kinzel | A poll for science fiction masses

In terms of subject matter, I think that near-future SF can be just about anything which interests the author enough to want to write a story!

I think quality trumps topic, or setting.

I can see that the closer one considers nr future to be, the more restricted the subject matter may appear but I don't think it specifically has to be mundane. There's no reason near future SF couldn't include alien contact stories and we can't make assumptions on potential alien technologies based on our own progress. The main thing about nr future SF is that you get to assume that cultural values and social behaviour is close to what we see today. I wouldn't call Niven and Pournelle's Lucifer's Hammer mundane, but it's as much valid near future SF as KSR's Fifty degrees below.

Mundane SF mostly frustrates me. I don't mind reading realistic near future stuff, but I certainly don't want to give up a future where at some point we can do things we never imagined would be possible today. I think there's a certain point where you have to admit that we cannot know what kind of break-throughs of theory or technology might occur.

I'm not sure what one would mean by "near future" SF. Either it's SF or it's not. Stuff that was set in the 1990s is now "alternate history" or plain old "classic SF"... So I'm not sure that the term actually *means* anything in particular. I forget which book it was that first introduced me to this problem, and ever since I've had a bit of an allergy to dates in SF. I *do* remember being very young, probably under 12... but that leaves an awful lot of classics.

There is no correct topic for SF. Either the book has an interesting subject, theme and characters, or it doesn't. And if the author isn't interested, odds are the reader isn't either. I do tend to prefer space opera or other optimistic topics, but that's *my* taste. You can't have my taste, it's ALL MINE! Some people prefer other styles and topics, and that is fine. They can buy them.

I still have not forgiven Kim Stanley Robinson for the hyperacids tho. That was incorrect, and I'll probably never read another book of his as a result. (if you're going to make up technobabble, make it believable...)

I can take the so-called mundane SF in small doses - but beyond a given (fairly low) threshold it starts to feel more like mainstream-wannabe-science-fiction than a particular KIND of science fiction deliberately crafted in a certain manner or wise. Like Charlie said, it mostly frustrates me.

As you know from the timeline in the galleys, the Amazing Conroy stories are currently up to the year 2091, and I've always considered him to "near future."

As for appropriate topics, I think they're the same ones that have always been appropriate: commenting on human motivations and the human condition, preferably with style and wit and a willingness to laugh at yourself.

At least, that's my take on things.

Honestly, if you try hard enough, you can make practically anything SF.

True- William Gibson is working on a set of contemporary cyberpunk novels... Showing us that "Hey, guys, all this stuff we take for granted? It's pretty Sfish."

How people and cultures evolve as our knowledge and tools start cross-pollinating at an ever-increasing rate - how we adapt as the world gets weirder?

-- Brian out --

I'd say proper topics for near-future science fiction can vary almost as widely as topics for any other science fiction. The restriction is simply that there be some reasonable way for the situation to have been reached from where we are now. Fairies, elves, gnomes, etc would be okay if some at least sort of reality/science-based explanation was provided as to where they came from. Otherwise it would be near-future fantasy rather than science fiction.

I don't know what "mundane SF" is, apart from an oxymoron. As far as I'm concerned, the future starts tomorrow morning when I read my inbox and find a new Physics News Update with stuff which to me is hard SF (except even my favourite hard SF writers don't usually talk much about Bose-Einstein Condensates and anti-Hydrogen caught in Penning-Ioffe traps!). I think "near-future" extends most of a century, I'd define it roughly as "some people alive now will likely see it" and so can deal with pretty much anything in that timescale. Yes, the current worries (global warming, food and energy shortage, etc.) but also things like clothing fashions and TV shows. And cats, of course. Basically, if the author can make it interesting then pretty much anything is non-mundane (a mundane cat? That's another oxymoron!).

"Proper" subject matter can be almost anything, if properly framed.

I think the basic idea is that "near future" SF should restrict *Earth-based* technology, cultures, mores, politics, etc. to what can be reasonably expected to evolve within the next 50 years or so, based on science and the world we know today, and which would be easily recognizable as such by most people.

Also, I marked down elves, etc., because you specified *science fiction* and I consider those to be fantasy elements unless there's a *really* good explanation for them. If considering the broader range of "speculative fiction" that kind of stuff fits. And I marked down global warming because current science doesn't support it having enough of an impact in the next 50 years to make a particularly interesting story. That doesn't mean a story about what humans might do *in spite* of that would be out of bounds. Could be quite interesting, actually.

