I have been thinking. I write a lot of horror and transgressive stuff but I really want to try writing sci-fi to challenge myself, plus the paying markets for sci-fi are way more profitable than other types of writing unless you can write all literary and shit but I don't know how to write about seashells as a metaphor for feminity so I try to stay away from those lit mags. Yes, I have gotten to that point in my writing career where I actually like to make money for it, I'm weird that way. Anywho...I don't expect anyone to give me ideas, that's what my subconscious is for but I need help avoiding cliches. I know there are people who are more well-versed in the genre than I am. I have read some sci-fi, mostly Philip K. Dick, William Gibson and Orson Scott Card. I kind of want you guys to help tell me what NOT to write about. Tell me what sci-fi stories you are sick of.
The same way people are sick of vampires, werewolves, haunted houses and zombies in horror.
Are clones, dystopias, cyborgs and androids the sci-fi cliche? Or do you think I could still make them work?
Should I take it at a realistic approach or write about aliens?
Does sci-fi even have to involve aliens?
I am also addicted to dystopias. If you don't know what a dystopia is, it's like a future version of the world where technology has taken over and made everything all shitty and fucked up. Where human beings are barely human and so forth. What about drugs? Are futuristic drugs a cliche? I know Dick uses this a lot in his writing.
Just let me know what you think the biggest sci-fi cliches are to avoid.
I am a huge sci-fi fan but I have avoided writing it so far so you're braver than I sir. I think it would be a genre you would shine in.
Are clones, dystopian, cyborgs and androids the sci-fi cliche? Or do you think I could still make them work? I don't think things are cliche unless they're cliche...."WTF Matt?" ok, so, contradiction gives depth to everything. So, an alien bounty hunter that likes opera, or evil scientist that grows mutated roses because they're beautiful...those aren't too cliche...but the cyborg who just wants a hug is. Enders Game is another one good example of non-cliche. You can never really go wrong with a dark hero though.
Should I take it at a realistic approach or write about aliens? Just like you told me, it doesn't matter what it is, it's all about how you write it. Really go wild, you have a lot of imagination and could come up with a lot of great stuff.
Does sci-fi even have to involve aliens? The Matrix didn't...just to name one....Dystopians rarely do...and I love those....I would look into alternate history too. BSG had Cylons, and I think they might have passively mentioned aliens...but you never saw them
What about drugs? Are futuristic drugs a cliche? Watch Code 46, they did drugs in the future better than any other movie I've seen...it's Dystopian as well.
If you do it right, it'll work. I think you could make some interesting stuff and I can't wait to read it!
Here's the thing about cliches: They exist for a reason. New stuff is always interesting, but it can't beat something that resonates well. The classic themes can't be beat. Most of what you refer to are really setting and a reflection of our modern era. The distinction between fantasy, mythology, and sci-fi is really razor thin. It's all about context:
Imagine 'I Robot' set in the Dark ages (or older) with Golems (Jewish mythos) instead of robots.
'Minority Report' could be retold in Greek/Roman times with the Oracles.
'Children of men' could easily be a retelling of an ancient plague or god's wrath.
Imagine the 'Fast and the Furious' as a western.
The 'Chronicles of Riddick' could easily be adapted to the 12th century and the crusades.
'Saving Private Ryan' could easily be retold with a Cyberpunk twist.
Take a look in the writer's workshop. The story I posted 'Unplugged' is a light military sci fi. There's no 'hard science' and it's all human with dystopian overtones, but it's a character driven story. I always prefer stories where the bad guys are real people, but that's just me.
Take any course you want, robots, drugs, aliens, etc. Make it yours and tell it how you want it.
@Grigori--So is cyberpunk still considered cool? I wasn't sure. I know steampunk has gotten really big but I get your point. You can twist and manipulate anything or change the context and make it original. Thanks ;) Children of Men was a great movie. You gave me some great ideas there lol I won't steal them though.
