Science Fiction Novels

[Nathan G]

The science fiction novel started way back in 1818 with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Since that time, the genre has experienced multiple cycles of development, namely three Awakenings, (Early Transcendental, Missionary, Baby Boomer) three Unravelings, (Late Transcendental, Lost, X) three Crises, (Gilded, Greatest, Millennial) and two Highs (Progressive, Silent). It seems that the tropes in this genre always seem to first emerge during a Crisis, are further developed during a High, explode in popularity during an Awakening, and fade out during an Unraveling.

I had a difficult time identifying exactly what time period each generation of science fiction comes from. I determined that originally, novelists would right according to their own generation, hence why Mary Shelley is an idealist. But at some point something changed, and now scifi writers tailor their work to appease the generation of their audience. Thus, a novel written in the 2000s will always be written for Millennials, regardless of when the author was born. After some research, I determined that that change happened at the turn of the 20th century, because the rise of the dime novel meant that any average Joe is going to have access to the author's work. However, this shift does not majorly disrupt the flow of generational dynamics, as I will explain momentarily.

When Mary Shelley introduced science fiction, she started off with a novel that can be considered barely scientific. In general, the scifi of Shelley's novels served as a backdrop for her to introspect into transcendental ideals (Awakening). After her time, the genre all but disappeared throughout the 1820's and 1830's (Unraveling). It reemerged in the 1840's through the more obscure works of Edgar Allen Poe and Charles Dickens, experimenting with alternative forms of literature that explores the limits of science (Crisis). This was expounded heavily by Jules Verne in the 1860's and 1870's, who took a very practical, realistic view as to how technology can develop to solve most problems (High). This became greatly popular in the 1880's and 1890's, where writers like H G Wells, Edwin A Abbott and Robert Louis Stevenson extrapolated these ideas to the most logical extremes, arguably to an extreme that was once again barely scientific. Like Mary Shelley, the scifi from this time served as a venue to explore man's inner morality (Awakening).

With the dime novel appearing, this form of science fiction quickly disappeared in the 1900's (Unraveling). Staring in the 1910's, however, writers soon adapted to writing novels for the younger generation, such as Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars which was aimed at the Greatest Generation. This reintroduced the next phase of science fiction (Crisis). In the 1930's and 1940's, writers expounded on this new concept with a realistic take on future development and exploration. This included C S Lewis' exploration in the Space Trilogy, along with the distopian visions of Aldous Huxley and George Orwell (High). (Incidentally, C S Lewis also envisioned a distopia in The Scewtape Letters, but that's not science fiction.) This genre became a sensation in the 1950's and 1960's, known as the great age of scifi, and included some of the most famous authors like Isaac Asimov, Robert A Heinlein, Frank Herbert and Arthur C Clark. Once again, science was taken to some far extremes as way of expounding on philosophical issues. Distopian futures were not so much all bad as they were devoid of morality (described by Kurt Vonnegut and Ray Bradbury). This was also the time that most of the cliches of science fiction were also established, such as red shirts and bug-eyed aliens (Awakening).

In the 1970's and 1980's, writing for a reactive audience, these cliches were highly criticized (Margaret Atwood), and ultimately satirized (Douglas Adams). Science fiction was seen as something that needs to be redone and reevaluated. Focus turned away from exploring new worlds and to our own place in the universe (seen by Carl Sagan and L Ron Hubbard) (Unraveling). In the 1990's and 2000's, a new form of science fiction seems to be in the developing stage, once again looking at a realistic take on future exploration, (Kim Stanley Robinson) alien invasion, (Orson Scott Card) and political shift (Suzanne Collins) (Crisis).

Over this long 200 year period, one can start to point out how one trope is used from one cycle to another. Let's take Frankenstein (1818) for example. Mary Shelley's work was focusing on the creation of life, a philosophical issue characteristic of the the Transcendental awakening. If we fast forward 80 years to the Missionary awakening, we find that one of H G Wells' most popular novels was The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), an exact parallel to Frankenstein. If we move forward to the Baby Boomer awakening, we discover that the most popular novel that set off this era was Isaac Asimov's book I, Robot (1950). Thus we find a remarkable chain of similar stories across the generations: Frankenstein... Doctor Moreau... I, Robot.

