24-12-2002 23:45									#91
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Firearms of any sort?

This reminds me of the Dark Tower series by Stephen King. Considering that this series does not take place on earth and has some weird fantasy time travel thingies in it- I'd call it fantasy depite the use of handguns.

	25-12-2002 01:57									#92
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I think regardless of technicalities, the majority of people, if asked, would say that Star Wars is sci-fi which effectively makes it sci-fi for all intents and purposes.

Discourse baby.

	25-12-2002 02:34									#93
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quote: Originally posted by JohnT Tuberski: "So, in essence, Star wars,Empire and Return are fantasy because the Force makes thing happen by going "POOF" I.E. "these aren't the droids your looking for." Episode 1 and 2 are Sci-fi because they use "midichlorians" as the basis of the force." Obviously the midchlorians exist in the first three movies if they existed in the last two, they were just unmentioned.

But the fact they aren't mentioned makes it fantasy.

quote: [off topic]I will argue that the use of the midochloridian (or whatever) hand-waving device detracts greatly from the SW universe by diluting the meaning of the "Force" into nothing more than just another technology. I never thought about this before, but midochlorans essentially turn the Force from a (and I'm going to use SF terms here - it's what I know) universe spanning force that can be accessed by anyone through the continued devotion to pure good or pure evil, to a jackpot ability like ESP in The Demolished Man where some people were born with the ability and developed it, most weren't born with it and could never be an Esper. [/off topic] Great thread, GePap!!!!

Which basically agrees with the point I made.

ACK!

	25-12-2002 02:45									#94
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Categories are afterall, categories. What the hell is a duckbilled platypus anyway? Its a mammal.

Anyway, just because something is "futuristic fiction" does not mean its a "science fiction" is what GePap was saying.

quote: The term "Sci-Fi" has lost it's meaning in the past year, manly due to the fac that the Sci-Fi channel aired Braveheart. This I can tell you first hand, has caused a ripple effect in the Sci-Fi community.

Just because Scifi aired braveheart does not mean programmers thought braveheart was scifi. And certainly just because scifi channel airs something does not cause a revolution on a defintion of the word scifi. They prolly thought airing it would be nice idea to grab some audience.

Is Alien trilogy scifi? Not much of ur typical scifi-ness exists. Yet there is science to it (not in physics kind but biology kind)

	25-12-2002 03:16									#95
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quote: SF doesn't necessarily have to be about the hard sciences, it can also deal with the social (or "soft") sciences like history, sociology, psychology, economics and etc. AH's and other works including Foundation and The Demolished Man are of this type. If you then want to argue that these subjects really aren't science, well, then, I think we have found our divergence point!

Then I don't understand the distinction between sci-fi and fantasy. After all, fantasy often extrapolates on history, sociology, and economics based on different biological, physical, historical, sociological, and economic systems.

'Course I wouldn't consider any of the "soft sciences" actual sciences. Science relies on the ability to make testable hyoptheses.

quote: Hmmm. I don't recall any ability then (or today) to make the past so malleable with mass production and replacement of information, especially material information.

But there was and is. Orwell described it 10 years earlier in Homage to Catalonia.

	25-12-2002 03:23									#96
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quote: SF doesn't necessarily have to be about the hard sciences, it can also deal with the social (or "soft") sciences like history, sociology, psychology, economics and etc. AH's and other works including Foundation and The Demolished Man are of this type. If you then want to argue that these subjects really aren't science, well, then, I think we have found our divergence point!

This definetly is a silly definition of science-fiction. Sci-fi is about HARD sciences, not the social kind, or else 'Crime and Punishment' is a sci-fi novel.

	25-12-2002 03:48									#97
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imran needs to stop using absolutes

	25-12-2002 03:52									#98
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quote: This definetly is a silly definition of science-fiction. Sci-fi is about HARD sciences, not the social kind, or else 'Crime and Punishment' is a sci-fi novel.

So you think my example of an alternate history story wouldn't be Sci-Fi, or that there's some other way of getting it to fit into (some) definition of Sci-fi?

	25-12-2002 04:38									#99
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quote: Originally posted by Tuberski I always liked L. Ron Hubbard's way of differentiating between fantasy and Science fiction. Science fiction has to have an explanation for the things that are done. Fantasy can just say "POOF" and it's done. So, in essence, Star wars,Empire and Return are fantasy because the Force makes thing happen by going "POOF" I.E. "these aren't the droids your looking for." Episode 1 and 2 are Sci-fi because they use "midichlorians" as the basis of the force. By the way, how in hell can you use a silent p to give pronunciation? ACK!

Note that Star Wars is actually episode 4 in the series, so even though the force was not fullly explained in the first 3 ( 4, 5, and 6) they all should be considered Sci-Fi. Lucas produced star Wars ( A New Hope) first because it was the best of the series.

	25-12-2002 06:15									#100
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quote: So you think my example of an alternate history story wouldn't be Sci-Fi, or that there's some other way of getting it to fit into (some) definition of Sci-fi?

Unless there was, for instance, time travel, or the novel extends to a period such that there are technologies at a level higher than then-contemporary technology, I'd consider it to be historical fiction.

	25-12-2002 06:55									#101
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quote: imran needs to stop using absolutes

In this case absolutes are required.

quote: So you think my example of an alternate history story wouldn't be Sci-Fi, or that there's some other way of getting it to fit into (some) definition of Sci-fi?

Like Ramo said, unless time travel or some future time looking back at a divergence in history, then historical fiction.