@Matt--you're right. I guess the only sci-fi I personally don't think would work anymore is trying to write The Martian Chronicles in this day and age. I think people are also sick of Area 51 stories, the whole government conspiracy thing. I love dystopias too, one of my stories in the workshop, "In Heaven (Everything is Fine)", is a dystopia but I guess the problem I often have is sometimes I make my characters too unlikable. I tend to make them all anti-heroes or at least the main character is an anti-hero and everyone else is basically corrupt to the core. I suppose I need to give more eccentricities to my villains. Like a serial killer who is a cat lover or a hero who is also a sex addict or something.
*spoiler*
I would say with Dystopian, SOMEONE has to carry the flame....like even though Winston broke at the end of 1984, he still had it. (the freedom to say 2+2=4) I would try to make them a dark hero if you're going with a fucked up kind of person.
Riddick is a perfect example. Perfect. Or, Dexter (not Dystopian but the model works)
A cyberpunk version of Dexter? Hmmmmm. I smell a trilogy.
I smell onions, garlic and fish, but that's only because the Kenyan in the cubicle next to me cooked a stew for lunch.
You don't need more eccentricities, really. The most memorable bad guys are the ones you love to hate. Watch 'The Borgias' for some machiavellian machinations. Nobody's a good guy in that series. Nobody.
The problem is that a lot of people treat bad guys (and anti-heroes) like mindless automatons. The mindless killer or hardened cop are cliches, but they can be workable. The problem is when you go overboard. Moriarty from the Sherlock Holmes books was an excellent bad guy.
Treat your characters like real people, good or bad. Let them have wants, needs, desires. Make them memorable. Give them reasons for doing whatever they're doing. Sometimes you want the good guy to win, but it's a real gut punch when they don't Sometimes you want the bad guys to lose, but you root for them anyways.
^^^^^
what he said.
I also would like to write existential sci-fi like Aeon Flux, the cartoon not the awful movie. Where she was like a triple agent, in love with the dictator and there was one episode that ended where she goes into a time capsule and wakes up a 1000 years later and the guy is still alive because he was possessed by an alien or something. That was a weird cartoon.
It was fun. What really clinched it was the frenetic pace to everything. Any lull, hte slightest hesitation was just the calm before the storm, or the body tensing right before the twist of the knife. It was a quick snapshot with little or no dialogue, especially at the beginning. It had your undivided attention and if you blinked, it was gone.
BSG has good references, and it sort of mixes sci-fi with mysticism and artificial intelligence plus the overall arc of finding Earth. REALLY fucked up people. REALLY.
I do love sci-fi movies. I liked Minority Report, Children of Men, Aliens. Even the cheesy stuff like The Last Starfighter. Okay so I started writing something I've had in mind for awhile now. You guys gave me the confidence to start it. I think it's an interesting concept. My problem is a lot of people want sci-fi to be conservative and accessible to all audiences. I like putting sex and profanity in my stories. It's not that I think it's necessary but it's naturally how I write. I guess I just think it's realistic, cussing and fucking will always be a part of the human experience but so many publishers of sci-fi mags say no sex, no cussing, etc. Then I feel like I'm being told what I can and can't write which sucks.
Shut the frak up. You can get around stuff.
Also, Starship Troopers: Worst SCI-FI ever. EVER.
@matt attack
The movie had nothing to do with the book except share a couple of names. It was utterly horrible.
@Aliensoul77
Find a movie called 'Chrysalis'. It's French and subtitled, but it's sci-fi dystopian neo-noir with a healthy dose of swearing and ass kicking (with some sex I think).
Yeah, I couldn't believe they made a sequel. God awful...almost as bad as Fear.com , also, apparently I didn't comment on your psych thing earlier. I like it.
@matt attack
Sequels. Plural. There's three or four now I think. Though I try to forget that.
Sequels. Plural. There's three or four now I think."
Oh GOD this is the end.
Take a star trek book and rewrite it with horror and sex scenes. Instant Sci-Fi that you can sink your teeth into.
