Let’s say you’ve published your novel. You’ve won a couple awards, appeared as a panelist at a couple of conventions. Now, you’re ready to teach a class in science fiction at the local college. You’ve got a semester, can make your students read ten books, tops. In those ten books, you’ve got to show a little bit of our genre’s history, a little bit of the masterpieces. But you’ve also got to keep them entertained. You don’t know who your students are. Some might be fans, some might be looking for an easy A. The lectures have to move at a quick, entertaining clip and be informative. also, the bookstore will only stock a book if it is in print. You can’t be obscure.
Using this criteria What Science fiction Works would you consider Canonical? Why? What Criteria would you use? What Would you focus on in your "Survey of Sci-fi 101"?
Here’s my list. I’ haven’t listed them in chronological order, but by Importance. Those on the bottom might change over time, but the top of the List? No Way. These will stay no matter what..
1.Dune
- Arrakis still rules the universe. And Why Not? A sprawling Space opera on the surface, it’s a richly textured work with "Wheels within Wheels" that never talks down to its audience. Dune retains its popularity despite all attempts to kill it off: Unnecessary sequels, horrible movies and games, even Brian Herbert.. Dune is the gospel of Science fiction: you cannot understand the genre without having read it.
2. Foundation
- Asimov’s masterpiece is more of a "Science fiction" cult thing: It hasn’t passed into popular culture like Dune has. Which is a shame. Asimov sets up a thought experiment and runs with it; What if we could use scientific procedures to predict the future of Humanity? Where is "Free Will" If the future is known? What happens if information is withheld and the equations are changed? Are we doomed to repeat the same mistakes?
3.Rendezvous with Rama
- What? Not 2001? No, not 2001. Let’s face it, the movie is what people remember. But Rama, with it’s totally alien spacecraft that doesn’t even seem to acknowledge the humans aboard, remains the best story of first contact. Stay Away from the later Sequels, They get worse the older Clarke Got.
4.Rendezvous with Rama
- If you Grok, you know why this is here. Heinlein’s most metaphysical work, it also is his most strangely prophetic. Sure, It’s got all that Hippie-Dippie stuff. but it also asks some important question on what it means to be human.
5. The Martian Chronicles
- The reason this post isn’t titled "Canonical Novels." Bradbury’s collection of loosely intertwined stories mat be more "Science Fantasy" than "Science Fiction." but that doesn’t mean these stories of transformation and a culture’s passing are any less important.
6.Neuromancer
- The Cyberpunk movement may be passe, and may eventually go the way of Flash Gordon and Edgar Rice Burroughs . But there’s no denying that Case and Molly forever altered the landscape of Science Fiction.
7. The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
- We need a little lighter reading heading into the home stretch, and Hitchiker is it. The book takes sci-fi cliches and uses them as a springboard to some pretty dark places. A great way to laugh through the tears.
8.20,000 Leagues Under the Sea- One of the first recognizable science fiction novels. Forget the kid films, this is a travelogue and adventure tale featuring two of the greatest characters ever, Nemo and the Nautilus.
9. Snow Crash
- Neal Stephenson ’s humorous Take on the Cyberpunk Movement. Who can resist a main charachter called Hiro Protagonist? Like a lot of the other books on my list, this one takes a look at how technology will mutate the human race, this time a visual virus that re-wires our language so we can all understand each other.
10.A Canticle for Leibowitz
- I was going to put the stand here, but that’s more fantasy. In fact, many post-apocalyptic works have a high fantasy quotient. Maybe looking at the end of our world and the horrors that could replace it require a little bit of magic.
SO there you have it. My 10 Canonical Science Fiction books, taken right from my shelves. What do You Think? Any others that you would add?
Point of View is one of those basic things that writers understand is important, recite back to you, post on the wall, and then ignore in the heat of the moment while drafting. The rules of Point of view are simple:
Pick one POV and Stick with it to avoid confusing your readers.
If you must have multiple POV, make it clear where one POV ends and another begins.
What is POV?
