Giftorcurse /Quatermass: Sci-Fi as A Genre

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Little thing to kick off the conversation: What do you think of science fiction as a genre?

I'm hooked. I've got a ton of books and films in that genre, and currently stuck on writing one of my own. I've read that you, too, are an aspiring writer.

I'll have to answer more substantially later, but science fiction, of course, is my favourite genre. I have written several books in the genre, although the only one I'm fully satisfied with I finished in June. And I am currently writing one for the Terry Pratchett Prize.

Okay, so, what can I say? Well, my taste in science fiction is rather eclectic. There's a lot of British science fiction in particular. My username reflects this, as I have chosen for a username for many BBSes the name of Professor Bernard Quatermass, the lead character of the Quatermass serials. I chose the name because at the time, I was getting bored with Doctor Who, and happened to find the scriptbooks of the first three Quatermass serials in the library at QUT. It was at around that time that I joined my first BBS, and I didn't feel like signing in as 'The Doctor' or 'Doctor Who', as every man and his dog would choose that if they felt like it. 'Quatermass', I felt, was both not quite known enough and distinctive enough to make my own, so to speak.

Of course, my main interest is Doctor Who, and while I can go on and on about it, I will just say that it trumps virtually everything else in terms of variety of storytelling and the ingenuity of the Doctor's character.

Another of my British science fiction favourites is Blake's 7. Again, if I start on about it, I'll be here all day, so I'll just say that the concept, despite what Nigel Kneale thinks, is excellent. And the British also do science-fiction comedy well, as The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Red Dwarf have shown.

There are a few British sci-fi books I like, I mean other than novelisations of TV shows.

I'll be honest. The best American science fiction TV show was Futurama. But American science fiction writers can be excellent. Frank Herbert, Lois McMaster Bujold, and William Gibson are all excellent. The Star Wars films were great, but, well...

Australian science fiction I'm a little more ambivalent about. The only Aussie sci-fi I have taken to was Joel Shepherd's Crossover and its sequels. Technically speaking, so could the fantasy book Mogworld by Ben Croshaw.

Japanese science fiction? Well, the only that I have taken to are Neon Genesis Evangelion (which is pretty soft as sci-fi goes, but it's excellent character drama) and Ghost in the Shell (particularly the anime TV series Stand Alone Complex, which is rather like a cyberpunk version of NCIS).

I'll talk about more later...

I think that science fiction is good if it is original. If it has too many cliches, like any novel, it kind of ruins it a little. I'll talk a bit more when I'm comfortable, OK?

I'm not really into big franchise sci-fi like Star Wars, Star Trek, and I just don't have the time to familiarize myself with properties like Doctor Who. I'm staying the heck away from NGE; that show makes the majority of David Lynch's film work seem as easy to follow as The Cat in the Hat. This is largely because the first episode I saw was the last. This was a few years ago, and I hadn't developed what we call a brain yet. I stayed up one night, watching the Adult Swim anime lineup (before relegating their catalog to stoner material) and at the end of show, I was literally scratching my head going "What the hell just happened?"

Anyway, back to franchises. There are some good sci-fi film series, like the first two Terminator and Alien films. I prefer science fiction that uses the genre to explore ideas and character. You could say that my novel Redesigning Eva is new breed: psychopunk.

In many cases, all you need to know is that he is a time-travelling alien who gets into a LOT of trouble. Most of the mythology is incidental in most stories. Genesis of the Daleks is a good story to start with. Although it's part of an overall season storyline, it also works excellently as a stand-alone storyline, as well as a story about the origins of the Daleks.

Here's an excellent fan-trailer for the story...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsIzEdsdRAU[/youtube]




The last two episodes were like that, partly because of budgetary reasons. Because of the backlash over those two episodes, they did a movie-length version of what apparently was meant to happen. You think that the last episode were a mindscrew? The End of Evangelion is mental rape. It's violent, it's weird, and, to succumb to the usage of an internet meme, everyone gets turned to Tang. But it does explain more than those two episodes, which were, admittedly, stylistically appropriate for what was meant to happen, but explained SFA story-wise.




What, cyberpunk, only with psychics? It sounds like an Evangelion fanfic, but given your above statement, that can't be right.

My novels run the gamut of science fiction. The only one I completed to my satisfaction (after about 100 drafts in various states of completion), while modelled on Blake's 7, does have elements of Star Trek in it, albeit indirectly. I've only watched a few episodes of the original series and The Next Generation. This novel could best be described as a science fiction conspiracy thriller with an unusual twist. I hesitate to say more, because I'm paranoid about plagiarism. Sorry, nothing personal.

The one that I am currently writing for the Terry Pratchett Prize is an alternative history novel which is meant to deal with the consequences of an alien race coexisting with humanity in the present day. Again, I do not want to say much more about the plot, except that it takes many of its cues from the classic British science fiction serials as a starting point.

I also have a cyberpunk (or more correctly, postcyberpunk) novel that I put on hold until I read another book that was coming out, because of not dissimilar themes.

I do believe, though, that strong character is as important as good story.

I always wanted to read some book about the science fiction genre like "Anatomy of Wonder: A Critical Guide to Science Fiction" or "The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction". I read the first pages of those books and there were some real good insights. They say that science fiction only become a popular genre with the writings of Jules Verne an H.G. Wells that wrote during the second industrial revolution when there was a widespread use of science in the production process. (Someone correct me if I am saying something wrong). Also science fiction transported the reader to a new world that would be strange to him. The books tell that it was important for the formation of the genre Marco Polo's travels because they discovered worlds previous unknow by the European society. The same comment is made about the book Gulliver's Travels. Strange because I always thought that I would be better in one science fiction story or tv show. The books tell that science fiction deal with how the development of technology affects the individual and society.

Psychopunk is my term for science fiction in an "punk" setting that focuses on the mental processes of the characters, which are somewhat integral to the story. There's a lot of Freud and Jung in RE.

So, say, a book that involves entering people's minds could be called psychopunk, or a lot of heavily psychological drama could be called that. I'm assuming your story is the latter, although it could be either, or, or both.

Imagine a neurotic deconstruction of a Molly Ringwald character in a 2054 urban anus volunteering for a life-altering project that is a combination of gene therapy and psychoanalysis to curb her existential crisis. After being perfected, she has second thoughts. It's basically Blade Runner meets Fight Club.

If there is one thing that I could borrow from Evangelion, it's what I call the "mindworld" scenes. Whenever a character is unconscious, high, or in deep thought, we go into their heads for a bit of episode 24-25 insight. One aspect that I am trying to perfect is a subplot with Eva's "alter", a repressed facet of her identity that is more or less the combination of her id and superego. She is pushed and manipulated by it. At one point, she even gets a phone call from it.

This is getting fun.

I've read both Blade Runner (or rather Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) and Fight Club. You ever read A Scanner Darkly? Your story sounds not dissimilar.

And the premise of your story also reminds me of a story by James Tiptree Jr I've heard of, called The Girl Who Was Plugged In.

Currently, I have gone back to the drawing board of the book I am currently writing, and with so many commitments coming up very soon, this is the last time I can afford to do this before I have to submit it for the Terry Pratchett Prize.

Sorry I can't talk more for the moment.