Conference noted::sf

    Then again, it's entirely possible that humanity will see the error(s)
    of it's ways soon enough to control the types of development that
    actually happen, and that there IS some human baseline that will
    remain unchanging, and the children centuries hence will rediscover
    tree-houses (which may be entirely different in form and function
    than tree-houses today)... Don't be so quick to assume that YOUR
    vision of the future is right, either!
    
    Human stories from the oldest myths on have had very similar plots
    and human reactions to life (and stories) for the centuries we have
    recorded have been remarkably consistent.  Yes, cultures differ,
    technology and what we take for granted in daily life constantly
    changes, food preferences are fluid.  Also, things come *back* into
    style or interest, familiar or well-loved things are artificially
    maintained or replicated for no other reasons, and people turn to
    wahtever they perceive as "the good old days" to modify their present.
    
    If the story is good, it shouldn't be nit-picked to death for not
    living up to one specific thought-stream of future development.
    A million factors not explained in the text might fully justify
    the existance of something you consider anachronistic, but if the
    story is good it's presence should be enough to assure you that
    there is a justification.  (Bad writing is bad even if the future
    sense is perfect.  And inaccurate science is still inaccurate science
    -- unless the author is creating an alternative (fantasy) universe
    with different rules or has a "scientific" explanation for "newly
    discovered/revised" laws of physics, or whatever, that is not what
    I am talking about here.)
    
    Remember this is science FICTION!  (Just an opposing view to get
    the conversation rolling -- I haven't read the books discussed in
    .0)
    
    Sherry

    re : .1
    
    Just so!  Science fiction is supposed to be more than ordinary.  
    It shouldn't be making the safe, conservative assumptions like
    people will always be as they are now.  It shouldn't be telling 
    us that suburban kiddie-fun like treehouses are what the 
    future has in store.  We know there's going to be more than that.
    
    It's true that one can make the intellectual argument that human 
    nature IS constant, and in fact that was argued in this notes file
    a few notes back.  I don't believe it myself, but regardless of 
    whether it's true or not, it seems to me to be a bad attitude for 
    SF to take.  How dull to think that the future is going to be 
    like the past.  SF should be full of wonder and surprise, not 
    more of the same.
    
    That's why cyberpunk made such a splash in its brief but bright 
    career.  It dared to change the people, not just the hardware.
    It made the claim that technology was going to fundamentally 
    change the species.  You may or may not agree, but think of the 
    possibilities that opens up for fiction!  I'd like to see more of 
    those futures explored, rather than retreads of fifty-year old 
    galactic empires.
    
    /jlr

    When you consider that mankind stayed in the hunter/gather lifestyle
    for 2 million years with little change it's not so unreasonable to
    think that we may be a bit static in our lifestyles.

    Marvin Harris (a cultural anthropolgist) claims that with the
    information age we are returning to the sort of lifestyle the
    hunter/gathers had. Both men and women worked. Women did not have
    many babies as they would slow her down too much in her gathering.
    Family groups were loose and often people moved from one to another.

    Certainly there are still many giant differences but the
    similarities may be more significant. liesl

    Sounds like a lack of imagination to me -- as I read your synopses,
    I thought your point was going to be:  why can't they come up with
    new ideas?  The first instance is a re-working of Clifford Simak's
    _City_ (replacing houses with trees), the second is a re-working
    of _Canterbury Tales_!  The third -- dunno, missed the connection
    to old materials...
    
    					andrew

    re .all
    
    Good points all, and thought provoking.
    
    One more view:
    
    When I think of human nature, I think of children who have not had as
    much time for the environment to change them.  I have a 14 month old
    daughter.  Anytime I want to see what human nature is all about, I just
    sit back and watch her.  (Granted, everything in a person isn't yet all
    there at 14 months, but you get the idea)  I almost guarantee that what
    I'm looking at is the same as it was when homo-sapiens became
    homo-sapiens.  And I think it will be for a long time because the
    species has beaten the survival game.  No further evolution is
    necessary for the species to reach breeding age.
    