Cheap, but I bet it would sell.
Plagiarism?
Not sure. Ask Gregory Maguire how he gets away with it.
Zing! I think I'm gonna start playing words with friends again. No reason to bring it up...just sayin
Star trek already had all the horror (the acting) and sex (George Takai locked in a room full of tribbles) I could handle.
Well played Grigori, well played.
Are clones, dystopias, cyborgs and androids the sci-fi cliche? Or do you think I could still make them work?
Well, what do you mean by cliche? I mean, any one of those things can work, you don't have to worry so much about this sort of thing, you need to think about how you approach it. Are the aliens invading a helpless humanity? (cliche) Or are the greedy humans trying to invade them? (the new cliche, reworked from colonial cliches) Does the android get all emo? (Does he dream of Electric Sheep? Does he have to protect John Conner?). Any of these things can work, it's the angle of approach.
Should I take it at a realistic approach or write about aliens?
There is no reason you can't do both with science fiction. Unless you are trying to distinguish between, say, Michael Crichton (light science fiction, set in the near future) instead of, say, a Space Opera. Still, both work, nothing wrong with either.
Does sci-fi even have to involve aliens?
Does Frankenstein involve aliens? Does Jurrasic Park? Does Terminator? None of them have anything to do with aliens. But they all do have one thing in common, they are all about science.
I am also addicted to dystopias. If you don't know what a dystopia is, it's like a future version of the world where technology has taken over and made everything all shitty and fucked up. Where human beings are barely human and so forth.
Well, I don't know if I agree with the qualification that dystopias require technology or futurism, but ok. If you want to write dystopian then write dystopian. At the same time I'll just say that I used to have the same problem re: dystopia addiction but the truth is... isn't it a little melodramatic? Does it really reflect a "realistic" world or does it just blow certain things completely out of proportion. But here we have two good examples again, 1984 has some science fiction elements (mostly related to observation), war or the buildup the war is constant. Nobody is happy. The State is opposed to people being happy, it wants them to be frightened and docile. Presumably the other states in 1984 are similarly repressive. So, you have this whole world where really nobody is happy.
Brave New World, on the other hand... think about the nature of Huxley's dystopia, there are drugged up castes of humans who are docile and subservient to his Fordness, and then there are also wild men living in the wastes. The world is in a bad way, there are serious problems, but neither condition completely precludess happiness.
What about drugs? Are futuristic drugs a cliche? I know Dick uses this a lot in his writing.
What's the angle of approach? (Don't rewrite a Scanner Darkly)
@Black and Diaz, BLASPHEMY. Star Trek is awesome. I will burn you at the stake with flames of my anger!
I don't have much to add other than a whole hearted agreement with Grigori about characters. I love sci-fi and horror, and sometimes it doesn't matter how unbelievable the premise is, if the characters are real, and behave like real people, I'm in.
Most of my success as a writer has been with the science fiction genre, and I recently came across this speech by Goeff Ryman that has been very influential on my thinking these past few days: www.mundane-sf.blogspot.com/2007/09/take-third-star-on-left-and-on-til.html
I think if there was ever a literary movement worth getting on board with, for me personally, it's Mundane Science Fiction. The vein is rich, largely unknowable, and has the potential to vastly broaden the appeal of the larger genre.
Also: there's a difference between a cliche and a trope. Tropes will always exist -- androids, FTL spaceflight, and dyson spheres, for example -- but it's all about how you use them that makes them either cliche or original. It's partly about voice, partly about knowing the genre you want to write in.
Dick, Gibson, and Card are great starting points, but they're all sort of exceptions to the norm -- which is why I dig them so much. So they're very much only one small part of the story. You might want to check out some very different authors, like Tobias Buckell, Paolo Bacigalupi, or John Scalzi.
Dick and Gibson have both written what I would consider "Mundane SF," so feel free to jump on the bandwagon. We can make history, or . . . something like that.
