The Sword and Laser discussion

How far do you think that knowing this is a science fiction novel has affected your reading? I felt I might have gained something from not knowing, as the start could have been in a fantasy tribal society, and the gradual revelation that it was set in Earth's future would have made a different reading experience.

Related to that, is there any point these days in writers trying to disguise the genre they're writing in, or create surprises in this way? Given how important genre definitions are in the marketing and selling of books, and in how we choose what to read, will they ever manage to surprise readers?

Andrew wrote: "How far do you think that knowing this is a science fiction novel has affected your reading? I felt I might have gained something from not knowing, as the start could have been in a fantasy tribal ..."

Actually, and I really really hate to open this overdone can of worms, one could argue that this is indeed fantasy.

I tend to agree, or maybe mythic fiction in SF dress.

Jenny (Reading Envy) wrote: "Actually, and I really really hate to open this overdone can of worms, one could argue that this is indeed fantasy."

Care to elaborate for someone who hasn't been through this debate a bazillion times? I think I can see roughly where you're coming from, but I'd be interested to see your explanation.

The science isn't specific, but used as a backdrop. But perhaps that's just a distinction between hard sci fi and regular.

Also dragons, several epic battles, sending the hero on a quest.

Some historical context: Back in the 1960s, science fiction was seen as a halfway respectable genre, while fantasy was largely dismissed as children's literature and trashy pulp stories. Lord of the Rings had just come out in paperback in the USA and it would take a few years to really achieve its current lofty status in genre literature. Poul Anderson also wrote a couple of seminal works of fantasy back in the 50s and 60s, but they didn't get as much attention as LotR or his own SF work (his fantasy legacy would be cemented later as one of the preeminent inspirations for Michael Moorcock's fantasy work and the Dungeons & Dragons game).

So yes, at the time you had a lot of authors who wanted to write fantasy, but didn't want to taint their SF credentials. That's why there are several books published in the 50s, 60s, and 70s that have a fantasy aesthetic and trappings, but build these on science fiction explanations so they can be labelled as SF. E.g. Einstein Intersection, Jack Vance's Dying Earth books, Anne McCaffrey's early Pern books, Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover books, Andre Norton's Witch World, Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber and Lord of Light, arguably Dune.

Fantasy started becoming respectable in the 1970s. Thus, the same stigma doesn't really apply anymore, so really the only reasons you'd conceal one genre in another today are to break outside of genre conventions, or because of contract restrictions.

Joe Informatico wrote: "Some historical context: Back in the 1960s, science fiction was seen as a halfway respectable genre, while fantasy was largely dismissed as children's literature and trashy pulp stories. Lord of th..."

That's really interesting, and makes a lot of sense of what's going on. I've still got half the book left to go, so don't know how relevant the SF parts will seem to me by the end, but it does put the book in a new light.

I don't know if it's fair to think about the book as (paraphrasing here) "only scifi trappings because fantasy was considered lowbrow and he needed justification." The scifi trappings are, imo, just as important as the fantasy conventions. The fact that this is a post-apocalyptic world, and Lobey's quests are distorted, shadowy, inferior reflections of the quests that we hold dear (and presumably go on ourselves), and that there are entities that have seen both the original and the reflection (notably PHAEDRA), I think is quite important. A lot like how we continually try to recapture our old golden ages, it's *impossible* for Lobey to truly be Orpheus (or Ringo). BUT Lobey's story is still epic, is still deeply meaningful. He fails at being Orpheus, but succeeds in creating this new Orpheesque myth. We'd lose a lot of that without the scifi stuff.

Joe Informatico wrote: "Some historical context: Back in the 1960s, science fiction was seen as a halfway respectable genre, while fantasy was largely dismissed as children's literature and trashy pulp stories."

FASCINATING.

I'm getting near the end now and the sci-fi part feels more and more relevant. Definitely not hard sf, but a way of letting Delaney mix in modern references and speculation about our future, adding to the sense of both life and story as something made largely of patchwork and re-used pieces.

Rob wrote: "I don't know if it's fair to think about the book as (paraphrasing here) "only scifi trappings because fantasy was considered lowbrow and he needed justification." The scifi trappings are, imo, just as important as the fantasy conventions."

That's probably true for Einstein Intersection, and maybe some of the other titles I mentioned. I'm probably guilty of some overgeneralization here. I'm just passing on some things I've read over the years; someone who's made a more detailed study of the history of genre fiction could probably give a more accurate picture. But I still think it's fair to say for most of the 1960s, fantasy was the poor second-cousin of science-fiction, and there are a lot of titles from this era that have a foot on both sides of the line.

In fairness, though, most early fantasy fiction is basically updating older mythic storytelling for modern audiences, isn't it? You can definitely draw a line from Tolkien, Poul Anderson, Lloyd Alexander and those other modern fantasy pioneers back through European fairy tales, Arthurian legends, the Matter of France, Beowulf, and the ancient Greek and Roman epics.

Delany's essentially doing the same thing, but with the SF twist and the perspective of 1960s counterculture. Just as we continue to tell and retell the stories of past cultures we don't really have direct ties with (really anything more than 2 or 3 centuries ago is an alien planet in many ways), but reinterpreted through our modern view.

Yeah I think the sheer number of examples you have that support your case prove that you're onto something with that era.

I think maybe the way to reconcile your narrative and Tom's on the podcast is that maybe the world at large regarded all sf and fantasy as silly pulp, but within the communities themselves SF had a greater veneer of respectability? Like, to this day a lot of people involved with genre fiction have this spectrum of respectability, where Hard SF is at the top, and softer SF is looked down on somewhat as being "too much like fantasy" (which means that fantasy is very much at the bottom).

Twenty years or so ago, yes, I'd agree that fantasy was at the bottom. I really think that's no longer true. Maybe another Harry Potter side effect?

I'm not sure that I ever think about genre much while reading a book. I may look back on it after I've finished and think about whether or not it "fits" the genre it was advertised in, but I don't look for specific tropes or anything, knowing a book is supposed to be science fiction or fantasy or thriller. I've never thought about how thinking about it would impact my reading...and I guess I'm kind of surprised that it does impact it for some. Learn something new...

For me, this read much more as fantasy than sci-fi. Stripping away the trappings (location and time period etc) you're left with a story about a young man with special abilities going off on a quest to kill some dude. You've got the wizard/oracle role filled by La Dire, the companions in the form of the herders.

I think I'd have liked this book more if it was a straight-up fantasy novel rather than having the trappings of a far-future sci-fi book. The references sorta took me out of the book, I'd get into the swing of it and then there'd be a reference to Kodaly or the Beatles and I'd be like "WTF? Hang on a minute".