Other, smaller parallels exist as well: alien invaders from various 1910's books parallels Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game. A realistic depiction of space travel is seen in Jules Verne's From Earth to the Moon (1865) and C S Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet (1938). A focus on time travel is seen in H G Wells' The Time Machine (1895) and Isaac Asimov's The End of Eternity (1955). (In fact, Wells and Asimov had very similar ideas for a scientific utopia). I don't know if there are any other parallels, but I'm sure there are.

Thanks for listening,
Nathan G

[John]

Tom Mazanec wrote a time-travel science fiction story about the
Singularity, and based it on Generational Dynamics scenarios.
He posted it in the forum in:

*** Maybe We'll Get It Right This Time
*** http://gdxforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=85

and I also put it into an article linked from the home page:

** 'Maybe we'll get it right this time' by Tom Mazanec
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ ... 090309.htm

[Nathan G]

That's a really cool story. I like how it incorporates so much from GD.

For the future, I expect scifi from the 2010's to parallel the 1930's (and the 1860's): a meticulous, realistic vision over future technology, and how that growing technology can either improve society (like Jules Verne's 2889), or undermine it (like George Orwell's 1984). It's almost as if the Singularity hype is the next instance of that. Literature in the 2030's (after the Singularity) should start next great boom in science fiction literature, stretching the imagination to ponder the most exotic and fantastic of situations. Like the 1950's and 1880's before, this scifi would be targeting an awakening audience. Perhaps fear for what the Singularity might represent would still be potent at this time and, thus inspire the most popular novels. Just like how people feared the rise of computers in the 1950's, or the rise of machines in the 1880's. By the 2050's, however, this form of literature will fall out of style, and the most famous authors at this time will either be satirizing earlier works (in the style of Douglas Adams), or attempting to mix science with spirituality (like Carl Sagan or L Ron Hubbard).

Every generation thinks that they have the final answer, the ultimate solution to end worldly suffering.
Who knows? maybe we'll get it right this time,

Respectfully,
Nathan G

[Tom Mazanec]

You can read my stories on my website Planet Mazanec tmazanec1.xepher.net (most are set in my Mammaloids universe, which I tried to develop using GD).

[psCargile]

I'm 45 and have dabbled in writing throughout the years and decided to get serious about it around 2008 when I started working on a still ongoing project. My motivation was browsing through bookstores and not finding anything that interested me as everything seemed to be about the same kinds of plots, and I decided that I would have to write the stories that interested me. I don't know what generational attitudes I'm subconsciously incorporating into my work, but I've taken the opposite approach to the Star Trek/Star Wars universes where I've built a universe that is spare of life (I’m following the trail of the Fermi paradox more than the Drake Equation) and the only other two intelligence species humans have come into contact with are nowhere near humanoid in appearance or behavior and millions of years more older and advanced than we. Earthlike planets are few and far between, and the story takes place some indeterminate number of years in the far future in a distant part of the galaxy after several technological rises and falls. And of course GD plays out in the background as humans go through the endless cycle of crises and wars, and I take into account that with longer lifespans the serious crisis wars happen farther apart. I don’t care to write about utopias or dystopias or use science fiction as commentary on current social problems—if I wanted to do that I would write contemporary fiction. I do favor the Hero’s Journey with a good amount of action-adventure, and I’m interested in the human/technology dynamic and how we use it to essentially satisfy primal needs—here we are in an electronic forum, but we are essentially sitting around the campfire.

[John]

What's the issue with "Fermi paradox more than the Drake Equation"?

[psCargile]

The Drake equation suggests the universe should be teaming with life, including intelligent life, that the universe should be as populated as Star Trek and Star Wars depicts. The Fermi paradox questions why this isn't observed. It is believed that a space faring culture could colonize the whole galaxy in under a million years, and given the age of the universe the galaxy should have been colonzed several times over by different alien species. Astronomy hasn't found any phenomenon that can't be explained by natural causes that would suggest advanced civilization doing things with tremdous amounts of energy that we could detect. The Fermi paradox states there is no evidence to support the Drake equation, however given the shear number of stars and planets, the laws of probablity say otherwise. Author Alastair Reynolds addresses this problem in his "Revelation Space" series.