@alex thx for the info. very helpful. bizarro seems to be the new black too. i had never heard of mundane science fiction so thanks!
"seashells as a metaphor for feminity"
But really. It was the wallpaper. And it symbolized her virginity.
There is only one Charlotte Perkins GIlman, Avery and she wrote the Yellow Wallpaper. I think she summed up female repression pretty well there lol
Virginia Woolf just gives me a headache. Emily Dickenson, now there was a bright happy lady.
Ursela Le Gein is also a good female sci-fi writer I hear.
I WAS SERIOUS!
i share a birthday and a love of dictionaries with emily dickinson. :-)
@Nick--I know, I know, its all about how you work it. Even models know that. Is Frankenstein really sci-fi though? I guess when I think of traditional sci-fi, I think of Jules Verne or Bradbury, Asimov.
@Alex--the only thing is I don't really like mundane sci-fi. The only exception in regards to movies I would say is maybe the movie "Moon" with Sam Rockwell. Otherwise mostly action sci-fi is what sells in regards to popularity such as "Aliens", "Terminator" and the "Star Wars" stuff. Although one could argue that a lot of Star Trek is people just standing around in a spaceship discussing philosophy with a minor problem thrown in here and there. Roddenbury did want to create an optimistic view of the future. I don't know, when I try to write "mundane sci-fi", my stories come off a bit like Planet of the Apes with the astronauts coming back to earth and learning that an evil alien virus has taken over the world and people are all half-alien, half-human. I wrote a story like that once and this guy tore it apart, although this was some years back and I was still fairly green to the genre.
Well, I've been working on something so maybe I'll submit it to the workshop and see what you sci-fi buffs think. I did write a sci-fi erotica story once that sold well but erotica is fairly easy to write if the goal is to give your reader an orgasm. However, I only wrote erotica for the money which felt hollow after awhile. You can only jerk off a cyborg so much before it's dead expression gets boring. Which makes me wonder how people can have sex with sex dolls but that's besides the point.
Bringing to life a few more questions to pose to you smart people.
1. Does the hero's journey still matter? You know, the whole Joseph Campbell thing or are anti-heroes the new hero?
2. Do you think that sexuality has a place in science fiction or does it immediately become cyberpunk when suddenly humans have genitals and smoke dope?
3. I have debated addressing the topic of religion in my sci-fi because my view of it is very negative. One story has Jesus slot machines. Should I leave religion and politics out of sci-fi or are they just as important as technology to the overall world building?
4. Nick brought up an interesting point about Brave New World and 1984. Is it always an us versus them theme? Isn't that also simplistic? Just like in Star Wars, it has to be the Dark Side and the Jedis who are good. There is always the government as oppressors and the rebels who lie in wait. Are these cliches but are they still relevant cliches? Or are subcultures within extreme social anarchy just as important?
5. Time travel? Yay or nay? It seems like everyone has some problem with it consistency wise.
6. For every Battle Royale/Hunger Games, should there be the kids who just get to hug bunnies all day and life isn't that bad for them?
@Avery, you should start a seashell thread.
Nikki: Yeah, Bizarro is a very vital and interesting literary movement. I gave some thought to trying it out, but have come to the conclusion that it's probably not for me. My definition of strange or terrifying tends to be more deeply ruited in subtlety and images from the real world. Mundane SF appeals to me because there's not a whole lot of it yet, and it's not extremely popular, either. It still has to prove its worth, and I'd love to take on that challenge in the coming years. But that's not to say I don't love traditional science fiction -- star-spanning scope and fantastical elements like wormholes and hyperspace, etc. -- I just think there are a lot of directions left to be taken. And with SF, the directions we can take are as infinite as the human imagination.
Technically, the cyberpunk genre is a product of its time and place and henceforth anything written that resembles it is properly classified as "post-cyberpunk." There is some debate about this, of course, but William Gibson has said himself that he'll never write another Sprawl novel because today's world has already taken a far different path than the one he imagined in 1984 with Neuromancer and the short fiction that preceded it.
