this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2023
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Science Fiction
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December book club canceled. Short stories instead!
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Thanks for volunteering. I appreciate the change in the community guidelines towards being more welcoming and informative.
A question and some observations, and a suggestion …
What is this community willing to consider as on topic?
The sidebar says this is a place to discuss all things sci-fi but the community name is ‘science fiction.’
‘Sci-fi’ is often considered to encompass all of speculative fiction including horror and fantasy.
‘Science fiction’ can be defined more narrowly. In the old subreddit for sci-fi books, as an example, the discussion could be captured by those who insisted that only classic, hard science fiction, or fiction based on currently established science theory, was science fiction. There seemed to be a fair bit of gatekeeping of more popular franchises or works that involved more speculative science. There was a great deal of dismissiveness from some users about anything with faster than light travel. It made it challenging to have more wide ranging discussions.
My own preference would be for a big tent sci-fi community that embraces all the different permutations of the genres, and allows for the mashups.
If the intent is to go with that big tent speculative fiction definition, in the spirit of being open and welcoming, it would be helpful to be yet more clear in the sidebar on this point.
I must say that, given the name, my expectations when I joined were that it would be about (sci)ence (fi)ction in particular, not (s)peculative (f)iction in general.
Personally, I read quite a lot of the first, not that much of the second, almost none of the third (although, yes, the borders are very fuzzy at times). So, it would feel more at home if this was mostly with a dab of sf where the borders do blur, instead of full-fledged sf.
The intent was to be science fiction without the fantasy or horror. Some things are going to be a mixed bag of these elements so it didn't make sense to be so restrictive as not everyone is going to care about the nuanced differences between them. So if there is a spectrum from the maximum science fiction to maximum fantasy then we should be leaning into the science fiction side of that.
Personally I don't think Lemmy is big enough with enough traffic to start worrying about gate keeping. So unless someone is trying to suggest something like Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones is science fiction I would let it slide. For now our rules are going to be a bit fuzzy until things develop more naturally.
I'll change the text to "science fiction" just to avoid any potential confusion.
Yes, please, let's keep the focus on the science part of science fiction, or at least as a North Star. Otherwise we'll start discussing Barbie or romcoms because after all they are fiction / fantasy.
Let's not make the same mistake bookstores make. They may have a reason to mix the genres because of lack of space, but we don't have that excuse.
Thanks Izzy. Yes I agree. I was using Sci-fi and science fiction more or less as synonyms but I do understand that some have a hard distinction. I've always used them interchangeably to encompass "science-based" media not including fantasy and horror. So that would include Star wars, Star Trek, and most space based things even if they aren't purely based in realistic science. I've always heard "hard Sci-fi" as things that seem to be based on realistic science.
I'll admit I'm a layman when it comes to the extreme science fiction media. I'm also not a big reader. But I love sci-fi movies and shows. I volunteered to help with discussions of that mostly but to also learn more and get into reading more as well.
I hope I'm making sense but my view is to be more broad and inclusive.
that is news to me, I thought sci fi was just a short form for science fiction. I dont think many people would welcome that type of borderline content, I know I wouldnt; and I positively bristle when comic books are referred to as sf, just my $0.02
Well, I appreciate that perspective as long as the definition of science fiction doesn’t get so narrow that it has to fit within the scientific knowledge of a person with a bachelor’s in physics in 1975 - which it sometimes seems to.
My point is that it’s worth discussing early. That way the Sidebar can be clear, and the mods can do their thing and the rest of the members can avoid gatekeeping.
Personally, I can take or leave the wild science of Silver Age Superman comics, or Marvel. I’m not sure why anyone would consider that to be any more fantasy than Star Wars or Farscape however.