Comments on: Darkness Defined (SF vs. Fantasy Redux)

By: fritz freiheit.com » Friday link dump

fritz freiheit.com » Friday link dump — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 19:06:11 +0000

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By: bob charters

bob charters — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 06:17:45 +0000

I’d say it has to do with the reason people read: as an escape. It doesn’t matter how depressing the actual narrative is, whether it’s Frodo and Sam in middle of Mordor (the most depressing setting I can imagine) or Pepper picking off Asteca priests above the Wicked Heights (just finished reading Crystal Rain). Mordor is a different world than ours, and therefore, an escape. Nanagada is in some corner of our own Galaxy, a possible home for some of us (according to Tobias Buckell), and therefore not really an escape — at least for some readers, not including myself. I’d agree that Tideline isn’t depressing, but it’s still a possible future, and therefore, not far enough away from us to be an ideal escape.

By: Soni

Soni — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 00:35:07 +0000

Mike B

I disagree that cyberpunk is dark and depressing, although it could just be me. I’m a bit of a subversive and vaguely anti-social geek by nature, so I often find the “Blade Runner” style futures freeing and intriguing (like a dark street that turns a corner just before it runs out of visual range), rather than dark and depressing.

Sure, these settings are no place to raise a family. But if you’re a rogue coder, “street entrepreneur” or similar personality, they’re a time of much wildness and open-ended possibilities. Since I tend to relate to these marginal types anyway, I find myself deeply entranced by the potentialities of cyberpunk.

By: lyda morehouse

lyda morehouse — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 15:12:05 +0000

Sandra, I think you may have hit on something. One of the things I tell my students about science fiction readers is that we’ve been trained by our genre to read carefully. Writers of science fiction can be more subtle with hints about the nature of their aliens, etc., because science fiction readers tend to naturally attempt to ferret out information about the world, culture, etc., they’re reading about.

I guess there *is* something to this idea that SF is “too hard,” although I’d prefer to say that, like fine wine or dark roast coffee, science fiction is an aquired taste.

However, that doesn’t translate very well to big sales numbers, does it?

By: Mike Brotherton

Mike Brotherton — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 07:58:51 +0000

Not only are there dystopias, there’s the classic story of “playing god” (e.g., Frankenstein or almost any Michael Crichton book) that invariably ends badly. Cyberpunk also tends to be “dark and depressing.” I think all it takes is a few subgenres to color the whole swath. The perception is definitely widespread as my novels, nominally optimistic about the future, have been noted as being exceptional in the current market for that property.

By: Karen Wester Newton

Karen Wester Newton — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 20:31:51 +0000

Well, since we’re talking about sales figures, maybe it’s partly that fantasies tend to be written in a series, more so, I think than science fiction. A reader who like a fantasy will by all 5 -6 books in that series. He/she already knows they like the characters. But books that stand alone don’t come with as much of a built-in audience.

By: Sandra

Sandra — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 18:29:57 +0000

Swooping in with my big bag o ignorance about the story and the prior discussion, but the one statement you made at the end summarizes what may be a potential problem with the genre:

“In my opinion, anyone who reads “Tideline” as “dark and depressing,” isn’t reading between the lines enough.”

Maybe it’s that need to be an active reader, one who reads between the lines, that is the turn-off for the genre? I know some fantasy has similar requirementsto read between the lines (Fire Logic comes to mind), but is that typical of fantasy as a genre? I haven’t read it in ages, but I don’t recall that need to think about the underlying message, not in the same what that I have to for most SF stories.

By: Chris Coen

Chris Coen — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 16:16:16 +0000

I wonder if those readers who comment on SF being “depressing” are really commenting on the subgenre of dystopias? It can certainly be depressing to see on the page the results of the way we live today, and tempting to reject the vision rather than admit to fault.

By: Gomi

Gomi — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 15:50:56 +0000

Exactly. I read “Tideline” a little while back and felt the same thing. While SF can be darker than fantasy (though some great fantasy can be really dark), one of SF’s great strengths is showing the end of the storm. “Tideline” resonates with modern readers because of its darkness (time of war, shadows of death, etc) but then proceeds to show that hope still exists. Given SF’s ability to link present and future (explicitly in some cases), it works very well in that capacity.