You might consider checking out Tobias Buckell's short story collection, Tides from the New Worlds. If you want to get a crash course in how to write great SF for an intelligent contemporary audience, you could do worse than imitate him.
Here is my favorite short story of his (not included in Tides, but still a good taste of his style): http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/buckell_05_10/
It's called "A Jar of Goodwill," and is one ass-kicking piece of fiction. Light-years better than anything in the movies.
@alien:
Does Dr Frankenstein use magic to bring his monster to life? I'm pretty sure it's widely considered sci fi. He's a doctor. He uses science. That's what's important, is there science involved? That makes it Science Fiction. Not whether or not aliens play a role.
As far as excellent Mundane SF goes, I give you . . . "Jenny's Sick," by David Tallerman: http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/jennys-sick/
1. Does the hero's journey still matter? You know, the whole Joseph Campbell thing or are anti-heroes the new hero? Depends on the story. Some it can work, some it can't. I still say a dark hero would suit you best. In the Greek sense. Like Achilles, or Riddick, or even to a lesser degree Han Solo.
2. Do you think that sexuality has a place in science fiction or does it immediately become cyberpunk when suddenly humans have genitals and smoke dope? BSG. Pretty much everyone and everything was fucking and that is not Cyberpunk. I think what you're asking is, when is it too much. When the story is about fucking and drugs, then it might be too much. If it adds atmosphere and depth, then it serves it's purpose.
3. I have debated addressing the topic of religion in my sci-fi because my view of it is very negative. One story has Jesus slot machines. Should I leave religion and politics out of sci-fi or are they just as important as technology to the overall world building? You can put it in, or create a new religion and use it as a metaphor for whatever world view you're commenting on.
4. Nick brought up an interesting point about Brave New World and 1984. Is it always an us versus them theme? Isn't that also simplistic? Just like in Star Wars, it has to be the Dark Side and the Jedis who are good. There is always the government as oppressors and the rebels who lie in wait. Are these cliches but are they still relevant cliches? Or are subcultures within extreme social anarchy just as important? The world is full of contrast and real life isn't cliche. Right now the government of Syria is oppressing and murdering it's own people because they just want the democratic rights we have. If you wrote that, would be it be cliche? You could go all Book of Eli and have it be a sort of tamed chaos too.
5. Time travel? Yay or nay? It seems like everyone has some problem with it consistency wise? Just somehow figure out a way to correct the time travel paradox.
6. For every Battle Royale/Hunger Games, should there be the kids who just get to hug bunnies all day and life isn't that bad for them? Why is this? If you are going to go full Dystopian, or Sci-fi, beat the hell out of them. No one in 1984 had it easy.
1. Does the hero's journey still matter? You know, the whole Joseph Campbell thing or are anti-heroes the new hero?
You can work it either way. Both have their merits. It's all in how its told. The punisher is an awesome anti-hero, at least in concept. In practice he's a gun nut with a logo. Cut through all the layers, it's a retelling of the classice vengeance story. It's been told and retold since the beginning. It's the how that matters. It's what sets movies like 'Memento' apart from 'Payback' or 'Kill Bill'. All the Clint Eastwood Westerns, retelling variations of the same theme: The nameless hero seeking revenge or retribution.
2. Do you think that sexuality has a place in science fiction or does it immediately become cyberpunk when suddenly humans have genitals and smoke dope?
Cyberpunk is more of a genre that blurs the lines between noir and sci-fi. It's dark, gritty, futuristic, etc. Sex and sexuality definitely has a presence in sci-fi. Heinlein is only one of a number of examples of authors that defiinitely mix it up a little.
3. I have debated addressing the topic of religion in my sci-fi because my view of it is very negative. One story has Jesus slot machines. Should I leave religion and politics out of sci-fi or are they just as important as technology to the overall world building?
That's up to you. Religion is a tricky subject. Used properly, it can give you powerful insight into the motivations of the characters and add depth to a story. Once again, it's all in how you use it.