POV is related to your narrative voice as the author. If you think of your main character as your viewppoint character, POV tells us how closely the narrator (That’s your role) is following that character around. Luckily, there are only five main POVs worth worrying about:
First Person:
The first person POV is the closest to the viewpoint character : It’s their story told by them using "I" and "Me". The author is pretending to be his main character, and letting us in on their thoughts and emotions. It’s the most immediate POV and instantly brings us into the world of the story. A lot of classic Science Fiction is written in this POV- Wells, Verne, Burroughs- they all used the immediacy of someone telling this amazing tale to give their fantastic stories veracity. However, it can be limiting. Your character cannot know the motives, thoughts or emotions of the other characters. If you have a grand, sweeping war story to tell,you’re limiting yourself to one small part of the action. Not that this hasn’t been done before:
All this time I saw no human beings, and no signs of the Martians.
I encountered a couple of hungry-looking dogs, but both hurried
circuitously away from the advances I made them. Near Roehampton I had seen two human skeletons–not bodies, but skeletons, picked clean–and in the wood by me I found the crushed and scattered bones of several cats and rabbits and the skull of a sheep. But though I gnawed parts of these in my mouth, there was nothing to be got from
them. — H.G. Wells"The War of the Worlds "
Second Person:
The second person is tricky. It is seldom used, although science fiction readers probably remember it from the old "Choose Your Own Adventure" books. In the Second Person POV, the narrator directly addresses the reader as the main character. "You do this and You Feel That," the narrator says. "Oh Yeah?" you respond. There have been a few successful books writiten in the second person, notably "Bright Lights, Big City" and "A Prayer for the Dying," but second person works better for short forms: Stories or connective passages:
You sink down and muffle your head in the clothes, shivering all the while, but less from bodily chill, than the bare idea of a polar atmosphere. It is too cold even for the thoughts to venture abroad. You speculate on the luxury of wearing out a whole existence in bed, like an oyster in its shell, content with the sluggish ecstasy of inaction, and drowsily conscious of nothing but delicious warmth, such as you now feel again. Ah! that idea has brought a hideous one in its train. You think how the dead are Iying in their cold shrouds and narrow coffins, through the drear winter of the grave, and cannot persuade your fancy that they neither shrink nor shiver, when the snow is drifting over their little hillocks, and the bitter blast howls against the door of the tomb. —Nathaniel Hawthorne "The Haunted Mind"
Third Person Limited:
In the third person limited, the narrator follows the viewpoint character around from somewhere over their right shoulder, kind of like their guardian angel. The Narrator knows what they are thinking and doing, and can notice things that the viewpoint character might miss, but is still attached to them. Important plot points can happen offstage, other characters can have hidden motives and feelings, but we’ve put a little distance between the reader and the character and can get a little larger picture:
He heard shouting, quarreling voices, but nothing made sense through the
haze of his agony. He felt someone grab at him–more than one person–and they were dragging him willy-nilly across the ground. Something was clutched around his throat, almost choking him. He opened his eyes just as something clicked behind him. —Lester Del Rey "The Sky is Falling"
Third Person Objective:
A little farther out, and we’ve lost the psychic comnnection we had with our viewpoint character. Third person objective is still focused on the viewpoint character, but now our narrator can no longer see inside that character’s mind. This POV is journalistic and cinematic. the author can spend time on description and action.
Manning waited for him to finish, then he turned back to the rest of the men in the room and spread his hands. “Now that, gentlemen, just shows how much we’ve found out so far.” He looked over at Rynason again. “Has it occurred to you, Lee, that if these horses are the Outsiders, that maybe they know a little more than we do? I suppose you’re going to say you had a telepathic hookup with one of them and you didn’t see a thing to make you suspicious … but just remember that they’ve been using telepathy for several thousand years and that you hardly know what you’re doing when you try it. —Terry Carr, "Warlord of Kor"
Third Person Omniscient:
And finally, farther out, we have the narrator as God. Third person omniscient is just that: The narrator can switch characters, knowing all thoughts and feelings. He can view things away from any characters, knows what’s happening on the far side of the world. While this POV gives the author the most leeway, it can be confusing to the reader. Perhaps it’s best to narrow your scope a little?