    Having said that, I enjoy the more colorful new writing better myself. 
    The wilder the idea, the better, if it's written in a form that makes it
    appear plausible.
    
    Will

    Re .0 (jlr):
    
    >The people of a century ago were pretty different from us, and 
    >the rate of change is increasing.  The people of a century from 
    >now will be much harder to recognize.  They won't do the things 
    >we do, live in the same social arrangements, eat the same food, 
    >or laugh at the same jokes.  Beyond the cultural differences
    >there are likely to be fundamental biological and intellectual changes.
    >We might not even call them human, even if they are our ancestors.
     
    The people, physiologically, were not that different a century ago.  
    Culturally, there have been some differences -- but read, for instance,
    _A Christmas Carol_, and you'll see that things are not _that_ much
    different.  Social arrangements have gone from hermits to completely
    communal families (i.e., everybody is "married" to everyone else),
    historically.  
    
    The basic biological change, if any, is that now medical science
    has enabled us to "save" those who previously would perish.  This holds
    with genetic conditions such as insulin-dependent diabetes to viral 
    diseases such as polio.  Antibiotics have saved countless persons,
    and even insecticides have helped avert plagues.
    
    >Authors like Swanwick and Gibson and Sterling have shown that it 
    >IS possible to write about the beyond-human. ...
     
    Better yet, read _The New Adam_ by Stanley G. Weinbaum, written
    just about the time I was being born.  Or _Odd John_ by Olaf Stapledon.
    Or even the Wilmar Shiras stories collected as _Children of the
    Atom_.  Or even the obvious _More Than Human_ by Theodore Sturgeon.
    
    Re .1 (Sherry):
    
    >Human stories from the oldest myths on have had very similar plots
    >and human reactions to life (and stories) for the centuries we have
    >recorded have been remarkably consistent.
     
    The "human verities" approach.  Yes, we can sympathize with Penelope
    waiting for Odysseus _because_ there's commonality.  We can even
    sympathize with Odysseus _because_ his reaction is not unlike ours
    might be if we were in the same situation and quick-witted enough.
    
    Re .2 (jlr):
    
    >It's true that one can make the intellectual argument that human 
    >nature IS constant, and in fact that was argued in this notes file
    >a few notes back.  I don't believe it myself, but regardless of 
    >whether it's true or not, it seems to me to be a bad attitude for 
    >SF to take.  How dull to think that the future is going to be 
    >like the past.  SF should be full of wonder and surprise, not 
    >more of the same.
     
    One could also make the "diversity" argument of Jack Vance (shown
    both in _Big Planet_ and in his _Killing Machine_ universes); i.e.,
    thay when humanity spreads out among the stars many different cultures
    will develop, some of which will be much as ours is, and others
    of which will be wildly divergent (e.g., "The Dragon Masters," _Empherio_,
    and "The New Prime").
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

    What the heck.
    
    What makes up science fiction as "ordinary" or "fantastic" or whatever
    is a function of the intent of the fiction. If the intent is to
    engender a "gee, wow" kind of response, lots of neato-keen ideas
    are fun. If you actually want to comment on human beings, you have
    to go to universals of some sort or another. Human literature is
    wedded to the here and now: it's as true for sf as it is for anything
    else. Where things last is because they tap into a core of something
    universal that lasts over time.
    
    My grandmother died in 1972. We watched the moon landing together
    and her character, which had been formed by people born during the
    Civil War, accepted that as easily as she accepted the installation
    of electricity in her house in 1943.
    
    People still read Faulkner, they read Huckleberry Finn, they read
    Anna Karenina. And they read Phillip K. Dick and Michael Swanwick.
    
    It is interesting that you bring up Swanwick as an example of someone
    who shows the world as different in the future more than others.
    I would agree with you, but I would also say Swanwick makes my point
    as well. The personality changes and individual characters are
    motivated very similarly to human beings now. The four mind guy
    has minds that were defined by Jung. The wistfulness of Eucrezia
    for a personality that had a solidity to it and embracing the one
    of Mudlark comes from a very strong 20th century of self-doubting
    main characters. And the Overmind kind of thing predates science
    fiction.
    