4. Nick brought up an interesting point about Brave New World and 1984. Is it always an us versus them theme? Isn't that also simplistic? Just like in Star Wars, it has to be the Dark Side and the Jedis who are good. There is always the government as oppressors and the rebels who lie in wait. Are these cliches but are they still relevant cliches? Or are subcultures within extreme social anarchy just as important?
The us vs. them/good vs. evil are easy themes and appeal to a broad audience. They're classic for a reason. Here's the trick: Very few people really think of themselves as 'the bad guy'. Most have some sort of rationale for what they're doing, even more think that they're in the right. History is rife with examples. The underlying theme is always a power struggle.
5. Time travel? Yay or nay? It seems like everyone has some problem with it consistency wise.
People don't like to think that things are pre-determined. If time travel is possible, then the thought of whatever you're going to do has already happened/paradox/etc. short circuits some people's brains. They fall into loops of chain events. Some authors get around this with the multi-verse concept where every choice, decision and action spawns multiple universises simultaniously, etc. Personally, I'd see if the story could work without it. If it can't, I'd work out the hows and whys, what makes time travel critical to the story. It's a fun tool, don't get me wrong, but like any other writing tool it loses its effect if you over use it.
6. For every Battle Royale/Hunger Games, should there be the kids who just get to hug bunnies all day and life isn't that bad for them?
Why? The best summary I can think of at the moment is the beginning of Troy when Achilles looks down at the slave boy who confesses he's afraid of the enemy champion: "That's why no-one will remember your name."
This is a common element I see in new writers: The story falls apart because it's just a series of events, and the characters are bit parts. There's nothing compelling about them except that they're witnesses, though they're really nothing more than scenery. Good stories (in my opinion) are good because the events that transpire happen a particular way because the character was there, the decisions they make, the actions they take. It can be right, wrong, or even stupid, but it's about the choice. Something happened because of who the character was. It doesn't have to be big either, but that's what stands out: There have been countless warlords throughout history, but there was only one Alexander of Macedonia, only one Hitler, Hammurabi, etc. The greatest disappointment I have in the world is that everything seems to have blurred into shades of gray. Where are the great heroes? The nemesis? Right now feels like a lull to me, the calm before the storm. How long I wonder, before someone comes along and does something that really resonates, something that alters our existence for all time?
Why? The best summary I can think of at the moment is the beginning of Troy when Achilles looks down at the slave boy who confesses he's afraid of the enemy champion: "That's why no-one will remember your name."
Couldn't have said it better. I brought up Achilles myself! Great minds think alike. Haha
1. Does the hero's journey still matter? You know, the whole Joseph Campbell thing or are anti-heroes the new hero?
You're getting some good responses on your other questions so I will focus on this one: the point of the monomyth is that it has always mattered, and on some level always will. Also, the "hero's journey" is a plot process, the anti-hero is a character trait, the two are not mutually exclusive.
To go further (and please don't feel like I am trying to be condescending, I need to find a grounding starting point for my thoughts to move on from. I'm sure you are already aware of much of this): Cambell's work was to find the underlying "plot points" that our mythology follows, the earliest surviving storytelling we have. He broke down most western mythology (and to some success eastern/occidental and native american mythology as well) into 17 disctinct stages. It's a plot line; the protagonist must do A, then B, then C, and so on. Not all myths used all 17 steps or in order, but he found that in some way all myths (again in our western tradition prominently, but not exclusively) used at least some of these steps.
And they really are very basic story-telling building block kind of things: "Something calls the protagonist to leave the mundane for the unkown.", "The protagonist refuses the call.", "The protagonists steps into the unkown."... really basic stuff, that clearly we use still today without really talking about it that way. Which was the point he was trying to make... this is an underlying language or framework for the way that we (as human beings) tell stories, we almost can't help but follow at least some of the hero's journey.
