The limits of science fiction
Nov 29, 2023 6:13:28 GMT
Post by account_disabled on Nov 29, 2023 6:13:28 GMT
I recently read a new novel by Philip K. Dick, Our Friends from Frolix 8 , an interesting dystopian story that contains elements that I appreciated and others a little less. And it is precisely the latter that pushed me to write this post. Science fiction is influenced by today's technology and the human mind is limited. Science fiction, therefore, has major limitations, in my opinion, which can hardly be overcome by a writer. Here I mean hard or technological science fiction . So stories set in a future where technology has changed our habits. Dick, according to Wikipedia, is included in the new wave science fiction, but some novels I read were attributable to the technological one.
Hypertechnology and anachronistic technology In some science fiction novels there is a coexistence between futuristic inventions, such as perhaps very distant colonized planets or, as in the case of that novel by Dick, rocket cars, and almost everything else stuck in the technology of the writer's time, perhaps the 1960s or 50's. Is there any author, that you know of, who Phone Number Data predicted the internet? Just to give an example. If on the one hand it is easy to imagine an innovative means of locomotion, even if it were the possibility for anyone to dematerialize to move, on the other it remains difficult to think of new types of housing, new foods, new methods of communication. Asimov teaches and highlights the limits of science fiction Every time I read Asimov, scientist and science communicator, I had no difficulty understanding the various technologies he put into play.
Above all, they all seemed plausible to me and also perfectly contextualized and inserted into the era in which they were set. This is why I am convinced that to write science fiction you need to study science and document yourself in a different way. Certainly not to become scientists, I'm not saying that we have to graduate in chemistry, physics, aerospace engineering, but we certainly have to inform ourselves in an almost maniacal way. Maybe I'm exaggerating and maybe I'm not. Let's actually say that I speak for myself: I have some ideas about science fiction stories and novels, but I don't intend to get involved for two reasons: I haven't read many science fiction novels or many writers in the genre I don't have enough knowledge in certain areas, such as astronomy, physics, etc.
Hypertechnology and anachronistic technology In some science fiction novels there is a coexistence between futuristic inventions, such as perhaps very distant colonized planets or, as in the case of that novel by Dick, rocket cars, and almost everything else stuck in the technology of the writer's time, perhaps the 1960s or 50's. Is there any author, that you know of, who Phone Number Data predicted the internet? Just to give an example. If on the one hand it is easy to imagine an innovative means of locomotion, even if it were the possibility for anyone to dematerialize to move, on the other it remains difficult to think of new types of housing, new foods, new methods of communication. Asimov teaches and highlights the limits of science fiction Every time I read Asimov, scientist and science communicator, I had no difficulty understanding the various technologies he put into play.
Above all, they all seemed plausible to me and also perfectly contextualized and inserted into the era in which they were set. This is why I am convinced that to write science fiction you need to study science and document yourself in a different way. Certainly not to become scientists, I'm not saying that we have to graduate in chemistry, physics, aerospace engineering, but we certainly have to inform ourselves in an almost maniacal way. Maybe I'm exaggerating and maybe I'm not. Let's actually say that I speak for myself: I have some ideas about science fiction stories and novels, but I don't intend to get involved for two reasons: I haven't read many science fiction novels or many writers in the genre I don't have enough knowledge in certain areas, such as astronomy, physics, etc.