Jellico, with Van Rycke at his shoulder, halted before he stepped from
the ramp so that the three Inter-Solar men, Captain, Cargo-master and
escort, whether they wished or no, were put in the disadvantageous
position of having to look up to a Captain whom they, as members of one
of the powerful Companies, affected to despise. The lean, well muscled,
trim figure of the Queen’s commander gave the impression of hard bitten force held in check by will control, just as his face under its thick layer of space burn was that of an adventurer accustomed to make split second decisions–an estimate underlined by that seam of blaster burn across one flat cheek. —Andre Norton "The Plague Ship"
Which should I use?
Well, That all depends on you. Each POV has it’s advantages and disadvantages. Generally, the wider the POV, the less connection with the main character. Each story has a unique POV that suits it best. A war story can have either a first person POV, in which we’re stuck in the mud with the main character, or an omniscient POVwhere we can see the generals make their errors, the politicians bicker, and our characters suffer.
The main thing is to try to stick to one. Switching point of view is confusing to the reader. The narrator becomes a character, and changing narrators is like changing characters:
I had thought that Ben had the egg, but he didn’t. Instead the Dark Lord, high in his obsidian castle, chuckled to himself as he stoked the velvet shell. Ben was scared that i would find out, of course, but I hadn’t yet and if he kept up the ruse, there was a chance that he would get my egg back from you.
Huh? I guess I know what I was trying to say there. But it’s hard to follow. If you have to change POV, Do it on a chapter or page break, and let the audience know the POV is Changing: Go from first to third, go to a character we haven’t visited before, do something that let’ss us know something fundamental has changed about how we view this world.
It’s a writer’s easiest mistake to make. You write one wrong word, followed by another, followed by yet another. And spellcheck doesn’t catch any of them. You proofread it, your eyes skimming over the mistake and hit send. Shortly after, you get yet another rejection letter, making fun of your heritage, your education and your dreams. You read your work, the tears swelling up, your vision blurring, and you see this:
The Cylon’s saw there prey over their, they’re spines glowing in anticipation.
Ok, You deserved that one. Have a good cry.
Look, It’s easy. Apostrophe’s do two things in the English language:
Show Possession
Show Contractions
The Problem is they can’t do both at the same time
Apostrophes Show Possession
If the noun doesn’t end in s, add ’s, regardless of plurality
Baltar’s demons
The Cylon’s Basestar
The men’s triangle team
If the word ends in s, usually add just the apostrophe. Some style guides do show ’s for words ending in s, as that’s the way they’re still pronounced. Sorry, this is still in flux
Gaius’ fantasy
pilots’ Vipers (Pilots’s Vipers? Nahh…)
Compound words and joint ownership put the ’s at the ery end of the bunch of nouns:
Commander-in-Chief’s quarters
Starbuck and Apollo’s relationship
Six and Gaius’ destiny
Personal pronouns do not have the apostrophe : Indefinite pronouns do.
His, Her (hers), Your (Yours), Their (Theirs), Its
Everybody’s home planet
Contractions
While we’re on the subject, here’s where we start having problems. The apostrophe can contract "Is" and "are" down so they sound the same as the possessives:
Everybody’s home planet
Everybody’s going home
This leads to all kinds of homophones in English:
It’s looking at its former body.
They’re standing over there next to their ships.
You’re not getting your weapon back.
And in the heat of battle, typing away at your desk, it’s easy to miss these small mistakes. But editors, who are looking for any way they can to cull their paperwork, see these small, common mistakes, they make the snap decision that you are a small, common writer.
In Military training there are certain maxims that are ingrained in recruits as inviolable laws:
Incoming Fire has the Right of Way
If it Requires a volunteer…Don’t.
Teamwork is essential. It gives the enemy someone else to shoot at.
For writers, one of the fundamental maxims is "Avoid the passive voice."
What is passive voice?
Passive voice is simply putting the Object of the sentence at the beginning, where the subject normally is:
The Raider was shot by Starbuck instead of Starbuck shot the Raider.
Passive voice often uses the past participle of the verb with a "To be". The word "By"is often hanging around to identify the real subject. Because of that "Was", Passive voice can be confused with the past tense that writers often use in fiction. It can also be confused with the uncommon past progressive used when two actions occur in the past:
"I was walking down the sidewalk when I saw the dollar bill" is past progressive tense.
The sidewalk was walked on by me is just plain awful.
What’s Wrong with Passive Voice:
It’s Wordy- In both of the examples above, you can see how passive voice uses more words to say the same thing.
