Orson Scott Card on Trek & Rebuttal

[Rhialto]

I feel I should note my amusement at Isaac Asimov's name being thrown around. While I enjoy the man's works, the truth is he had a hard time coming up with little things like memorable characters and compelling plots when he was writing short stories. On a television episode--he'd have choked...

 

[Desdichado]

Does SF need to get the science right? Or at least are there cases where the actual science is less relevant?

Is 'The Time Machine' a bad SF novel because we're never given a solid explanation of how all that brass, glass and quartz rods propel the narrator into the far future?

That depends on who you talk to. Lots of folks will tell you that unless the science -- even the speculative side of it -- isn't rooted in reality then it's not even science fiction, its just fantasy.

I'm not quite the intellectual snob to say that, but it's an actually pretty common opinion to have. And if you believe that, then yes, SF does need to get the science right, or it fails to even belong to the genre anymore. You'll note that this actually makes no comment on other qualities (or lack thereof) of a given story, though.

 

[Rhialto]

Then actual science fiction is practically nonexistent.

I mean, in one fell swoop, you just cut out Asimov, Le Guin, Vance, Ellison... most of the big names, actually.

 

[Mark]

That depends on who you talk to. Lots of folks will tell you that unless the science -- even the speculative side of it -- isn't rooted in reality then it's not even science fiction, its just fantasy.

Given some of the names of shows dropped by Card regarding things he respects I don't think this argument applies.

 

[Desdichado]

Then actual science fiction is practically nonexistent.

I mean, in one fell swoop, you just cut out Asimov, Le Guin, Vance, Ellison... most of the big names, actually.

Not hardly. I think I actually first read that stricture in a "How to Write Science Fiction" type of book, written by Asimov himself. I've seen it in many other sources as well.

And maybe I'm just not familiar enough with the corpus of their works, but I'd say Le Guin and Vance were bigger names in fantasy, not science fiction anyway.

 

[Desdichado]

Given some of the names of shows dropped by Card regarding things he respects I don't think this argument applies.

Oh, I dunno. He certainly sounds like he's making that argument at the beginning of his piece. Although, granted, it's difficult to reconcile that with the shows he later holds up as exemplary...

 

[Raven Crowking]

That depends on who you talk to. Lots of folks will tell you that unless the science -- even the speculative side of it -- isn't rooted in reality then it's not even science fiction, its just fantasy.

I'm not quite the intellectual snob to say that, but it's an actually pretty common opinion to have. And if you believe that, then yes, SF does need to get the science right, or it fails to even belong to the genre anymore. You'll note that this actually makes no comment on other qualities (or lack thereof) of a given story, though.

Pardon me, but if I were to hold that "pretty common opinon," then would I claim the same shows to be examples of good sf television that Mr. Card did? Firefly has some good science moments (mostly by keeping the science relatively low-tech), and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind has reasonable science (though the focus is on the limitations of that science). The other programs that Mr. Card touts as great science fiction do not. Again, Smallville, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Lost (Mr. Card's pick of the litter) may be excellent shows, but they are certainly less science-oriented than even the worst of Trek. Being John Malkovich is a great film, but the science isn't.

What are we to make of this?

The obvious conclusion is that despite claiming the lack of science in Star Trek as a weakness, Mr. Card doesn't really care about the science in the shows he prefers. Why, then, make this argument? Because it sounds reasonable, and it seems to lend support to his opinion, so long as it is not examined too closely.


RC

 

[Mark]

Oh, I dunno. He certainly sounds like he's making that argument at the beginning of his piece. Although, granted, it's difficult to reconcile that with the shows he later holds up as exemplary...

Hence my earlier post about him just taking cheap shots at the far fringe of ST fandom to align himself as "opposed" while blatantly name dropping the most popular recent shows and some of the most well-known all-time sci-fi authors. It's both transparent and lazy. He could at least be clever about it but maybe his deck no longer holds that Card... (See? Not so tough.)

 

[Mallus]

I'm not quite the intellectual snob to say that, but it's an actually pretty common opinion to have. And if you believe that, then yes, SF does need to get the science right, or it fails to even belong to the genre anymore. You'll note that this actually makes no comment on other qualities (or lack thereof) of a given story, though.

I'm not looking to make value judgments, either. Just looking for a useful way to talk about SF, since I like discussing it.

If inclusion in the SF cannon was predicated on workable science, wouldn't works constantly be dropped from the list as the science was invalidated? What if the science in one field is good and another bad (I'm thinking Iain Banks here... writing economic SF that includes plenty of handwaved space-opera mumbo-jumbo).

Judging SF on the quality of the science always struck me as a little daft. What books would actually qualify as SF? The last really hard SF I read was an anthology Stephen Baxters Xeelee short stories, which has starkilling handguns and transgalatic starships the size of Volkswagons. Is this SF?

 

[Rhialto]

Not hardly. I think I actually first read that stricture in a "How to Write Science Fiction" type of book, written by Asimov himself. I've seen it in many other sources as well.

And maybe I'm just not familiar enough with the corpus of their works, but I'd say Le Guin and Vance were bigger names in fantasy, not science fiction anyway.

First off, Asimov could proclaim science fiction requires a giant panda appearing in the story on page 5--it wouldn't make it true, and it wouldn't fit what he actually wrote. Isaac's works were a long way from fitting the model he discussed--they featured places and conditions that definitely weren't "rooted in reality". (I very much doubt we'll ever see a planetwide city, a man being transported magically across time to develop telepathic powers, and an interstellar empire like Asimov envisioned.) Much of the man's work could be said to be a sort of speculative puzzle-solving--pre-supposing condition X, what occurs when Y happens. (The answer--the story.)

Secondly, you're not familiar enough with the corpus of their works. Le Guin wrote quite a bit of science fiction, as did Vance--hell, it can be argued his famous fantasy Dying Earth series borders on science fiction, and in at least one story, passes over into it.