The Evolution of Science Fiction discussion

This months you can make two nominations one for a book from the 2010's the other nomination can be proto-sci-fi. This can be anything which can be considered as early sci-fi or that influenced the development of sci-fi written before the time of Jules Verne except Frankenstein by Mary Shelley as this was read the last time round. As usual nominations close at the end of the month.

2010's
Surface Detail by Iain M Banks
The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin
Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
Blackout by Connie Willis

Proto-scifi
The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter and Other Fantastic Stories
The Philosophical Voyager by Monsieur de Listonai
Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift

I'd like to renominate Surface Detail by Ian M. Banks. I have no ideas for books prior to Verne.

Radiantflux wrote: "I'd like to renominate Surface Detail by Ian M. Banks. I have no ideas for books prior to Verne."

Reading your article in the other thread on proto-scifi I do like the idea of The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. In the link to below it says it's the earliest tale of extra terrestials visting earth. This might be a good book to read as it contains this and various early sci-fi stories

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bamboo-Cutter...

Think i'm going to nominate this one.

Jo wrote: "Reading your article in the other thread on proto-scifi I do like the idea of The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. "

The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter and Other Fantastic Stories sounds very interesting!

The Tale Of a The Bamboo Cutter sounds like an interesting choice.

For Proto SF, I decided to head over to Black Coat Press for ideas. There was a book they've newly translated on their front page that sounded interesting to me.

The Philosphical Voyager by Monsieur de Listonai
http://www.blackcoatpress.com/listona...

It's on the pricey side because it's Print On Demand and not available as a Ebook yet. I wrote to them to see if we can get a group discount if we choose it. I'll let you know what they say.

Here's the description from the website:

THE PHILOSOPHICAL VOYAGER
IN A LAND UNKNOWN TO THE INHABITANTS OF THE EARTH
by Monsieur de Listonai
adapted by Brian Stableford

This elaborate French utopia, written by Monsieur de Listonai (pseudonym of Daniel Jost Villeneuve) and published in 1761, describes the journey of an inhabitant of the Earth to the hidden face of the Moon which is reached via a flying space galley, complete with pilot, navigator and crew. There, he meets the Selenite Arzame who takes him to the fortified city of Selenopolis, a perfect square built according to symmetry and universal philosophical principles, whose citizens always behave with intelligent discernment and view the universe in ways that are radically different than those expressed by the people of Earth.

The Philosophical Voyager is the most spectacular early attempt to put narrative flesh on the idea of progress as it was understood in the Enlightenment Era, and it remained the boldest and most wide-reaching work of its kind for at least half a century?

For the 2010's my nomination isThe Three-Body Problem

David wrote: "For Proto SF, I decided to head over to Black Coat Press for ideas. There was a book they've newly translated on their front page that sounded interesting to me.

The Philosphical Voyager by Monsieur de Listonai..."

For anybody who can read in French it's available at the internet archive in two parts:

https://archive.org/details/levoyageu...

Sounds like it's worth reading.

For the 2010 decade I nominate Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie: It was nominated for many awards and won both the Hugo and Nebula.

Jo wrote: "David wrote: "For Proto SF, I decided to head over to Black Coat Press for ideas. There was a book they've newly translated on their front page that sounded interesting to me.

The Philosphical Voy..."

It would make an interesting discussion if some of us read it in French and some read Stableford's adaptation.

I got a reply from the editor at Black Coat Press. They can't give an individual discount to each person in our group, but he offered me a 40% discount on more than five copies with free shipping and then I could ship to everyone here. So, depending on if we want to read it and have over 5 people who want the book, they'd end up costing about $15 + shipping each.

He also suggested two books available as ebooks as alternatives- Lamekis and Amilec. Lamekis sounds more like a precursor to Fantasy to me, but here's a description of Amilec:

In Amilec (1753), Charles-François Tiphaigne de la Roche conceived the concept of journeys through the Solar System. His extrapolation of the manner in which human seeds are used to populate other planets may seem primitive, but it is a fascinating prediction of what will eventually become cosmology and embriology.

In 1760, Tiphaigne sent his characters to explore the secret land of Giphantie located deep in Africa, where a race of secret supermen live in majestic isolation watching a medium remarkably similar to television.

Finally, in 1761, in The Empire of the Zaziris, Tiphaigne predicted future tales of secret invasions by imagining that mysterious beings, descendents of the sylphs and djinns of legends, live hidden among us, secretly controlling the destiny of Humankind.

A proto-scientist, physician and contemporary of Voltaire, Tiphaigne de la Roche penned three fantastic tales of Swiftian satire that are also ground-breaking, foundation texts of French science fiction.

I just did a Google search and ended up -- rather predictably -- on a Wikipedia page. Yay me! They list Gulliver's Travels (1726) by Johnathan Swift and The Tempest (1610–11) by William Shakespeare as examples of proto-sci-fi. I wouldn't mind giving either work some small amount of my attention in the coming months.

As to 2010, I have two thoughts that are really only one: Blackout and All Clear by Connie Willis. One really can't be read without the other unless the reader just really hates the story, and few people do. The set took Hugo, Nebula and Locus in 2011.

Anyway, just thoughts. Feel free to do with them what you will.

Valyssia wrote: "unless the reader just really hates the story, and few people do. The set took Hugo, Nebula and Locus in 2011..."

I was surprised to see the "few people do" part of this statement because I think this is probably one of the most mixed reviewed of Willis's books. I couldn't get through it and felt it was one of the most unbelievably padded books I've ever attempted to read. So much so, I found myself yelling at the book every few pages. In my opinion it desperately needed a good editor. I think you could easily edit a good 1/4 or more of it out without hurting the story and make it into one much better book. I felt so strongly about this, I contemplated getting the Ebooks and actually doing the job, but I realized this would not be a labor of love. Also, a lot of people bought the first book, not realizing they were only getting half a book and were committing to wait months while the other half was completed and also to another $30 or $40 of investment in the story. The Amazon reviews at the time were scathing. I don't really understand why it won the awards it did.

I remember when I read Doomsday Book in the 80's, I was still close to my own colossal bureaucratic royal runarounds at college. There were no cell phones, so Kivrin's struggles made some sense. But finding the same overused plot device in a padded book in 2010 just didn't work for me. It seems more a hindrance to the delivery of characterization and plot and does nothing to advance either. It's also why the book became 1200 pages instead of 800 pages. Also, why was anyone trusting these incompetents with Time Travel so many years later? I think also, the lack of use of current technology by the characters forces the book into a strange uncomfortable parallel universe where such technology never came into being, but Time Travel did.

All of that said, I know some people really liked this pair of books. I don't get it, but I know the books some people like and others hate make for the best discussions.

Valyssia wrote: "I just did a Google search and ended up -- rather predictably -- on a Wikipedia page. Yay me! They list Gulliver's Travels (1726) by Johnathan Swift and The Tempest (1610–1..."

I've put Blackout up for nomination and if it wins then i'll mention it should be read in conjunction with All Clear.

For the other books I can only take one nomination per person so let me know which your preferences is between Gulliver's Travels and The Tempest and i'll put it up for nomination.

That works for me. Blackout / All Clear are a single novel that was split in two due to its ungainly size. It ranges in the neighborhood of 300K - 350K words all together. The size is daunting, but the story is well worth the trouble. I've read it twice now and would consider a third go.

I believe that Gulliver's Travels will be the more accessible of the two.