Have at it, folks!

Nahh....

;)

Yes, I am teasing. My definition of classic SF:

1) Inter-stellar spaceflight exists.
2) At the end of reading the book, a major judge of its quality is: "Was it fun to read?"
3) There are nifty technical gadgets in the world (nifty at the time the book was written.)
4) The plot is about a puzzle to be solved, about something to learn or discover, or about a danger faced. It's not about the complex interplay between characters.

Do you need all four of the conditions on your list to be met, or can we get away with say just three or even only two of them?

Examples of above -
The sands of Mars (OK, no interstellar, but...)
How does that story match, say, The left Hand of Darkness?
In truth, not very well.
But it's still fun, an more interesting than a Harlequin novel...

Also the proposed Caves of Steel. Others, from my library - A fall of moondust, Space cadet...

#4 I hope not all of the criteria have to be met!

#6 - So do I, or several of my favs don't make the cut.
:o)

Kane of Old Mars covers 3 of the 4, no interstellar space travel that I remember (at least not by space ship).

#3 good list. I would add that there's probably not a lot of emphasis on culture or social science, at least not in a serious vein.

I wonder, too, about age. Is anybody still writing books that would fall into this category, or is it impossible to get published these days without more attention to character, culture, and style? What's the most recent book that fits into our concept of classic SF? Is anybody doing it (and doing it reasonably well) these days?

#4 not at all... but I think a story that meets all four very well is "very much" classic old-school SF.

Caves of Steel easily meets all four. Inter-stellar flight exists with the "Spacer" worlds... at the end of the book, I said "That's fun!" the nift gadgets are the robot R. Daneel and the underground cities, and the mystery provides a puzzle to be solved.

I always thought Dragon's Egg was an example of excellent "late" Classic SF.

I got slightly sick when I saw this thread title, I feared we would soon be subjected to diatribes and lectures from certain amphibians who shall remain nameles.

I guess I have baggage.

Trying to define words like "classic" and "literary," not to mention "scifi" or "fantasy" is just shaking the jar. Fun to watch the fighting, for a while, but not so very constructive.

I don't really go along with his defninition, but I'm still voting for Caves of Steel because, like PB, I don't want to think so much.

And I'm ready with the MNM if necessary.

I suppose I'd know it if I saw it. I consider books such as I, Robot, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Mission of Gravity to be "classic" science fiction. Many instances of classic science fiction include these themes:
-alien(s)
-spaceship(s)
-artificial intelligence(s)

(and often two or all of these)

*I agree, Littlegeek, let's not induce another "literary validity" war. I'm just positing my hunches about classic sci-fi.

For me classic Scifi (irrespective of when it was actually written) is a story where the scientific idea or concept takes priority over the characters involved within the story... most of Arthur C Clarke's work is a prime example of what I mean about concept being more important than character. In other words the "idea" is the backbone of the story; the reason for its very existence is to examine, poke, prod, and generally dissect a "scientific" idea or concept... the people who live in the world are often somewhat secondary - and when done well it can leave you feeling like you've really learned something by the time you finish the story.

I would point to The Time Machine* as a great example of Classic Scifi, the concept (time travel) is far and away more important to the story than the time traveller himself, after all he doesn't even get named.

Anyway, that's what it means to me, make of that what you will :-)

*for some reason the Time Machine tag defaulted to Treasure Island???

Message edited by its author, Sep 11, 2007, 4:22pm.

#14 - Something is way off with the tags lately.
:o/
#12 - No, that was 'Should scientists write scifi?' I'd rather stick needles in my eyes than look at another thread that went as wrong as that one did. ;o) Glad we don't have threads like that in this group.
;o)

#14 - that's exactly what my mind was trying to sort out. Well said! I love the concept of time travel and other dimensions / worlds - there are some great stories that seem to fall into this category and sometimes no space travel is involved. Hmmm

Leaping into a cloud backwards here... I've never intentionally read a sci-fi book. I don't avoid them, but I really only come across them by accident. So have no idea what constitutes a classic sci-fi story. But, this idea of "classic" sci-fi gets used in other books to great effect, for example: Slaughterhouse five, or The Blind Assassin. They imply that the sci-fi aspect is primarily a creative setting for a story. The "science" is more about internal consistency than realistic possibilities. The story, which may or may not be fun, is still central.... This could still fit all four of the JPB criteria.