It’s Distancing- Passive voice distances your reader from the action.
It’s Passive- For Frak’s sake, they put this in the NAME…Sentences written in Passive voice lie there, inert lumps of clay, while the subject sits over in the corner waiting for something to do.
When Is Passive Voice seen?:
Passive voice is seen often in two different situations: When you don’t want to have to accept blame and if you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Passive voice is often used in student writing and Business writing by writers who aren’t sure of themselves or their subject matter:
The report was written by committee. The Errors were included by accident. Resposibility wasn’t taken by anyone in particular.
The Battle of the Alamo was fought by Texans. In Texas? They were killed by Santa Ana. Maybe?
Passive voice is also used when the subject is unknown:
The Bomb was planted under the bridge sometime after midnight.
The Baseball was thrown through the living room window.
So you can use passive voice if you don’t want to be blamed for your writing, or if you don’t know what you’re writing about.
How do you eradicate the pernicious threat of Passive Voice?
You should be on general alert for the passive voice: It creeps up everywhere. Watch out for the words "Was" and "By" appearing too close together. But there are two areas in your writing you should be especially wary of, Exposition and flashbacks.
Fashbacks- If you’re already writing a passage in the past tense, and are now moving to a passage that is “more past,” it is easy to slip into the passive voice.
Exposition- Like flashbacks, exposition forces you to step outside the main story and provide info that is not part of the flow of action. And again, this natural distancing can cause you to use the passive voice.
Novice writers haven’t changed much in a hundred years. Take this dialogue from Tom Swift and His Giant Cannon:
"I guess Tom’s ears would burn if he could hear your praises, Mr. Damon," laughed Mr. Swift. "Don’t spoil him."
"Spoil Tom Swift? You couldn’t do it in a hundred years!" cried Mr. Damon, enthusiastically. "Bless my topknot! Not in a thousand years—no, sir!"
"But where is he?" asked Mr. Peterson, who was evidently unused to the extravagant manner of Mr. Damon.
"There he goes now!" exclaimed the gentleman who frequently blessed himself, some article of his apparel, or some other object.
What’s Wrong with this ?
Well for starters, the Tom swift stories were so full of this kind of dialogue, the term "Tom Swifty" became a parlor game. take these example, which are humorous, but not much worse than what was actually published:
"How much for the William Shatner poster," Tom said enterprisingly.
"Where are the handcuffs?" Tom said arrestingly.
"I like it when you do that," Tom Ejaculated.
The problem here is that the writer does not trust the simple word "Said."
"I saw you," he said.
"I saw you too," she said.
Then he said, "Well, Didn’t you say anything?"
It gets the job done, but it gets boring. so beginning writers try to dress it up using bigger words and more adverbs. They forget that "Said" is unobtrusive. it’s nearly invisible and for the reader is just a kind of placeholder. Often, It’s not even needed:
"I saw you."
"I saw you too."
"Well, Didn’t you say anything?"
Again, It’s banal, but between two characters it’s easy to tell who said what. If your characters have something to actually say, you can keep track of them other ways too, like this passage from Marion Zimmer Bradley’s A Door Through Space (1961):
But only a minute. Then one of the mob yelled, "We’ll go if you give’m to us! He’s no right to Terran sanctuary!"
I walked over to the huddled dwarf, miserably trying to make himself smaller against the wall. I nudged him with my foot.
"Get up. Who are you?"
The hood fell away from his face as he twitched to his feet. He was trembling violently. In the shadow of the hood I saw a furred face, a quivering velvety muzzle, and great soft golden eyes which held intelligence and terror.
"What have you done? Can’t you talk?"
He held out the tray which he had shielded under his cloak, an ordinary peddler’s tray. "Toys. Sell toys. Children. You got’m?"
I shook my head and pushed the creature away, with only a glance at the array of delicately crafted manikins, tiny animals, prisms and crystal whirligigs. "You’d better get out of here. Scram. Down that street." I pointed.
A voice from the crowd shouted again, and it had a very ugly sound. "He is a spy of Nebran!"
Look at what Bradley does here. Not a single said, but it’s easy to tell who’s saying what through the use of action and dialect. Keep the Tom Swifites out of it.
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