Talk:Social science fiction

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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)[reply]

• 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)[reply]

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.

{commented out some stuff, july, 13} ellol 21:37, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

Could you write about major themes of Heinlein and Asimov? ellol 16:13, 15 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's almost a shame that no works of Stanislav Lem are described here. ellol 16:33, 16 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

On the bright side, most of them have their separate articles, feel free to use them for whatever info you feel is needed here.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 03:48, 17 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Surely, Return from the Stars, Observation on the Spot. May be Peace on Earth (novel)... Lem is a world writer, I hesitate to put him in any section. By the way, imho, with so amount of stuff we (you) may start a separate section about Polish social science fiction. ellol 14:58, 17 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I must apologize for I must have missed some(many) books due to my moderate knowledge of science fiction. Feel free to add/change. ellol 15:03, 17 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I wonder if Lem is much more global then Strugaccy. Even if so, most of his books were written in People's Republic of Poland and show many characteristics of ssf genre in the East, so I think we can safely put him here.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 18:35, 17 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]