    What I think Swanwick does, and does very very well, is take universal
    myths and give them a physical reality. That blending, the
    taking of the universal and giving it physical form, is to me what
    makes sf so exciting.
    
    To make things really hot and heavy, I would say the reason that
    cyberpunk came and went so fast was that they had little of anything
    interesting to say: the world is gritty and we have a flashy media
    style, but what do we say about people? Not much.
    
    I would say that cyberpunk writers in general say about as much
    about people as, say, the Gor novels. Maybe a little less.
    
    steve p
    
    

    I'm not ready to get into this debate just yet but please do not let
    the base notes comments prevent you from reading Dan Simmon's
    "Hyperion".  IMHO it is great!  I'll enter a  semireview when I get some 
    time.
    
    					- john

    Re: previous
    
    I was going to mention Vance but Steve Kallis already did... what about
    Gordon Dickson? His (human) characters in the Childe Cycle ("Dorsai",
    et al) are differentiated and _strange_.
    				- hbm

	There are SF writers whose characters are well drawn, and wherein the
`human' factor is of primary importance to the plot. There are SF writers who
specialize in `hard' science, and, more often than not, their characterizations
are there as a framework on which to hang a `science intensive' story. I like 
both kinds, as long as it's a good story. I've read several cyber-punk novels,
and dislike the genre. The pseudo-psychological/psychotic babble is
uninteresting. The `daring and speculative' contrivances and meanderings as to
what future man will be are as hackneyed as `The Fly'. Man-machine interface,
or the thought of a silicon-flesh symbiosis, or the evolution of an AI culture
are hardly the stuff of a wild and fanciful imagination. It is merely a simple
and rather pedestrian extrapolation of technology as we know it today. I much
prefer stories where we find an individual with truly alien thought processes
and motivations. Most Cyber-Punk SF could as easily be labeled Bummer SF, at
least for me, because every one which I've read was a real downer.

Mike JN

    re .10
    
    I get the feeling from your comments about cyberpunk that all
    you have read is Gibson and the people who try to clone him (ie.
    Quick).
    
    Cyberpunk is not primarily about man-machine symbiosis, nor about
    fancy interfaces or artificial intelligences. Neither must a cyberpunk
    story contain world spanning zaibatsus and mega-assasins.
    
    Cyberpunk is about two things:
    
    	1) A certain writing style that borrows much from mainstream
    "punk" writers in the way that characterization, scene and action
    is described. It's hard to describe, but I would label the style
    as being street-level and gritty.
    
    	2) Violence. All cyberpunk plots revolve around extreme violence.
    Indeed, this is the key to identifying material in the genre. The
    violence may be explicit and death-dealing as in _Neuromancer_ [by
    Gibson] and _Johnny Mnemonic_ [from _Burning Chrome_ by Gibson], or
    merely cruel, subtle and crippling as expounded in _Dogfight_ [also
    from _Burning Chrome]. Elsewhere, the violence is a permeating factor
    in society, so much so that it would only be noticed if it stopped;
    here I speak of the marvellous _Artificial Kid_ by Sterling.
    
    Since cyberpunk deals in violence as its primary currency, these
    works have an immediate relevance to us, living as we do in a violent
    society, in a violent universe. Everything else is window dressing.
    The technology doesn't really matter (and in the case of Gibson
    it isn't really a good extrapolation) and there are no heroes; even
    those who avoid getting the shit kicked out of them lose in the end
    (eg. Case from _Neuromancer_, who, we later hear, eventually becomes a
    nobody; a fate *worse* than death for a cyberspace cowboy).
    
    In conclusion, I believe you have misjudged cyberpunk, perhaps by
    applying invalid criteria to the material. Yes, there are major
    flaws in most of what is published under this banner. But approach
    the novels and short stories I have mentioned above on their own
    terms and you may that, here too, are pearls of enlightenment (or
    at the least entertainment).
    
    PS: Also have a look at _Farewell Horizontal_ by Jeter. It has a
    premise so bizarre and plain *stupid* that you are amazed when he
    actually gets you to accept it. Good cyberpunk too.
    
                                 Michael