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sci fi in horror, comedy, drama, mystery ect in Sci Fi

 
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Kyle Voltti
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 08, 2008 9:42 am    Post subject: sci fi in horror, comedy, drama, mystery ect in Sci Fi Reply with quote

ok I'm sure people have talked about the sub genres of Sci Fi but what about these genres that sci fi is a sub genre of. what ar the advantages or disadvantages of sci fi in these sorts of settings
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AaronLee
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Joined: 27 May 2008
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 6:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well talking advantages and disadvantages in writing/scripting/comics is a bit jading, first off. Really, genre's aren't part of a social club where some get along and some don't. Rather, it's more like speed dating, I suppose. Authors/artists just grab whatever comes to mind and whatever works best for them. This means sometimes you do get some really amazing merges. Honestly, my field is literature, so I'll use some examples in that area. The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross is a great example of lovecraftian horror with, surprisingly enough, comedy. Another mix is Dune by Frank Herbert, which is massively famous among a lot of readers despite its age. That has a lot of almost shakespearian statecraft in it that I haven't seen anywhere else in pure science fiction.
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Arioch
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 6:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sci fi and fantasy (and modern or historical) are types of settings. Comedy, drama, adventure, mystery, etc. are types of plots. So, having a Sci fi comedy or a fantasy adventure isn't any different from having a historical mystery or a modern drama... you're not really mixing genres, just pairing settings and story types.

Sci fi and horror are nearly the same genre, since most horror stories include some kind of fantastical element. A realistic horror story is more often called a "thriller." In either case, sci fi is tailor-made for a dangerous setting, since the author can invent any kind of nightmarish threat he or she desires.

We've talked about Sci fi comedy a bit, and how a future setting allows for a lot of commentary about modern society, as well as parody of the sci fi genre in general.

Sci fi offers some unique elements for drama, again in the sense of commentary about modern society and its future, but also in the "what if" scenarios that can be invented for future or alien societies.

Trying to do a mystery/whodunnit story is a sci fi setting is difficult, since part of the idea is to give the reader a chance to solve the crime, but this usually requires a lot of detailed knowledge about the setting. Although I guess it could be said that CSI: Mars wouldn't have much more technobabble than its Earthly predecessors. But mystery as a more general subject, as in the mystery of discovering an alien culture or the true origins of the alien ruins, is well suited to sci fi.

A sci fi romance would be a strange beast, since the setting in a romance is usually not the important element.

Action/adventure is sort of the "standard" sci fi/fantasy story type.

I guess it also should be said that each of these plot types can also be used as subplots in a different overall story type. My own comic is primarily an adventure, but includes elements of comedy, drama, romance and mystery.
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Jim Francis
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AaronLee
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 9:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Oops! Embarassed You know I'm a ditz at heart! I forgot to include some stuff. Thanks, Arioch.
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ttallan
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 8:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Arioch wrote:
Trying to do a mystery/whodunnit story is a sci fi setting is difficult, since part of the idea is to give the reader a chance to solve the crime, but this usually requires a lot of detailed knowledge about the setting. ... A sci fi romance would be a strange beast, since the setting in a romance is usually not the important element.


I find nothing unusual at all about either an SF whodunnit or an SF romance, any more than I would a fantasy whodunnit or romance. Isaac Asimov wrote some whodunnits with a robot as the detective (though I have never read them and can't really comment), and there was also an anthology series called Asimov Detectives that was very well received at the time. I consider several of Lois Bujold's Vorkosigan books to be SF romance, and I can name tons of others that fall into this category (though you may consider them more fluff than substance).

For that matter, I think of my webcomic as SF romance. Smile
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Arioch
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 15, 2008 1:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I was thinking of the whodunnit in the purest sense, where all there really is to the story is the details of the crime to be solved. I haven't read the Asimov android-detective stories, but from what I've heard about them I got the impression that the crux of the story was the usually the illustration of the relationship in society between humans and androids, and not necessarily the details of the investigation... kind of like Blade Runner was more about the Replicants and the illustration of their problems than it was about Deckard's hunt for them. But I guess whether something is a story type or a subplot depends on your point of view.

I had a feeling as I was writing it that you might take exception to my comment about SF romance, but I was referring to a "romance" in the sense of the mindless bodice-ripper "romance novel" drek that floods bookshelves, in which the setting or the non-romantic details of the story are utterly irrelevant. Certainly, all kinds of stories have very strong romantic subplots (even violent action stories like The Terminator can have very strong and compelling romantic subplots), and I really enjoy a romantic element of a story when it's done well. In SF, even in stories I can think of where the romantic relationship is a central element, there is generally a larger societal or technological context that makes the science fiction setting necessary. But again, I suppose whether or not a story is a romance or some other type with a romatic subplot is just splitting hairs. I thought of the Vorkosigan novels as adventure stories with equal parts of drama and romance, but, of course, mine is merely one person's opinion.
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Jim Francis
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ttallan
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 15, 2008 9:09 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The Asimov Detectives anthology was one of those "Asimov Presents" type of books, where he didn't actually write any of the stories in them. The authors in that collection were people like Nancy Kress, Greg Egan, and John Varley. I'm sure I could come up with other gumshoe style SF novels if I tried a little harder, but my point is, it's not as unusual a category as you may think.

Romance novels. Is it fair to suggest this is a field into which you haven't delved very far? Wink Like any other genre, there are good ones and there are bad ones. The bad ones tend to be like you say, all about the couple(s) and the sex, and little else. The good ones have a plot to move the story, and the romance, forward. Sometimes the plot is even a detective story (look how cleverly I tie my two points together)! Or a comedy, or a vampire adventure, or whatever. Romance has its standard (and overused) tropes, just like science fiction, but also just like science fiction, romance comes in many forms and sub genres.

A Civil Campaign was nothing but an SF romance! Smile Bujold even dedicates the book to Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte (and two other authors I am not as familiar with)!
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