What aliens might be able/want to do is another question. What we could reasonably do if presented with adequate motivation might be expected to surprise people, so there's considerably flexibility there.

****What does near-future science fiction mean to you?

Within the present social/technological framework, i,e. science and society that one could plausibly extrapolate from where we are today.

No FTL or time travel, i.e. no interstellar travel; space colonies with weird societies okay.

No telepathy, but quantum communication via brain implants okay.

Things are pretty much as they are today except for whatever the story(conflict) is about.

****Proper subject matter for near future science fiction is:

Some current situation or problem, exaggerated enough to make an interesting story.

****Mundane SF

I can enjoy mundane SF; depends on how good the story is.

I'm thinking about the audio novel "South Coast" by Nathan Lowell, which has gone nearly 20 chapters now without one bit of what would normally be considered science fiction trappings. It's about a fishing concern on an ocean-rich planet, and the challenges of the people who work the fishing boats. The trappings side of thing are:

1.) Rapid prototyping / template construction
2.) Higher than normal tech scanning capability (imaging for fish)
3.) An amazingly robust and potent wireless information network
4.) Quick knit medical tech for bones
5.) Anti-grav pallets and "flitters"

But most of the stuff in the story is just about plain folks doing fishing and getting into trouble, plus a natural Shamanistic side to the protagonist and his father. This is not "woo woo" magic but more like "skeptical" magic: it could be explained either way.

The mundane part is that it's everyday life. Not princes, kings, potentates, galaxies exploding, time stopping and reversing, no sentient black holes. It's just these folks dealing with fish. I like it.

http://durandus.org/golden/

"Mundane" and "near future" need not be the same.

The non-mundane can happen any time.

Space habitats, populated by personality types like who settled America and Australia, would produce some very interesting societies; you don't need aliens.

Gated communities right here on Earth could produce strange societies. So could virtual reality communities(extensions of Second Life, etc.).

Space habits aren't going to be around within five years, until there are sudden drastic social and political and economic changes, and even then, I wouldnn't expect to see one populated from e.g. Australia within the next five or ten or fifteen or even 20 years....

And Australians can be an mundane and boring as anyone else!

To me, near future is anything that's recognizably a close offshoot of the current state of the world. It can be five years from now or fifty as long as the base technology and starting point of the universe can be reasonably extended from where we are today in the interim timeframe without sudden unexpected leaps of discovery (which may not be fair because sudden unexpected leaps of discovery are part of the natural process). From that point I'm okay with veering off - unexpected alien contact, discovery of something that moves us forward faster than natural progress, some apocalyptic event, the launching of a generational starship, or whatever the thrust of the story is. It doesn't have to be social commentary on the state of the world today (even though many people seem to assume it does) nor does it have to assume we're stuck on Earth or alone in the universe.

It's been decades since I started avoiding "near-future SF." Most of it tends to be either "thriller" stuff and that got boring and lacking interest to me long long ago. There are willing suspension of disbelief issues in it for me, along with "if I wanted to read Boring Contemporary Mainstream Fiction and Its Close Relatives I Would Read Boring Contemporary Mainstream Fiction and Its Close Relatives."

There's no sense of wonder, eclat, surprise, mystery, etc., in it for me. (And I stopped reading e.g. Asimov's long ago, because I was finding very little of the content anything I felt like reading/enjoyed reading.

There is way too much I see of the "ordinary world" and find inutterably tedious for me to tend to accept/be interested in most near-term SF thesis/extrapolation.

Hrm. Quite a lot of classic SF was set in the near future (after all, 30 years out from 1950 means the book is set in 1980... when I was 3 years old). Thus my problem as a child with running into books that should have already happened. And they were rarely Boring Contemporary Mainstream Fiction...

So maybe the stuff you're talking about and the stuff that is legitimately SF set close to the author's now are not the same thing.

(and I dunno, I kind of *like* living in a world where ideas I read about as a little kid have really happened. even if Heinlein didn't imagine how awful cell phones would turn out to be...)

I regard "near-term SF" as time set within the next five or so years forward of the originally intended publication year, or with a strong feel of taking the present and extrapolating the social setting forward from the current society most as-is and basing things on the current status quo and values.