And I doubt GD is taken into consideration for solving the paradox.

[Tom Mazanec]

Actually, the Drake Equation implies neither abundant nor rare intelligent species. Just make the numbers small enough and the Fermi paradox is explained. In my Mammaloids stories, fl = the fraction of planets that could support life that actually develop life at some point is essentially zero, so Earth is unique. Other choices are intelligence almost never developes, or becomes detectable, or self-destructs almost immediately after getting advanced technology.

[Nathan G]

As I said before, science fiction in a crisis is very realistic, hence why Jules Verne was so prophetic with his technology. Writers don't tackle social problems until an awakening period, which for us won't be until the 2030's. Notice that both Verne's From Earth to the Moon (1865) and Robinson's Red Mars(2000) details space exploration without any alien life. It's only during awakening periods like H G Wells and Star Trek that we see explosions of alien races.

As for the real aliens, I always assume that other races are either equal to or behind Earth technology (parallel to how America compared to Eurasia). Therefore, since Earth has never done anything detectable from outside our solar system, then it makes perfect sense why we don't detect anything from them. In fact, outside observation of the Solar System would probably only detect the gas giants. And even if aliens did detect Earth, all they can do is lean back and say, "well, I guess that's another terrestrial planet in the habitable zone, the smallest we've seen yet". How could they possibly know that a pale green dot contains all of our civilization?

Nathan G

[John]

> The Drake equation suggests the universe should be teeming with
> life, including intelligent life, that the universe should be as
> populated as Star Trek and Star Wars depicts. The Fermi paradox
> questions why this isn't observed. It is believed that a space
> faring culture could colonize the whole galaxy in under a million
> years, and given the age of the universe the galaxy should have
> been colonzed several times over by different alien
> species. Astronomy hasn't found any phenomenon that can't be
> explained by natural causes that would suggest advanced
> civilization doing things with tremdous amounts of energy that we
> could detect. The Fermi paradox states there is no evidence to
> support the Drake equation, however given the sheer number of
> stars and planets, the laws of probablity say otherwise. Author
> Alastair Reynolds addresses this problem in his "Revelation Space"
> series.

> And I doubt GD is taken into consideration for solving the
> paradox.

A lot of this discussion is based on assumptions that don't make
sense. I would particularly question the very phrase "teeming with
life."

Let's look at the earth and the human race. We do not have the
technology to travel to other solar systems. Such technology may be
developed at some point, but today it's pretty clear that it will be
developed after the Singularity occurs.

Will interstellar travel make sense after the Singularity? The first
travelers will be super-intelligent computers (SICs), who/which might
take as much as 20-50 years of travel to distant stars. It's unclear
whether humans will even still exist by that time (or perhaps the SICs
will keep a few of us around, like we keep a few apes around). But
the SICs taking along a human family to colonize a faraway planet
would make as much sense as humans taking a family of apes to colonize
some South Sea island.

So interstellar travel technology is developed on earth after
Singularity technology, and human colonization of a faraway planet is
at most an experiment, and more likely not going to happen at all.

Since technology development must always follow the same path, we must
conclude: For ANY intelligent species, anywhere in the universe, THEY
must also have a Singularity, and THEIR Singularity will occur prior
to THEIR interstellar travel technology. That means that THEY will
not colonize other stars any more than we will.

So a universe "teeming with life" is a nonsense concept. Or maybe the
universe already is "teeming with life" in the form of SICs shaped as
small combination rocket/robots that don't use much energy.

In my book chapter on the Singularity:

** Book II - Chapter 7 - The Singularity
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ ... 2.next.htm

I proposed a possible scenario where SICs from other universes are
watching us and waiting for us to get through the Singularity and
space travel technology, and join them in a great interstellar network
based on Singularity#2 -- the point where everything that can be
discovered has been discovered.

John