Proper sf explores the edges of reality and then goes beyond.

Popular “sf” is old tropes and popular ideas rendered in terms of spaceships and robots.

The first is a real live alien. The second is cosplay.

  • ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.netEnglish
    9·
    3 days ago

    This is a debate as old as science fiction itself, back when, in an effort to legitimize the genre to the wider public, some sf magazines like Galaxy distanced themselves from they’re contemporaries (the pulps) by only publishing hard sf ‘big think’ stories, and actively deriding space opera, with slogans like "You won’t find any cowboys in our spaceships!’

    I think at this point it’s kinda silly to pick up that worn torch of ‘pulp sf isn’t sf’ again. They’re two different subgenres, and they both are excellent in their own way.

    I for one like cowboys in my spaceships, ala Firefly, as well as the biggest think. And if they can combine them, all the better.

    • infinite_ass@leminal.spaceOP
      19·
      3 days ago

      I raise the torch because I was just over at a Star Trek community where the subject of politics in Star Trek was brought up.

      I offered that politics is a popular substitute for proper sf. Which got me immediately banned of course.

      But yes, what we’re seeing here is a manifestation of an age old phenomenon : Diamond is generated by a few lone weirdos. Popularized. Then the populace proceeds to sell its tired shit branded as diamond. Until the next diamond appears. (And the populace will be damned before they relinquish their grasp on that brand)

      Call me whiny.

      (and yes, we disagree about firefly)

      There’s a problem with social media. There are a thousand communities selling themselves as niche when they are anything but. Everywhere you go it’s mere cosplay and drag.

          • moonlight@fedia.io
            2·
            3 days ago

            What scifi movies/books do you like, then? Because I would say most great scifi is political.

            • infinite_ass@leminal.spaceOP
              1·
              3 days ago

              Books : I like the works of Greg Egan (early stuff), Sam Hughes (pretty much everything), Iain Banks

              Movies : Primer, Immortal (2004), 5 Million Years to Earth

              Because I would say most great scifi is political.

              Then your experience is narrow.

      • MajorHavoc@programming.dev
        5·
        3 days ago

        “I got banned from a Star Trek discussion forum” is a bumper sticker I want to print and slap onto the bumpers of badly parked cars.

        The driver might not realize the implication, but the rest of the world will know…