Hmm, there's a qualitative metric I can't quite put words to... perhaps its that there's more the sort of thing that makes a book feel like "near-term thriller" with most of the contemporary social limits and tech limits and attitudes and institutions, as opposed to different social structures and mores and tech base and expectations--there are those generational things involved, perhaps.

The old trope of SF had people going out exploring the universe, traveling through time/space/to alternate worlds excited about going out and exploring... there isn't all that much of that today, what the bulk of SF/F and related material is these days, is fantastical, particular there is a huge onslaught of paranormal romance/urban fantasy (there is a very large overlap zone in them) particularly contemporary ones which involve some degree of alternate reality. The old go-out-to-the-stars-and-explore stuff is mostly absent these days. There's still exoticness to paranormals/UF to some degree or other, but most of the near-term stuff has very little exotic content to it.

Could what they mean by "mundane SF" be a story where the SF element is not the central focus?

Could you describe J.D. Robb's "In Death" stories as such? They're set in the near future (about half-way through this current century) and there are some SFnal elements, but the central focus is on the law-enforcement career and personal life of Dallas the protagonist.

Forget mundane. Its a label and any SF should be about ignoring labels.

Near SF is something with recognizable roots in the present. Normally at least some of the characters will have been born at or around the present. After that all bets are off.

At the last near future SF should age gracefully.

Time frame -- close enough to feel as if I might see it? (which actually makes 75 to 100 a bit iffy, but let's be optimistic).
Subject material -- I'm still one of those who wants some science in my science fiction? That's where the fantastic critters (unless explained as aliens or some such) kind of leave me wondering how the borders of the genre have eroded?
Mundane SF? What's that? If you take the wonder out, what are you left with?
A good story, set in a recognizable future?

Mundane SF would be anyone who uses SF tropes in writing but claims not to know them or to have invented the idea.

I know what it is. I like good stories, and I don't care if they're mundane or not.

[delurk]

Near-future: I voted for "Within 25 years", but after reading some of the comments, I have to agree there's a good argument in favor of "Within the lifespan of someone alive today". On the other hand, my initial choice of the shorter time was influenced by discussions about the Singularity over at Charlie Stross's blog.

Proper topics: Anything except elves, fairies, gnomes, & trolls. Unless, of course, they're SFnal elves. A little genetic engineering, anyone?

Mundane SF: I think it's meant as "not space opera", but splitting SF along that axis doesn't map very well onto my own view of the genre, so I may have failed to grasp certain nuances.

A disclaimer: I wrote this before reading the other comments – and I was too lazy to re-write after reading some other comments.

The time span for near future science fiction is:
Is there such a thing? If you write about next year and next year rolls around, well then you just wrote an alt universe story.
I like far future -- I want the stars, without having my character die of old age getting there.

Proper subject matter for near future science fiction is:
A rip in the fabric of space allowing travel to a universe other than our own. I dodge that bullet!
The ones you listed seem kind of boring to me. But I have read good stories on those subjects.

Mundane SF
Well, it is ok. Since space technology is moving pretty slow I image you could go out 50 plus years and be writing about mining on asteroids.
I never really understood that, seems to me if we can mine metal in deep space we ought to be able to dig into the mantle and mine that. Well, I would prefer we mess up some rocks in space than the rock we live on. LOL, which is a rock in space.
You could parallel some current crises and apply it to the future. Instead of running out of natural resources on earth we could be running out of said resource in the solar system.
Although I seems like we have been getting an awful lot of stories about our shortsightedness – if you are going to preach to me: at least make it interesting. What am I say, I know it will be interesting.

Write on!

I never really understood that, seems to me if we can mine metal in deep space we ought to be able to dig into the mantle and mine that.

Space is a much more benign environment, though, really, there's no rain, sleet, hail, snow, sudden vicious thermal gradients, the solar wind has a lot less mass and force and pressure than Earth's atmosphere at sea level involves moving around, there's no corrosive salt air, no free oxygen looking for atoms an molecules to glom onto and oxidize, etc.

I generally think of near future as having tech that is recognizably familiar, and lacking any tech that is not being currently investigated unless the development of such is part of the plot or clearly part of the back story.
i.e., attempting to colonize mars or the moon might be reasonable, but not most likely something out of the solar system unless it was a set up a ship to last as long as possible and hope we hit something kind of thing.

A poll for science fiction masses

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Proper subject matter

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Near Future? Aren't we living in the 1990's near future?

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My thoughts

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