For example the first stage in the hero's journey is the "Call to Adventure", the protagonist is called to leave the mundane for the unkown. We still do this in all of our stories today, because otherwise we just end up with long passages describing Jim's average day of work, and then he goes home, kisses his wife and kids good night and goes to bed. The end. Nothing happens, because all we have is the mundane. The mundane is not a story, the mundane is our daily lives. The call to adventure is when the cops mistake him for a columbian drug kingpin and he's dragged into a sting operation to clear his name while trying to keep his surprise visit to Cartegena a secret from his wife, who may or may not be a little racist. Journeying out of the mundane into the unknown is what makes a story a story, still even after thousands of years.
All Cambell (and even more prominently Vogler and Cousineau who streamlined Cambell's work and actually created the name "The Hero's Journey") did was give us a vocabulary to describe a process that in some way we all understand.
Now, it is called the "hero's" journey, and I won't deny that especially in the classical greek mythology the heroes were heroic, and not much else. But we have shifted back and forth on the concept of what is heroic or anti-heroic so many times... it's almost a constant flux situation. And I have tried to be careful to use the word "protagonist" instead of "hero" in this discussion so as to not confuse the two separate ideas: Anyone can go on a "hero's journey", even a villian.
Now these words (hero and anti-hero) are pretty loose terms; but for a loose definition: a hero is a protagonist who is the best of humanity, an anti-hero is a protagonist who is flawed. And really that's the only difference, and when you think of it, we don't often write 'heroes' any more. It becomes difficult to find any straight heroes any longer, and even looking back it becomes difficult to find heroes in classical mythology. One of the most common pieces of advice that comes with characterization today is to give your characters flaws so they are more believable or indentifiable.
I have several theories on these shifts in hero vs. anti-hero, which I won't bore anyone with here, but I will finish with two final thoughts: "Heroes" are not dead, Superman was a hero (haven't seen the new emo superman so will withhold judgement) and secondly you are right, Anti-Heroes are primarily the ones taking the hero's journey these days, and they have been since probably Odysseus...
Thank you, xyzy. These are the types of intellectual conversations I like. Not politics or religious debate but themes in literature and how they form our mythologies. Just like the Christ resurrection theory is reminiscent of many pre-christian religions. A sacrifice for mankind, a martyr figure. Or the Star Wars trilogy is all about the hero's journey, the betrayals, the rogue hero, the princess, making his enemy his father. All very Shakespearean. So essentially all these themes are timeless and will always be relevant in different settings and contexts if told well because they are a part of the overall human experience. I think it was Campbell that said, it doesn't matter if myths are "real" or not, people need them as a reference point or moral compass. Just like I don't claim to know if any religion is true but it's the belief in a myth that gives it power.
Chech out "In to the universe with Stephen Hawkins" on NetFlix. Great SciFi Ideas out of that
Also is steampunk SciFi?
yes. Jules Verne on acid, but still science fiction.
Steampunk is by definition a subset of alternate history, and is therefore, yes, science fiction. But it can also be fantasty, depending on the story. For example, Jay Lake's novels Mainspring, Escapement, and Pinion are fantasy because the world actually spins on a firmament of clockwork -- great gears in the sky, and a mainspring that serves as the axis upon which the earth rotates. Oh, and there's angels. But most steampunk is closer to SF than fantasy. Another argument is that it's something altogether new, and is best understood as its own genre.
Doesn't really matter; if it's fiction, it's fantasy.
AH is SciFi?
I mean, say, guns of the south, I get that, that's science fiction.
But take say, Ruled Britannia where the Spanish Armada conquers England and Shakespeare starts writing anti-Spainish propaganda to try to ferment a revolution. I get how that is very strange, I see places where the idea is possibly less than airtight. But I don't see the science fiction. Unless you mean that it depends on a multiverse theory that is scientific in nature, but then you're just getting way too meta about the story.
Nick, you are sci-fi.
I like to think of myself as the James Incandenza of my generation.
Are James Bond and G.I.Joe sci-fi?
