Science Fiction

So we're gatekeeping science fiction now? Nah, I'm good. Doesn't seem like a worthwhile use of energy.

There was when the magazines were struggling to survive. They found they could publish stories for hardcore fans AND for the general public. The success of that tactic meant that a lot of great writers could pay their bills and keep writing ... instead of a few.

Same story with films and TV series.

Sometimes you want to read something that blows your mind and innovates at the edge of philosophy.

Sometimes you want to turn your mind off and be entertained with interesting but predictable stories in interesting futuristic settings.

Both are equally valid experiences, both have merit, and both can equally be science fiction. You don't get to gatekeep and entire genre based on what portion of the experience appeals to you.

This is a debate as old as science fiction itself, back when, in an effort to legitimize the genre to the wider public, some sf magazines like Galaxy distanced themselves from they're contemporaries (the pulps) by only publishing hard sf 'big think' stories, and actively deriding space opera, with slogans like "You won't find any cowboys in our spaceships!'

I think at this point it's kinda silly to pick up that worn torch of 'pulp sf isn't sf' again. They're two different subgenres, and they both are excellent in their own way.

I for one like cowboys in my spaceships, ala Firefly, as well as the biggest think. And if they can combine them, all the better.

Username checks out.

the great thing about fiction (and any art form) is that anyone who wants to can define what makes one thing more "proper" than another.

and i can take anyone's idea of "proper" and piss on it, because i couldn't care less about anyone who thinks they're going to gatekeep creativity. which seems to be more common amongst sci fi nerds