Bloody hell. I wrote out a reply, and then lost it because my modem dropped out...
Fuck you modem.
Furburt said:
Real, it's more identifiable. Blade Runner wouldn't have been half as good if it had been an unnamed city, it was incredible to see how much LA had changed.
So yeah, go with b, but make sure you don't write in a prejudiced manner. Try and make a recent history up for the country, even if you don't put it in the book, it's good to have while you're writing it.
I personally won't be prejudiced, but there will be bias in the attitudes of many characters, as well as in the principles of the ideologies that they follow. As long as I can make it clear that it's the characters who have these opinions (not the author) and provide cultural insights into why they think the way that they do, then it should be alright I reckon. And I definitely want to communicate both sides of the story, but the key here I think is to 'show, not tell'.
Also, yeah, I've already started working on extensive cultural backgrounds. Actually, that was one of the main discussions throughout the other thread I created.
Here's a link: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.184128-Sci-Fi-Re-Imagining-of-the-WWII-Pacific-Campaign?page=1
PS: I hope that ban is just an April Fools joke... your avatar is still working after all...
Brotherofwill said:
The latter. Why wouldn't you want to offend people? Honestly. That's basically your only weapon in modern Sci-Fi, makes it interesting and gets people to talk.
The problem with insulting or offending readers is that it not only distances them personally from the author and book, but that it can also have drastic side-effects. Take Australian author Matthew Reilly for example. Throughout the vast majority of his novels, Americans have been the main protagonists (and subsequently the 'good guys'). However in his latest series, he positioned the US military and government as one of the chief antagonists, and because of this was labelled as an "anti-American" writer by various readers and critics in the US. Sales of his novels have suffered there ever since. Reilly also tends to portray the French as antagonists in all of his published works, and as a result, they aren't sold in France.
The need for political-correctness is such a massive issue these days, as people seem to cry out in anger every time they're portrayed in an unflattering way. It's getting fucking ridiculous. My brother couldn't even have the name "Afro" printed on his leaver's jumper this year, because the teachers told him that it was a racist term : |
So unfortunately, I'll have to pull punches.
Brotherofwill said:
What really is the risk here is having a derivative, badly researched scenario. There have been way to many Fallout-esque versions of history, it'll be hard to stand out. I tend to laugh and shrug at 'serious' futuristic Sci-Fi because it treats itself with way too much dignity. Fallout did the right thing by taking the piss at history and itself frequently.
Whilst I do intend to place the story in a 'serious' context, I also intend to back it up with extensive research. I'll look at the various international relationships (social, cultural, political, geographical, etc) that exist today, and then try to predict the future (lol) in an attempt to come up with a believable setting.
I won't do this for
every country, but I won't focus entirely on the big fish either.
Brotherofwill said:
I_am_a_Spoon said:
Say what?
In literary terminology, "hard" refers to science fiction that is considered to be plausible. In other words, it obeys all the know laws of the universe, and the technology that it exhibits is based entirely on real science and known facts, or on established theories that are generally accepted by the scientific community.
The opposite of "hard" sci-fi is "soft" sci-fi, which often utilises fictional or impossible (according to modern-day science) technologies and other narrative elements.
I'm especially interested in hard science fiction, as it is so much more immersive and believable. It also earns the author much more respect in the eyes of scientists and other sci-fi writers.
