Talk:Social science fiction

Actually, i disagree with the point that the interest to the social aspects of imaginary worlds appeared first in 1940s. I think we should say it began from H.G. Wells. Remember his The Time Machine which claims the division of the humankind into two different races(Elois and Morlocks) as the completion of class inequality; his "When the Sleeper Wakes" despite lots of descriptions of engineering concernes the future society, its retreat from the democracy, etc.. (And his works are not out-of-dated.. Now it became a common idea, that any utopia has it's hidden "Morlocks".)

Probably one should mention Sheckley, especially his The Status Civilization. What do you thing about mentioning John_Wyndham? ellol 13:57, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

• I also disagree. The social aspect of Science Fiction was present from the very beginning. In fact, Utopia and similar social speculations form the tradition from which the genre arose. Nor do I agree that social science fiction has fallen out of favour. The term may no longer be in use, but the novels of Kim Stanley Robinson, David Brin's Earth, and other authors continue the tradition. Burschik 13:48, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Ok. I would like also add the thread, concerning some of russian social sf, how it evolved. (Although, i'm not an expert in this field and probably miss something.)

Efremov's works, especially Andromeda_Nebula (1957), revealing future world of won communism.

Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, their Noon Universe -- Boris Strugatsky briefly describes it as "the world where they would want to live in", it's marked with high standarts of upbringing, and common style of life, "permeated" with spirit of exploration and joy of creative work. (It had also a serious influence on soviet society; as it was recently discussed in Computerra magazine many of currently working scientists or IT specialists were once inspired by their works.) {Although the questions discussed in Noon Universe novels cover a different range of problems.} Not an utopia, in fact. Some of their later works also discuss social things, but are much more pessimistic. E.g., Final circle of paradise reveals the world of consumption, in which forgetting "spiritual" things turned out to be a catastrophe for the society (e.g., leaded to spreading of electronical/psyonical narcotics), yet inhabitants of it don't see the catastrophe.

Some of the modern russian sci-fi is social:

Lukianenko's Star shadow duology. It's social aspects are 1) polemization with Noon Universe -- world of "Geometers" and 2) new world of Shadow -- not just a transport net, uniting a number of planets, but a "superbeing" bringing everybody to the planet satisfying one's subconscious. That is, it's a world of infinite freedom for a person, making one immortal and able to evolve in any direction one wants. Yet world of Shadow also has "minuses". Also, series of stories Road to Wellesberg, revealing the future world with advanced automated technology, high standarts of living, much freedom for a person, and guaranteed minimum of services for non-working people. But in this world no place in the economics is left for an "average" person, i.e. no one needs their labour.

Alexander Gromov.

Some works of Dyachenko. "Armaged-dom" -- a world with apocalypse happening every 20 years, we trace the life of one girl(woman) from her childhood to old ages. "Peschera" -- a world with natural human aggression and/or sexual excesses moved from real people's life to a sort of common night psychosis. That is, people dream of being animals, living in Cave and "realize" their intrinsic aggression, forgetting being humans. One who was killed in Cave dies really; but the killer forgets it, as a dream. "Pandem" -- an attempt of a superbeing with half-god abilities to help people's society to evolve. Despite of huge technical and social achievements, Pandem came to the contradiction: removing all what bothers a person to live happily, he also removes the thing(i.e pain) that makes person to evolve. The ability/intention to love contradicts the ability/intention to help people to evolve. Realized this, Pandem leaves the world.

Such the things :-) ellol 21:37, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the current article is just little more then the stub - you should incorporate all the examples from your discussion there. I gave it a copyedit and some more ilinks for existing content.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 03:53, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Ok... I think, the article still needs much of expanding. However, i think now East Bloc section 1) gained "historical" structure, and 2) doesn't describe only "totalitarian" science fiction. ellol 15:35, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Functions, needs, importance and interest of SSF

I must apologize for my primary interest in Russian sci-fi, and lack of actual knowledge. Of course, you are free to add or change the stuff and examples. ellol