Sci Fi Books: Discussions

I read both genres and they are always grouped together on the book shop shelves.

One difference, it seems that in Sci-Fi, any bozo with a ray gun can spit fire (even if he doesn't know how it works) whereas in Fantasy, one must be born into a wizarding family. There are cross examples of course. There are sorcerers apprentices who just learn the trade and in Stargate Atlantis, only someone with a certain gene left by the Ancients can operate some of the equipment.

Another difference would be Fantasy having a medieval setting and Sci-Fi having a futuristic setting. I can think of a hundred cross examples where authors purposely mixed things up: King Arthur and Merlin in modern day New York (Peter David), Appollo on some far flung planet (the original Star Trek series), time travellers of all sorts (A Conneticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Twain) and a whole series called The Time Patrol by Poul Anderson.

Still, the vast majority of Sci-Fi is set sometime in the future, relies heavily on technology to survive, and exploits the available resources completely. Fantasy on the other hand, is generally an agrarian setting with fields lying fallow and few machines past the wheel.

Harold Bloom wrote a book that advanced the theory paraphrased thus: Before Shakespeare, we have no examples in (European) literature where the protagonist had self doubt. He knew absolutely that he was part of a community, be it church or clan or languge group. Every action he took was based on the dictates of that group. The Fantasy genre is embedded in the era before the Age Of Reason when a weatherstorm meant get the kids in the house and the animals in the barn and if there was any wondering at all about the source of the storm, the storytellers would weave something up about clashing gods or such. A Science Fiction character would find a defence against the storm and then harness it to power some new invention.

Another aspect from an authors point of view, applies to both genres equally. Exploring what it means to be human. The Fantasy writer does this by compare and contrast to elves, goblins, witches, etc. etc. The Sci-Fi writer does this by putting his characters in a far flung starscape and examining them like mice in a maze. Longevity treatments? What would happen to marriage? Living in zero g? What type of community would form? Would people still battle over control of energy sources? What would government look like if we were all telepaths?

I have to get to work but thanks for letting me ramble,
Sean

looking for the name of this wwwIII book

I love his books, especially the Pip and Flinx ones. I was hoping someone could jog my memory about the name of one of his books. It's about a family traveling arcoss country in an RV and they have all sorts of strange adventures.

In the early days of personal computers, before the website. many of us ran what were called BBSes, or bulletin boards. I had the honor to be a developer of a program called Citadel. The idea was a 'site' structured around the concept of 'rooms', much as these discussion topics here. With Citadel, the commands were simplified to essentials for example... to read you typed .R , to skip a message .S , to goto the next 'room' .Goto and then the room name....thus one could breeze thru all the rooms and control which messages you dealt with. The starter room was the Lobby and was mostly reserved for board notices or welcomes to new visitors/members. Some rooms could be set to hold downloadable files as well.
An idea that took root was one for a story that changed as each person added their entry to the ongoing plot. Thus a story grew entry by entry and nobody knew how it would end. Sometimes weird but usually quite fun.
In honor of those 'ancient days' I begin anew -- i hope you all will enjoy it and add your bit as the spirit moves you..

I picked up over a hundred sci fi books, although I am a sci fi fan, the old pulps are a mystery. If you can give me some ideas of fairness, I would appreciate it. Some examples are below.
Thank you!!!!

I'm huge William Gibson fan. Has anyone read his new book Spook Country? Is it as good as his other ones? I've heard it's more like Pattern Recognition and not really cyper-punk.

Hello, I new to this neighborhood and was wondering is there any interest in older 1st edition sci-fi paperbacks like Poul aAnderson (The troble twisters) 3rd edition 1982, Edgar Rice Burroughs (Tarzan & The jewels of opar)13th printing 1982, John Brunner (Times without number) 1st printing 1962, Authur C Clarke ( The lost worlds of 2001) 1st printing 1972, Authur C Clarke (2010 Odyssey two) 4th printing 1984...?