Remember, Clammy asked us all for our definition of Classic SF. So nobody is right or wrong. :)

And I think we should read Caves of Steel quickly, before debate about it runs longer than the novel itself.

0:)

Well, then my opinion is that classic scifi would be something that has a scifi setting or ideas, but that is also well written and thought provoking. Classic scifi authors, for me, would be Bradbury, Stanislaw Lem, Harlan Ellison, early Vonnegut, etc.

But I want a whizbang Asimov read! Let's do Caves of Steel!

I'm not a huge reader of the SF genre, but when I saw this thread I immediately thought of things that were written before we achieved space flight ourselves.

JPB et al: about that list of criteria...

Does #4 rule out the classic "space opera?" Unless I misunderstand the space opera concept, it seems to involve point 4.

Does this set of 4 criteria exclude from Classic Sci-fi any of the following:
Dune
Farmer's Riverworld series
Niven-Purnelle's The Mote in God's Eye. When I read Mote in God's Eye I was always thinking this would be a great Star Trek movie plot; put me much in mind of Start Trek.

Good topic, clamairy!

Dune is a classic, but doesn't fall into the category I am describing as classic SF. Perhaps my definition is describing 'pulp magazine SF' - which is what largely existed before the 1950s, when you got publishers willing to print SF novels, allowing for a wider scope of imagination.

Pulp magazine SF required there to be something fun, something thrilling, required puzzles or cliff-hangers to get you back next month, or neatly wrapped up a story in a single issue.

I also think there is no value in establishing a hard line - rather, I'd say of your list "Mote" is closest to what I am calling classic SF, and Dune is the least.

But again, I think the term PULP SF may be closer to what I mean.

My concept of "classic SF" is a chronological one - anything from the major (and many of the not-so-major) authors from the Golden Age of SF.

But maybe that's just an underdeveloped definition... :)

#23 - Yeah, my sense of "classic SF" is also chronological, but my definition is completely subjective:

"Classic SF" is the stuff that was already published when I discovered the field.

So where would authors such as Jules Verne and Edgar Rice Burroughs fall in this category? Would they come more under the fantasy genre? Or are they mixed?

I call them proto-sf. But that's not very satisfactory. Maybe antique-sf?

Maybe "classic sf" is the authors that cut their teeth by first being published in the sf/f-magazines? It's a kind of storytelling that has to include drama, thrills, and not too complex characters as they take a lot of words to develop and space is premium in a mag.
?
At least I think the term includes both a style and an era.

Jules Verne would definitely be proto-sf, but Burroughs I have no intelligent idea about. To me he's Tarzan, not much else. My father was the one who, in the 70's, guided me into the sf area and I carried his judgements uncontradicted for a long time. And he told me Clarke was "better" than Asimov. Burroughs didn't even exist ;-)

I would agree with #20, as far as chronology goes, with the added observation:

Before 1957, SF was considered 'escapist' and the average quality was low. That said, I would consider classic SF as any work that delivered excellent story, characters, topicality, etc. DESPITE that handicap. This includes the best works and authors of the Golden Age, plus earlier authors such as Verne, Wells, Burroughs, and E. E. Smith. Space operas or not, these authors cared about storytelling.

'Literary merit' is entirely subjective; not that it's not important (all 'classic' SF should have some merit in any case), but if that was the only thing writing was about (i.e. conforming to the current fads of critics), very little would get published, good or bad.

Busifer, Burrough's "Barsoom/John Carter" series is phenomenal. I can't quite place it squarely in Sci-Fi or Fantasy, but I have very fond memories of reading them. I highly recommend the series.

Try 'em. If you don't like them, I'll eat my hat. OK, that's a lie; I'm not really a hat person.

*laughs*
OK, I'll make a note.
I have low-key quest to acquire at least some of the stuff that I read as a teen; while Burroughs don't quite fit in there he does so by association ;-)

>29,30

Definitely concur on John Carter. I am always amazed that these books were written in the 'teens and twenties, LONG before the Golden Age.

I think I like H.P.Lovecraft for the same reasons, and I consider much of his Cthulhu mythos as SF; Lovecraft himself would probably have agreed, as he considered himself quite well-educated in science and tried hard to stay up with the state-of-the-art of the twenties; in fact the story 'The Shadow Out of Time' may be the first SF story to deal realistically with the implications of Einsteinian space-time.