	25-12-2002 10:35									#102
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quote: Originally posted by The Mad Monk This all reminds me of a discussion on another forum where somebody with a master's in English was insisting that any story or game that involved firearms (of any sort) or 'steamtech' and called itself 'Fantasy' was misusing the term.

On this forum, I once got involved in a long debate with Monolith regarding the true definition of a "sport" vis a vis a "game".

	25-12-2002 10:58									#103
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2 to 1 against including the soft sciences in their definitions of "science fiction." Like I said Imran, Ramo, we found our divergence point.

Imran, your reference to Crime & Punishment was possibly one of the better moments I've seen yet on these boards. Good job!

Ramo, I don't care about Homage to Catalonia, I'm just trying to figure out how you institute such a system in 1948 England. How do you get rid of 1,000 years of records, billions of pieces of paper, the memories of tens of millions? How can you sell a newspaper, have an article change because minor functionary is now an unperson, and then go and physically replace every... single... one (including, I assume, those papers used for the wrapping of fish and the warming of streetpersons)? How about processing the information needed to view hundreds of millions of people doing their morning exercises - imagine all that two-way cabling! These are scientific/technical achievements, not available in 1948, which formed one of the foundations of Orwell's society.

Regardless, if one doesn't care enough about the subject to argue about it on an net forum, then you more than likely automatically assume that SW is science fiction when it really isn't. So, as some have said, for all intents and purposes it is science fiction whether it matches the definition.

	25-12-2002 11:06									#104
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On this forum, I once got involved in a long debate with Monolith regarding the true definition of a "sport" vis a vis a "game".

Chess is a sport. Football of both kinds isn't. Next question.

	26-12-2002 22:25									#105
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I think soft sciences can be included in a definition:

If someone in 1912 had written a book about how, in 1950 you had a society in which everyone was given a battery of Freudian psycho-annalysis test, and that the results of those test then determined your life (who you could marry, what jobs you could hold) then that is science fiction. Again, what one needs is science and its applications. Crime and Punishment does not include anything about how the application of soft sciences (which did not even exist at said time) afected its characters.

	26-12-2002 23:53									#106
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quote: If someone in 1912 had written a book about how, in 1950 you had a society in which everyone was given a battery of Freudian psycho-annalysis test, and that the results of those test then determined your life (who you could marry, what jobs you could hold) then that is science fiction.

I don't see that as science fiction at all (unless you say it is because of the future). I simply see that as fiction.

Crime and Punishment is one of the great psychological books of all time. Psychology is a soft science.

	09-01-2003 01:34									#107
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quote: Originally posted by GePap If someone in 1912 had written a book about how, in 1950 you had a society in which everyone was given a battery of Freudian psycho-annalysis test, and that the results of those test then determined your life (who you could marry, what jobs you could hold)

Hey, that could make a top SF story, novel, whatever... Even now. I mean, if you would write it now you wouldn't use psycho-analysis but something else (psychohistory perhaps ) but the concept is real neat.

With all respect, in my opinion some people here are trying to enforce quite ridiculous bounds on what SF is, and doing great injustice to some of the greatest SF ever written... Again, look at the Foundation trilogy - this was already made example of in this thread. Hey, there's even telepathy and stuff there...

My greatest wish would be to refer you to a certain article by Isaac Asimov on the subject, but unfortunately neither is my reference available right now nor is there much chance that any of you has access to it anyway (it's in one of his 80's magazine editorials methinks...)

Oh, and May the Force be with you
~Mark

PS. In my opinion SW is SF, just bad SF (Yes, there's even such a thing )... Good in some other respects...

	09-01-2003 01:39									#108
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You're still here.

	09-01-2003 01:58									#109
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Are you referring to me?

	09-01-2003 02:01									#110
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yes.

	09-01-2003 02:01									#111
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From several pages ago (I just read the whole thread):

quote: (Still refusing to submit to pressure and read Weis/Hickman and the like)

I'm just starting to read Goodkind (3 books down, 4 to go - for some reason I can't remember the name of the series off-hand), which you mentioned, and I fail to see how it is in some way superior to Weiss/Hickman (at least the Deathsgate Cycle).

As for the main debate...

I'd say that Star Wars is more fantasy/adventure than Sci-Fi, but there are elements of Sci-Fi in there.

-Arrian

	09-01-2003 02:51									#112
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Braveheart is certainly science fiction. To people living in the stone age...

	09-01-2003 03:11									#113
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hmm, i wonder what you mean by those cute smilies...

	09-01-2003 03:44									#114
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SW is sci-fi.
But the sub-catagory is Space Opera.
RAH

	09-01-2003 04:01									#115
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There is a distinct difference between SF and Fantasy. The "Science Fiction Writers of America" (SFWA) and the "World Science Fiction Convention" voted for Star Wars in many different SF categories for their awards.

The "World Fantasy Convention" doesn't classify Star Wars as Fantasy...

So, if the professional SF writers classify it as SF... and the official SF Fan Organization classify it as SF... And the official Fantasy Organization doesn't consider it Fantasy...

It's SCIENCE FICTION.

All the experts agree... But if some morons want to continue to look stupid... go ahead... Lord knows there is enough of that on these forums

	09-01-2003 04:25									#116
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It's really very simple, look at the spine of a book. At the top it will say fiction, non-fiction, fantasy, science fiction, etc, etc.....

If it says Science Fiction, then it is.

ACK!