NM is the author's first published book, and it shows -- the plot is somewhat trite, the ending somewhat predictable, and the writing sometimes clumsy. FD is written by an author who has been publishing for decades, and who has managed to come up with a different plot, despite dozens of stories about the same place. FD is a character-driven story; NM is a "sensawunda" story, almost a travelogue. Guess which one I preferred? I recently read _Heaven's Shore_, by David Brin. It is a story that spans galaxies, and deals with events across billions of years. It is set in an old and vast society. And yet it falls into the "sensawunda" category. This is why I find myself reading more fantasy than science fiction recently, I realized a few years ago. Mind you, lots of fantasy has the same problem, but good characterization does seem to be far more common. To get this back to something even *remotely* on topic... good science fiction should have good characters, as well as a "sensawunda," just as a good operating system needs good user support, as well as nifty kernel code. My recommendations for good F/SF books are fairly easy to find in rec.arts.sf.written archives. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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