And Burroughs and Lovecraft bring to mind another quality of 'classic SF': sense of wonder! sheer imagination! How could we forget that!

As I browsed through some old Galaxy Science Fiction Magazines I found this illustration. I think it captures "classic sf" quite well ;-)

31>

Not to mention the horror unfathomable!

I have barely encountered Sci-Fi in anything but Movies. I am a Sci-Fi "n00b" who was born and raised on Tolkien's The Hobbit and Terry Pratchett Discworld books. Thus, apart from Lovecraft, George Orwell's Nineteen-Eighty Four, and something I remember from my childhood called "Sally Marshall is NOT an Alien!" which I remember to be a book of its time that was not particularly original, I can't really say I know enough about Sci-Fi as a genre to make comments about what counts as "Classic" Sci-Fi.

This is what happens when you were a Dungeons and Dragons player instead of a Doctor Who geek, as the new series of Doctor Who was not about when I was a lad.

Unless you count the Sci-Fi Manga of Osamu Tezuka. Seriously. He created Astro Boy. And his Apollo's Song is definitely classic Sci-Fi, if it isn't I don't know what is.

I just remembered Tezuka after I posted that last thing, so excuse me.

I can remember a contestant on Mastermind who's specialist subject was the 'Barsoom novels'. I did just as well as he did! As for Classic Science Fiction...try H.G. Wells.

#33 Yes, but Dr. Who IS about now, so you no longer have any excuse. Though I might, personally, class him more as fantasy...in spite of the spaceship and all. I don't know why, it's just my own classification which says so.

I think that the most important thing about 'Classic' Sci-Fi (and 'Classic' Fantasy for that matter) is that it uses currently impossible situations to engage in a thought experiment to consider BIG social and moral questions. Sci fi that utilises robots frequently does so to consider the question 'what makes humans human?' and at what point do you decide that a machine is or is not sentient and how do you treat such creations. By taking these ideas out of the current context and exploring them in fiction people are able to avoid getting bogged down in old arguments or petty aspects and look at the extreme ends of the possibilities.
Asimov, for example, looks at the idea of creating a slave race of robots, who are by his definition superior in strength and intellect to the humans who created them, and then considers how they might be treated, and demonstrates to his readers the inconsitencies of many arguments that were used in his lifetime to support prejudice and discrimination.

Science fiction by definition utilises science beyond what is currently available and uses these capabilities to explore the moral and social implications of technological and scientific change before it occurs, rather than when you are in the middle of that change. (so no compulsory space travel i'm afraid. the ideas explored in films such as 'Gattaca' and 'The Island' were based on genetic manipulation rather than on space travel and were still classically sci fi as they explored the implications of those scientific advances through fiction.)

The "classic" bit is probably easier to define. It means that it's not new and lots of people have read it and thought it was good.

At what point in time that a book becomes a classic is anybody's guess.

Message edited by its author, Nov 1, 2007, 9:31am.

I think it is a bit like the "classic" definition of pornography: "I know it when I see it". I recognize classic fiction when I recognize it.

I've been drawn to read what is probably considered "classic" sci-fi by that very label: the book was highly touted, widely available, and a lot of people I knew had read it. I wanted to know what all the fuss was about.

I've rarely been disappointed when following the herd like that (so to speak). However, there have been times when I wish more attention had been paid to character development. I do agree that the scientific idea or concept has to be the main backbone of the story - but if you're following along with several characters who are, by turns, struggling with, trying to shape/control, or otherwise living within the confines of the story's concept - and they're very "wooden" or two-dimensional characters - it's a bit of a disappointment to me. For any book genre, really, how people cope within the confines of the story is half the enjoyment for me. I'd rather not read about stick figures, no matter how cool the time travel spaceship might be.

Just my two cents.

classic=no sex

I'm not a big scifi buff but whenever I think of the genre the author that first comes to mind is Asimov. He has to be to the scifi genre as Tolkein is to the fantasy genre, right? My husband has been telling me about some of his work (I just got a new Janny Wurts book and can barely do my homework much less read anything else) anyway Asimov wrote before the microchip was invented yet gadgets that he thought up (to work on nuclear power) clearly could only be microchips, sounds fascinating definitely on my TBR shelf.

or...now that I think more on the question Jules Verne wrote about science in a fictional setting way back in the 1800's or even Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (Which I hated...but to each his own)